In part one, we saw how to use the output functions to produce classic notation with diagrams for use in a web page or blog, which is always an important tool in telling about chess, but sticking to that is fairly old school. The reason is that it treats the online experience as if it were simply digitalized paper, when there is no need for such self-imposed restrictions. Chessbase 12 brought in its bag of tricks an invaluable tool for bloggers or auteurs: a brand new javascript replayer with advanced tools. This replayer is more than just a facelift with nicer pieces than the previous version. Compared to the older version:
In this second part, you will discover how to publish a game on Facebook, or any social network in seconds (literally), or embed it in your web pages or blog.
The first thing of course is to annotate a game, if you plan on publishing it with
comments, and so forth. Though it is hardly forced.
This is by far the easiest thing to do, so let's start with that.
Once the game is ready, just click on File, and Publish to Web
A small pop-up will appear: choose One Click Publication. Be sure you have an
active internet connection.
Your browser will open with a new webpage contianing the replayer and your game.
This is not a file on your computer, and is hosted indefinitely at ChessBase's servers.
The URL (or web address) at the top is the link to your game, which anyone can
access to see it. Click here to see it for real.
Copy that address and paste it on Facebook. It shows a generic title "An interesting
game" and description "My Game", but you can edit those by clicking on them
before pressing Post. Now anyone who clicks on your link will see the game and
replayer.
Click on File, then select Publish on Web
A pop-up will appear, and this time you want to choose "Create a HTML File".
It will ask you for a name and a location to save it.
You can perfectly well open the HTML file in an HTML editor, your browser (right-click
and select "View page source") or even Notepad. The HTML code you want to copy to
include in your page is located between <body> and </body>. Copy it and then paste
it where you would like the replayer and game to appear. Even if you are not an old-hand
blogger, it will take you less than a minute after you have done it a couple of times.
The result will look something like this (though it won't have any ads):
The game above was taken from a series of engine games running on eight cores held at Playchess by Graham Banks. My thanks to him for providing the PGN with the original computer evaluations.
In part three, you will learn how to publish several games with a drop-down menu, as well as learn some tips on presenting just parts of games, combinations, studies, and more.
