A quick introduction to LiChess Tools - browser extension improving Lichess

So many features

Just kidding about 1 of 150, but at the same time LiChess Tools (LT) has over 130 tools and most of them have several functionalities. However, the idea is that LT should be, as much as possible, helping you without you needing to do anything.

Yes, it has some major features, but most of the others are supposed to just work out of the box:

• it feels normal to have the last two games played by a player when watching them play, just like for Blitz or other time control. LT added those there.
• you don't care when you reach a position you already reached in another branch in your analysis, but you see them highlighted anyway.
• you don't use Analysis Board so much that it hurts you when you accidentally refresh the page, but you still get the PGN of the previous analysis saved in the import textbox.
• never have you thought about importing multiple games at the same time in Analysis Board, but now you just get them merged automatically in a single tree when you do.
• you don't have friends, but now you can hide that little friends box, auto open it or see it as a menu or button instead. And the page of friends contains filters, updates as friends come and go or start playing and you even get sound alerts when they do. Even more, you get an alert when you have new items on your timeline and a LiChess Tools user forum. OK, you don't have friends, but would you like some?
• you don't even know you can right click on moves in the analysis move list, but you still get a lot of extra options.
• using the computer engine in analysis was never on your top ten, but you still chose a custom engine depth, more than 5 lines, to ignore cloud data or remember in your browser the results of your last analysis so you don't have to start the engine multiple times for the same position.
• even if you never want to chat with other people, you can now directly paste images in chat or use emoji buttons.
• you thought seeing a line on the chart for your game analysis was enough, but you can choose between several of them at the same time now
• you had no idea you can press ? on most screens and get a popup with key shortcuts, but when you find out, you see so many more key combinations that do things than Lichess provides.
• ... and so on

Those are some of the features that are supposed to be natural. If they are too intrusive, you turn them off, if you like more, you add more stuff. It's completely customizable.

The main features

However, there are some features that are the core of LT. They bring significant additions or changes to the native Lichess functionality. They are all my babies, so how can I choose which is best?! Because I like to code and analyse games more than to actually play, most of the important stuff is aimed at analysis. You might not care about LiChess Tools because you never analyse your games and you never want to learn theory. That's fine. But if you do want to improve in chess, read on!

The one that started it all is Extended Interactive study chapters. It's that frustration when you have a PGN of multiple lines that you've analysed, but if you set the chapter to be interactive it only uses the main line. Well, with LT you can choose whichever branch you want! The computer will intelligently choose what move to make and you have control over what you want to happen in your study lesson.

See also Creating an interactive lesson from your favorite player in minutes

Another thing that I feel brings a lot of value is Explorer Practice. As long as you have the current position in Explorer, the computer will make moves from there, depending on how often people play them. It's an extremely valuable resource that allows you to train any opening or repertoire with real human data. Consistently defeat Explorer at your rating level and you have great chances to beat other players. And best of all, there is no pressure, no time limit, no shame.

See also Are you shy? You can grow at chess without actually playing anyone!

LiChess Tools has had collapsing variations before Lichess implemented something similar. Instead of hiding variations, though, The bookmarks feature hides everything after a certain position. This way you see the last move that gets you there and you drill down if you want more. But also you name your bookmarks and you can use them to generate links to that position or even split the PGN into different chapters.

See also Full repertoire using PGN Editor, Explorer Practice and Bookmarks

The Explorer evaluation feature is pretty cool. You open Explorer you make some moves in analysis and you see the evaluation of the next moves! Besides the local engine, it uses the Lichess and Chessdb databases. It even calculates an evaluation from Win/Draw/Loss values if nothing else is available. Imagine trying to find an interesting line to defeat your nemesis and not having to wait for hours for your local engine to reach a reasonable depth. But you also get the moves that lead to gambits and warnings on moves that have significant discrepancies between computer evaluation and Win/Draw/Loss values, as they might be promising traps.

There is a PGN Editor feature that allows you to edit PGN text based on chess concepts and supports working with tens of megabytes of it: split, merge, evaluate, search by FEN, PGN and text, clear particular elements like tags, comments, and so on.

See also Using the PGN Editor feature of LiChess Tools

And I have to talk about the mobile experience. Lichess is a wonderful web site, but they are focusing either on desktop screens or their mobile app. With the mobile features and themes that LiChess Tools provides you don't need an app! Just go to the website and you get all of your favorite features, including drawing shapes on the screen, like for desktop screens.

See also Drawing arrows on mobile with LiChess Tools

More, more, more!

Did you know you can use the Chess.com piece sets in Lichess using LT?

Did you know you can pop up your study move list to another window that you can move to another screen?

Did you know you have commands you can type to get stuff done?

How about moves highlighted to show if they are last in branch, with warnings if its not commented, or when there is a check, or depending on which branch they are?

You have a mate board annotation when there is a mate, you have brilliant, interesting, good, best moves, misses and book moves.

Did you ever try to write a blog only to lose all your work after hours of work? LT autosaves blog posts!

You get active tab title based on who is to move, more decimals in evaluation, puzzle improvements, profile improvements, better board screenshots, customizable main page, collapsible study chapters, CSS themes...

Do you want to know how many features there are? There is a user manual page for all of the LiChess Tools features. It prints on almost 90 A4 pages, that's how many there are. And I use no images or large empty spaces or big fonts.

And it's free!

... not free as in "as long as no one buys it" or "watch this video to have it free" or limited time or free with premium tiers or with ads. It's so free I don't accept your money even if you beg to give me some.

Does it collect your data? No. I don't even have Google's analytics enabled. EVERYTHING happens on your computer.

I have been working on this since the 10th of May 2023. It's been two years and I am still tinkering with it.

Feedback is not frowned upon, it's celebrated. You want something done that would make your chess experience better, I am more than happy to hear you out.

How to get it

The main page for LiChess Tools is here: https://siderite.dev/blog/new-chrome-extension-lichess-tools , pointing to Chrome, Firefox and Edge stores for it, with links to some blog posts about how to use various features.

And it's not a binary choice on whether to use LT or not. Every feature can be turned off or on, with a searchable Preferences page for all.

There you have it. You now know what LiChess Tools is all about! I hope you enjoy it and that it helps you out.