Configure the Appearance of Arena

With a click on the right mouse button on the chessboard, then selecting "Appearance" from the pop-up menu or in the main menu under Options arrow Appearance you reach this dialogue.

[appe-board.bmp]

On the left side you can click 7 main pages, which are be described here:

Main Page "Chessboard"

[_] Tab Sheet Squares

You can select the following areas: Light and dark squares are self-explanatory. Chessboard means the space between the squares and a possible one-pixel-wide frame and the edge of the board.

In addition, the one-pixel-wide frame around the board can be selected. Grid lines and the highlight last move features (style, frame thickness) can be turned on and off here.

The small 3D-effect at the edges of he board can beturned off, thus making the board appear flat.

You can also select graphics for the chessboard, light and dark squares. The respective colours are ignored then.

[_] Tab Sheet Marks

You can set the mark of the last move on the chessboard as follows:

  • The setting "Highlight last move" switches marking the last move on and off in general
  • Style: The way the square is marked: Rectangle frame, rounded frame, filled square, cycle frame, filled cycle, no marks, hooks or coordinates.
  • Frame thickness: The width of framing marks can be set
  • Arrow: An arrow is set for the last move, it can be adjusted in thickness and colour.
  • Fill style: You can select a pattern: solid, diagonal, diagonal2, cross, diagonalcross, horizontal, vertical, 10%, 25%,50% or 75%
  • Fill background colour: Second colour, if a pattern is used
  • Transparency: How much the square background is seen through

Mark for the clicked square

The mark for the square you clicked on, e.g. to select the piece you wanted to move. The options are quiet the same as for the as for the mark for the last move, see previous paragraph.

Mark for the next move

  • "Highlight next move" switches this option completely on or off
  • Arrow: Shows the mark as arrow.
  • Dotted: Shows a dotted arrow.
  • Arrow colour: Sets the colour for the arrow

[_] Tab Sheet Pieces

You can select 3 different types of pieces:

1. Default graphics (are built-in)
2. Calculated True Type-Fonts using normal squares as background
3. True Type-Fonts in the original version with diagonal hatched black squares

Using True Type Fonts under Arena

On the Internet (e.g. www.chessvariants.com or www.enpassant.dk ) you will certainly find chess fonts you like. Download them and save them to a folder (e.g. c:\temp). Unpack them with an unpack program.

To use True Type- Fonts, they have to be installed in your Windows operating system, of course.

This can be done the following way: Under Start arrow Settings arrow Control Panel arrow Fonts arrow File arrow 'Install new font" you get to the dialogue to select this font file you just downloaded. Search you folder (e.g. c:\temp) and press "OK".

You need to choose your font under Arena: In the "Appearance" dialogue, tab "Pieces" you select "calculated graphics of True Type-fonts". Click "Select font" and choose your previously installed font.

Arena recognizes some fonts and sets parameters like scale, offset etc. automatically. If your pieces look something like that

[chessmeridaarena.bmp]

you have won and may skip the following paragraph. You do not need to specify the mask, but if you do so correctly, Arena can display the pieces quicker.

The freeware-fonts of Armando Hernandez Marroquin are also supported as the fonts of Eric Bentzen are. The fonts of Marroquin are: Chess Kingdom, Chess Leipzig, Chess Magnetic, Chess Mark, Chess Marroquin, Chess Medieval, Chess Merida, Chess Millenia, Chess Motif, Chess Utrecht. Bentzen has created the fonts Chess Alpha and Chess Berlin.

Other fonts can be selected on this tab. The scaling factor has to be correct and the piece letters used by the chess font programmer. Some standard patterns are chosen automatically when you select a font, some can by selected directly by clicking on the buttons. Some fonts do not use the Marroquin- ,'Chess Alpha' or other standard, so you have to select the piece letters by hand, preferably by the character map window. Click the button "Browse character map":

[charmapmeridaarena_en.bmp]

You insert the currently selected character with a double-click. The button "copy" copies the characters to the clipboard. You can then insert them into the e.g. white piece edit line:

[merida-paste.bmp]

The Font 'Chess Merida' is a very good font for every purpose. It will be installed if you installed Arena by one of our setup programs.

If you have problems with the fonts, like translucent pieces, you probably don't have a problem with 'Font smoothing'. Windows supports 'Font smoothing' only with a minimal colour depth of your graphics card of at least 32768 colours. So under control panel arrow desktop arrow settings you have to select a colour depth of at least 32768 colours to avoid translucent pieces.

Shadows are displayed to the right and under a piece, if you set the appropriate check box. A gradient can be added. The pieces look a bit brighter on the left side than on the right side.

Sliding pieces

You can select if pieces should slide (being animated) or not. You should choose the value by experimenting. Different PC's and graphics cards can have very different speeds these days. Most people prefer a faster play in matches, so you can give a smaller value in the input edit underneath.

[_] Tab Sheet Additional

You can set here if and where (on top, left, right or bottom) the board coordinates a-h and 1-8 are displayed. The font and its colour for the coordinates can also be set.

With "ABCDEFGH" you can select capital letters for the coordinates.

"Within the chessboard" shows the coordinates on the edge squares, thus saving space. Otherwise the coordinates are next to the edge squares.

If you drag a piece from one square to the other, the mouse cursor can be left unchanged, or change to a special symbol or be hidden completely for the dragging operation.

Under "Features/ Show side to move" you can select, if the side to move should be shown with a dot besides the squares on the chessboard.

"Additional Board Frame" extends the board frame on the expense of the squares.

"Board frame has same width on all sides" sets the same margins between squares and board edge. They might be different otherwise because of different widths and heights of the coordinates and enlarges all areas.

"Show player names above/under board" shows a small line with player names above and under the board.

[spielerleiste.bmp]

If you selected this option, you have a few additional choices: You can choose the colour for the square with the active player, show flags, ratings and evaluation symbols. You can set the font size for the clocks, the font for the clocks will be the same as set under "Fonts".

[_] Tab Sheet Arrows

You can make Arena show arrows to indicate the best move during analysis, calculation and/or pondering.

To distinguish between the engines, you can set a different colour for every engine.

If you select the style "translucent", please keep in mind that displaying the arrows takes a bit more CPU time, the "simple" style is faster.

For the "translucent" style you can set the transparency, 100 means the arrows are not visible, 0 means arrows are opaque.

[_] Tab Sheet Move Input

"Allow target square first" means, that you can (not must) make moves by first clicking the target square and then the start square.

"Allow one-click input" checks for every mouse click onto a square, if the piece on that square can only make one single move and immediately executes this move. Also if only a single piece can move on a square (empty or occupied by an opponent piece), the move will be executed immediately.

"Enable move input with keyboard" allows you to make a move with the keyboard. For the move e2e4 simply press the keys "e","2","e" and "4" one after the other.

If you selected "Auto completion" Arena searches for the move, even when you typed only parts of it. E.g. you pressed "e" and then "4" in short notation. If "Only evaluate complete moves" is selected, this feature is disabled and you have to type the whole move in long notation.

Main Page "Move list"

Short notation can be switched on for the move list, otherwise long notation will be used.

"Show book name for book moves" shows the name of the Arena book, from which the move has been played, if the move has been played from an Arena book.

Show values/times shows the base data of a move value, search depth and time or hides them if not checked.

"Show comments in the move list" switches comments that might be existent off or on. Frequently comments are embedded in PGN-files. Arena can read and save then, also in variations.

If you checked "Mainline in boldface if variations present", the font for the notation in the main game will turn to bold . Variations are not displayed in bold. This increases readability. You shouldn't select a boldface font for the moves then.

"Indent first level variations": If this option is checked, variations on the highest level (direct variations of the main game) start in a new line. If the option is not set, variations do not start in a new line.

If you choose a figurine font (the name of the font contains the string "figurine"), graphical symbols are shown instead of the piece letter (e.g. "R" for rook). Prerequisite is that you have installed an appropriate font, like "Arena Chess Figurine".

[figurine_notation.bmp]

You change the font for the various display areas simply by clicking on the according test shape.

The fonts CA Chess, CA Dialog, Figurine CB Aries, Figurine CB Letter, Figurine CB Time work fine. The FigurineSymbol S1-S3 and FigurineSymbol T1-T3 fonts do not work for displaying figurine symbols.

"Marked move colour" defines the colour of the current move in the move list. "Marked move background" defines the colour of the background of the current move in the move list.

The general format of the move list can be set. The fixed format always shows the move and then the mainline calculated by the engine in one line. The free format shows all moves one after the other only with the basic data value, search depth and time. The formated views show the same data as the free format, but only one move is shown per line.

Main Page "Main Window"

[_] Tab Sheet "Colours":

On the right you see an example of how your desktop might look after the changes made.

Click on the button for the part of the desktop you want to change, e.g. on 'Background'. Now you can select a colour with the normal colour select dialogue box.

The clock for the side to move can be displayed differently than the clock for the side not to move. The last move you can mark with a different colour.

In the permanent statistics window you can set the colours for the bars representing the values calculated by the white and the black engine. The engine playing with white gets a different colour than the engine playing with black.

The colours for the splitters and the program frame can be chosen. The splitters are used to resize the program areas and can be highlighted or not, as you like it.

[_] Tab Sheet "View":

Show clocks and logos, large logos, flags, author, opening classification and tool bar can be switched on or off.

'Show engine name instead of author' refers to the line underneath the logo and the clicks. It shows the engine name, if an engine is loaded. Otherwise the author of the engine is shown.

The additional items: The tool bar can be switched on or off. The side to move next to clocks (the king symbol) can be switched on or off.

The material difference can be hidden or shown. This works also with a mouse-right-click on this item.

You can also switch on or off the area with the opening classification and/or the current FEN.

The status line can be switched enabled or disabled here.

The scale of the statistics window can be set here in pawn units.

[_] Tab Sheet "Other":

The bitmaps for the Arena background, tool bar and clock and logo area can be changed here.

The main fonts Arena uses for various items can be changed here. You see a sample text formatted with this font underneath.

Splitter and Frame sizes determine the size of the corresponding elements in pixels. The frame is the frame of the Arena main window. Splitters (used to change board area sizes) are e.g. between board and analyses output.

With 3D style and thickness you can adjust a lot of different effects for the Arena main window. The areas like board, move list etc. can appear risen, lowered or with a small frame.

Main Page "PGN"

You can determine the action taken if you load a game. The PGN window can be closed or minimised then. Also Arena can do a jump to a certain move. If you always want to jump to the end, just select a high value here.

Additionally if you want to save a game in PGN format, you can choose to save the mainline to every move, the value/depth and the time taken by the player or the engine, if this information is available.

"Save mainline as variation": If you set this option, the mainline provided by an engine is saved as a PGN variation. If this option is not checked, the mainline is saved as comment to the move (if saving mainlines is enabled at all by the option above). Saving then mainline as variation makes it possible to replay the mainline of engines if you load the PGN file later.

The Auto save function offers additional features: You can save the current game in PGN format after every move. Useful for a backup of the current game.

Also all games can be logged (auto saved) in PGN format. So no game is lost if you happen to forget saving it.

It is also possible to save only the selected PGN tags. However, the seven tag roster is mandatory in the PGN specification and these tags are saved always. It contains:

  • Event (the name of the tournament or match event)
  • Site (the location of the event)
  • Date (the starting date of the game)
  • Round (the playing round ordinal of the game)
  • White (the player of the white pieces)
  • Black (the player of the black pieces)
  • Result (the result of the game)

Additionally, you can allow or disallow Arena to change some game tags altogether. So Arena will only load them e.g. from a PGN file and then never change. Uncheck the tags you would like to write-protect.

Main Page "Sounds"

[_] Tab Sheet "General"

In certain situation sounds can be played. Wave or Midi-files are accepted here. Since Arena 1.99beta5 it is also possible to play simple beep sounds by the PC speaker. They have the form:

beep: frequency:duration

"frequency" is given in Hz, "duration" in milliseconds. Example:

beep: 520:100

[_] Tab Sheet "Announcements"

If you want to announce moves by sounds, you can select the directory where they reside. If the announcement should only be short, like 'Nf3', you can check the check box 'Short announcement'. If the word 'pawn' should be announced, check 'Announce pawn'. Very good move announcements are available on our website.

Main Page "Other settings"

[_] Tab Sheet "Chess"

Check legality checks all moves for legality.

"Continuing finished games allowed" permits you and the engines to continue a game even if it would be finished according to the rules, like the 50 moves rule or by repetition.

With 'Operator time' you can choose a time in seconds that will be subtracted for the human player for every move. This compensates for the time a human player needs to make a move. However, time for the human player does not get negative.

If 'Values always from white's point of view' is selected then the values submitted by the engines are converted to values from white's point of view. Positive values mean 'white has advantage', negative ones stand for 'black has advantage'. If this point is not checked the values are given from the side of currently calculating engine. Then positive values mean that the engine thinks the position is good for it, negative values mean the engine thinks it is behind.

"Check 50 moves rule": This option determines whether Arena assigns a draw automatically if 50 moves or more have been played without pawn move or capture. For some studies this option should be switched off. The automatic draw assignment will be switched off automatically with the middle option "only games from starting position": Studies are normally not loaded from the starting position, but from set-up positions, e.g. from EPD files.

[_] Tab Sheet "System"

"Level infinite at loading EPD files" sets the Level to "infinite", if you load an EPD file, e.g. if you want to analyse positions from this kind of file.

"Load last game at program start": The last game when Arena was exited will be load at the next start of Arena.

Confirm if a game is not saved gives you a warning if you try to load a different game and hereby overwriting the one already loaded or if you try to close Arena having made unsaved changes to a file.

Confirming aborting a match asks you, if you really like to terminate a tournament, thus loosing the last game of the tournament.

Under External Editor you can select you favourite editor or word processor. In all cases when a file has to be displayed this editor is used, e.g. when you edit a configuration file of a WinBoard engine.

"Extra text copied into the clipboard in addition to analyses": This text is copied to the Clipboard when you execute the funcion "Position/ Copy analyses to clipboard", e.g. to insert repeated data on the test configuration. A "^n" inserts a newline.

The setting for "Speed during manual replay" is used while replaying the moves forward or backward while holding a navigation button pressed.

The "Speed during auto replay" is the speed used while replaying the moves forward or backward automatically with Game / Replay /Replay forward or Game / Replay /Replay backward .

If you associate Arena with the file types FCH , PGN, EPD and/or FEN, the following happens: If you double-click a file with one of these extensions Arena will load them. These file extensions are registered here for use with Arena. If a different program already uses these file types, a message is displayed and you are asked if you want to replace this file association.

Main Page "ICS"

You can choose the font colors for several occurrences in the ICS console, like shouts or tells.