<html> <head> <title> Scid Help: Quick Guide to using Scid </title> <STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- body { background: #ffffff; } h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 { color: #990000; } h1 { align: center; } --> </STYLE> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff"> <h1>Quick Guide to using Scid</h1> <p> Scid is a chess database application; with it you can browse databases of chess games, edit games and <a href="Searches.html">search</a> for games by various criteria. </p> <p> Scid uses its own special three-file <a href="Formats.html">database format</a> which is very compact and fast, but it can convert to and from the standard PGN (Portable Game Notation) format. Scids <a href="PGN.html">PGN window</a> displays the text of the current game in PGN format. </p> <p> You can use Scid to add chess games to a database, using the keyboard or mouse to enter moves. See the help page on <a href="Moves.html">entering chess moves</a> for more details. </p> <p> You can also use Scid as a <a href="PGN.html">PGN</a> file browser, by pasting PGN text into Scids <a href="Import.html">Import</a> window or by opening a PGN file in Scid. However, PGN files cannot be edited by Scid (it opens them read-only) and they use more memory and are slower to load, so for large PGN files it is recommended that you create a Scid database from them first with the <a href="Pgnscid.html">pgnscid</a> utility. </p> <p> The <a href="MainWindow.html">main window</a> of Scid (with the graphical chess board) shows details of the active game and database. At any time, you can have up to four databases open (five including the <a href="Clipbase.html">clipbase</a>), and each will have its own active game. (A game numbered 0 indicates a scratch game that is not part of the actual database). You can switch between the open databases with the <a href="Menus.html\#File">File menu</a>. </p> <p> For more information, please read the other help pages listed in the <a href="Index.html">Help Index</a>. </p> <p> See the <a href="Author.html">contact information</a> page if you need to contact the author of Scid. </p> <p><center><font size=-1>(Updated: Scid 3.1, December 2001)</font></center></p> <p><hr><a href="Index.html">Scid Help Index</a> </body> </html>