Email. Mails the current game (stripped of comments and variations)
to your opponent when you make your move.
Using Xfcc Chess Servers. External tools are used to fetch the games from
your account(s) and deliver them to Scid for synchronisation. After
making your move, it is also sent to your opponent using
Xfcc. Fetch and Send are implemented as external tools, for
easy extension if other protocols arise.
Features can be accessed via the Play-> Correspondence Chess
menus, or the main
Correspondence Chess window.
This window contains buttons to navigate through
ongoing games, shortcut keys to fetch games by means of the Xfcc
protocol and sync in eMail based games as well as a console stating
which messages where sent or retrieved. Additionally, it
contains a list of ongoing games retrieved from your Inbox directory.
To use these features, a database of the type "Correspondence chess" has to be opened.
If you do not have such a database, or Scid has not created one for you, just create a new database and set its type to "Correspondence
chess" via the Maintenance.
Setting the type is important as Scid will recognise the database for
synchronisation by this type. As this database is empty after the
creation Scid will treat all correspondence chess games it receives at
first synchronisation as new games and append them to this database.
If no database of the type "Correspondence chess" is currently opened
Scid will prompt you to do so, but do not open more than one
database of this type as Scid will not know which one to use.
Basic functionality
Once everything is set up correctly, Correspondence Chess functions
can be accessed using the following buttons
Retrieve correspondence chess games.
The external fetch tool is called and games are retrieved.
Additionally, other games that are stored in Scid's Inbox
(see below) are synchronised into the current correspondence chess
database.
Go to the previous game in Scid's Inbox
Go to the next game in Scid's Inbox
Sends your move to the opponent by either
creating a new eMail message in your prefered mail program or by
sending the move to a chess server in case of Xfcc.
empties your Inbox/Outbox directories.
is shown if the game list was refreshed
from the server within the current Scid session. The tool tip for
this icon shows date and time of the last refresh.
indicates, that Xfcc status icons are
restored from saved results. No update has taken place in the
current Scid session. The tool tip for this icon shows date and
time of the last refresh.
Correspondence Chess within Scid is based upon a normal Scid
database that holds the games and some helpers external to Scid that
handle the "non-chess-parts". These tools and parameters must be set
up once, and are stored afterwards for future use.
The configuration dialog is found in
Play-CorrespondenceChess-> Configure.
and details are described in Correspondence Chess Setup. Press Ok to automatically store your options.
Retrieving the games
Depending wether you play correspondence chess via eMail or via a
chess server the actual retrieval process differs slightly. Generally
it results in a set of games in PGN format located in Scids Inbox
directory. This offers also the possibility of automatic retrieval via
external software.
Once the games are in Scids Inbox invoking Process Inbox
from the menu will work though the Inbox and add new moves to the
games already in the database. Additionally it will add games not
found in the current correspondence chess database as new games.
After games are retrieved they are loaded to Scids clipboard database
and new moves are added and stored in the correspondence chess
database opened. The most convenient way to step through the games is
by the two buttons and which
go to the previous and the next game, respectively. The difference to
the functions from the Games menu is, that these two
buttons scroll only between the games in Scids Inbox which are
supposed to be your actually ongoing games. Of course the
Correspondence Chess database might contain much more games, but
normally you do not want to go through all these to find out what your
opponent moved in a current game.
Note that a header search is required incorporating some fields that
are not indexed by Scid. Hence, storing your correspondence chess
games in a huge reference database might not be advisable as the
search times may be quite long. If you play a lot and your own
database gets quite large, search times can be reduced by moving
finished games to an archive database, or by just createing a new
database for the ongoing games. Scid will treat all games not existing
in the correspondence chess database already as new games and add them
automatically. Hence, it is sufficient to open an empty database of
type "Correspondence chess" and call Process Inbox to
import all currently ongoing games.
Equivalent to the two buttons mentinoned are the items Previous
Game and Next Game from the Correpondence
Chess menu.
An alternate way to jump to a specific game is by double clicking on
it within the game list.
Note that if you set up your player names correctly (by means of
My Player Names) Scid will rotate the board for you to
play always upwards. You can have multiple player names. See also My Player Names for details.
Analyse and make a move
All analysis features can be used for correspondence chess games.
Variations, annotations etc. can be added just like in normal game
analysis. Once finished, Scid will take the last half move added to
the game and treat it as the current move to send. No checking wether
only one half a move was added or which side to move is done here,
hence, only one half move to the mainline must be added! In case a
chess server is used Scid also sends the last comment added to the
server which might be usefull for communication with the opponent. In
eMail chess this can be done by the normal mail message, so there all
commments are stripped off.
Pressing the Send button will have Scid to
determine the type of the correspondence chess game displayed (eMail or
a server game) and call either your eMail program or the external send
tool to submit your move. Calling Send move is equivalent
to this button. Alternatively, Mail move can be used to
send the current game via eMail. In case of an eMail game this
function is equivalent to Send move. In case of a server
based game an eMail message is generated. Note however, that it will
not necessarily contain a proper recipient as eMail addresses are not
exchanged in server based correspondence chess.
Retrieve correspondence chess games.
The external fetch tool is called and games are retrieved.
Additionally, other games that are stored in Scid's Inbox
(see below) are synchronised into the current correspondence chess
database.
Go to the previous game in Scid's Inbox
Go to the next game in Scid's Inbox
Sends your move to the opponent by either
creating a new eMail message in your prefered mail program or by
sending the move to a chess server in case of Xfcc.
empties your Inbox/Outbox directories.
is shown if the game list was refreshed
from the server within the current Scid session. The tool tip for
this icon shows date and time of the last refresh.
indicates, that Xfcc status icons are
restored from saved results. No update has taken place in the
current Scid session. The tool tip for this icon shows date and
time of the last refresh.