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Play Chess in a floating window [revisited] Apps
This lets you enable the floating/transparent board in Apple's Chess application without modifying the app at all. I originally posted this to Slashdot here. After taking a look at the source, I found out that the floating window can be activated without making any modifications to the application. Here's how to enable the transparent window. Open Terminal.app and set MBC_DEBUG as an environment variable to 16. With bash:
set MBC_DEBUG=16
With tcsh:
setenv MBC_DEBUG 16
Now, open Chess.app from the Terminal:
open /Applications/Chess.app/
There will be a new menu item (Floating Board) under the "Game" menu. Selecting this menu item will toggle the floating board on and off. There seems to be a bug with the mouse behavior (I can't move any pieces), and I assume this is why this feature was removed. I found that you can get around this bug by doing the following:
  1. Start a game with the normal window.
  2. Play at least one move.
  3. Switch to the floating board.
  4. Select "Take Back Move" from the "Moves" window.
  5. You should now be able to move the pieces as normal.
[robg adds: We ran an older hint about modifying the Chess app itself to activate this hack. This method is much quicker, safer, and easier, so I've chosen to run it as a new hint, and I'll add a pointer from the old one to this one...]
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Play Chess in a floating window [revisited]
Authored by: Craigriver on Apr 05, '04 01:00:02PM

Speaking of floating windows....

There must be a way to make applications such as Quicktime, iTunes, Realplayer and Windows Media Player float on top of other open applications.

Can this be explained a simple way for a person not familiar with the nuances of programming?



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Play Chess in a floating window [revisited]
Authored by: aranor on Apr 06, '04 01:31:28AM
First off, Windows Media Player sucks That said, you can't just put arbitrary applications in front. If you had access to the source you could, but otherwise no. I mean, if it's a Cocoa app you could theoretically add an InputManager that watches for windows and changes their level. Alternately, you could hack Desktop Manager to put the windows you like in the front (since this already has code that hacks windows). But it's a real pain and not advisable.

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Play Chess in a floating window [revisited]
Authored by: Craigriver on Mar 28, '05 08:47:09PM

I agree Windows Media Player suck, but unfortunately we live in a Windows dominant world. And sometimes I must use it for my work. But thanks for the response in any case.



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Play Chess in a floating window [revisited]
Authored by: digiglyphics on Apr 05, '04 01:13:08PM

cool hint! I noticed the board can be rotated also. Does this hint have to be run before you start chess everytime or just once?


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"real skill comes without effort..." Li Mu Bai - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon



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Play Chess in a floating window [revisited]
Authored by: digiglyphics on Apr 05, '04 01:18:41PM

my bad! apparently the rotating thing was already there. I hadn't opened this app since upgrading to panther. Didn't expect an improvement there but I have been pleasantly surprised.

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"real skill comes without effort..." Li Mu Bai - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon



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