11. Informator symbols (+)

We already introduced the LaTeX commands "\bf" and "\em" in the preceding section. All Informator symbols also have to be entered as commands, starting with a "\" followed by the name of the command, which can be a little bit cryptic sometimes. Instead of remembering "\bdecisive" for "black has a decisive advantage" you should use the list box to the right of the ChessTask window as follows:

• Select the symbol you want to enter, by clicking on its description with the left mouse button. The list entry should now be highlighted.
• Click into one of the text fields Title of the task, Task or Solution and position the cursor to where you want to insert the symbol.
• Use the button Insert below the list box to insert the appropriate command.

Like this, Informator symbol commands can be entered anywhere in the input text. As default, the symbols are inserted without a space after them (Remark: The blank that you see in the input text does not appear in the output! It marks the end of the command, so do not delete it!). If you really want to have a blank between the symbol and the following text, set the box With trailing space to "checked". Now, the commands for the Informator symbols look a little bit different and a blank is appended in the output.

Starting with version 2.0 of ChessTask the Informator symbols are visible in the LaTeX and HTML output. The HTML version requires the export option Use TrueType font (see Export to HTML) and the user will have to install the DBChess font, unfortunately.

If you dislike this you can still switch back to the ``old style'' of displaying Informator symbols by ``unchecking'' the options Use TrueType font and Informator symbols in plain text: As mentioned in Export to HTML, ChessTask uses PNG graphic files to display the HTML board diagram. This works fine because these PNG files have a size of 29x29, so the pieces can be distinguished well. For the Informator symbols and the chess piece symbols within the "move" environment (see Advanced text options) the PNGs would need to have a size of 13x13 pixels because they are embedded in the normal text. This is definitely to small, you can not tell one symbol from the other.

So, back in earlier versions 1.x, I had to think of another way to represent the Informator commands in HTML and this is what I came up with: I created a special symbol---a circle with a cross inside---with the needed size of 13x13 pixels that represents all Informator symbols at once. The meaning of the actual symbol is shown if you point to it with the mouse! (I am using the HTML parameters "ALT" and "TITLE" for this.)

Here is an example:

If you dislike this as well---perhaps because you want to print the tasks from your HTML browser directly---you can set Informator symbols in plain text in "Export"/"Options" to "checked" (see also Export to HTML). All Informator symbols are then output as plain text, enclosed in parentheses.

As always, there are exceptions from the rules:

• The symbols "Marker A" and "Marker B" are no Informator symbols of course. You can use them in your input texts to refer to the cross and circle marker for the board diagram. They appear as graphic in the HTML output ( and ).
• Because they are probably used very often, I decided to convert the two Informator symbols "mate" and "equal" to "#" and "=", respectively. Please, remember that you should not use "#" in the input text (see Editing title, task and solution). It is a special character for TeX/LaTeX and may lead to unexpected results!