The Chessboard

Table of contents:

• Copying Board Images
• Saving Board Images
• Animations for the Web

The Aquarium chess board and piece sets scale perfectly so they look good even when you fill a high resolution screen with the board window alone.



In the lower left corner of the board there are two white arrows which form a circle. Clicking this icon flips the board.

You can always see whose turn it is to move by looking at the small square in the right-hand corner of the board. If it‘s Black‘s move (as in the positions shown), a black square is displayed on his side of the board. If White is to move a white square is displayed instead.

The pieces below the board show the material imbalance. In this example the material is equal except that White has a rook and pawn against Black’s bishop and knight.

The buttons below the board allow you to navigate the game. The leftmost button takes you to the beginning of the game. The next button moves back one move. The third one moves forward one move and the rightmost navigation button goes to the end of the game.

The material imbalance and the navigation arrows can be turned off in the program Options.

The coordinates (files/ranks) around the board are optional and you can also change the board design and select from several different piece sets.



The right-click menu for the board allows you to invert or flip it, enlarge it to fill the board window or reduce the size of the window to fit the board.

The Theme menu item allows you to select a new board or piece theme. Here you can either select from available themes or add new themes, for instance if you have created a new theme yourself.



The Board tab in the Ribbon gives you access to various options to modify and set up the chessboard and related features.



The Ribbon is split into three groups, Edit, Design, and Demonstration.



In the Edit group you have three options to choose from.

Position - Opens up the Setup Position dialog . Here you can set up a position as explained in the section on Position Search. This is a split button and if you click the downward-pointing triangle the button will drop down a menu which allows you to open a file with positions in EPD format. This file can be managed with the Load Position and Save Position buttons.

Load Position - Loads a position from the current position file. The following dialog box is displayed where you can browse all the positions in the file and display them visually. When you have found the position that you want to choose, click OK and it will be copied to the game in Aquarium.



The Delete button allows you to delete positions from the position file.

Save Position - Saves the current position to the position file.



In the Design group you're given five different options to choose from.

Move Input - Here you can choose in which way you would like to move the pieces around on the chessboard.

• Drag - Basic drag and drop movement. Select the piece you want to move and drag it over to the square you want to move it to. This is the default option.
• Two Clicks - Move the piece by first clicking it and then click the destination square. Some blitz players consider this the fastest method.
• Smart - Select the piece you want to move. The program will suggest a move. Accept it by releasing the mouse button. Otherwise you can drag the piece to the destination square. Instead of dragging it to the destination square, you can press the right button without releasing the left button. Repeatedly clicking the right button cycles through the possible destination squares for the piece. Smart input also allows you to select a destination square and then select the piece to move there in a similar manner.
• DGT Input - Selecting an electronic DGT chess board as input doesn't disable mouse input, but additionally you can enter the moves on the DGT board. The details of linking the DGT board to computer are described in the manual supplied with the board. Note that when using a DGT board you should not only make your own moves on the board, but also engine moves.

Invert - Inverts the chessboard. Note that the invert icon can also be found in the lower left-hand corner of the chessboard as shown in the image below.



Coordinates - Allows you to choose whether the coordinates (files/ranks) around the board are visible or not.

Board Cursor - With this option set to 'On' an arrow will appear on the chessboard, indicating the last move.

Imbalance - Allows you to choose whether or not to show the material imbalance below the chessboard.



In the Demonstration group you're given three different options to choose from.

Animate - By choosing this option Rybka Aquarium will play through the selected game for you.

Move(s)/Min - If Animate is selected, this slider tells Rybka Aquarium how many moves you want it to display per minute.

Demo Mode - Toggles Demonstration Mode. In Demonstration Mode, or simply Demo Mode, the part of the notation following the current move is hidden. Thus the user is prompted to enter a move on the chessboard. Entering a wrong move – a move that was not played either in the game or in some variation to this game – invokes the New move dialog box.



Here you can select one of the three proposed actions: Keep on guessing, Make the game move and Insert suggestion as a variation. For training purposes we recommend that you to select Keep on guessing before giving up and letting the program show you the move.

When your suggestion coincides with the text move (the move that was actually played in the game), the program discloses the move made.

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