Insert Game Index

The OoChess helper program can also be called upon to create a game or opening index that can be inserted into your document. This feature is only available for games that you have inserted into your document using the template's Insert PGN command. Each time that you insert a game, or a number of games, the OoChess program writes a bookmark along with the game that contains information about the game. (Essentially, it is saving a few of the basic PGN Tags along with the game.) This information is hidden from view, but the indexing commands can access it and pass it along to the OoChess helper program to build either a game or opening index.

Insert Game Index

Assuming that you have inserted a number of games into your document using Insert PGN, you can have a game index inserted into your document by clicking on the Insert Game Index icon:

This will bring up the Game Index dialog:

As you can see from the Game Index Dialog above, there are a number of options available.

Game Reference Section

 

This section allows you to select how the games are to be referenced by your game index. Also note that when the player is playing White in a game, the game reference will be displayed in bold.

With the Number Only option selected, the games are referenced only by their game number.

With the Page Number option selected, the games are referenced by their page number. This uses a special page number field for the page number. So even if the page that your game first appeared on when you created the index changes, all you have to do is update the fields and the proper new page number will appear in the index. (You can update all the fields by pressing F9, or press Tools → Update → Fields.)

With the Hyperlink option selected, the games are referenced by a hyperlink in much the same way that a link works on a web page. You can hold down the Ctrl key and click on the hyperlink to go directly to the game. This feature is particularly useful if you plan to export your document to a PDF file. In that case, your readers will be able to click on the hyperlink to go directly to the game inside the PDF file.

Index Options:

This section allows you to select a number of features that affect how the game index appears. Consider this small illustrative game index example:

B
BERNSTEIN - Duras 10

In the above example, the capital letter 'B' is a letter heading. If you want these headings, then check the Use Letter Headings setting.

If you are using letter headings, you may wish to have a Tab stop written before each heading so that it sits out from the left edge of the page. By default, a Tab stop of 1 cm is applied:

    B
BERNSTEIN - Duras 10

You can edit the style, GiHeading, to change the length and type of Tab stop used. Set the Tab Letter Headings setting if you want this.

Again, using the above example, the first name on the line, Bernstein, appears entirely in capital letters in order to distinguish it from the names of the opponents. To use this, set Capitalize Entry Name.

Once more from the above example, after the name of the first player, in this case, Bernstein, you'll normally see a list of all his opponents and the reference for each game played against each opponent. You can choose to have the names of the opponents listed along with the game reference, or just have the game references instead. If you chose not to include the opponent names, then the above example would become:

B
BERNSTEIN - 10

To get the opponents listed, set Include Opponent Names.

Ignore Game Fragments simply tells the OoChess helper program to ignore inserted PGN games that are game fragments. That is to say, a game that does not begin from the normal starting position. (Such games have a FEN Tag.)

The Game Index Title

 

By default, the game index will be given the title: Game Index. You can set your own title for the game index by using the ox configuration file command. As an example, you could add the following line to your OoChess configuration file to change the name of the title:

ox = "*Games*"

Note the use of the '*' to indicate bold. (You can also use ~ for italics and _ for underline.)

Of course, you can just as easily edit the default Game Index title once it has been inserted into your document. That is probably the easiest option. You may wish to do this in order to make the game index title a heading, such a Heading 1, so that it will automatically be included in the TOC.

An example Game Index

Game Index

B
BERNSTEIN - Duras 10
BURN - Cohn 2
C
COHN - Burn 2
D
DURAS - Bernstein 10
DUS CHOTIMIRSKY - Mieses 1
F
FORGACS - Speijer 6
FREIMAN - Tartakower 8
L
LASKER - Schlechter 5
M
MIESES - Dus chotimirsky 1
N
NENAROKOV - Perlis 3
P
PERLIS - Nenarokov 3
R
RUBINSTEIN - Znosko borovsky 7
S
SALWE - Spielmann 9
SCHLECHTER - Lasker 5
SPEIJER - Forgacs 6
SPIELMANN - Salwe 9
T
TARTAKOWER - Freiman 8
TEICHMANN - Vidmar 4
V
VIDMAR - Teichmann 4
Z
ZNOSKO BOROVSKY - Rubinstein 7

The Opponent Game Index

 

Another useful type of game index is the opponent game index. This is especially useful if you are writing a book about a particular player, or if you are writing a book about your own games. As an example, consider Fischer's very famous book, My 60 Memorable Games. Other examples of such books are: My Best Games of Chess – Anand, My Life and Games – Kramnik, etc. In such a case, it is common to create an index of the games based upon the opponents of the main player.

If you look at the bottom of the Game Index Dialog, you'll see the following options:

If you wish to create an opponent index you must check the Create Opponent Index box.

The Main Player (Opponent Index) is where you enter the name of the player to be used for creating the opponent index. This player should be the main player, the player who appears in every game (or almost every game.) As an example, In Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games, the main player is, of course, Fischer. So this is the name that you would type in the Main Player text box.

An example Opponent Game Index

An Opponent Game Index is just a special case of a regular game index. Consider the example below of an opponent game index that was generated from a handful of games by Fischer:

Game Index

B
BYRNE - 1
C
CARDOSO -  3,  4
E
EUWE -  2
K
KERES - 5


As you can see, this is really just an expanded form of Fischer's entry from a regular game index:

F
FISCHER - Byrne 1 - Cardoso 3, 4 - Euwe 2 - Keres 5

A Note About the Game Index

The game index has certain limitations. For one, it only uses the last name of each player. This should not prove to be too great a problem for anyone, unless they are planning on writing a book on the games of the Polgar sisters. In that case, you're in big trouble! (I may implement a change for this too in a future version, if there is enough of a demand for it.)

One other thing to note about the game index: the letter headings use European ordering rules (EOR / EN 13710), so they appear in this order:

AÁÀÂÅÄÃÆBCÇDÐEÉÈÊËFGHIÍÌÎÏJKLMNÑOÓÒÔÖÕØŒPQRSߊTUÚÙÛÜVWXYÝŸZŽÞ

The actual names in the index are sorted in the order that is applicable to the locale of the computer that is used to creating the index. So my Danish friend should get an index ordered by Danish rules, whereas a user in Spain should get an index ordered by Spanish rules. It should also be pointed out that the program uses Windows-1252 for its character encoding. This means that most common European accented letters are supported, but certainly not all of them.