Scid uses the arrow keys and wheelmouse to move forward and back through a game. And at any time, moves can be entered using the mouse or keyboard.
Use the mouse to click on a piece, then the destination square. Alternatively one may drag the piece.
Keyboard moves are made using standard San or UCI notations. Castling is done with OO, or OK and OQ for King and Queenside respectively. For more info, see below.
Pressing Escape cancels keyboard and mouse move entry.
When you enter a move where a move already exists,
Scid will ask if you want to replace the
move (when the old move and all after it will be lost), or
add the new move as a variation or new mainline. If one finds this annoying,
it is possible to skip this dialog by unchecking the
If the same move already exists, Scid will merely move into this move. This behaviour is different when it is end-of-game. Now, Scid will automatically create a new variation. This allows one to easily add end-of-game variations.
Scid vs. PC has Undo and Redo features which store up to 20 Move, Variation, Comment or Game Information changes. The Undo and Redo commands are bound to Control-z and Control-y (when the mouse is over the main board), but they should be used carefully as these shortcuts are also the defaults for editing text windows such as the Comment Editor.
Trial Mode allows one to make temporary moves and changes to a game. Pressing the Trial Mode button a second time ends Trial Mode, and reverts the game to it's original form.
Right-clicking enters Trial Mode, and automatically adds a null move. This is handy to see immediate threats with chess engines.
Game Saves, Undo and Redo are disabled in Trial Mode. When switching databases - Trial Mode automatically exits.
If you are entering a game and suddenly see an incorrect move several moves earlier, it is possible to correct it without losing the extra moves you have added. This is done by editing the PGN representation of the game. Open the Import window, select "Paste Current Game", correct the incorrect move, then select "Import".
To enter moves from the keyboard, simply press letter and digit keys - in long or short algbraic notation - and without the capture "x" or promotion "=" symbols. Moves are matched case-insensitively, so you can type nf3 instead of Nf3, for example.
As you enter a move, the status bar will show the list of matching moves.
The notation for castling is [O][O], but Kingside and Queenside castling can also be stipulated explicitly with [O][K] and [O][Q].
Lower-case letter matches to a pawn first, so a [b] can match to a pawn or Bishop. If there is a conflict you must use a capital [B] for the Bishop move.
This move option allows one to input moves in UCI notation (such as a2a4 and g1f3). This feature is enabled default, but it interferes with the Auto-Completion feature (which is off by default).
Is enabled via
The Suggested Move feature, if enabled, highlights the best move (taken from ECO or a quick engine search) to/from the board square under the mouse. This can be confusing at times, or also regarded as cheating, and is disabled by default in Scid vs. PC. This option also enforces "Colour Selected Square".
Null Moves (or empty moves) can be useful in variations where you want to skip a move for one side. You can enter a null move with the mouse by capturing one king with the other king, or with the keyboard by typing "--" (that is, pressing the minus key twice).
One may add annotation symbols (or NAGs) using the keyboard (and without the comment editor). Below are the relevant shortcuts.
Scid also uses some of these symbols for Automatic
Annotations. To this end, the symbols are associated
with a certain pawn value which can be set via