--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the Chessboard component v1.00 for Borland C++ Builder version 1.0 - June 11th 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Description: The Chessboard component provides a customizable 2D Chessboard that can keep track of a game and verify the legality of moves. It allows the programmer to trap the following events: LegalMove, Illegal Move, Capture, En Passant, Castling, Promotion, Check, Mate, Stale Mate and Only Two Kings Left. The colors, size, Pieces and Squares can be customized. The component can be resized at runtime. The Chessboard component comes with three files: Chess.cpp (source file), Chess.h (header file) and Chess.txt (current file). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation of the component: Start Borland C++ Builder. Select "Component", "Install" ,"Add" and "Browse" and then browse to the file Chess.cpp. The component will appear on a new tab called Chess. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Property Descriptions: bool BoardLines Determines whether lines will be drawn around the board and between the squares TBitmap BorderBitmap If assigned a value, this bitmap will be used to draw the border around the board. BorderColor will then be ignored. TColor BorderColor Sets the color of the border. Will be visible only if no value has been assigned to BorderBitmap. CastleSet CastlingAllowed This set stores whether castling is still allowed for each king in each direction. Example: CastleSet<>BlackQueenSide will disable long castling for Black. TFont CoordFont Sets the font eventually used to display the coordinates around the board. int CurrentMove (read-only) Stores the current move of the game in the list. CurrentMove cannot be modified directly. Use: GotoMove (int move, bool WhiteMoves); to change its value. TBitmap CustomPieceSet If assigned a legal value (that is a bitmap with a Width of 1.5 times its Height) this bitmap will be used as the new piece set instead of the default The bitmap should consist of 6 x 4 smaller square bitmaps of equal size. The order of the pieces should be: pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen and king. The first row represents the white pieces, the third row represents the black pieces. The second and fourth row should be monochrome and will be used to determine the mask of the white and black pieces respectively. The pieces will not be shown in the place where the mask bitmap contains a non-zero value. This allows transparent drawing of the pieces on the board. CoordSet DisplayCoords Determines whether coordinates are being displayed around the screen. Examples: DisplayCoords<>East will make disappear coordinates at the right of the board. Square EnPassant if EnPassant doesn't equal None, it contains the square on which an EnPassant capture can take place. If white moves for instance E2-E4, EnPassant will be set to the value E3 (on which the pawn can be taken). Legal values are: A3-H3, A6-H6 TPen LineStyle Contains the linestyle eventually used to display lines between the squares and around the board. String Position The contents of the board are stored in this string which is always 64 characters long. The board is stored from square A8 through H8 to H1. Each character represents a piece on the board. The characters P, N, B, R, Q, K represent the pawn knight, bishop, rook, queen and king respectively. White pieces are uppercased, black pieces lowercased. Empty squares are represented by spaces. To quickly initialize a standard setup, fill the string with 'init'. bool Resizable Determines whether the ChessBoard can be resized. If TRUE, when the user moves the cursor over the right-down corner, the shape of the cursor will change and allow the ChessBoard to be resized. The resizing does not yet happen flicker-free. int ResizeMinSize The minimum allowed size of the ChessBoard (it's Width and Height) while it is in the resizing state. int ResizeMaxSize The maximum allowed size of the ChessBoard (it's Width and Height) while it is in the resizing state. int SizeOfBorder Determines the width of the border around the board. Changing its value may change the size of the chessboard as well. (Width and Height) int SizeOfSquare Determines the squaresize. Changing its value may change the size of the chessboard as well. (Width and Height) TColor SquareColorDark The color of the dark squares. Will be visible only if no value has been assigned to SquareDark. TColor SquareColorLight The color of the light squares. Will be visible only if no value has been assigned to SquareLight. TBitmap SquareDark If assigned a value, this bitmap will be used to draw the border around the board to display the dark squares. SquareColorDark will then be ignored. TBitmap SquareLight If assigned a value, this bitmap will be used to display the light squares. SquareColorLight will then be ignored. StandardSet StandardSize Sets the size of the standard pieceset. The standard pieceset will only be used if no value has been assigned to CustomPieceSet. Legal values are: size32, size40, size64 and size80 bool WhiteOnTop Controls whether the white pieces are being displayed on top of the board. Use: WhiteOnTop=!WhiteOnTop to flip the board. bool WhiteToMove Readonly. Sets the turn to white if TRUE and to black if FALSE; Note that TChessBoard also has all methods that TGraphicControl has. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Methods of the Public Interface: -Note that squares are numbered from 1-64 and represent the squares on the chessboard in the order A8.. H8.. H1. -Pieces can contain the following (char) values: p,b,n,r,q or k for a black pawn, knight bishop, rook queen or king P,B,N,R,Q or K for a white pawn, knight bishop, rook queen or king bool __fastcall BlackInCheckAfter(int oldsq, int newsq) returns TRUE if black is in check after the indicated move bool __fastcall ClearSquare(int sqn) will empty the square with number sqn static int inline __fastcall ColorOfPiece (char piece) returns BLACK (0) or WHITE (1) if piece is a legal piece otherwise NOPIECE (-1) static int inline __fastcall ColorOfSquare (int sqno) returns BLACK or WHITE according to the color of square sqno. MoveInfo& __fastcall GetMove (int moveno, bool WhiteMoves) Returns a MoveInfo structure filled with the information about the indicated move. Returns a structure with all zero values and an initial position in the case the move could not be found in the movelist. TStringList* __fastcall GetMoveList (void) Returns a TStringList with all the moves of the current game. bool __fastcall GotoMove (int moveno, bool WhiteMoves) Jump to the indicated move in the game and set the position accordingly. Returns FALSE if the move cannot be found in the movelist. static int inline __fastcall MouseToSquare (int x, int y) converts coordinates to a square value. For instance CoordsToSquare (1,4) will return A4. bool __fastcall LegalMoveAvailable (void) Returns TRUE if a move can be made from the current position. bool __fastcall Move (int oldsq, int newsq) will make a move and return TRUE if the move is legal. For castling: pass the move of the king. Example: Move (E2,E4) bool __fastcall MoveBackward (void) Moves backward in the list of played moves and sets the position accordingly. Returns FALSE if void __fastcall MoveForward (void); void __fastcall NewGame(void) Resets the position to the initial state. bool __fastcall SetUpPosition (MoveInfo &pos, int moveno, bool whitemoves) Sets up the ChessBoard according to a given position. The first move in the game will be moveno. bool __fastcall WhiteInCheckAfter(int oldsq, int newsq) returns TRUE if white is in check after the indicated move int __fastcall WindowToSquare (int x, int y) returns the square at the position of (x,y). x and y must be relative to the current window/form. static int inline __fastcall XPos (int sqno) returns the x-Coordinate (as an integer number in the range 1-8) of the square. static int inline __fastcall YPos (int sqno) returns the x-Coordinate (as an integer number in the range 1-8) of the square. Note that TChessBoard has also all methods that TGraphicControl has. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Event Handlers: The following event handlers can be used. For the Chess event handlers counts that olSq and newSq contain the values of the squares of the move involved. virtual void __fastcall Capture (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq, char CapturedPiece) virtual void __fastcall Castle (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq) virtual void __fastcall Check (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq) virtual void __fastcall Click(void) virtual void __fastcall DragCanceled(void) virtual void __fastcall DragDrop(System::TObject *Source,int X, int Y) virtual void __fastcall DragOver(System::TObject* Source, int X, int Y, TDragState State, bool &Accept ) virtual void __fastcall EndDrag(bool drop) virtual void __fastcall IllegalMove (System::TObject *Sender, int square) virtual void __fastcall LegalMove (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq) virtual void __fastcall Mate (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq) virtual void __fastcall MouseDown(TMouseButton Button, Classes::TShiftState Shift, int X, int Y) virtual void __fastcall MouseMove(Classes::TShiftState Shift, int X, int Y) virtual void __fastcall MouseUp(TMouseButton Button, Classes::TShiftState Shift, int X, int Y) virtual void __fastcall OnlyTwoKingsLeft (System::TObject *Sender) virtual void __fastcall Paint(void) virtual void __fastcall Promotion (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq, char &NewPiece) Note: you can choose your piece by assigning a new value to NewPiece. virtual void __fastcall StaleMate (System::TObject *Sender, int oldSq, int newSq) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright, Liability and Author: The Chessboard component may be freely used and distributed by anyone. The author does not accept liability for the software in any way. Note that the standard pieceset that's being used comes straight out of Fritz4 for I thought I would never be able to design such clear and charming pieces. So take care not to break any laws with copyrighted material. If you would like to receive some Chess pieces from some other popular Chess programs, just drop me a line, which you can do as well if you have any comments, suggestions, bugs or wanted features: Daniel Terhell Amsterdam kr8m8pr8@compuserve.com Tel: +31 20 4866128 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kr8m8pr8 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------