BoardWidget_generator

Board widget generator

The board widget generator is a web based tool to help you building interactively chessboard widgets.

Just go to the board widget generator site, enter your PGN games and configure the options. The tool will automatically generate some HTML code that you can cut and paste in your web page or your blog. When entering the code in your website or blog, please make sure you are using the HTML editing option, otherwise your enhanced editor might alter the code you enter. Your chess game will show like the one below (but you can still change colors, font, sizes and so on).

the board widget generator site URL is

http://pgn4web-board-generator.casaschi.net

Once you have defined your preferred layout, for instance matching the color scheme of your blog, you can bookmark your setting by appending the iframe URL parameters (as listed in the board widget instruction page). For example this presets the square colors and the piece font:

http://pgn4web-board-generator.casaschi.net/?pf=uscf&lch=E5E1C6&dch=CCCBAC

The board generator supports templates, offering a number of predefined layouts and color schemes for your chessboards. The board generator has the ability to generate short URLs for the board widget, for sharing via email or instant messaging.

You can also install the board generator tool on your site so that the games are provided by your server where you can further customize the board widget (the board.html file) to your preferences. The installation on a local server might also improve performance for browsing your site. If you install the board generator tool on your site, you might want to customize the pgn4web_board_url variable of the JS file pgn4web-server-config.js that needs to point to your implementation of the board widget.

Click here for an example.

Browser limitations when showing http iframes from https sites

Some browser have a default restriction from showing http iframes within sites secured with https. If your main site uses https and you use a pgn4web board generator served with http, then some of the end user might be prevented from seeing the pgn4web chessboard.

At the moment of writing, the pgn4web board widgets from the pg4web board widget generator are served using http, while a number of sites are enforcing https seurity, including the blogger platform and the google sites hosting platform.

In order to overcome this limitation, following options are available:
- deploy the pgn4web board generator on a custom site served with https and use board widgets from that site for embedding in google sites
- use the alternative board generator service hosted on sourceforge; please note, this is an experimental installation and might be discontinued in future
- warn users to manually allow display of http frames from your site in their browser or to use a different browser

Service availability disclaimer

Before using this online service, please read the service availability disclaimer note.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: pa...@casaschi.net

The board generator tool rejects characters outside the 255 characters ascii set, replacing those (such as special unicode characters) with stars. This might affect some non English text and names. An undocumented/unsupported workaround, applicable in given circumstances, is discussed in the comments to issue 70.