3 A new release of both XBoard and WinBoard is now available. Version
4 4.4.0 includes many changes. It is the first major release of
5 xboard/winboard after a fork of the project after version 4.2.7. It
6 includes small changes made in the main line and changes made by a
7 fork of Alessandro Scotti and lots of changes made afterwards by
8 H.G. Muller (released as versions 4.3.x). This release represents a
9 unified version of all changes made after the fork. It includes many
10 new features and bugfixes.
12 You can get both XBoard and WinBoard from the Savannah
15 https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/
17 If you find a bug, please report it in the bug tracker at
18 https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/ or by email to bug-xboard
24 New command-line options
25 /niceEngines=N for adjusting the priority of engine processes so they don't soak up all your system resources
26 /firstOptions="..." Allows the setting of options that engines define through the feature option="..." commands
28 /firstLogo=filename.bmp Displays the mentioned bitmap next to the clock (with H:W =1:2 aspect ratio) (WB only)
29 /secondLogo=filename.bmp
30 /autoLogo=false get logo files automatically from engineDirectory\logo.bmp
33 * New WB-protocol command: 'feature option="NAME -TYPE VALUE OTHER"', which engines can use to define options
34 * New WB-protocol command: 'option NAME VALUE' used to set value of engine-defned options.
35 * implements /delayAfterQuit and /delayBeforeQuit in XBoard, and uses SIGKILL to terminate rogue engine processes
40 New command-line options
41 /rewindIndex=N (for the new auto-increment mode of the loadGameIndex or loadPositionIndex in match mode)
42 /sameColorGames=N (for playing a match where the same player has white all the time)
43 /egtFormats="..." (for specifying where various end-game tables are installed on the computer)
46 + Time-odds factors can be set in the time-control dialog
47 + Nr of CPUs for SMP engines can be set in the Options -> UCI dialog
48 + Own-Book options can be switched from the Options -> UCI dialog
49 + The ScoreIsAbs options can be set from the Options -> Engine dialog
50 + New-Variant menu adds Superchess
53 * WinBoard engines can now also use the Polyglot opening book (implemented as general GUI book)
54 * New WB-protocol commands memory, cores and egtpath make interactive setting of these parameters
55 possible on WB engines
56 * New Polyglot is available that relays the interactive setting of these parameters to UCI engines
57 * Match mode suports an auto-increment mode, so that all games or positions from a file can be played
58 * Draw claims with Kings and an arbitrary number of like Bishops (e.g. KBBKB) are accepted
60 The source tree in original xboard 4.2.7 format can now be compiled under Cygwin with the aid
61 of the cygwin.mak file in the ~/winboard/ subdirectory of the source releasy, after you put
62 the hep-file from an executabl distribution there. Maefiles for other compilers are not updated
63 since 4.2.7, as I do not have those compilers.
68 Compared to version 4.3.13 described below, this version features
70 New command-line options:
71 /autoKibitz (for relaying the PV info of the engine to the ICS)
72 /userName="..." (for setting the name of the Human player, also as menu)
73 /engineDebugOutput=N (controlling the writing of engine output to debug file)
74 /firstNPS=N (for time management by node count or CPU time)
75 /secondNPS=N (likewise for the other engine)
78 + Enter Username (same as /userName command-line option)
79 + Save Diagram (for saving the Chessboard display as bitmap file)
80 + Machine Both (not implemented yet, but menu item already provided)
81 + New-Variant menu adds CRC, Janus and Berolina (the latter only with legality testing off!)
82 + Any variant can be played from a shuffled opening setup
85 * Problems with switching the variant in ICS zippy mode solved
86 * In ICS observing mode game history is now fully accessible
87 * Moves are not fed to engine in zippy mode, when observing a game from a variant unknown to the engine
88 * a problem with loading PGN of FRC games with move disambiguation and initial castling rights was fixed.
89 * A bug in the clock display that made previous versions of WinBoard crash for tiny displays is fixed
92 * variant name displayed in title bar in ICS mode, when not 'normal'
93 * when receiving a challenge in ICS zippy mode, it is checked if the engine supports the variant (/zippyVariants="..." can still be used to limit the allowed variants, and for protocol-1 engines is still the only thing to go on)
94 * when loading a game from a PGN file, WB automatically switches to the variant specified in the PGN tags
95 * when starting from a loaded position (using /loadPositionFile), this position will be used on subsequent 'New Game' commands as well (until we switch variant)
97 New is also that the source tree is now brought back in the original WinBoard 4.2.7 format, including
98 xboard source files. Note, however, that the xboard sources are from an older date, and I did not test
99 if they still compile together with the much newer backend sources. I did add code in xboard.c to recognize
100 the new command-line options I added since then, and in so far they are back-end options that should be enough
101 to make them work. This is completely untested, though; I did not even try to compile it. Last time anyone
102 built a working xboard.exe from this was at a stage where WinBoard did have adjustable board size, allowing
103 it to play Xiangqi. But no crazyhouse holdings yet.
106 ** Version 4.3.13a **
108 This version of WinBoard_F fixes several bugs in 4.3.12, and also addse a few new features.
109 The new features include:
110 - some more fairy pieces, so that each side now has 22 piece types in stead of 17,
111 making most fairy pieces available in board size "petite" (next to "bulky" and "middling"),
112 making the ArchBishop and Chancellor, as well as one wildcard piece (the Lance) available in all
113 sizes from "petite" to "bulky".
114 - The FRC support is fully fixed, both in local and ICS mode.
115 - A mechanism is provided for safe draw claiming in cases where a 3-fold repetition woud occur only
116 after your own move. In this case a draw will be awarded by WinBoard if the engine sends "offer draw"
117 before making its move.
118 - Genuine draw offers are not passed on immediately to the opponent but held up to when the offerer announces
120 - Variants FRC, Cylinder and Falcon are added to the "New Variant..." menu.
121 - Support for playing time-odds games is added. (Options /firstTimeOdds, /secondTimeOdds, /timeOddsMode)
122 - A mechanism is provided for attaching WinBoard options to the engine command, to create options that
123 follow the engine (e.g. time odds) in a tournament run under a tournament manager.
125 - Shatranj in ICS mode (did not work at all before)
126 - Some draw adjudications (QRKR was mistaken for KRKR, and KBKB with like Bishops is now recognized)
127 - time info in the PGN is now correct
133 This relaese was not made by the GNU xboard team, but by H.G.Muller.
134 It mainly contains developments on WinBoard. Nevertheless, an attempt
135 has been started to back-port the enormous number of improvements that
136 have been made to WinBoard since the Linux and Windows developments branched
137 to xboard. This is reflected by the source tree now having the same format
138 as that of xboard 4.2.7, including all the xboard sources.
140 An enormous amount of work still has to be done to make the xboard version
141 fully equivalent to WinBoard, especially on user-interface side. As a modest
142 beginning, the xboard source files have been patched to allow their compilation
143 with the newer back-end files from WinBoard. To this end, the number of piece
144 types in xboard has been increased from 6 to 22, and the WinBoard bitmaps
145 have been converted to xboard source format (.bm) and are included in the
146 xboard bitmaps directory. Other quick patches include the coloring of the
147 board squares (for xiangqi and holdings), and some code in the user-move
148 handling to suppress all moves into or out of the area between board and
149 holdings in crazyhouse, and the treatment of king-captures-own-piece
150 as a possibly valid move (for FRC castling). This should make it possible
151 to run xboard with the new back-end files without too much inconvenience.
153 New xboard command-line options have been added to make the added back-end
154 features available. The include the new variants (as argument of the old
155 -variant option), -boardWidth, -boardHeight and -holdingsSize. Be sure
156 to call xboard with "-boardSize middling" or "-boardSize bulky" if you
157 want to play with fairy pieces, or xboard might crash due to unavailability
158 of bitmaps. Other added xboard options are:
160 ADJUDICATION OPTIONS:
167 -adjudicateLossThreshold
184 -hideThinkingFromHuman
186 This is all completely untested, but as the options merely switch on well-tested
187 code in the back-end, there should not be too many problems with them.
188 Bugs can be reported in the WinBoard forum.