Included with ChessEdit are three bitmapped fonts so you can see what the program can do. (I apologize for not including PostScript and TrueType versions, but frankly, I have had too many bad experiences with the font pirates who translate from format to format and from platform to platform without permission, and who often strip out copyright notices and read me files in the process. As I result, I adopted a policy of never again releasing any typeface in outline form as shareware, demoware, freeware, or any other kind of ware. Bitmaps are harder to translate.)
Chessterton is the typeface which is used internally in ChessEdit. But to be a useful program, ChessEdit had to have the ability to translate a board into the character codes used in other chess typefaces. To show how this is done, I have included a second typefont, one which is frivolous but which only took a few hours to develop. It is called FunnyChess, and it has a completely different organization than Chessterton. For example, to put a black bishop on a black square, FunnyChess uses two keys, an E for the black square and an 8 for the black bishop. I constructed it in this way to illustrate the flexibility of ChessEdit. Finally, FatChess is an attempt to do a more traditional chess font. It is still unfinished. (But then what is ever really finished?)
To print out a chess board using FunnyChess, do the following:
1. Install FunnyChess. It installs just like any other typeface. If you do not know how to install a typeface, consult the documentation that came with your Macintosh. (With System 7 or later, you just drag the suitcase on top of the icon of they System folder. The System Folder must be closed.)
2. After you have installed FunnyChess, open your word processor program and ChessEdit. (You will need System 7 to have both open at once, or MultiFinder under System 6.)
3. From ChessEdit, open the translator key called FunnyChess key. (It comes with ChessEdit. Get it with the CMD-O command.)
4. Go back to the Composing Board window and arrange your chess board in whatever way you desire.
5. When the chess board looks the way you want it, click the Translate-To-Field button in the lower right of the window. This action will open up another window. The chess board will now look like a mess, but do not worry. It should also be highlighted.
6. Copy this chess board by pressing CMD-C (or by pulling down the edit menu to Copy).
7. Switch to your word processing program. (Under System 7 pull down the icon menu at the extreme right of the screen and find it.)
8. Paste the chess board into your word processing program. (CMD-V will work, or pull down the Edit Menu to Paste.)
9. The results will still look like a mess. Select the text you just pasted, and pull down the font menu to FunnyChess.
10. Format the chessboard in the size you want it. Make sure leading is the same as the point size. And print if you want to.
I hope these directions are simple enough for anyone to understand.
R Schenk
Nov 1994
**********Key Codes************
In addition to providing two key codes for the FunnyChess font and one for FatChess, I have provided key codes for several other chess fonts I have found.
One is for Cheq, a chess font from Adobe, and another is for several chess fonts which were distributed with a shareware program called ChessWriter. (I do not know much about the ChessWriter. It is shareware, and I found a copy on a CD-ROM of shareware programs. However, the copy I have does not work beyond 1993.) I do not guarantee these keys are correct, but they seem to work for me.
Have fun, and tell me what you think of this.
late November, 1994
bobs@saintjoe.edu
Robert Schenk--Ingrimayne Type
*******
Some last minute changes.
If you have a chess font installed in your system, and you open or save a key code from within ChessEdit, and if the first word of the key code is the name of the font, then the when you display the font in the translation window, it will be formated in the proper font. Let me run that by you again. Suppose you you install FunnyChess in your system (or use Suitcase, MasterJuggler, or Carpetbag). Now you open ChessEdit by double-clicking on the "FunnyChess key" file. (Notice that Funny Chess key would not work--the first word has to be identical to the font name.) Then when you hit the translate button, you will see the chess board displayed in the FunnyChess font.
I added a fill banks top and bottom check box in the translation key window. Some fonts need this and extra blank character to make the top and bottom borders line up properly and some do not. This lets one automatically put in the extra blanks for those which need it.
