The ICS.el software is an interactive Emacs mode designed for chess players who want to interact with internet chess servers. It provides an efficient way to play and observe chess games online.
If you're an avid chess player, then the ics.el project might be what you're looking for. It's an Emacs mode designed for interactions with internet chess servers, such as FICS and ICC. This major mode relies on comint and is written in Emacs-Lisp. It's recommended that you use it in conjunction with a graphical interface, such as Xboard, to get the best experience.
One of the main advantages of ics.el is its customizability. You can use Emacs lisp to configure the tool to your liking, and it offers features like color highlighting and "buttonization." This means that certain portions of the text become active, and you can use the mouse to challenge opponents or issue other commands with a single click.
Moreover, ics.el boasts excellent command recall and editing functions. You can automate commands based on regexps seen in the ICS output, and the software's connection mechanism has been tweaked to use a different variable, ics-interface-with-helper-args, which allows for different xboard command lines to be used. This is an improvement on the previous version, which didn't work for some under Mandrake Linux 8.0.
Other updates to the software include new IP addresses and default ics-servers-alist variables for different servers, such as BCF server and chess.net. Additionally, a new escape has been added for "----" and "++++" parts of regexps, since their previous form broke the XEmacs version.
The wholist buttonization regexp has also been fixed so that it now recognizes "&" between rating and handle. Furthermore, ics.el no longer breaks other comint based modes, thanks to several fixes by John Wiegley, who replaced global comint hooks with local hooks.
Lastly, there's a new feature that lets you run the interface program (e.g., xboard) under gdb in the ics sessions. The variable ics-gdb-interface controls this. All things considered, ics.el is a powerful tool for chess players who want to interact with internet chess servers, and its latest update makes it even more useful.
One of the main advantages of ics.el is its customizability. You can use Emacs lisp to configure the tool to your liking, and it offers features like color highlighting and "buttonization." This means that certain portions of the text become active, and you can use the mouse to challenge opponents or issue other commands with a single click.
Moreover, ics.el boasts excellent command recall and editing functions. You can automate commands based on regexps seen in the ICS output, and the software's connection mechanism has been tweaked to use a different variable, ics-interface-with-helper-args, which allows for different xboard command lines to be used. This is an improvement on the previous version, which didn't work for some under Mandrake Linux 8.0.
Other updates to the software include new IP addresses and default ics-servers-alist variables for different servers, such as BCF server and chess.net. Additionally, a new escape has been added for "----" and "++++" parts of regexps, since their previous form broke the XEmacs version.
The wholist buttonization regexp has also been fixed so that it now recognizes "&" between rating and handle. Furthermore, ics.el no longer breaks other comint based modes, thanks to several fixes by John Wiegley, who replaced global comint hooks with local hooks.
Lastly, there's a new feature that lets you run the interface program (e.g., xboard) under gdb in the ics sessions. The variable ics-gdb-interface controls this. All things considered, ics.el is a powerful tool for chess players who want to interact with internet chess servers, and its latest update makes it even more useful.
What's New
Version 0.4.1: N/A