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| Sonia screenshot. Click to enlarge |
Sonia is a World Chess Live interface offered for members who are not
able to run our full-featured Microsoft Windows interface, Dasher, either
because they require Mac OS X
or Linux
software or because they are running from a school, office, or public
computer that does not allow software downloads. Sonia puts
ease-of-use ahead of advanced functionality and is therefore ideally suited
for a more casual or beginning player. Even if you have been a member for awhile, however, you may find that Sonia fulfills most, or even all
of your
WCL needs, in a convenient and friendly manner. Sonia will also run under Windows
for those who prefer it to Dasher or who want to be able to use the same
interface everywhere.
Sonia comes in two flavors—applet and standalone. The applet flavor
allows you to play chess right from within your browser, without the hassle
of installing software on your computer. Because it stores all your settings
on our server, you can use the applet from any computer without having to
reconfigure Sonia every time. Applets have some limitations, however,
such as being unable to access your hard disk or your system clipboard, so
some functionality may be limited, or unavailable altogether.
The standalone version is like any other application—you download,
install and run it. The advantages in this option are faster start-up times
(the applet version may take a while to start), reliability (the standalone
version does not shut down if your browser crashes) and better integration
with your desktop environment.
If this is your first time using Sonia, we recommend watching the
Sonia tutorial below first. The tutorial is a movie/screencast of Sonia's
author, Alexander Maryanovsky, using Sonia on a Mac while explaining every feature in
detail. Below you will find buttons to watch the Sonia tutorial, download
the standalone version or run the applet.
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| in your browser |
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