May 2002
Presented by:
The FICS SR Team

FICS Upgrades

There have been numerous changes to the server recently. Probably the most noticeable one of late would be to the finger command. Others include revamped simuls, singleboard ivar, notakeback variable, new commands result, wrating, brating, & bsetup.

In case you haven't noticed, finger has a new look. Overall, it seems to be accepted as an improvement. First, the player name of the stats being shown has its own line, followed by status, etc. The biggest change is that only the variants a person has played are displayed. If, however, you want to see all variants that are rated on the server - use the a flag.

Example: finger fatboy a

Or you can use the fa alias.

Example: fa fatboy ; fa fatboy n ; etc.

However, alternative statistics (stats for short) will give you a lot more info.

Example: stats fatboy - would return his ratings, rankings & server rating statistics.

Simuls have also been revamped. Help simuls now explains the new process in detail. The primary changes are simstart to start the simul, simend to end the simul, and open is now used instead of the old command simopen to determine open for simul games. Additionally, there is also no need to wait for the simul holder to arrive for you to move or make offers. It is hoped that this will allow simuls to run much more smoothly. Previously, FICS has had no way of supporting both single board interfaces (those only coping with one board at a time) and multi-board interfaces (those coping with many boards, even if only one is normally shown).

Now, there is. Users with interfaces that don't support multiboards will now need to set a new variable. Setting iset singleboard 1 before beginning a simul will ensure that when simul participants move, only the game you are playing or examining will be shown. When playing a simul, only the board you are at will be shown and updates will not come in from the other boards. When observing games, if updates come in they will not be shown on the board. If no game is being played or examined, only your primary observed game will be shown. The game you see can be changed with the primary command. Refresh, prefresh, sposition & smposition will still show the position you have requested. Lastly, it is now possible to play both colors in a simul.

Tired of being pestered with takeback requests, even though your notes say you don't grant them? Then have we got the solution for you! The notakeback variable is here. If set, takebacks cannot be requested from you.

Result is a new command that allows you to set the result of a game you have examined. For example, if you are examining a game between ChristopherRyan and Eeyore & you want to set the result of the game with black being mated (1-0), you would use: result 2 white All the information you need to understand the uses for this command, including all codes, can be found in news 622. Additionally, these commands are available to set the ratings of a user in an examined game; wrating, bsetup & brating.

Remember that all important server changes are listed in help new_features and can also often be found in news items.

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