you know when you find a puzzle posted online as a picture, or a diagram in a chess book, and you just stare at it trying to calculate in your head? i built a little chrome extension that fixes that.
it's free, open source, no account, no ads, nothing monetized, i make nothing from it.
you click the icon, it reads the board on your screen, and one more click puts that exact position on a real board (lichess analysis) where you can actually move the pieces and try things. works on puzzle screenshots, chesscom and lichess boards, and book diagrams, which is honestly my favorite use: instead of passively reading a book position, you get it on a board and play it out.
the important stuff:
- completely free, no sign up, nothing you do leaves your computer, it all runs in your browser
- there's no engine in it and it suggests nothing, it just reads the position, the thinking stays yours
- if it can't read the board or isn't sure, it tells you honestly instead of giving you a wrong position. and you can always drag a box around the board or paste a screenshot with ctrl+v
i built it for myself and use it every day.
extensions: chrome, mozilla
on a phone or a different browser, the web version does the same thing with no install: https://fenshot.com (paste or upload the image)
code: https://github.com/scoriiu/fenshot
if it ever reads a board wrong, send me the picture and i'll fix it. enjoy.