
LiChess Tools is a Chromium-based browser extension (meaning Chrome, Brave, Edge, Kiwi - which also works on mobiles - and others) that extends the functionalities of the lichess.org web site. This page is the user manual for the extension, cataloguing all of its current features and explaining how to use them.
All of the features below can be individually turned on or off from the Preferences menu, the LiChess Tools menu entry. Note that many of the options will be hidden until you toggle Advanced Preferences - these features will be marked with Advanced in the category section.
Here are the available features in LiChess Tools v2.1.15, in the order of decreasing approximate importance:
Extended interactive lessons
category: Study
values: Play all variations/Show score - defaults to both
This feature may be the flagship of the extension, as it allows you to play an Interactive lesson chapter by going through all variations instead of just the mainline. The default lichess behavior is to only follow the mainline, considering all sidelines as bad. With the new behavior all moves in the PGN tree are good, while the ones missing are bad. You can mark the bad variations with glyphs (good move, mistake, blunder, etc.), for example, to indicate if a move is bad or good, but you can continue playing it to see why.
There is a mechanism to choose what the computer will play next as your opponent. It uses the number of branches in 8 ply (4 chess moves for both players) to determine which is more probable. This value can be changed (see Next move probability depth feature) For example if you have something like 1. e4 (1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 (2. Nf3)) 1... e5 2. Nf3, the mechanism will see that there are two possible branches for d4 as opposed to one for e4, so it will choose d4 66% of the time. The probability can be changed manually by adding a comment in the move with the format prc:<number>, where the number is a percentage between 1 and 100. Also, if set in the Transpositions behavior feature, the moves can be picked from moves following transposing positions.
When hints are not provided by the study creator, one will be generated to show how many possible moves are available.
There is also a system to compute accuracy when playing an interactive lesson by counting the good and the bad moves. This will be displayed as a percentage at the end of the lesson and can be turned off by option.
The lichess UI remains the same, therefore the area in which to explain why any other move is wrong only appears on mainline moves. That is why this feature also adds a context menu item for nodes in interactive lessons to enable editing that information. As usual, when a "bad" move is made, the text to be displayed to the user will be taken from the first child (next move) of the current node (move). Therefore in order to make this work you have to right-click that node and explain why bad moves are wrong. This might be a bit counterintuitive, as you may have several moves following the current position, but the explanation has to be set to the first next move.
Options:
- Play all variations - enables the Extended mode for interactive lessons, allowing you to play all variations with the computer picking random moves from the ones available in the PGN
- Show score - shows the score at the end of the lesson. One can disable this to reduce frustration or for other reasons.
These options are also available in the action menu (hamburger button) of the analysis board when in a study chapter that is of type Interactive Lesson. This allows to quickly enable/disable just these relevant settings.
Notes:
- one can play all variations of an interactive lesson with multiple branches only with the LiChess Tools extension installed, so if you create such a lesson only people with the extension can enjoy it. It would be nice to let everybody know that in a comment if you share it.
- asking to show the next move will show a random move of the possible ones. Click on the button multiple times to go through more of them. Be warned that pressing the button is seen by the scoring system as a fail.
Ctrl-right to play random next move from list
category: Analysis/Study
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature will allow you to play a random move by pressing Ctrl-right. There is a mechanism to choose what the computer will play next as your opponent. It uses the number of branches in 8 ply (4 chess moves for both players) to determine which is more probable. This value can be changed (see Next move probability depth feature) For example if you have something like 1. e4 (1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 (2. Nf3)) 1... e5 2. Nf3, the mechanism will see that there are two possible branches for d4 as opposed to one for e4, so it will choose d4 66% of the time. The probability can be changed manually by adding a comment in the move with the format prc:<number>, where the number is a percentage between 1 and 100. Also, if set in the Transpositions behavior feature, the moves can be picked from moves following transposing positions.
Ctrl-left works almost like the left key, going to the previous position, but in this case it will go to the position you came from, not from the previous position on the line you've jumped to.
Notes:
- if set in Transpositions behavior, Ctrl-right may choose a move from another line, but made from the same position, which means that going "back" will go to the previous position in the current line, not the original one. Use Ctrl-Left to return to the position you jumped from.
- the keyboard shortcuts will be shown in the keyboard help popup if this feature is enabled
Behavior of transpositions
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: exclude if same line/don't add identical next moves/play moves from transpositions - defaults to none
This feature determines what a transposition is for other features that use transpositions. The options are:
- exclude if same line - two identical positions in the same PGN will not be considered transpositions of one another if they are in the same line of moves (one came before the other) (see Highlight moves in analysis and Show next moves from transpositions)
- don't add identical next moves - when showing next possible moves at the bottom of the move list, if adding them from transposing positions, don't add the same move twice (see Show next moves from transpositions)
- play moves from transpositions - when picking a next move to play, use transposing positions as well (see Ctrl-right to play random next move from the list and Extended Interactive Lessons)
- none - when none of the values above are selected, any two identical positions will be considered transpositions, the move list can show multiple identical moves if they are coming from different transpositions/lines and the extension will not pick next moves using transpositions.
Next move probability depth
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: equal/one move/two moves/three moves/five moves - defaults to 4 moves (8 ply)
This configures the mechanism calculating the probability of a next move in the PGN (see Extended Interactive Lessons and Ctrl-right to play random next move from list). The default value goes 4 moves for each player to see how many branches follow. It will then weigh each next move in the list based on that. If you want to turn this off completely, just select equal, which means it will not look at following moves at all.
Enhanced PGN import
category: Analysis
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
Another important feature of LiChess Tools, this one makes changes to the import mechanism in the Analysis board page. You can now import multiple PGNs at the same time and they will get merged into a single one. It is great for creating repertoires, analyzing the games of a specific player or creating Extended Interactive Lessons. From the Analysis board you can go to options and turn it into a study.
Notes:
- the import mechanism in Analysis ignores comments from the PGNs. This is a lichess limitation and to get around it I would have to rewrite the entire thing. I may do that, but it's not planned.
- the import in Analysis is different from the one in Studies. The one in Analysis is client based, while the one in Studies is on the server. That is why I can only alter the one in Analysis.
- there is no logical limit to how many PGNs to import, but the Analysis board has a limit of about 5000 moves. Also, the API to turn it into a study has a size limitation, so if you try to turn a huge analysis to a study and it fails, know that it is too big. Highlighting moves on huge PGNs also is slow. So use with care.
Friends box
category: Friends
values: Default/Menu/Open/Hidden - defaults to Menu
This has evolved a lot. Originally it was automatically opening the friends box, but then several requests came that complained about the placement of the friends box and how distracting it was. So the current version of the feature can either:
- Default - the default behavior of the friends list: stays in the bottom-right corner, only updates when opened, which requires a user click.
- Button- the friends box is removed and replaced with a friends button, similar to the Notifications one. It will update in real time with the number of friends online and will change color when any one of them is playing.
- Menu - the friends box is removed and replaced with a friends menu. It will update in real time with the number of friends online and will change color when any one of them is playing. It will also show the number of playing friends in a small blue square.
- Open - the default behavior of the friends list, but it will open automatically when loading the page
- Hidden - the friends list will disappear completely
Notes:
- clicking on the main menu item directly will open the friends page, but not on mobiles
- when the width of the page goes under 972px, menus are grouped under a hamburger menu. The Friends menu will disappear and become a button in that case.
Live friends page
category: Friends
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This is linked to the Friends box feature. The default behavior is to load whatever list of friends you have and then leave it at that. This feature will update the friends list in real time, while also allowing filtering by who is online, who is playing and (if player voice alerts are enabled) which player is muted.
Each player will have a TV icon as well and (if player voice alerts are enabled) a mute/unmute button to include them in the alerts. (see Sound and voice alert with friends start playing)
Sound and voice alert when friends start playing
category: Friends
values: Ultrabullet/Bullet/Blitz/Rapid/Classical/Standard only- defaults to none
This feature will beep and spell out the player name and type of game they started. The type of the game can be chosen from the values. The definition of the game type comes from lichess, which assumes a typical game will be around 40 moves.
You can also choose which specific players to have the alert for, by going to the friends page and clicking the mute buttons. (see Live friends page)
If you select Standard only, then the alerts will only be sounded for the Standard variant of the game.
Notes:
- Chromium (and other) browsers disallow sounds from page load until the user does something like click on the page. In case an alert is attempted and audio is not allowed a red icon will appear next to the top buttons, which will disappear once the audio is allowed again.
- The audio icon is part of lichess, which will also display it once sound is attempted but not allowed. At this time, the lichess icon will NOT disappear unless you click on it, different from how LiChess Tools uses it for alerts.
- If you are playing a game on another tab, the sounds will not be played if the Quiet mode on all tabs feature is enabled.
Practice against moves from Opening Explorer
category: Analysis/Study
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This is another great feature that allows you to play against whatever is selected in the Opening Explorer. Select masters to play against the best players, select Lichess and select the range of player to train against and select specific users to test your strategies against their played games. The feature can be turned on/off not only from Preferences, but also from the Explorer config screen.
In order to use this feature you need to go to the Analysis board or a study, open the Explorer and click on the icon next to the Masters tab, the one that looks like an arrow hitting a target.
Notes:
- you can toggle Explorer Practice by clicking on the arrow in the target button, but also with shift-L, to make it easier to switch between computer evaluation and the practice mode
- the keyboard help popup shows this shortcut if the feature is enabled
- the moves in the explorer window will get hidden in Analysis, but not in studies. The motivation being that one is more like a game, with no lasting effects, the other is research.
- if the Show emojis when out of moves feature is enabled in Explorer Practice options, then at the end of a run, when there are no more moves available in the Explorer for the feature to make, a quick computer analysis will be run to show you a smiley (happy or sad).
Explorer Practice options
Options for the Explorer Practice feature:
- Show emojis when out of moves - set by default - will run a short computer analysis when out of moves in Explorer Practice, then show an happy/sad emoji based on the eval.
Highlight moves in analysis
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: Last move in each variation/Not commented last moves/Transpositions to current move - defaults to Last move in each variation/Not commented last moves
This feature will highlight moves in the analysis move list. Each option highlights a specific thing:
- Last move in each variation - for each branch, highlights the last move
- Not commented last moves - for each branch, highlights the last move that has no comment or is not a mate
- Transpositions to current move - highlights positions that are identical to the current one in the same PGN (see Behavior of transpositions to change what the extension considers a transposition)
Extra context menu options
category: Analysis/Study
values: Copy branch as PGN/Engine evaluation for last moves/Highlight all transpositions/Remove superfluous - defaults to Copy branch as PGN, Engine evaluation for last moves, Remove superfluous
This feature will add extra options to the analysis move list context menu. The options are:
- Copy branch as PGN - this works in Analysis and Studies and turns all the previous moves of the line you are in, plus all the branches after the move, into a PGN in your clipboard. You can use it to split large PGNs by copying variations into their own chapters, then maybe deleting them from the original one.
- Engine evaluation for last moves - this works only for Studies, because it involves move comments. It will go through all of the uncommented last moves and create a comment in the form eval:<evaluation> using the local computer engine. The evaluation will stop at the engine depth selected in Preferences (see Minimum analysis engine depth).
- Highlight all transpositions - this works for both Analysis and Studies and highlights all moves that have transpositions. You can configure what a transposition is in Preferences (see Behavior of transpositions)
- Remove superfluous - this removes the Annotate with glyphs and Comment on this move context menu entries for study moves. There are buttons for this under the board and so these entries take too much needed space.
Minimum analysis engine depth
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: a number representing the depth - defaults to empty
This feature will allow you to set a depth level for the computer engine. If the current move has a smaller depth level (let's say it was cached in the cloud with that level) it will start the local computer evaluation. Once it reaches the set depth, the engine will stop.
This feature is also used as the level at which to consider evaluation done for the Engine evaluation for last moves option (see Extra context menu options)
Show next moves from transpositions
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
When you get to a certain position in the PGN which has transpositions, the next moves from those transpositions will be displayed under the move list, just like for a fork into multiple variations. You can configure what a transposition is, as well as if you want multiple identical moves to be shown or not and if the moves in this list should be considered by Ctrl-right and Extended Interactive Lessons in Preferences (see Behavior of transpositions)
Extra key shortcuts
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
this feature adds extra key shortcuts to analysis:
- first it changes the functionality of the i, m and b keys to work in analysis as well as studies and to use all variations, not just the main line as the original lichess behvaior. The functionality of these keys is to jump to the next inaccuracy, mistake or blunder, respectively
- it adds the same functionality to Alt-i, Alt-m and Alt-b, only for the opponent
- g and Alt-g cycle through good/brilliant/interesting moves
- it ads the ability to select any of the moves in the available moves lists:
- press . (dot) and then a digit and it will make to the nth next move available in the PGN (see Transpositions behavior if you want to select moves from transpositions, too)
- press Ctrl-. and then a digit and it will make to the nth next move available in the computer evaluation list
- press Shift-. and then a digit and it will make to the nth next move available in the opening explorer list
Notes:
- the keyboard help popup now shows all of these shortcuts if the feature is enabled
Additional glyphs
category: Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature displays an extra # glyph on mate moves. Also it enlarges glyphs on mobile devices.
Notes:
- The lichess UI allows for multiple glyphs on the same move. The one shown on board will just be the first one in the list.
- Originally this feature was created to show annotations that lichess was not showing. From September 2013 lichess started natively showing all annotations, therefore eliminating the need for much of the functionality of the feature. Since the changes on lichess are volatile, this feature might need to go back and forth as well.
Extra analysis charting
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: Material/Principled/Max tension/Max potential/Find interesting moves/Chart smoothing/on Eval gauge - defaults to Material,Principled,Max tension,Chart smoothing,on Eval gauge
This experimental feature is adding extra lines on the computer analysis chart. In the search for good/great/brilliant moves - as shown on chess.com and requested by a lot of players, the lines drawn over the normal computer eval chart are meant to give some indication of what is going on without asserting an exact significance of the values. The lines are purposefully left without explanation, in the hope that players recognize some aspects of the game in the numerical values charted and their intersection.
For example, many of the moves generally considered brilliant see a steep increase in evaluation, but a steep decrease in material and/or principled position, indicating a sacrifice or an unnatural seeming move that wins the game.
If Find interesting moves is enabled then an extra entry in the analysis summary shows the total of interesting/good/brilliant moves in the PGN. The feature will also attempt to find such moves automatically.
Options:
- Material - green dashed line shows a more classical material difference between the sides
- Principled - blue dashed line shows how principled the position is. This means stuff like square control, freedom of movement, developed centralized pieces, etc, but excepting material value.
- Max tension - red dotted vertical line shows the point of maximum tension in the game. Tension here is defined as the total material that can be captured by both sides in just one move.
- Max potential - green dotted vertical line shows the point of maximum potential (similar to tension, but it superficially looks at capture chains)
- Find interesting moves - if enabled, this will show good/brilliant/interesting moves in the analysis summary as a link that cycles through them. It will also automatically find some categories of interesting moves and mark them with !? glyphs (if not already annotated). The glyphs added by this algorithm will be temporary (not persisted on the server).
- Chart smoothing - if this is enabled, temporary spikes in the charts will be removed. Example: you take a bishop with a knight, the material jumps 3 points in your favor, but the next move the opponent takes your knight, so the material goes back to 0. The smoothing function will attempt to remove these meaningless jumps in material.
- on Eval gauge - if this is set, two lines (one green and one blue) will appear on the evaluation gauge when it is visible, changing with the values of material and principled values, respectively.
Notes:
- I called it "interesting moves" because there is no objective good/brilliant move algorithm. I will continue to work on it in the future.
Change chapter names from PGN tags
category: Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature will give you the option to quickly change the name of a study chapter to either the content of its Event PGN tag or the White and Black PGN tags combines when editing the chapter. Sometimes people want to import a series of PGNs into a study, but only the first chapter gets a proper naming from the PGN tags, the rest getting the default Chapter 2, Chapter 3... etc name. With this you can go to each of them, edit them by clicking the cog button next to their names, then choosing with one click the name the chapter should have.
Study chapter navigation controls
category: Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature will add a set of buttons at the end of the chapter list in a study. The buttons allow to navigate to the first chapter, previous chapter, random chapter, next chapter and last chapter respectively.
Sticky study Preview mode
category: Study, Interactive Lesson chapters - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature will keep you in Preview mode as you move from one Interactive lesson chapter to another. As one trains using interactive lessons, at the end of one they are presented with the option to move to the next chapter. The default lichess behavior is to show you the chapter in edit mode (assuming you are the owner or a contributor) which requires you to press the Preview button all the time to continue training, after also having seen the move list. Now you can press Preview once and play chapter after chapter with no hassle.
Show game opening names
category: General
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature will load the lichess opening name for games and display it. When watching a game or analyzing it, the opening will be shown under the player names. For mini-games (the tiny ones that appear when hovering over a game link or put somewhere on the page) it will appear at the bottom. For Analysis board, if the wiki side is empty, it will show the opening there, assuming the position is in the local cache.
Notes:
- For v2.0.29 this feature has been overhauled to use a local cache of openings, where possible, so that it queries the server as little as possible. That is why the extension doubled in size at that time.
Show player country flags
category: General
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
A very early feature of the extension, it has also evolved a lot. The latest version is much more efficient in terms of how it gets the data from the server and adds flags to almost every place where a user link is shown. I am aware that this might be distracting and I am planning some detailed values to choose how wide spread the flags will be. Also, did you notice the flags are lazily flapping in the wind?
Autosave analysis for reload
category: Analysis - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This happened to me a lot of times: I am analyzing something and I accidentally swipe the touchpad or press some key that reloads the page. All my work is gone! This feature keeps track of the latest modifications of analysis PGN and reloads it on page load. It is your choice if you want to import it or not by going to the PGN text area and clicking the Import PGN button.
There is also a Reload PGN button added by this feature, although now that it automatically reloads the PGN, it has lost much of its utility.
Notes:
- The saved PGN as well as the analysis import text area content will be overwritten by whatever move you make, so if you fail to import the PGN and make a move, you lose the data.
Opening explorer player features
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: Me button to switch to your player/Ability to remove players from the name list - defaults to both
This feature controls the choice of the player in the Opening Explorer.
- Me button to switch to your player - adds a tab next to Masters database, Lichess and Player named Me. If you click on it the choice of the player will toggle from your user to the last selected user. The button can be shown/hidden from the Explorer config screen as well.
- Ability to remove players from the name list - adds the ability to delete players from the list of username previously chosen in the player tab
Notes:
- The Me button will appear only if you have any another players configured for the Player tab name list
TV with the games of your friends
category: TV - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature will add a Friends tab in the Current Games page where you can see the games of all currently playing players that you follow.
Notes:
- Some games will show the default position until a players moves. That's a limitation of lichess, I think. I am working on it.
Previously viewed game menu item
category: TV - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature adds an extra menu item in the Watch menu that will take you to the previously seen chess game. Just opening any game will consider it as watched. If you go to the previously watched game, then clicking on the menu item again will take you to the game you watched before that, and so on. The total number of remembered games is 10.
Last visited study menu
category: Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature adds an extra menu item in the Learn menu that will take you to the previously visited study. Just opening any study will consider it as watched.
Show the previous two games in player TV
category: TV
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
In category TV (when you are watching Blitz games for example) you get a list of two previous games in that category under the main playing board. For player TV, when you go to a specific player to watch their games, this is missing. This feature will add the two previously played games by the player you are watching.
Link and bookmark for TV games
category: TV
values: Game title link/Ability to bookmark games - defaults to both
When going to a game link or in analysis mode you can click on its title (above the player names) or mouse hover to get a bookmarking star. This is not the case for TV games. Enable these options to have:
- Game title link - a link to the game page in the title
- Ability to bookmark games - a bookmarking star button when hovering over the title
Notes:
- To bookmark the game on a mobile you have to first tap next to the title, then the star will appear. This is something lichess should fix.
Styling for study comments
category: Study
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature adds the ability to style the comments in your PGNs. You can choose between a number of styles that you can place anywhere in a comment with cls:<styleName>. It also adds a new button next to the comment button in a study chapter (a quill in an inkwell) that with cycle through all of the classes at the very beginning of the comment to the current move. The usable classes are: red, orange, yellow, green, lightgreen, cyan, lightblue, blue, violet, magenta, pink, underline, strikethrough, italic, bold, cursive and nothing or clear to clear existing class.
Notes:
- the name of the class declares the intent, not the actual result of the styling. Given that there are dark and light themes on lichess, the styles have been updates to be readable in both situations, using shadows or slightly different colors.
- the style of the comment will only be visible to you and people with LiChess Tools installed. All others will see cls:blue or whatever in the comment.
- you can actually put anything as the class name and the comment will be put inside a span with the class lichessTools-<your class name>, which allows you to customize your style even more with the addition of custom styles from other extensions like Stylus. In this case all people seeing the comment would also need the custom styling.
Show the order of arrows and circles
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to no
This feature shows a number on each drawn shape, so that you can see their order. Sometimes in studies you want to convey the moves that could follow the current position using arrows and circles, but in certain situations the order of the moves is important. Set this to true in order to see which arrow comes first.
Ctrl-Space for best computer move
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
The default functionality of the Space bar in analysis mode is to start the computer engine if not started or play the best move in the computer move list. Because I was often using lichess with YouTube in another tab, pressing Space accidentally was always an annoyance. This feature changes the shortcut to Ctrl-Space.
Notes:
- A previous version of the feature was using Shift-Space, but it would overlap with a lichess feature.
Clear chapter artifacts
category: Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
This feature allows you to choose which artifacts to clear from only the current study chapter. To use it, click on the cog button next to the chapter name and, instead of the Clear annotations button now you get the choice of just comments, glyphs (good move, bad move, that kind of thing) and drawn shapes (circles and arrows) as well as all of the above. There is an extra option of clearing all PGN tags. This feature also adds individual delete buttons to all tags in the current study chapter.
Notes:
- this only works for the current chapter, as the site does not have access to the moves or tags in the PGNs of other chapters
- the feature could be modified to work on all chapters, but it would have to first select the chapter, then alter it, which I think is not something that should be done automatically.
- this works on the client, which means that instead of sending one command to the lichess site, it creates delete requests for each item. If the PGN is large, this can take a long time.
Customize chat buttons
category: Play
values: yes/no - defaults to no
When playing the first few moves and after the game has ended, lichess gives you the option to click on some buttons for some standardized message like Hello, or Have fun! This feature will give you the ability to customize these buttons.
The interface may not be the most intuitive. To edit buttons you click on the little cog button, to exit edit mode you click on the same. This allows altering, adding and deleting buttons. Click on the small X button to enter delete mode, after which you click on buttons to delete them. Delete them all and you get the default buttons back.
In order to add or alter buttons you have to write in the chat text input something like <name>/<message>. Example: hi/Why, hello there, old chap!, which will create a button with the text HI which will send the chat text "Why, hello there, old chap!". In order to add the button, you click the + button. In order to alter an existing button, you click on that button.
Notes:
- the name of the button can be only 2,3 or 4 characters long.
- if you attempt to add or edit a button without a recognizably correct input text, the input box will jiggle to let you know you are doing something wrong
- to edit the end of game buttons you have to reach the end of a game. This may be inconvenient and I am thinking of solutions
- I am considering expanding this feature with buttons for the duration of the game as well as for spectators. Let me know what you think!
Timeline notifications
category: General - advanced
values: Forum post/Blog post/Lichess announcement/Stream start/Simul create/Simul join/Team create/Team join/Tournament join/Following/Study like/Blog post like - defaults to Forum post/Blog post
This feature will add a notification when there are unread items in your Timeline. The default values include comments on forum or blog posts you follow, forum or blog posts from people you follow. Basically posts that you wouldn't normally be notified about.
Clicking on the notification will take you to the Timeline page. Opening it from here or anywhere else will consider the items read and so you will not see the notification until new ones turn up.
Mobile device features
category: General
values: Evaluation gauge/Hide the octopus mascot/Analysis arrows/Random move button/Scroll lock when playing - defaults to Evaluation gauge, Random move button
This feature alters some behavior specifically for mobile devices. There are Chromium-based mobile browsers, like Kiwi, which accept browser extensions. Enjoy LiChess Tools on mobile installing one and then the extension, then customize the experience with this feature. The options are:
- Evaluation gauge - makes the evaluation gauge visible even on small screen widths (for mobile)
- Hide the octopus mascot - hides the octopus mascot that takes a lot of space in Interactive Lessons
- Analysis arrows - adds a button next to the Explorer and Practice ones that allows for drawing arrows and circles on mobile devices in Analysis and Studies
- Random move button - adds a button between the previous and next move buttons that will randomly play a move from the move list (same functionality as Ctrl-right to play random next move from list on desktop)
- Screen lock when playing - will lock scrolling and zooming on mobiles when playing (or during puzzles). A lock icon will appear as a button on top of the screen that you can tap to temporarily lock/unlock the scrolling on that page (refreshing or going to other screens will again automatically lock the screen until you unset the value from Preferences).
Notes:
- Because both the shape drawing and random move buttons take up space, this feature also changes the style of the buttons so that they take two rows of space: the first for utility buttons (left) and the hamburger menu button (right) and the second row for PGN navigation buttons (first, previous, random, next, last move). If none of the two options mentioned are enabled, then the regular "one row for all buttons" style is used.
- Screen locking when "playing" doesn't necessarily means when playing, but when lichess is in "playing mode". For example that also means when you haven't yet started the game or when you just ended the game or when you are doing puzzles.
Mobile device game features
category: General - Advanced
values: Game arrows/Standard buttons - defaults to none
This feature alters some behavior specifically for mobile devices when in-game. This means playing, or solving puzzles or even watching running TV games. There are Chromium-based mobile browsers, like Kiwi, which accept browser extensions. Enjoy LiChess Tools on mobile installing one and then the extension, then customize the experience with this feature. The options are:
- Game arrows - adds a button next to the Analysis one that allows for drawing arrows and circles on mobile devices in games
- Standard buttons - the default behavior of lichess.org is to hide the move navigation buttons for games on small screens, instead showing one line of PGN with previous and next move buttons on either side. Set this in order to see all buttons (including the Game arrows one above). For normal play this is not necessary, but in puzzles, TV and such screens this is the only way to access the drawing arrows button.
Show evaluation of explorer moves
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: From computer eval/From cloud/From winning stats/Hidden - defaults to From computer eval/From cloud
This feature will show the move evaluation for Explorer moves. This information is retrieved from three different sources that can be enabled or disabled: the local computer eval, the lichess cloud (or chessDb if lichess ever allows it) and the Explorer stats themselves. If Hidden is set, then the settings for evaluation will remain, but the column will not be shown. The feature can be hidden not only from Preferences, but also from the Explorer config screen.
The statistics eval will only be shown if there are 100 or more games in the lichess database for that move and not all won by one side. Its faded coloring signifies that it's not a true eval, but if enabled can compare with the other values.
Computer evaluations will have a white color, stats evaluations will have a grey faded color and the cloud evaluations will be slightly blue. If the chessDb option will ever be allowed, it will show either red, green or bright green for bad, good and best moves.
This feature also adds a warning icon on the right side of moves that have large differences between evaluation and winning stats, indicating a possible trap or gambit situation.
Notes:
- Unfortunately, the Content Security Policy (CSP) of lichess doesn't allow calls to chessdb.cn, but I am using the data from lichess' cloud-eval API. I am trying to convince developers there to allow the domain, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
- The more lines you have configured on your computer analysis, the more items in the list will be evaluated. Explorer can show 12 moves, for example, while the computer analysis is configured with Multiple lines=2, this means a maximum of 2 items in the Explorer will have an evaluation. With 5, you get 5, assuming the computer moves are in the Explorer list.
- There is an internal cache of these evaluations, so you can run the computer eval for some moves, then stop it, but when going to those moves you will still see the evaluations as done before at whatever depth was last computed.
- Take care with stats evals in positions with few games. It might tell you that you are absolutely winning, but that's just because no one played a winning move from that position. That is why eval from winning stats is disabled by default.
- The evaluations from cloud differ in depth based on how many moves you want to see. For example you could ask for just one move (the best in the position) and it might show you the eval with depth 55, but if you ask for two moves it will give you depth 44, for 20 moves you would get depth 13 or even nothing. To account for this, cloud eval combines the values from two calls: for 5 moves and for 10 moves. Since the cloud data comes from local evals, server evals and different versions of Stockfish and I am combining two different depth evals, take the evaluation as an estimation, not a given.
- Changing the options for evaluation in Preferences will reset the local cache for each move.
- Lichess' cloud eval API will return 404 when no data is available, resulting in ugly red network lines and error messages in the browser developer tools. Those are not errors, but there is no way to hide them in Chromium browsers from JavaScript. If it annoys you, you can turn them off from DevTools (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4500741/suppress-chrome-failed-to-load-resource-messages-in-console)
- Depending on how much you do analysis and how overloaded the servers are, cloud eval might start returning 429 errors, meaning the servers report you are abusing them. A warning will appear every minute while that happens. The workaround is to disable From cloud and use just computer eval (which, of course, will also use cloud eval :-P). The configuration on lichess' side, at least for the moment, is 3000 calls per IP address per day. That's a bit low, but it might be enough.
Show explorer moves leading to gambits
category: Analysis/Study - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to no
This feature adds a new column to the Explorer table showing the number of gambits reachable from the current position and for each move to play. The feature can be turned on/off not only from Preferences, but also from the Explorer config screen.
Quiet mode on all tabs
category: Play - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to yes
When a game starts, lichess sets a quietMode variable to true, instructing various notifications to not be displayed. Unfortunately, that only happens on the page that one plays on. This feature makes all open lichess pages get the value for quiet mode from the same place, so they don't behave inconsistently.
There is also a button added to the lichess menu which can manually enable/disable quiet mode. Warning: once manually enabled, quiet mode will remain on until manually disabled! The normal game playing quiet mode will turn on and off automatically, as before, only it will affect all open lichess pages.
Note:
Colors for shapes on mobile
category: General - Advanced
values: 1/2/3/4 - defaults to 1
This is part of the Mobile Experience feature and it selects the count of colors you can use on mobile to draw arrows and circles. If you only want to turn the drawing mode on/off with a single tap, select 1.
Also save options for browser private/incognito mode
category: General - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to no
This was a user request to find a way to save the options outside the local browser cache, as he was playing the game from incognito/private browser mode. Since no other solution was better, this saves the options as notes in the first chess game you ever played on lichess. So be careful that this will alter those notes, although I am not aware of many people using the private notes feature.
Notes:
- be aware that it will alter the private notes of the very first game you played on lichess
- the extension will use whatever options you have in the browser local cache. Only if they are not there it will take them from the notes. That means that you can do weird stuff like enabling the feature, saving options, disabling it, changing the options and now you will have different settings in normal and incognito mode. So use with care.
Themes
category: General - Advanced
values: whatever themes are available - defaults to none
This is an experimental feature, the purpose of which is to accept user CSS themes as part of the extension.
Available themes:
- Demo - changes the font and the background of the website - it does nothing else but demo the themes feature
- Just Explorer - will hide the computer eval moves (but not the arrows, if enabled) and the move list when the Explorer is open. This will only be applied for mobile devices
Notes:
- The maintainer of the theme will be acknowledged in the Preferences page
- I have no skill to maintain CSS themes, so whoever makes the theme, if it meets with a minimum approval from me, will have to maintain it. A problematic theme with no signs of maintenance will be removed.
- Multiple themes can be applied concurrently.
Hide score tally crosstable
category: Play - Advanced
values: yes/no - defaults to no
Another user request was to not see the crosstable, the thing that shows how many games you played with the same opponent and what the results and games were. It was intimidating. This feature will blur it out, but allow you to click on it to unblur it. It's a silly feature that may not survive long because there is also the Zen mode lichess option which overlaps this behavior, but it's here for the moment.