.\"=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= .\"# File: cmail.man .\"# .\"# Author: Evan Welsh .\"# .\"# Email: welsh@epcc.ed.ac.uk .\"# .\"# Modified: $Date: 1994/11/14 04:04:42 $ .\"# $Revision: 1.10 $ .\"# .\"# Summary: Man page for cmail .\"=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= .\" .TH CMAIL 6 .PD .ad b .SH NAME cmail \- an email chess helper .SH SYNOPSIS \fBcmail\fR [\|\fBoptions\fR\|] .SH DESCRIPTION .PP The \fIcmail\fP program will help you play chess by email with opponents of your choice using an X interface. To use it, you will need to be able to run \fIxboard\fP with which \fIcmail\fP is distributed, available by anonymous FTP from numerous sites around the world. It has been tested with \fIxboard 3.2\fP; it may require modification for other versions. .SH OPTIONS You will usually run cmail without giving any options. See the next section for instructions. .TP 8 .B \-h Displays \fIcmail\fP usage information. .TP 8 .B \-c Shows the conditions of the GNU General Public License. .TP 8 .B \-w Shows the warranty notice of the GNU General Public License. .TP 8 .B \-[\|x\|]v Provides or inhibits verbose output from \fIcmail\fP and \fIxboard\fP, useful for debugging. The .B \-xv form also inhibits the cmail introduction message. .TP 8 .B \-[\|x\|]mail Invokes or inhibits the sending of a mail message containing the move. .TP 8 .B \-[\|x\|]xboard Invokes or inhibits the running of \fIxboard\fP on the game file. .TP 8 .B \-[\|x\|]reuse Invokes or inhibits the reuse of an existing \fIxboard\fP to display the current game. .TP 8 .B \-remail Resends the last mail message for that game. This inhibits running \fIxboard\fP. .TP 8 .B \-game \fIname\fP The name of the game to be processed. .TP 8 .B \-(w|b|)games \fInumber\fP Number of games to start as White, as Black or in total. Default is 1 as white and none as black. If only one colour is specified then none of the other colour is assumed. If no colour is specified then equal numbers of White and Black games are started, with the extra game being as White if an odd number of total games is specified. .TP 8 .B \-(me|opp) \fIshort name\fP A one-word alias for yourself or your opponent. .TP 8 .B \-(w|b|my|opp)name \fIfull name\fP The full name of White, Black, yourself or your opponent. .TP 8 .B \-(w|b|my|opp)na \fInet address\fP The email address of White, Black, yourself or your opponent. .TP 8 .B \-dir \fIdirectory\fP The directory in which \fIcmail\fP keeps its files. This defaults to the environment variable $CMAIL_DIR or failing that, $CHESSDIR, $HOME/Chess or ~/Chess. It will be created if it does not exist. .TP 8 .B \-arcdir \fIdirectory\fP The directory in which \fIcmail\fP archives completed games. Defaults to the environment variable $CMAIL_ARCDIR or, in its absence, the same directory as cmail keeps its working files (above). .TP 8 .B \-mailprog \fImail program\fP The program used by cmail to send email messages. This defaults to the environment variable $CMAIL_MAILPROG or failing that "/usr/ucb/Mail", "/usr/ucb/mail" or "Mail". You will need to set this variable if none of the above paths fit your system. .TP 8 .B \-gamesFile \fIfile\fP A file containing a list of games with email addresses. This defaults to the environment variable $CMAIL_GAMES or failing that .cmailgames. .TP 8 .B \-aliasesFile \fIfile\fP A file containing one or more aliases for a set of email addresses. This defaults to the environment variable $CMAIL_ALIASES or failing that .cmailaliases. .TP 8 .B \-logFile \fIfile\fP A file in which to dump verbose debugging messages that are invoked with the .B \-v option. .TP 8 .B \-event \fIevent\fP The PGN Event tag (default "Email correspondence game"). .TP 8 .B \-site \fIsite\fP The PGN Site tag (default "NET"). .TP 8 .B \-round \fIround\fP The PGN Round tag (default "-", not applicable). .TP 8 .B \-mode \fImode\fP The PGN Mode tag (default "EM", Electronic Mail). .PP .SH OTHER OPTIONS Any unrecognised flags will be passed to \fIxboard\fP. Those most relevant for use with \fIcmail\fP are: .TP 8 .B \-timeDelay (or -td) \fIdelay\fP This sets the speed at which the moves are displayed on start-up. It defaults to the environment variable $CMAIL_TIME_DELAY if set, and 0 otherwise. .TP 8 .B \-noChessProgram (True | False), or -[x]ncp If this option is False, .IR xboard starts a chess program which can be used with \fIcmail\fP to suggest moves. Default: True. .TP 8 .B \-searchTime (or -st) minutes[:seconds] Tells GNU Chess to spend at most the given amount of time searching for each of its moves. Without this option, GNU Chess chooses its search time based on the number of moves and amount of time remaining until the next time control. .TP 8 .B \-searchDepth (or -sd) number Tells GNU Chess to look ahead at most the given number of moves when searching for a move to make. Without this option, GNU Chess chooses its search depth based on the number of moves and amount of time remaining until the next time control. .TP 8 .B \-saveGameFile (or -sgf) file If this option is set, .IR xboard appends a record of the game played to the specified file on exit. .TP 8 .B -autosave or -autoSaveGames If this option is True, at the end of every game .IR xboard prompts you for a filename and appends a record of the game to the file you specify. .TP 8 .B \-savePositionFile (or -spf) file If this option is set, .IR xboard appends the final position reached to the specified file on exit. .TP 8 .B \-boardSize (or -size) "(Large | Medium | Small)" Determines how large the board will be and what built-in piece bitmaps will be used. On a large board (the default), pieces are 80x80 pixels, on a medium board 64x64 pixels, and on a small board 40x40 pixels. .SH STARTING A GAME Type \fIcmail\fP from a shell to start a game as white. After an opening message, you will be prompted for a game name, which is optional -- if you simply press return, the game name will take the form \fIyou\fP-VS-\fIopponent\fP. You will next be prompted for the short name of your opponent. If you haven't played this person before, you will also be prompted for his/her email address. \fIcmail\fP will then invoke \fIxboard\fP in the background. Make your first move and select \fIMail Move\fP from the \fIFile\fP menu. If all is well, \fIcmail\fP will mail a copy of the move to your opponent. If you select \fIExit\fP without having selected \fIMail Move\fP then no move will be made. .SH ANSWERING A MOVE When you receive a message from an opponent containing a move in one of your games, simply pipe the message through \fIcmail\fP. In some mailers this is as simple as typing "| cmail" when viewing the message, while in others you may have to save the message to a file and do "cmail < file" at the command line. In either case \fIcmail\fP will display the game using \fIxboard\fP. If you didn't exit \fIxboard\fP when you made your first move then \fIcmail\fP will do its best to use the existing \fIxboard\fP instead of starting a new one. As before, simply make a move and select \fIMail Move\fP from the \fIFile\fP menu. \fIcmail\fP will try to use the \fIxboard\fP that was most recently used to display the current game. This means that many games can be in progress simultaneously, each with its own active \fIxboard\fP. .PP If you want to look at the history or explore a variation, go ahead, but you must return to the current position before \fIxboard\fP will allow you to mail a move. If you edit the game's history you must select \fIReload Same Game\fP from the \fIFile\fP menu to get back to the original position, then make the move you want and select \fIMail Move\fP. As before, if you decide you aren't ready to make a move just yet you can either select \fIExit\fP without sending a move or just leave \fIxboard\fP running until you are ready. .SH COMPLETING A GAME Because \fIxboard\fP can now detect checkmate and stalemate, \fIcmail\fP now handles game termination sensibly. As well as resignation, the \fIAction\fP menu now allows draws to be offered and accepted for \fIcmail\fP games. .PP For multi-game messages, only unfinished and just-finished games will be included in email messages. When all the games are finished, they are archived in the user's archive directory, and similarly in the opponent's when he or she pipes the final message through \fIcmail\fP. The archive file name includes the date the game was started. .SH MULTI-GAME MESSAGES It's possible to have a \fIcmail\fP message carry more than one game. This feature was implemented to handle IECG (International Email Chess Group) matches, where a match consists of 1 game as white and 1 as black, with moves transmitted simultaneously. In case there are more general uses, \fIcmail\fP itself places no limit on the number of black/white games contained in a message; however, \fIxboard\fP does. .SH TROUBLE SHOOTING It's possible that a strange conjunction of conditions may occasionally mean that \fIcmail\fP has trouble reactivating an existing \fIxboard\fP. If this should happen, simply trying it again should work. If not, remove the file that stores the \fIxboard\fP's PID (<\fIgame\fP>.pid) or use the \fI-xreuse\fP option to force \fIcmail\fP to start a new \fIxboard\fP. .PP Versions of \fIcmail\fP after 2.16 no longer understand the old file format that \fIxboard\fP used to use and so cannot be used to correspond with anyone using an older version. .PP Versions of \fIcmail\fP older than 2.11 do not handle multi-game messages, so multi-game correspondence is not possible with opponents using an older version. .SH FILES "\fI.cmailgames\fP" contains a list of games with the email addresses of the opponents. .PP "\fI.cmailaliases\fP" contains one or more aliases for a set of email addresses. .SH BUGS No known bugs. .SH BUG REPORTS I make no promises but if you send bug reports/suggestions to welsh@epcc.ed.ac.uk I'll do my best to fix/implement them. .SH AUTHOR Copyright (C) 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc. .PP \fIcmail\fP is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. .PP \fIcmail\fP is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. .PP You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with cmail; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. .sp .ta 1.0i 3.0i .nf Author: Evan Welsh Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre JCMB, Kings Buildings The University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH9 3JZ Scotland .fi .SH CONTRIBUTORS .PP Patrick Surry helped with design, testing and documentation. .PP Tim Mann helped integrate \fIcmail\fP with \fIxboard\fP. .SH SEE ALSO \fIMail\fP(1), \fIperl\fP(1), \fIxboard\fP(1)