ChessFlash

This post describes the old publishing dialog. Please see the new version of this post that uses the new Basic Publishing Dialog.

This topic is for discussing how to upload your PGN chess games and publish them here or to external web sites using the ChessFlash PGN Viewer.

To get started you will need an account here and the chess games you want to publish stored as PGN files -- one game per file. It is a very good idea to name your PGN files with names that are meaningful for both you and your readers.

In the Navigation panel under your name click Create Content and then Blog Entry. This takes you to the ChessFlash Create Blog Entry screen. You do not need to post a blog here at ChessFlash, but this page gives you access to the tools you will need to publish games here or at your own external blog or website.

You may want to browse our Gallery to get an idea of the effect of different publishing options.

The first icon under Body: is the ChessFlash icon. Click it and you get the Insert ChessFlash PGN Viewer dialog:

Starting with V0-048 on June 10, 2008, when publishing games there are four additional options in the ChessFlash Dialog. These can all be ignored unless you are interested in publishing in puzzle mode or want to specify a special starting FEN.

• Puzzle/Study Mode No - not puzzle mode; Yes - is puzzle mode. In puzzle mode, the reader is allowed to enter moves for one side by clicking the board.
• Human Plays White or Black. Only applies in puzzle mode. The side the human plays.
• FEN An initial FEN position to display before loading the PGN file. Always optional.
• Board Only No or Yes. If Yes, then no moves, text or commentary is shown -- just the board(s).

For examples, see Puzzle Mode and Study Mode.

Click the Browse button and you will be taken to the dialog where you can upload PGN files from your computer to ChessFlash and select the PGN files that you want to publish with the ChessFlash PGN Viewer:

Note: We have added the ability for you to create up to 25 sub directories under your user directory from the File Browser tool. These sub directories can not have sub directories. You can use those sub directories to help organize your PGN files. I suggest using meaningful directory names to help organize and remember what's where. At the moment, you can not delete directories or move files among directories (but you can delete files in a directory). If you delete a PGN file that is used in the ChessFlash PGN Viewer in a web site, that Viewer will no longer be able to display that game (it has to download the PGN file to be able to show it).

Upload the PGN file(s) from your computer by clicking the Upload link or select a PGN file that you have previously uploaded. Then click the Send to BUEditor link. This will return you to the Insert ChessFlash PGN Viewer dialog with the PGN url filled in.

Complete the form with the width and height (50 is 50 pixels, 50% is half of the available space), orientation, color theme, number of boards and the tabbed variations option. Then click OK. Note that if you leave the width and height as 0 in the dialog the inserted html will default to the values of width=100% and height=300. These are reasonable values for a small horizontal layout.

This fills in the required html to embed the viewer with the selected game and options. Pressing the preview button (the eye above the body or the preview button below the body) gives you a preview of how it will look. Try different settings to see what they do! Note: if you re-enter the Insert ChessFlash PGN Viewer dialog it does not remember what you just entered so you will need to enter your selections again.

Position the cursor outside of the embedded html to insert another game into the same blog and repeat the process.

To insert a link to the PGN file so that your readers can click it to download the PGN file use the second icon, just to the right of the ChessFlash icon. It will let you select or upload and select the PGN file to link.

You can now save this blog entry to publish it here at ChessFlash or you can cut-n-paste this entry into Blogger to publish the selected game(s) on your blog.

For details on all of the html embed options please see: HTML Options for the ChessFlash PGN Viewer