| Aurora Borealis 3.6 professional

# Draughts Database Program

## User manual

1. Installation procedure
1.1 Aurora Borealis Launching
2. Working with Aurora Borealis
2.1 Play mode
2.2 View/Analysis mode
2.3 Game Panel
2.4 Info Panel
2.5 Coach
2.5.1 Export diagram
2.5.2 Extended analysis mode
2.6 User Settings
3. Working with Databases
3.1 The Database window
3.1.1 Selecting games
3.1.2 Deleting games
3.1.3 Copying games
3.1.4 Exporting games
3.2 Search guide
3.2.1 Searching for positions

## 1. Installation procedure

Run setup.exe from the Aurora Borealis 3.6 professional DVD-disk, or from folder downloaded from Internet.
Select a proper license (CD or activation key) and components to be installed. The setup program will automatically detect whether install 64-bits or 32-bits version of Aurora Borealis. Please note: your PC needs to have at least 1GB of RAM to install Learn Databases, 2GB is recommended.
Aurora Borealis has no Games Database and Book for Pool checkers, instead of this you need to install and use database and manual for Russian checkers.
Please note that full installation with all available databases requires more than 8GB of hard disk space and will take a lot of time to install. Especially this relates to endgame databases and learning directories. It is not recommended to install those databases that you do not plan to use.

### 1.1 Aurora Borealis Launching

Aurora Borealis shortcut can be found in START-Programs-Aurora Borealis folder and on desktop once the installation is over.
Launching Aurora Borealis application for the first time
Steps to take while launching the Aurora Borealis application for the first time:

1. After the Aurora Borealis lanched for the first time, you need to reboot your computer to ensure the complete installation of protection drivers.
2. Launching Aurora Borealis requires entering the activation key or the licensed CD to be placed in appropriate drive. If there is no licensed disc inserted at the first application startup, then you will be requested to place the disc into the drive for further procedure. The application won't launch unless the disc is in the drive.
3. The details of the CD verification procedure or activation are displayed in the Checking Disc / Activation dialog. If any error occurs, the Error dialog will pop up.
4. If the disc verification or the key activation are completed successfully, the information will be saved in the system registry to be used while further launches of the application.

Further launches of Aurora Borealis
Launching Aurora Borealis requires the original licensed disc to be inserted in a proper drive at least once in a month. If the application is launched without the CD in the drive for a month or more, you will not be able to continue your work with the application unless you place the original licensed CD in the drive. If the program is activated with the activation key, no further steps are needed.
Peculiarities to consider while installing Aurora Borealis
- Protection drivers can be installed only from the accounts of users with administrator's rights. Further launches of the application can be performed from any system account.
- The protection module blocks attempts to launch the protected application under any debugger program running.
- You may have some compatibility issues with disk emulating software (Daemon Tools, Alcohol etc.). If you have any problems, please try to deactivate that software while using the Aurora Borealis.

  ## 2. Working with Aurora Borealis

  While running Aurora Borealis you see the Main (Board) Window.
  It consists of several panels:
  - Main Menu
  - Toolbar
  - Board
  - Additional info panel
  - Game panel
  - Info panel
  In the status line you may see the current draughts type.
  There are 12 draughts variations currently supported in Aurora Borealis:
  64-squares board (8x8):
  - Russian
  - English (Checkers)
  - Brasilian
  - Pool
  - Italian
  - Czech
  - Spanish
  - Thai
  80-squares board (8x10):
  - Spantsireti
  100-squares board (10x10):
  - International
  - Frisian
  144-squares board (12x12):
  - Canadian
  To set a new variation go to Game - Type menu. When you switch between 64-squares game types the current game won't be deleted. Switching can take some time as soon as learning bases are updated to the new game variation.
  There are two working modes: Play mode and View/Analysis mode.

  ### 2.1 Play mode

  When you are in the play mode, computer will respond to every move you make on the board. While it's processing, you cannot move to another position until it makes the next move. You can see clocks above Game Panel with the time remaining in the Play Mode:
  If you wish to play against the computer, you should set up the time control (Time menu), for example, 3 minutes per game.
  Using Time-Set Time command you can set up different time control, for white and black separately.
  Select Game-New command (or press Toolbar button) to start a new game.
  If the default playing level is too high for you, you may choose lower play levels under Time – Level menu (if it is available for the current engine). There are 6 levels, from Grandmaster to the 3rd grade.
  Moving draughts and entering moves is simple: click on the piece to move, then click on the destination square. If there is only one move available for the piece you've clicked, this move will be played automatically, you don't have to click on the destination square. Also you may click on the destination square only, if there is only one piece to move there, or you may click pieces that should be taken. You can use keyboard to enter the moves, just type them in standart notation, "cd4", "31-27" and so on.
  If you wish to play for another side, you may ask the program to move when it is your turn (Play-Compute).
  Play-Tournament mode menu command switches off all search information if you don't need it while playing. Blind game switches off the pieces appearance on the board.
  If you don't like highlighted squares of the last move appearing in Play Mode you can turn it off: Options – Interface, untick this option.
  Play - Offer draw allows you to ask program either it is agree for a draw. If yes, the draw is fixed and result is shown on the Game Panel.
  Aurora will automatically fix threefold repetition draw and 15 (50) moves draw.

  ### 2.2 View/Analysis mode

  In the View/Analysis mode the program will not automatically answer your moves, so you can peacefully observe, analyse and comment games.
  If you need to see what program's engine assumes of a single position, let it esteem it as in Play Mode: Play – Compute or press the "START" button under the board.
  To move through the game you can use:
- buttons under the board
- your keyboard LEFT, RIGHT, PAGEUP, PAGEDOWN buttons
- mouse wheel
  You can also click on any move on the Game Panel moves list to go there.
  You may wish to enter the move different from the existing. You will get a dialog with all existing moves:
  You can add a new variation or replace any existing move (select one) with the new one.

  ### 2.3 Game Panel

  Let's take a closer look at the Game Panel
  It consists of Header and Body
  Header contains Players names, date, and all tournament information.
  Body contains the game moves, comments, variations and the results.
  Right-click on a move will bring a pop-up menu:
  which allows you to add comments easily.
  Adding the diagram will add [#] symbols to the move comment. They will be replaced with a current position diagram when you export this game to RTF or HTML.
  Game Panel header information can be corrected by the right-click on the header, or Game - Game information through the command menu. You will be asked to fill this form also when you will save the game to a database.

  ### 2.4 Info Panel

  This panel shows all the information about the current position.
  When the engine is running you can see:
- The current analysis depth (in halfmoves) and moves analysed: Depth 17 (5/8)
- Evaluation of the best move: 0.00 (-1.00 means side to move loses 1 man, +1.00 means it wins 1 man; x15 means side to move wins in 15 moves; xN(4) means win, there are 4 moves to lower class endgame - exchange or make a man movement.)
- The current engine and its name (gametype by default): Aurora 3.0 [Russian]
- Search info, such as speed, time elapsed and endgame database access.
- STOP button under the board stops engine if you don't need it, START runs it again.
- On the right side Info Panel contains the information from the current book and database tree:
  You may see moves statistics from database, and book comments.
  If a move has # sign it means it was taken from the database and the book does not contain that move, otherwise this move would be taken from the book.
  h6-g5!? +119-142=735
  h6-g5 is marked in the opening book as a very interesting move
  with this move 119 games were won, 142 were lost and 735 games were finished drawn
  a7-b6 +60-50=227
  this move presents in the opening book
  f6-g5# +38-27=154
  this move is not present in the opening book
  f6-e5 +25-45=82
  d6-c5# +0-5=0
  c7-b6 +0-2=0
  d6-e5?! +16-17=44
  this move is marked as dubious in the opening book, but statistics shows that it can be considered
  Also you may see:
  d6-c5#
  (no statistics) this move is not present in the opening book and has no database statistics, so it may only be mentioned in game variations as comments
  c7-b6
  (no statistics) this move is present in the opening book, but as soon as it has no statistics it has never been played in tournament games
  Marks + > < - show automatic analysis evaluation (very good, better, worse, very bad).
  Colors: green - good moves, black - regular moves, red - bad moves.

  ### 2.5 Coach

  #### 2.5.1 Export diagram

  You can export the current diagram, exactly as it appears on the screen, to the Clipboard or a GIF-file, for example, to use on your website, in your publications or directly to draughtsworld.com:

  #### 2.5.2 Extended analysis mode

  In View/Analysis mode you can use Extended Analysis mode (Coach - Extended Analysis menu command). After you have activated this mode, the Info Panel will show all the moves:

  ### 2.6 User Settings

  If you are not satisfied with the default Aurora Borealis settings you may tune it up to your preferences:
  View - Select colors menu command allows you to select the draughts appearance (click on the piece) and board squares with game panel colors (click on the appropriate panel with color).
  Option - Interface window contains draughts-related settings. You may select the symbol to use in capture moves (a3:c5 or a3xc5), Full, Short notation (cd4 or c3-d4), or Extra Short used for problems. Notation composer mode will show hidden moves in Full or Short notation, so you can choose which moves to hide in Extra Short notation. Also you can define whether you want to use Sound and Highlighting of the last played move.
  Always load Russian games as the Pool will force the program to load games from Russian database (with numeric notation and Blacks to move first). Please note that games will not be examined for Pool checkers rules compliance. The Pool tab allows you to tune Pool gametype according to your preferences.
  Options - Engine Settings menu command contains Engines-related settings.
  Here you can select for each draughts type the default engine and the book (*.cbk) to be used with a given draughts type. Use Book moves will force engine to use moves from selected Book/Tree as opening moves.
  Using Memory usage you can set memory allocated for the engine's parameters separately. Please note, that the total memory you allocate must not be more than RAM memory you have. Also allow some memory space to other applications you are working along with Aurora Borealis simultaneously. Usually, there is no need to allocate Hash more than 128 MB for playing purposes. For analysis it may help to use up to 1024 MB of Hash RAM. Endgame databases will require 600 MB for 64 games, 2500MB for 100 game if installed from DVD. Full databases on HDD will require even more, good performance is achieved with 8000MB and more set for ED. Learning database size changes automatically.

  ## 3. Working with Databases

  Aurora Borealis supports several database types:
  ü Games Databases: Aurora Borealis ver 2.0/3.0
  A single database is made of 3 files, with the same name and different extentions. All 3 files must be located in the same directory:
  *.abd *.abm *.abn
  please note that when any file is moved, deleted or damaged, further work with that database will be impossible. Ver 2.0 databases once opened, automatically are converted to 3.0, old files are renamed to *.old.
  ü Games Databases: Portable Draughts Notation
  The database is made of 1 file:
  *.pdn
  ! Aurora Borealis cannot work with PDN databases directly. To work with games in such databases you have to convert these databases to Aurora Borealis database format. You may use Import PDN or Merge databases functions. The Import PDN function creates a new database with the same name as original database and imports there all games from PDN database. Merge databases function is more flexible, it adds to the current database all games from several databases you may select together. You may select databases of all supported types.
  ü Opening Books and Trees
  The database is made of 2 files:
  *.cbk *.cbn
  File .cbn may be lacking, but you should not delete it if it exists, it contains comments and opening names.
  ü Endgame databases :
  Databases are located in folders according to game names and each file represents a class of positions. MTW (Moves To Win) databases contain an information about each position, in how many moves win can be achieved, so using these databases gives always perfect play. WDL (Win/Draw/Lose) databases only contain the information if the position is winning or draw, so the play may be not optimal.
  Each file has a name, like 80012-2-2. First digit represents the total amount of draughts pieces in the position's class (A=10), next: white kings, black kings, white men, black men and the numbers of position's pace for both colos.

  ### 3.1 The Database window

  You can find all database management functions on Database window:
  To open the database window you may use Database - Go to database menu command of Main Window, or press the F2 key.
  To open the database go to Database - Open Database menu. You will see the games list of the opened database.
  It contains columns:
- Number of game
- Players
- Tournaments and rounds
- Year
- Result
- Total moves in game
- Comments
  Comments:
  - p and P - the game starts with non-typical position (small p means less pieces on the board, probably a problem or an endgame position, P - standard 12*12 or 20*20, probably opening position of "flying game" in Russian)
  - c and C - comments (verbose or marks)
  - v and V - variations
  To load the game for view you may double-click on it, press Enter key or use Game - Load menu command.
  To create a New Database go to Database - Open Database menu command and enter the new database name in the filename field. Aurora Borealis will create the empty database with the name you specified.
  If you see ERROR! strings in the games list, it means the current database was somehow damaged. You should restore this database from a backup, in spite of the fact that some (or all) games may load correctly, their headers were damaged and cannot be fixed automatically (but you can fix it manually).

  #### 3.1.1 Selecting games

  Some operations (copy, delete, export) may need selection of games.
  You may select games by several ways:
- by pressing INS button on the keyboard
- by pressing the right mouse button
- to select/unselect games range you may press "+" and "-" on the numeric keyboard
- to select all games you may press "*" on the numeric keyboard, Ctrl+A combination, or Game - Select All menu command
- to unselect all games you may press "/" on the numeric keyboard, or Game - Unselect All menu command
  Selected games are marked with red color. Total count of selected games are shown in the window header.
  All further operations will be made with visible AND selected games.
  If no games were selected, some operations will be made only with the current selected game (for example, Copy), some - with all games of current games list (for example, Build tree).

  #### 3.1.2 Deleting games

  If you don't need some games in your database you may delete them.
  To delete the current game or selected games:
  - Press DEL on the keyboard
  - Choose Game - Delete menu command
  This operation marks games as "deleted". Such games are shown in grey color and striked out.
  To untick previuosly chosen game(s) as "deleted" you may reiterate the deletion.
  When you ensure that you don't really need games marked as "deleted", you can completely remove these games from the database by going to Database - CleanUp Database menu command. Please note that you won't be able to recover deleted games after this operation.

  #### 3.1.3 Copying games

  You may copy some selected games (or the current game if no games were selected) to another database by the Game - Copy function.
  You may choose already existing database as the destination, or type a new database name to be created as the destination.

  #### 3.1.4 Exporting games

  You may export game or set of games using Game - Export to:
  ü PDN database format
  for games exchange with others checkers programs
  ü RTF text format
  for printing or publication purposes if your exported game contains diagrams, you need the Aurora Draughts.ttf font to be installed in your system. This font can be found in the program's folder.
  ü HTML format
  for internet publications, there are 2 variations: plain HTML, and JS-HTML. JavaScript variation allows users to scroll game moves. After the export is completed, the file YOURNAME.htm and the folder YOURNAME.files will be created. You should upload both on your website. For JS-HTML also the folder pics must be uploaded.

  ### 3.2 Search guide

  Aurora Borealis has powerful search tool.
  The part containing the board is hidden until the Position checkbox is checked.
  Please note that all Results you need MUST BE set. If there are no selected results, no games will be found!
  You may search by players, tournaments, year, results, total moves and marks (games with comments, variations or deleted games). You can define any search conditions set.
  Example: You wish to find all games won by V.Kaplan between 1945 and 1970 years.
  You select Kaplan V. as first player, and set 1-0 result (won). Also you should set Ignore colors checkbox as soon as we want all games to be found (games won by white and black). Set year bounds to 1945 and 1970 and perform the search.
  To load the search results for view you may use Game - Load next/previous game of Main Window menu commands, F3 and F4 keyboard buttons or buttons on the toolbar:
  During watching the game you are able to select the game (tick button) or mark the game to delete (cross button).
  To reset the search results select Search - Reset.

  #### 3.2.1 Searching for positions

  When you check the Position checkbox you'll be able to search for positions and patterns.
  You may define one of four position types (on the top of the board)
  - 64: standard board for Russian and Brasilian draughts, white on bottom
  - 100: standard board for International draughts, white on bottom
  - 64 it: standard board for Italian draughts, flipped, white on bottom
  - 64 en: standard board for English and American Pool checkers: black on bottom
  - 80: standard board for Spantsireti draughts
  - 144: standard board for Canadian draughts
  Please note, that the internal board representation doesn't depend on the gametype, so you may set up positions, for example, for American Pool and it will be searched for Russian and Brasilian games (and English and Italian too, if those games are presented in the database). Of course, 100-boards are not available in 64-games and the other way around.
  When you setting up a position to search for, you should click on each square using your mouse with left and right buttons, figures on the squares will be rotated.'?' symbol means that on this square may be any draughts piece (on no piece at all). So you may set up both exact positions and position patterns.
  Clear button fills the pattern with "?"
  Copy button copies the current position from main board
  Start button sets the initial position
  White to move check box will search this position with white side to move, Black to move check box will search this position with black side to move. Either white or black to move checkbox (or both) must be set!
  Reversed checkbox will find also reversed positions with another side to move.

  For example, you search for the position: (Russian checkers board, white to move) | The search will find 9 games with such position: | Also, with Reverced checkbox set up it will find 10 additional games with the same pattern with black side to move:

  The Quick search for exact position (the current position presented on the board) may be performed with F5 button or Database - Quicksearch menu command right from Main Window. Quick search always searches also for reversed positions.

  Updates of the program and this documentation are available on the official website of Aurora Borealis draughts program : http://aurora.shashki.com

  (c) Alexander Svirin, 2015