Hampton v Stephens 25th March 2017

Layout

This interactive viewer is made up of the areas described below.

• Top bar — the row of buttons across the top: Help (marked with a question mark, which opens and closes this panel), Show Details / Hide Details (marked with an information “i”) and Flip Board (marked with a flip icon).
• Game details — the panel listing tags such as the event, players, result, opening and rating. It is hidden or revealed with the Show Details / Hide Details button (see below).
• Board — the chess board showing the current position.
• Evaluation bar — the coloured bar beneath the board (see below).
• Controls — the row of buttons used to step through the game.
• Moves and annotations — the scrollable list of moves, comments and variations.

Showing and hiding the game details

Depending on how the viewer is configured, the game details panel may be shown or collapsed when it first loads. Press the Hide Details button to collapse it and give the board more room; the button then reads Show Details, and pressing it again brings the panel back. When a viewer holds several games, the chosen state is kept as you switch between them.

Flipping the board

By default the board is shown from White's point of view, with the white pieces along the bottom and the black pieces along the top. Press Flip Board to turn it around so the black pieces are at the bottom and the white pieces at the top; press it again to return to the default orientation. The chosen orientation is kept as you step through the moves.

Evaluation bar

When the PGN includes engine evaluations, a horizontal bar beneath the board shows who stands better in the current position, from White's point of view. The white portion grows from the left as White's advantage increases and shrinks as Black takes over. The number in the centre is the score: a value prefixed with + favours White, − favours Black, 0.0 is equal, and a value such as #5 indicates forced mate. The bar is hidden for games that contain no evaluations.

Variations

Alternative lines branch off the main line and appear, indented or in brackets, within the moves panel. Click any move in a variation to follow that line: the board jumps to the resulting position and the move is highlighted. Continue stepping forward to play through the variation, or click a main-line move to return to the principal line.

Controls

The control buttons change which position is shown on the board, and the highlighted move updates to match:

• « Start — jumps to the initial position before the first move.
• ‹ Back — steps back one move.
• + Autoplay — toggles automatic playback, advancing one move at a time until the end of the line; press again to stop.
• › Forward — steps forward one move.
• » End — jumps to the final position of the current line.

You can also use the left and right arrow keys to step backward and forward once the viewer has focus.

Credits

Penguin chess viewer, version 1.0.8.
Author: Paul Hampton, Timegalore Ltd, www.timegalore.co.uk. Copyright © 2026.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later.