PgnViewerJS

PgnViewerJS is a simple JavaScript implementation to show PGN files (Portable Game Notation == Chess) in a web page. PgnViewerJS does not write everything anew, but it uses the following libraries:

chess.js Base library to model chess in JavaScript
Chessground The chessboard used by lichess.org
pegjs Parser Generator implemented in Javascript.

See the section Acknowledgments for more supporting libraries.

See the working examples on my new GitHub Pages site PgnViewerJS, especially the Configuration Builder that demonstrates all parameters in a running example.

Getting Started

The easiest way to use it is to install it by using NPM: npm install @mliebelt/pgn-viewer. You will find there the diretory lib that contains everything. Copy that onto your webserver.

Example Screenshots

The following are example screenshots with the configuration set below, to show the rich possibilities of PgnViewerJS.

The screenshots show from left to right:

mode: board; theme: sportverlag; pieceStyle: uscf
mode: edit; orientation: black; locale: de with comments
mode: view; layout: 'left' with comments

Go to the github.io pages (documentation), where the current (and former) versions are available.

Features

This implementation has the following features:

Allows to show one chess game complete, with a lot of different styles, themes, tuning, ...
Allows to play through the games forward and backward, including variations.
Allows to play from a legal position only legal moves, and adds these moves to the notation (in a different style)
Allows to play through by
- clicking on moves
- clicking on next and previous button
- clicking on play button
- using cursor left and right on the keyboard
Allows to add moves to a game, when in the right 'mode'.
Knows all PGN notation elements, and knows how to render them.

UI modes

There are four different kind of usages:

PGNV.pgnView renders the whole game, and allows to play it through, jump to any position.
PGNV.pgnEdit is a superset of pgnView, that allows to additional add variations, change the order of main line and variations, and allows all other kind of interactions that are possible: adding comments, PGN notation elements, whatever.
PGNV.pgnBoard will just show a position without any interaction possible.
PGNV.pgnPrint will just show a whole chess game, without any interaction possible.

There is at the moment no way to save a game that was edited in pgnEdit mode. But you may at least copy the whole notation, and insert it again in the HTML code of your web page.

Running the tests

Run npm test. This runs the tests for the module pgn-reader.

Deployment

From Release

Copy the files from directory lib into a web server.
Create new HTML files with the corresponding head and body.

From Clone

Clone the repository.
Run npm install from the root, to ensure are tools are installed.
Run npm build to both modules (first pgn-reader, then pgn-viewer) build a distribution.
Copy the files from the directory modules/pgn-viewer/lib.
Create new HTML files with the corresponding head and body.

About handling of assets

Due to the fact that Webpack holds the assets under a given directory (in my case, it is /lib/). If you deploy the PgnViewerJS under any different root path, you have to define that root path by providing a Javascript line before loading the library:

 <script>__globalCustomDomain = '/PgnViewerJS/js/';</script>
 <script src="/PgnViewerJS/js/pgnv.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Using the viewer

To use the viewer in an HTML page, you have to do the following steps:

Include the necessary library pgnv.js and the corresponding resources locales and pgnv-assets.
Have Fontawesome referenced.
Include the necessary div container for rendering of the board and the moves.
Include JavaScript code inside your HTML page to call the viewer.

So a rough template will look like:

<!DOCTYPE html>
    <head>
        <script src="js/pgnv.js" type="text/javascript" ></script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="board"></div>
        <script>
            PGNV.pgnView('board',{ pgn: '1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5', pieceStyle: 'merida' });
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

Built With

NPM For libraries, building, ...
Webpack For building optimized bundle.

Contributing

If you find something strange (bug), expect some feature (feature) or just want to comment on anything, please file first a ticket in Github.

If you want to help in implementing something, clone the repository, change whatever you want to, and provide a pull request that I can look at.

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

From the version 1.0.0 on, the whole package can be downloaded / installed by using NPM:

Download: npm pack @mliebelt/pgn-viewer Results in download of a file mliebelt-pgn-viewer-1.3.0.tgz, that contains in the directory package/lib all resources needed.
Install: npm install @mliebelt/pgn-viewer as part of some other application. You will find then the files in the directory node_modules/@mliebelt/pgn-viewer/lib.

The older versions are available for download from the links below.

Version 0.9.8: Start play parameter, allow arrows and circles from Chessground, color marker for player at move, option for result in PGN notation.
Version 0.9.7: UI with Chessground, small improvements, promotion.
Version 0.9.6: A lot of fixes, multi-line notation, stability.
Version 0.9.5: Some more fixes, stability.
Version 0.9.4: Finished edit mode, cleanup, some more fixes.
Version 0.9.3: Allows special markup, some more bug fixes.
Version 0.9.2: Some more bug fixes, examples to all issues at GitHub, added Changelog.md, started restructuring the sources.
Version 0.9.1: Some bug fixes, examples to all issues at GitHub, some additional examples and a lot of fixes in the documentation.
Version 0.9.0: Nearly feature complete, roughly documented, stable enough to play with it.

Authors

Markus Liebelt - mliebelt

License

PgnViewerJS is licensed under the Apache license 2.0, see the LICENSE.md file for details.

Acknowledgments

We use the following libraries in the implementation:

chess.js Base library to model chess in JavaScript
Chessground The chessboard used by lichess.org
pegjs Parser Generator implemented in Javascript.
Mousetrap Binds keys to actions in the UI
roddeh-i18n Internationalization (== i18n) library to translate chess into current 18 languages. Strings are inlined in the library.
Timer.js Small timer for automatic moves
FontAwesome: Nice icon font used for some buttons
PGN Specification: PGN (Portable Game Notation) specification
NAG Specification Definition of the NAGs (Numeric Annotation Glyphs)

Thank you a lot to all contributors of issues.

Known Usage

PgnJS Plugin for Mediawiki that uses PgnViewerJS to display chess games.
PgnViewerJS-WP Plugin for Wordpress to show games with the help of PgnViewerJS

LTe / PgnViewerJS