How to use the Board
is centered around a graphical backgammon board. This board consists of the checkers, the dice, and the cube. All these game elements can be conviniently manipulated with the mouse.
The following image shows a typical game situation with the white player moving from 1 to 24 and the black player moving from 24 to 1. Currently, the white player owns the cube and has just rolled 3 and 4.
The backgammon board
The Board
If it is their turn, players can roll the dice by double clicking on the squares representing the dice or by using the corresponding menu entry or toolbar icon (if the toolbar is visible and rolling has been included in the toolbar).
If they own the cube, players can double the cube by either double clicking on the square representing the cube or by using the corresponding menu entry or toolbar icon (if the toolbar is visible and the cube has been included in the toolbar).
If it is their turn to move, players can move checkers by clicking on them and moving the mouse pointer to the desired location (while holding the mouse button continuously pressed). This is called dragging the checker. Depending on the selection made in the current engine's configuration, the move will be finished once the maximum number of checkers has been moved (this may be anywhere between 1 and 4 checkers, although it will usually be 2 checkers).
In addition to dragging the checkers, the board offers a feature called short move feature. If this has been enabled in the board's configuration menu, checkers can be moved by simply clicking on them. The board will then automatically make the shortest move possible away from the current field. If the short move feature is enabled, it may be set to single or double click. This option is very useful for users of touchpads that are sometimes difficult to use for dragging.
Finally, the board has a certain smartness: it will only accept moves that are allowed (based on the current dice). While the offline engine allows this to be switched off (for the Edit Mode), this is usually very helpful for unexperienced users (and advanced players will probably never notice this). This featue can also be used to cancel a move in progress: just drop it over an illegal field.