Diamond Chess Online is on iOS and Mac on our App Store page and on Android at our Play Store page.
Diamond Chess is a free and ad free client for Mac, iOS, and Android to play chess online. Users can get a free lifetime account at FICS or register for a 30 day trial at ICC. For quick games with no sign up just play with the connect as guest option. Both ICC and FICS decended from the original ICS server which is the oldest online chess server.
All Diamonds(Mac, iOS or Android) have access to a channels list to talk on chat channels on both FICS and ICC which come in different topics like politics, religion or sports as well as channels about the server, chess or online help. ICS servers have always supported IRC style chat rooms. Rooms are known by their number. For example Politics is 39 on FICS and 97 on ICC.
Diamond Chess Online is in the Mac App Store now and its recommended to get it there for updates. For those who want an installer the latest build is Diamond Chess on Mac 1.76 installer. All diamonds support having mutliple games open and have five tabbed views. Diamond requires OS Catalina or later. There is also a web client to FICS that can just be used in the Browser for those at Work or School at https://www.freechess.club/. For ICC, visit their download page.
Some tips are scroll the console with the mouse scroll wheel, use the options button on the board to unlock what the board can do, and use the Action button on top of board for context sensitive commands to do when playing or not playing or observing etc.
Diamond Chess support engine analysis when examining a game or observing, a seek a game window, a seek graph to see others seeks. Games are logged to a game file that can be opened in the App. This is in addition to server history which is also an option to get in the UI. There is an onboard engine with playing levels. There is easy access to channels to chat on on the main view's channels button in lower right. Settings include multiple chess board and pieces choices.
Currently there is no UI to directly challege one player but the command match username time inc like match mike 15 0, can be used. There is an option to rematch the last opponent on Actions on the board. To send a tell or PM to that player type tell username text. Once users received a tell they can switch to the tell username send prefix on send prefix button above console for faster chat.
Diamond Chess uses the ~/Library/Containers/mike.pearl.chess/Data/Documents/ folder to save PGN. It saves all played games there. You can use the finders Go menu - Go to Folder option with that path to get to your pgn.
There is online help if the user types info on fics or commands on icc. Use the up and down arrows in console to cycle through recent commands.
For support contact lanternbugs at Gmail. Lanternbugs was originaly the bug reporting account for my first ICS client, Lantern Chess. This was similar to what ICC was doing with their then main client Blitzin with BlitzinBugs.
