Scid Help: Scid main window

# Scid main window

The main window in Scid displays the current board position of the active game and information about the current game and database. Separate help pages describe the menus and ways to enter chess moves.

### Game navigation buttons

The navigation buttons above the board have the following meanings, from left to right:

- Move to the start of the game.
- Move back one move.
- Move forward one move.
- Move to the end of the game.
- Move into a variation.
- Move out of the current variation.
- Add a new variation.
- Start/stop autoplay mode (see below).
- Start/stop trial mode.
- Rotate the board 180 degrees.
- Show/hide board coordinates.

#### Autoplay mode

In autoplay mode, Scid automatically plays the moves in the current game, moving forward until the end of the game. The time delay between moves can be set from the [Options: Moves] menu, and is saved to your options file when you save options.

The shortcut key Control+Z starts or stops autoplay mode, and you can also exit autoplay mode by pressing the Escape key.

If you start autoplay mode when the analysis window is open, the game is annotated: the score and analysis for each position are added to the game as a new variation just before each move is made. See the analysis window help page for details.

### The game information area

The area below the chessboard showing information about the game is called the game information area. Its first three lines show information such as the players, result, date, and site. The fourth line indicates the current position in the game, and what the next move is.

The fifth line shows the ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) code for the current position, if the position appears in the ECO file being used.

The game information area has a menu activated with the right mouse button, with options to hide the next move (useful if you are training using a game and want to guess each move) and to delete or undelete the current game. You can also activate this menu without using the mouse, by pressing the [F9] function key.

#### Tablebases

The game information area also displays tablebase results whenever the displayed position reaches a material configuration found in a tablebase file. See the tablebases help page for details.

### The status bar

The status bar shows information about the current database. The first field indicates the game status: XX means it has been altered and not yet saved, while -- means it is unchanged, and %% indicates the database is read-only (not alterable).

If you want a database to be opened read-only, just set the permissions of its Scid files, or at least its index file, for example: chmod a-w myfile.si3 as a shell command, and it will be opened read-only by Scid.

The status bar also shows how many games are currently in the filter.

(Updated: Scid 3.1, December 2001)