Chess LaTeX (MetaPost) package inspired by Lichess

Hi everyone,

Just to signal that I’ve developed a LaTeX (in fact MetaPost) package to draw boards and positions (PDF) inspired by Lichess.
It is in beta version, and it can be seen here:
ctan.org/pkg/mpchess

All the best,

First of all, awesome.
Secondly, piece sets are licensed under their respective licenses. See github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/master/COPYING.md
You can't just slap a LaTeX Project Public License on them and also need to determine if the licenses are compatible.

I looked at the documentation, and certainly it would be good to have something for metapost. And the pictures look nice. But (just a suggestion) most people who want this would probably want it to take a large number of FENs and create a booklet of positions, each position with title, and sometimes also a solution. Probably a script that will take a collection of FENs and produce a LaTeX file. Or if the metapost file could provide an input option for a file with many FENs, that would be great.

Also, what are the main advantages over xkak? I did notice a variety of pieces, which I don't know how to get in xkak. But are there other benefits of using this over xkak? I do use metapost and like it.

Hello, first of all congratulations on your fine efforts. I use Latex to make my own little chess books, and this seems a nice addition.

I agree with kajalmaya that an option somewhere to input a large number of FEN would be a very nice addition.

Also I would like to have the option to rotate the board when it is black to move.

Kind regards, Carlos

@notezik said in #1:
> Hi everyone,
Hi you

> Just to signal that I’ve developed a LaTeX (in fact MetaPost) package to draw boards and positions (PDF) inspired by Lichess.
What's this?

> All the best,
yup

@pointlesswindows said in #5:
> Hi you
>
>
> What's this?
>
>
> yup
yup

@bufferunderrun said in #2:

Thank you, I'll check that. If you have any ideas for setting the rights licences, don't hesitate :)

@kajalmaya said in #3:

Thanks for the advice! I'm going to add file reading option pour fen and pgn. Then a simple script can generate a booklet.

Is it a usual way to have one text file containing a large number of fens (one by line I imagine)?

@Hemmerschess said in #4:

Good idea for the option to automatically rotate the board when the black has to move!

@pointlesswindows said in #5:

LaTeX is a software system for document preparation. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX

Thanks all!

@MyBodyAteItself said in #6:
> yup

Damn girl! You just totally ignored the hi you part?!

@pointlesswindows said in #8:
> Damn girl! You just totally ignored the hi you part?!
girl lol

@notezik said in #7:

> Is it a usual way to have one text file containing a large number of fens (one by line I imagine)?

I think so. I have collected a large number of FEN/EPD files from the internet. Some of them are from puzzle books, or PGN/FEN puzzle collections in public domain, some are test suits created by engine developers. So it would be nice to have a way to make a book like Lászlo Polgar's books, with 1000s of positions, with 9 or 12 diagrams per page, and maybe the variations on the back side of each page. I started creating a LaTeX template with xkak, but I don't yet have the script to take a large FEN file and generate an input file for the LaTeX template. I believe it should be easy to write scripts fen2mp and fen2tex. If you would like to see my LaTeX template, I will send you a link by private message. Also, one can directly include a metapost file in a LaTeX file. So what you are creating is definitely quite useful.