The search controls are fairly self-explanatory with the exception of:
To become a registered user of the site you need to acquire a username and password from the webmaster (whose contact details are on the Contacts page). The different types of users are as follows:
Starting in early 2022, some login accounts for this website will require a one-time password (OTP) in addition to a username and regular password in order to sign in. On their first login attempt such users will be prompted to setup a secret key using Google Authenticator (or some other compatible application) by scanning a QR code and verifying a OTP from the app. Then, on subsequent login attempts, a new OTP from the same app will need to be entered.
If you lose your secret key (e.g. the phone where you have the authenticator app is lost or stolen) then ask the webmaster to reset your account so you can go through the setup process again.
For convenience you can also setup your secret key in the browser you normally use and/or in a password manager.
Note that the Summary and Story are written in Markdown. If there are any features you're unsure how to write (in practice, the only tricky things are tables), the easiest thing to do is see how someone else has done it. To view the raw Markdown of any other news item:
To link to another blog, first find out it's ID number and then insert a link something like the following example:
[this previous news item](/blogs/2)
Similarly, for a game (see Create a Game), first find out its ID and then insert something like:
[this great game](/games/3)
If you want the game to start in a position other than the one before the first move, then add a move number like this:
[this great move](/games/3?move=42)
This should be the half-move number and when the game is displayed the position will be the one just after this move.
The home page lists all items not yet marked as Old in last-updated order. So, when you make a change to such an item it will automatically appear at the top of the home page, since it will now be the most recently updated one.
When you mark an item as Old then, irrespective of whether it has recently been edited, it will normally no longer appear on the home page at all. The exception is when there are only a small number of non-old items remaining. In that case, the last few items on the home page will be old ones in last-created order, so your updated item may still appear.
To add a chess position to a news item, include something like the following in your markdown on a single line on it's own:
FEN "8/6k1/4KpPp/5P2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"
This isn't actually markdown, it's a special notation which is dealt with separately. As you can see, it's a FEN string, a bit like one of the tag pairs in a PGN game but without the square brackets.
You can have as many positions as you like but they must all go in the Story section and not the Summary section (where they would be ignored), as the latter needs to be kept short.
By default the rendered boards are oriented with respect to white and have no rank or file markings. If you want to reverse the orientation or add markings (perhaps because the position is such that it's difficult to determine which side is playing up the board) add a single character to the FEN string as follows:
For example, here's how the above example position would be modified to reverse the orientation and add markings:
FEN "8/6k1/4KpPp/5P2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1 B"
To add an image to a news item, send the image to the webmaster and then either (a) ask them to add it for you or (b) request a unique filename for the image so you can add it yourself. In the latter case, insert something like the following example into your markdown:
The text inside the square brackets is for assitive technologies and doesn't normally display. The image filename (supplied to you by the webmaster) goes after the opening parenthesis. The text in quotes is optional and in regular markdown would be used to give the image a title but, in this application, is used instead to place and resize the image according to the following rules:
When deciding how wide to make your image, remember that it has to display on both very large screens (1000's of pixels) and very small ones (a few 100 pixels).
Suppose a news item is about a tournament and round results are recorded using markdowm tables with rows like these:
|White|:-:|Black| |Donkin, C.|1-0|Donkin, A.| |Poots, D.|[½-½](/games/123)|Nimmo, H.|
or using lists with items like these (note the mandatory commas before and after each result):
* Donkin, C., 1-0, Donkin, A. * Poots, D., [½-½](/games/123), Nimmo, H.
In this case a tournament table can be inserted automatically by including the following macro somewhere in either the summary or story:
_TABLE_
This macro should be on it's own on one line. As results are added, the table automatically updates. The tie breaker rule used for ranking is Sonneborn–Berger. For the results of games that have not yet finished use "?-?". It's okay to link results (as illustrated above) but not player names.
Be careful to spell players' names consistently in results tables. Names such as "Donkin, C.", "Donkin, Chris" and "Chris Donkin" will look like 3 different players to the algorithm that constructs the table. Anything in brackets, such as a rating, current score, federation or club, will be stripped out. For example, the names extracted from "Donkin, C. (2000)" and "Donkin, C. (2½)", "Donkin, C. (SCO)" and "Donkin, C. (WD)" will all be "Donkin, C.".
Please note that only one such table macro should be included per news item.
By adding lower case letters to the end of the macro (between the letter E and the final underscore) you can control some details of the table display. For example:
_TABLEgx_
Currently, the available options are:
To display extra information about any or all players in the final table, such as rating or federation, supply a pipe-separated list of equal-separated name-value pairs after the final underscore. For example:
_TABLE_Donkin, A.=1600|Donkin, C.=2000|Nimmo, H.=1500|Poots, D.=1500
In this example, the given ratings would appear in brackets after each player‘s name. Once again, it‘s important to spell names precisley for this to work.
The equals signs must be included, even if there is no extra information for the players. This permits an easy way to indicate players who have yet to play any games. For example:
_TABLE_Crorie, I.=|Ferguson, A.=
would add two extra players with the given names to the table who have yet to play any games and, in this case, with no extra information in brackets after their names (since there is nothing after the equals signs). Once such players have one or more results recorded, you could delete thier names from this list.
For this you need to have a PGN file of the game.
If your PGN is rejected as invalid and you can't figure out why, please contact the webmaster.
To maintain a consistent look to news items and games, bloggers are encouraged to: