Main Window

Main Window of the Chess GUI

The main Window consists of 4 parts:

• On the left, the game board with the material and next turn labels. The next turn may 4 colors white, black, red (mate), yellow (draw)

• On the right, the TAB widget with the

  • Game tree widget displaying the body of the actual game

  • Headers list widget displaying the header of the actual game

  • Database list widget displaying all loaded games

  • Score plot displaying engine and material scores

  • Log edit displaying communication with the engine in use

• On the bottom, the status bar with the labels

  • info/error displaying information or errors

  • engine displaying the engine in use

  • hint/score displaying the hint and score computed by the engine

  • ECO code displaying the eco code of the current opening, the hint shows the full opening string

  • square displaying the square under the cursor within the board

Main Window Menu

On the top, the menu with

• File menu handling files in the Portable Game Notation (PGN) and pickled PGN (PPNG) formats

  • Encoding sub-menu to set encoding for opening/saveing PNG-format

  • Open DB … action to open a PPGN- or PGN-file and replace the current database

  • Recent sub-menu with the recent PPGN- or PGN-files

  • Append to DB … action to open a PPGN- or PGN-file and append to the current database

  • Save DB … action to save the whole database as a PPGN- or PGN-file

  • Save Game … action to save the actual game as a PGN-file

  • Exit action to terminate the GUI

• Edit menu with obvious functionality with the exception of

  • Copy Game, i.e. the actual game PGN is copied to the clipboard

  • Copy FEN, i.e. the actual position is copied to the clipboard

  • Promote/Demote Variant promote/demote the variant selected in the Game TAB

  • Promote Variant to Main promote the variant selected in the Game TAB to mainline

  • Delete Variant delete the variant selected in the Game TAB

  • Undo Current Action deletes the end move of a sequence (main line or variant)

• Database menu with obvious functionality with the exception of

  • Remove Games removes selected games in the Database TAB

  • Move Games>Up/Down moves a selected game up and down in the Database

  • Paste Game, i.e. the actual game PGN from the clipboard and added to the Database

  • Paste FEN, i.e. the actual position is pasted from the clipboard and added to the Database

• Game menu with obvious functionality with the exception of

  • Select Header Elements … opens a dialog to add/remove header elements according to the PGN standard

  • Show Move Options shows by left-button selecting a square the weighted options

  • Warn of Danger shows squares attacked by the opponent

• Engine menu for handling Universal Chess Interface (UCI) engines with

  • Select Engine sub-menu to select the engine for hints/scores and annotations

  • Search Depth sub-menu to set the search depth of the selected engine

  • Score Current Move annotates the move leading to actual position

  • Annotate All annotates the actual game or variant

  • # Annotations defines the number of variants to be suggested in case of a blunder

  • Blunder Limit defines the limit to add a variant

  • Annotate Variants defines the number of half moves (PLY) to be shown in variants

  • Show Scores toggle actions enables the score part of the hint/score label of the status bar

  • Show Hints toggle actions enables the hint part of the hint/score label of the status bar

  • Configure … opens a dialog to add/remove/configure engines

  • Debug logs the communication with engine in the Log TAB

Keyboard and Mouse Contol

To allow for a user-friendly usage, the game can be controlled by keyboard and/or mouse:

Game Control by Keyboard/Mouse/Mouse Wheel

Key/Wheel	Board	Game-TAB	Description
up | scroll-up	✔	✔	goto last move
down | scroll-down	✔	✔	goto next move
left		✔	step into variant
right		✔	step out of a variant
home		✔	goto initial move
end		✔	goto end-of-game
mouse-left-press	✔		begin move
mouse-left-release	✔		end move
Control-P		✔	promote variant
Control-D		✔	demote variant
Control-R		✔	remove variant
Control-M		✔	promote variant to mainline
Control-W		✔	toggle warn of danger

In addition, several standard key strokes are supported:

Other Key-Codes

Key	Description
Control-Z	undo last move
Control-F	flip board
Control-C	copy game (PGN) to clipboard
Control-V	paste game (PGN) from clipboard
Control-Shift-C	copy position (FEN) to clipboard
Control-Shift-V	paste position (FEN) from clipboard

class chessMainWindow.ChessMainWindow(parent=None)

__init__(parent=None) → None

closeEvent(self, QCloseEvent)

wheelEvent(self, QWheelEvent)

class chessMainWindow.MzClassApplication(argv: ~typing.List[str], notifyFct: ~typing.Callable[[str], None] = <built-in function print>)

__init__(argv: ~typing.List[str], notifyFct: ~typing.Callable[[str], None] = <built-in function print>) → None

notify(self, QObject, QEvent) → bool