The Magazine Page

With all other page types than the magazine you pass a pgn file to Palview, and Palview makes an HTML file with the game(s) - usually in a replayable format. With the magazine you pass a pgn gamefile and an HTML template file. In the original HTML template file you can insert invisible commands (as HTML comments) to Palview, and where Palview finds such a command it will insert games, diagrams, an index, a crosstable or whatever.

This is very useful for e.g. articles that you want to "spice" with Palview games etc., and PalMate makes it easy to create and process such a page.

When making a magazine with PalMate there are 3 different windows:

• One window to control the layout of the stuff Palview inserts, i.e. the look and feel of crosstables, indexes, static diagrams, static games, game links etc.

• Another window to control the layout of the gameviewer window (board, pieces, colours etc.).

• A third window to edit the HTML template source and insert commands to Palview. The purpose is primarily to make it easy to insert Palview commands with the right syntax, but the editor also has some very basic HTML editing tools, like e.g. link and image insertion. Open this page for a detailed description of the editor.

The Magazine Window

When the magazine window is active you can control the layout of Palview elements that will be inserted. All other elements will be unaffected, which means that the layout of the stuff you have written yourself, e.g. the background article with images, will not be affected.

Which Palview elements (gamelinks, crosstables etc.) to insert is controlled from the editor window.

When the magazine window is the active window, a Magazine Options menu will be visible. From this menu you can control certain element specific to the magazine page type.

• Magazine Diagrams. Options for static diagrams inserted on the magazine page.
  • Write Diagram Numbers. If you set this option to ON, Palview sequetially number all static diagrams.
  • First Diagram's Number. If you want to number the static diagrams the first number will usually be "1", nut this allows you to select another number. This could be a point if for instance you have more than one magazine page and you want the diagram numbers on page 2, 3...N to be continious.
  • Text Before Diagram Number. Optional text to put before diagram number. For instance "No." will make diagram numbers appear like "No. 1" above the static diagram.

• Write Gamelinks. On/off. Setting this to OFF will prevent Palview from writing visible gamelinks. This can be useful if you want to use a magazine page to actually generate a game index. In this case, you would also prevent Palview from creating individual pages for each game. This is done by selecting the "Preview without making game pages" from the "View" menu, or by clicking the lightning button instead of the explorer button.
  The command can also be useful if you wish to write your own game links in the magazine rather than have Palview do this for you. For further information about this topic see the Palview Manual's description of the ini commands "writemaglinks" and "writemaggames".

• Gamelink Information. Used to determine what extended information about a game you wish to have in your links to the replayable games in the magazine page. The information is placed after the player's name. The information itself is generally taken from the PGN Tags: Result, Round, Event, Site, and Date. But the number of moves in the game is determined by the program. Note that title refers to the player's title, as in 'GM'.

• Index Namepattern. Determines how the players' names will appear in gamelinks, e.g. "Fischer, Robert J." or "Robert J. Fischer".

When you make a magazine you have two options for previewing. The first is PalMates usual preview function, which can be activated from the "View" menu, by clicking the Explorer button in the toolbar or by pressing F2. This will process all pages in the project. That is: the magazine HTML page, the Game Viewer Page with Javascript file and a page for each gamelink in the magazine. The individual game pages will be numbered.

The second preview option is only available when making a magazine. It works like the ordinary preview function, but individual game pages will not be created. This can prove very useful if you have many gamelinks on the page, and if for instance you just want to preview the magazine page itself. This preview function can be selected from the "View" menu or by clicking the "Lightning" button next to the Explorer button.

The Game Viewer

The game viewer is essential to the magazine. When you click a game link on the magazine page, a game viewer window will pop up. For a detailed description of the game viewer see the Palview Manual.

In PalMate you control the layout of the game viewer from the viewer's project window just like any other Palview page. When the viewer's PalMate window is active, the "Viewer Options" menu is visible. From this menu you can control stuff specific game viewer options such as:

• Viewer Height/Width. The height and width in pixels of the game viewer page.

• Viewer FEN Image. Which image to use as FEN icon (when clicked a FEN string with the current position will be displayed).

• Viewer Help Options
  • Help Html File. Link to an HTML file where the visitor can get help on how to use the game viewer.
  • Help Image. Select an image to use as link-icon for the help page link.
  • Help Image Tooltip. Write tooltip text for the help icon, i.e. a text that appears when the mouse hovers over the help icon.

• Viewer Email Options. In the game viewer window you can insert an email address.
  • Mail-to Image. I.e. an icon that activates a mail-to link.
  • Email Address. The email address to use.
  • Mail-to Text. Optional text to appear next to the mail-to image, e.g. "Editor".

• Move-recorder Color. In the game viewer window the visitor can kibbitz the game, that is move the pieces around freely to e.g. analyse a position. Every move made by the visitor will be recorded and displayed in text below the board. The "Move-recorder Color" menu determines the colour of this text.

Making A New Magazine Or Viewer Style

If you want to make a new magazine or viewer style (layout with different boards, colours etc.) open a magazine project and save as new style from the style menu. If the magazine window is active, it is the magazine's style that is saved as new, and if the viewer window is active, it is the viewer's style.

With other page types you can change page type by selecting another from the Basic Layout's menu (in the Page menu), however that is not possible with the magazine and viewer page type.