FICS Upgrade
There were some significant changes to FICS in the
month of November, including added alias capability
and some new variables and interface variables.
First, news items 512-519 cover all of the changes
regarding the way aliases work on FICS. If you're new to
FICS or just haven't ever used aliases, you might want
to read the first part of
help alias
for the basics, keeping in mind that this help file has
not been updated to reflect the changes made early in
November. The main change came in the form of new
meta-characters that can be used in aliases. One of the
definitions of the prefix meta- is change
or transform. Meta-characters are characters you
can place in an alias that will change into other
characters when the alias is used. The entire list is
as follows (it can also be found in news 512):
|
$$
|
replace with a $
|
|
$@
|
replace with all parameters
|
|
$n
|
replace with word number n
|
|
$-n
|
replace with all words 1-n
|
|
$n-
|
replace with all words from n onward
|
|
$m
|
replace with my handle
|
|
$o
|
replace with my (last) opponent's name
|
|
$p
|
replace with my partner's name
|
|
$.
|
replace with the last person I told to
|
|
$,
|
replace with the last channel I told to
|
For example, if AcademiaNut made the following alias:
alias bighead tell $m Boy, you sure are a great guy!
then typed: bighead it would be the same as if he typed:
tell AcademiaNut Boy, you sure are a great guy!
and he would see:
AcademiaNut tells you: Boy, you
sure are a great guy!
A slightly more complicated example that also demonstrates
the added usefulness of these new alias features are the
server aliases answer and answer4:
answer tell 1 (answering $1): $2-
answer4 tell 4 (answering $1): $2-
If AcademiaNut answered a question in channel 4 by typing:
answer4 GuestTMZG type "help register" to learn how to join FICS :)
everyone listening to channel 4 would see:
AcademiaNut(4): (answering GuestTMZG): type "help
register" to learn how to join FICS :)
For the complete list of server aliases, check out news 513.
One more silly example AcademiaNut could do:
alias mirror tell $m $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6 | $6 $5 $4 $3 $2
$1 :uoy sllettuNaimedacA
and after typing mirror M I R R O R he would see
AcademiaNut tells you: M I R R O R | R O R R I M
:uoy sllet tuNaimedacA
As always, if you're having trouble with a server command,
ask in channel 1, and if no one online can answer your
question,
email us at support@freechess.org
and a Service Representative or Administrator will answer as soon as
one becomes available.
Other important changes include a couple of new variables,
noescape and minmovetime.
If a game begins where both players have
noescape=1 then a disconnection by either
player during the game will result in a forfeit. Keep
in mind though that having noescape=1 does not guarantee
that you will never get another stored game, since so far
the server does not require both players have the same
noescape setting to start a game.
The variable minmovetime used to be called
premove and when active deducts a minimum
of 0.1 seconds from a player's clock after each move. Before this
variable was added, theoretically a player with a premoving
interface could make moves without losing any time from
their clock. Note that this variable
will be active if either or both players in a game have
minmovetime=1 at the start of the game.
The default settings are noescape=0 and minmovetime=1. To
toggle your variable settings, type
set noescape or
set minmovetime and to list
all your variable settings, type
variables
(or just [vars] for short)
Remember that all important server changes are noted in
help new_features and often also in news items.
