ICC Help: Recorder

Recorder, Replayer1, Replayer2, and the new MrSpock are a set of bots designed to let you record and share chess lectures and analysis.

To use Recorder, examine a game, /tell Recorder watch me, and then make your moves and kibitz your commentary. You can also draw circles and arrows, go back and play alternative moves, and even edit the position or use loadfen, and Recorder will take note of it all. When you've finished, /unexamine (or close the game window), and if there are other examiners of your game have them do so too.

To see the file-names of the lectures you have recorded, type /tell Replayer1 listmine. The replay a lecture, find or wait for an available Replayer bot, say Replayer1, /follow Replayer1, then /tell Replayer1 replay <file-name>. You can also tell it "faster", "slower", or "stop".

You can edit your lecture using the web form at https://www.chessclub.com/cgi-auth/lectures/edit.pl Using this method you can add some more commands besides the ones that Recorder captured, but the Replayer bots won't just execute any command you enter, only certain commands. The lecture commands it knows are:

- Chess moves, e.g. "e4"
- "kibitz <text>"
- "circle <square>"
- "arrow <from> <to>"
- "back <number>"
- "set wild <number>"
- "examine"
- "loadfen <FEN>"
- "tag <pgn-tag> <value>" e.g. "tag White Kasparov"
- "result <result>" e.g. "result 1-0"
- "multi ..." or ";..." but only combinations of commands that it knows
- "%delayfactor <number>" e.g. "%delayfactor 1.5" affects the delay between commands. The default value is 1.
- "%suggesttrainingbot <number>" pops up a suggestion box (BlitzIn only)
- "%suggestproblembot <number>" is similar
- "%listenfor <identifier> <pattern>" -- see explanation below
- "%await <identifier> <duration> <skip>"

%listenfor and %await are an experimental way to try to make lectures more interactive. They go together. The %listenfor line sets a pattern to look for in the observers' kibitzes, presumably the answer to a question. Then the %await line has Replayer wait for at most <duration> seconds or until the answer has been kibitzed; if no one gives the answer, Replayer proceeds to the next line, but if the answer is given it skips <skip> lines.

Here is an example lecture script that illustrates some of these features. This is Undertone_2002-04-08_16:55

set wild 0 examine kibitz Undertone: The world's stupidest lecture kibitz How to lose in two moves! tag White me tag Black you f4 e5 ;g4;%listenfor mate1 Qh4|qh4|Q-R5|Q-KR5 kibitz What is Black's best move? Kibitz it. %await mate1 10 7 kibitz Hint: Always check -- it might be mate! %await mate1 5 5 %delayfactor 2.0 circle e1 arrow h4 e1 kibitz Nobody can guess? arrow d8 h4 Qh4# kibitz Try playing TrainingBot to practice finding mates! %suggesttrainingbot 1732 kibitz That's all, folks!

The editing form also lets you set a title for the lecture, and to choose a status for it, one of
- recorded
- junk
- private
- needs work
- public
- approved

Only the official ICC editor can mark a lecture 'approved' or add it to MrSpock's lists. (It's not clear yet who that will be.) /tell Replayer1 list to list the approved lectures, and help MrSpock to see its list.

See also: MrSpock, examine