joomla portal platform integration

A joomla based site can integrate the pgn4web chessboard in either of two ways:

• through the pgn4web joomla plugin embedchessboard
• through a generic plugin enabling iframes

See for instance the pgn4web test joomla site (this is a test site, things might occasionally be broken), or look at the users sites gallery.

using the pgn4web embedchessboard plugin

plugin for joomla 1.6 or later

The latest version of the pgn4web joomla plugin embedchessboard requires joomla version 1.6 or later.

The plugin is available in the pgn4web downloads section as well as in the joomlacode plugins directory, and it is also featured in the official joomla extensions directory.

The plugin implements the joomla auto update functionality; plugin updates can be detected and installed from the update tab of the admin extension manager pages.

support for joomla 1.5

This earlier version of the plugin supports joomla 1.5. Some of the features of the latest version of the plugin might not be supported by the plugin for joomla 1.5

support for joomla 1.0

The embedchessboard plugin is not available from the pgn4web project for joomla versions prior to 1.5

A backport for joomla 1.0 has been developed by a pgn4web user and is available at the joomlacode plugins directory. Have a look at his example site.

The backport has NOT been prepared and fully checked by the pgn4web project, use at your own risk.

screenshot

integration guidelines

The following instructions refer to the latest version of the plugin, please check the download section.

Just download the plugin package, install it from the joomla administration pages and finally don't forget to activate it.

The plugin allows displaying chess games by entering the following tag within the content of your article:

[pgn parameter=value ...] 
... chess games in PGN format ...
[/pgn]

Tag parameters:

• layout=horizontal|vertical
• height=auto|number
• showMoves=figurine|text|puzzle|hidden
• initialGame=first|last|random|number
• initialVariation=number
• initialHalfmove=start|end|random|comment|number
• autoplayMode=game|loop|none

Example:

[pgn initialHalfmove=16 autoplayMode=none]

[Event "World championship"]
[Site "Moscow URS"]
[Date "1985.10.15"]
[Round "16"]
[White "Karpov"]
[Black "Kasparov"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nb5 d6 6. c4 Nf6 7. N1c3 a6 8.
Na3 d5 9. cxd5 exd5 10. exd5 Nb4 11. Be2 Bc5 12. O-O O-O 13. Bf3 Bf5 14.
Bg5 Re8 15. Qd2 b5 16. Rad1 Nd3 17. Nab1 h6 18. Bh4 b4 19. Na4 Bd6 20. Bg3
Rc8 21. b3 g5 22. Bxd6 Qxd6 23. g3 Nd7 24. Bg2 Qf6 25. a3 a5 26. axb4 axb4
27. Qa2 Bg6 28. d6 g4 29. Qd2 Kg7 30. f3 Qxd6 31. fxg4 Qd4+ 32. Kh1 Nf6 33.
Rf4 Ne4 34. Qxd3 Nf2+ 35. Rxf2 Bxd3 36. Rfd2 Qe3 37. Rxd3 Rc1 38. Nb2 Qf2
39. Nd2 Rxd1+ 40. Nxd1 Re1+ 0-1

[/pgn]

Keep in mind the graphical editor of joomla might add spurious HTML codes to your PGN data. While the plugin should be able to accomodate with that, you might want to clean your PGN input using the HTML view from the editor (some users reported an easier game entering by disabling the TinyMCE editor in the joomla global configuation).

The extension allows for plugin options for the site administrator to configure the horizontal or vertical position of the header/moves text respect to the chessboard, to blend the chessboard colors with the site template and to control the game autostart behavior at page load. To revert to default values simply leave options blank.

Other chessboard settings have been fixed in the plugin; if you really need to change those settings, the plugin code needs to be modified, look in file embedchessboard.php at the parameters passed to board.html and refer to the board widget instructions wiki page or ask for support. Please also note the plugin package has only one set of bitmaps, if you want to change bitmaps type/size you can find the whole set in the main pgn4web package.

advanced parameters

The settings of the advanced parameters section of the plugin should normally be left blank, improper values will break the chessboard display.

Please note that the joomla template might alter the appearance of the pgn4web board widget, in particular the width of the chessboard. If this happens, the advanced parameter section provides the option of setting the CSS style for the HTML DIV container of the plugin frame. The content of this parameter is directly copied in the style attribute of the DIV container and must comply with the CSS syntax. For instance, to force a fixed width to the chessboard frame, the CSS style for the HTML DIV container could be set to:

width:500px;

Please leave the advanced parameter blank unless you have a problem with the template and you know what you are doing.

In addition, the chessboard object is controlled using the chessboard-wrapper css style that as a last resort you can tweak to your needs.

caveats

• some site administrator reported the occasional need to clear the joomla chace while upgrading/reconfiguring the embedchessboard plugin. See the joomla administration page, tools menu.

using the kunena forum joomla component

Once the embedchessboard plugin is installed in joomla, it is possible to extend the usage of the [pgn] tag to the optional kunena forum component as well. This however requires manual editing of a kunena system file. Warning: manually editing a Kunena file might leave your forum unusable with your browser/server reporting errors; always make a copy of any file you manually edit to be able to restore a working forum in case of manual errors.

First locate the file joomla/components/com_kunena/lib/kunena.parser.php and make a backup copy.

Then edit the file, locating the function TagExtended(&$tag_new, &$task, $tag, $between) and at the end of the function, after

case 'spoilerlight':
  ...
  break;

add an additional case statement dealing with the pgn tag:

case 'pgn':
  $tag_new = '';
  $pgn4webPath = JURI::root(true) . "/plugins/content/embedchessboard/pgn4web";
  $pgnText = preg_replace("/\r\n/", " ", html_entity_decode($between));
  $height = 268;
  $multiGamesRegexp = '/\s*\[\s*\w+\s*"[^"]*"\s*\]\s*[^\s\[\]]+[\s\S]*\[\s*\w+\s*"[^"]*"\s*\]\s*/';
  if (preg_match($multiGamesRegexp, $pgnText) > 0) { $height += 34; }
  $pgnId = "pgn4web_" . dechex(crc32($pgnText));
  $tag_new .= "<textarea id='" . $pgnId . "' style='display:none'>" . $pgnText . "</textarea>";
  $tag_new .= "<iframe src='" . $pgn4webPath . "/board.html?am=l&d=3000&ss=26&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=Y_uS&dcs=QISv&bbcs=QISv&hm=b&hcs=zq2a&bd=c&cbcs=UJGG&ctcs=l4It&hd=j&md=f&tm=13&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=14&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=QISv&fms=14&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=Y_uS&fp=13&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pi=" . $pgnId . "' ";
  $tag_new .= "frameborder=0 width=100% height=" . $height . " scrolling='no' marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe>";
  return TAGPARSER_RET_REPLACED;
  break;

This should allow adding chessboards to kunena forum posts using the same [pgn] tag used for joomla articles, however (because of a limitation of the kunena forum) the tag parameters will be ignored.

This has been tested with kunena 1.6 in conjunction with the joomla versions supported by pgn4web.

using a generic plugin enabling iframes

Several plugin enabling iframes are available, such as the mosiframe plugin. For instance, the mosiframe plugin could be used in a blog post with the URL from the pgn4web board generator tool as the iframe URL. This is a less straightforward (requires using the board generator tool) but more flexible option (easier to modify colors and layout).