You can print this by selecting Print from the file menu.

Note: "Click" means press the mouse button once

Note: When the game starts you can determine your color and direction of play by the arrow in the upper corner
                      
START GAME

- Click on one of the dice. Your dice are on the right side of the board.

- The player with the highest roll (die) moves first using these dice.
 
MOVE PIECE 

- Click on a piece to select it. Don't hold the mouse button down.
- Move the piece by moving the mouse 
- Click on new row to put the piece down
- if Pick Up Only 1 Pieces is de-selected, multiple pieces can be selected by clicking on another piece.  When releasing do not click over a piece unless it is the next slot. Otherwise, it will think you are trying to pick up another piece

Note: With Pick Up Only 1 Piece de-selected, if you are already holding a piece when you click on a row, the game has to figure out whether you are trying to pickup a piece or put one down. It uses the following logic to determine its repsonse.

If you are holding a piece it assumes that you are trying to put it down if you either click over a part of a row that has no piece or you click over the next available slot. 

It assumes that you are trying to pick up a piece if you aren't already holding a piece or if you are holding a piece and you click over a piece that is not the next available slot. 

DE-SELECT PIECE

- Click on the row the piece came from (not over a piece unless it is the slot it came from) or on the word BAR

TAKE BACK MOVE 

- Click on the word BAR in the center of the board or pick up the piece and put it back.

BEAR OFF A PIECE

- Bear off a piece by clicking on the piece then on your tray - your tray is the one with your color at the end

CAN'T USE BOTH DICE

- When it is imposible to use both dice, click on the dice to pass play to your opponent

FORGOT WHERE THE PIECE CAME FROM

- click on the word BAR

NEED HELP

- Click on the Arrow in the upper corner or
  
- Press HELP key or Select a Help-item in the INFO menu or press the H key.

WANT INFORMATION

- Move the cusor along the bottom of the board frame.  The cursor will change to the following characters as it is moved along from right to left:

  I   instant replay computers last move
  P   displays the pip count
  R   displays the rolls to get all pieces off
  W  computer will guess who is ahead
  S   show the "best" move choices
  M   make the "best" move
  D   adice on accepting a double or doubling your opponent
  B   display the risk of your blots being hit
  C   show the computers "Best" moves
  N   bring up the Note Pad
  
Click the mouse button when the cursor is the correct letter.

- Move the curor into the Score area between the two trays. Click when the cursor changes to a W. Computer will tell who is ahead. This can be wrong so don't bet your last nickel on it.
  
HIDE GAME QUICKLY (in case your boss is coming)

- Press the ESCAPE key.

- This will hide the board and give a normal looking menu bar.  

- To unhide the board press the Escape key again or select Resume under the File menu.    

Note:  If you have made another program the active program then you will have to select the game again from the application menu, then do the above to unhide it.

Keyboard Input

All play can be done using the mumeric keypad.
First select "Show Row Numbers" from the Options menu.

To roll the dice press the + key

To make a move enter the FROM ROW number, then
enter a PERIOD, then the DISTANCE to move, then press the the ENTER key.
e.g. 15.11 would move from the 15 row to the 4 row.

25	is for the BAR row.
-		is the same as clicking on the BAR to take back a move
*		is the same as clicking on the cube for doubling
+		is the same as selecting YES
-		is the same as selecting NO
ENTER key alone repeats the last FROM ROW using the other die

Enter incorrectly?  Just press the ENTER key.  Then enter the whole move again.

If you are using the Show Possible Moves option the possible moves will be displayed when you enter a FROM ROW then press the  ENTER key. To make a move after this just enter the move as usual. This only works for the player on the right.

Custom Board Colors

Your can change the board colors by creating a custom color file.

Use a text editor such as Simple Text to create a custom color file. Below is an example file.

BOARDFRAMECOLOR 0 50 120
BOARDFIELDCOLOR 90 190 170
DARKROWCOLOR 0 50 100 
LITEROWCOLOR 0 190 80
DARKPIECECOLOR 0 110 60
LITEPIECECOLOR 220 250 000

Be sure to press the return key at the end of each line, including the last line.
 
The numbers are RGB color values(Red Green Blue). They vary from 0, the least amount of the color, to 255 which is the most amount of the color. Some of the most common colors are:

red  255 0 0  
green 0 255 0
blue   0 0 255
yellow 255 255 0

The words must be spelled correctly and at least one space between each item.

Save the file with any name you like with a .col extension. e.g. Green.col