The Palview3 INI File

The htmltype command is used to select the type of Html page(s) that Palview3 is to generate. By default, Palview3 will generate a normal page with a board for each game to replay the moves.

The frames option produces three Html files: One named after the PGN file that is used to set up the frames themselves, and then two other Html files, one for the board (the left frame) and another for the game(s) (the right frame). These frames are respectively named after the PGN file but with a 'b' or 'g' appended to the name for the board and game frame.

The iframe option uses a single board to play out the moves of all the games and the games are placed in an Html file of their own that is loaded into an IFRAME. This particular page type cannot be viewed by Netscape 4.x. The new Netscape 6.0 browser and IE4+ can all view this new Palview3 page type without any problem.

The static option produces a single Html file. This file does not allow replayable moves and does not produce any javascript code. One nice feature of this page type is the ability to mark places in the game where you would like Palview3 to generate a diagram of the current position. You can do this by adding a comment after the move that begins with the '#' character, as in:

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 c6 4. c4 e6
5. Nc3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 Bd6 7. O-O O-O
8. e4 dxe4 9. Nxe4 Nxe4 10. Bxe4 Nf6
11. Bc2
{#[Position after 11. Bc2]}

Notice that you can also provide a board caption by enclosing the caption text in the square brackets immediately after the '#' marker. The '#' character can also be created using ChessBase's Diagram Marker command and then exporting the game to PGN.

The database option produces a single board with a drop down SELECT that allows you to choose which game you would like to play out. In this mode none of the game moves will be seen -- they can only be replayed using the controlpanel or the numeric keys if usekeystrokes has been activated. This page type was created as a way of placing the games form the latest round of some tournament into a small frame that any site could place on their front page. Here is an example:

The muliframe is short for Multiple Iframe. This page type is just like the iframe page except that each and every game is placed into its own IFRAME rather than all the games sharing a single one. Again, Netscape 4.x does not understand IFRAMEs, but NS6.0 and IE4+ does.

The batch page type is really a special case of the normal page. The difference is that each game in the PGN file is written to its own separate Html file. This is advantageous for a number of uses, and it also allows for the creation of crosstables. For more information on using the batch page type and creating crosstables, see the section Crosstables and Tournament Coverage.

The overview and overdb page types were specially created for Live game broadcasts. Essentially, they show the last known position of all the games in the Live event. These positions can be linked to the actual games themselves so that visitors can click on the game that most interests them and they will be taken to a page dedicated to that particular game. Here, they will be able replay the moves of that game, Kibitz, if movingpcs has been enabled, and perhaps follow the live commentary if the game is being annotated by a Master.

The various page types that can be created by Palview3 are covered in more detail in the section, The Palview Pages.