About Personas

First, Personas are OPTIONAL -- you do not need to use them. If you want to personalize the game, read on.

A Persona is a simple profile for yourself and the players that you commonly play. It allows you to quickly personalize the Game Display with one click by applying a Persona to either the white or black player. You would apply a Persona to the white player by clicking Edit -- Player Persona -- Set White Persona. Then pick the persona to apply from the resulting pick list.

Persona List Editor

Before you can apply a persona, you need to create it. You can literally create a new persona in less than a minute. Open Edit -- Player Persona -- Manage Personas to bring up the Persona List Editor. Pick an existing Persona in the list, then click the Edit button to edit that Persona. Or click the Add button to create a new Persona. Insert creates a new Persona and places it in the list at the current selected position.

Persona Editor

The only field is that is required for a Persona is the Screen Name. Fields are as follows:

• Name  - Player name, nickname or initials. Printed in the Game Stats.
• Screen Name  - Player screen name displayed at the top of the Game Display.
• Rating  - Player ELO rating if known. ELO is a skill rating and is printed in the Game Stats. In general, 1200 is considered a bright beginner. A regular competitive chess player is rated at around 1750.
• Avatar File  - Image file to be displayed in the player image box on the lower section of the Game Display. Click the Search folder button to locate your image file. Click the Remove image button to remove the reference to an image. This button will not delete the image file itself. If no image file is specified, the default image is displayed. The program keeps the folder address location and file name of the image. So if you move the image to another folder or delete it, the default image will be used on the Game Display.

Avatar Image Formats and Size

Most photo images you take with a digital camera will work as is. But for optimal results, the image should be cropped to a square size (ex. 96x96 pixels). Images that are not square will be streched or squeezd to fit the square box depending on the width to height ratio. It won't hurt anything to try an image. Most graphic formats will work ( bmp, jpg, png, gif, ...) including animated instant messaging icons. Of course, animations can be distracting to serious players.