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2 <title>XBoard - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation - NEWS</title>
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6 <h2>What is new in WinBoard / XBoard 4.4.0?</h2>
8 <table cellpadding="20"><tr valign="top"><td>
11 <li><a href="#tag-A1">Improvements of the WinBoard front-end</a></li>
12 <li><a href="#tag-A2">Support for chess variants</a></li>
13 <li><a href="#tag-A3">Display of engine-output</a></li>
14 <li><a href="#tag-A4">Menu dialogs in XBoard</a></li>
15 <li><a href="#tag-A5">Setting engine options through the GUI</a></li>
17 </td><td valign="top">
18 <img src="../4.5.0/winboardF.png">
19 </td><td valign="top">
21 <a href="../4.5.0/index.html">Follow-up release (4.5.0)</a>
24 <a href="../4.4.1/index.html">Minor bug-fixes (4.4.1)</a>
27 <a href="../4.4.0/index.html">Preceding release (4.2.7)</a>
30 <a href="../4.4.0/WinBoardF.html">WinBoard_F fork (4.3.x)</a>
33 <a href="../4.4.0/Winboard_x.html">Winboard_x fork</a>
37 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
38 <h3><a name="tag-A1">Incorporating the Winboard_x fork</a></h3>
40 When official development of XBoard stalled after release of 4.2.7,
41 unofficial forks emerged further developing WinBoard without paying attention to XBoard.
42 Changes in the back-end even destroyed the possibility to build an XBoard from these modified sources.
43 XBoard 4.4.0 pulls some of these forks back into the main line of XBoard development,
44 by at least restoring the compatibility of the X11 front-end files with the common back-end,
45 even though most of the new front-end functions of WinBoard have not been ported yet.
47 In particular, XBoard 4.4.0 is based on the Winboard_x fork by Alessandro Scotti.
48 That means that a WinBoard built from these sources has all the enhancements associated with Winboard_x.
49 These include the auxiliary windows for engine output, move history and evaluation graph,
50 board textures and font-based rendering of pieces.
53 For further details, see the page on
54 <a href="../4.4.0/Winboard_x.html">Winboard_x</a>.
56 </td><td valign="top">
57 <img src="petite.gif">
60 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
61 <img src="couriersmall.gif">
62 </td><td valign="top">
63 <h3><a name="tag-A2">Different board formats and unorthodox pieces</a></h3>
65 XBoard 4.4.0 also inorporates the enhancements of the WinBoard 4.3 fork (aka WinBoard F) by H.G.Muller.
66 This fork itself was built on Winboard_x.
67 At the later stages of this fork (from 4.3.14 on) the compatibility with XBoard was restored,
68 and they came with a working XBoard that could benefit from the enhancements in the common back-end.
71 <li>Full awareness of castling and en-passant rights</li>
72 <li>Configurable board formats (e.g. 9x10 for Chinese chess)</li>
73 <li>Many unorthodox piece types supported (e.g. cannon and elephant)</li>
74 <li>Variant selectable from menu</li>
75 <li>Bughouse piece drops can be done from holdings displayed next to board</li>
78 For further details of the back-end enhancements, see the page on
79 <a href="../4.4.0/WinBoardF.html">WinBoard 4.3</a>.
83 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
84 <h3><a name="tag-A3">Improved analysis window</a></h3>
86 One of the first Winboad_x front-end features we ported to XBoard was the engine-output window,
87 which is an enhanced version of the old analysis window.
88 Rather than just displaying the latest line of engine output,
89 it displays the entire list of it for the current position.
90 Information like current move being searched, number of moves, and nodes searched
91 are displayed above the pane with engine output
92 (provided 'periocic updates' is switched on).
95 The window is also made more generally available:
96 apart from in analysis mode, it can also be brought up when playing against an engine,
97 so you can see the full engine output, rather than just the latest line in the message field above the board.
98 In Two Machines mode the window even splits into two identical panes,
99 so you can see the output of both engines.
100 An icon above each pane indicates whether the engine producing that output is thinking or pondering.
102 </td><td valign="top">
103 <img src="EngOutXB.png">
106 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
107 <table cellpadding="5"><tr><td>
108 <img src="TCold.png">
110 <img src="CommonOld.png">
112 </td><td valign="center">
113 <img src="AdjuOld.png">
114 </td><td valign="top">
115 <h3><a name="tag-A4">Some new menu dialogs</a></h3>
117 Previous versions of XBoard were sorely lacking in menu dialogs,
118 and had to be controlled almost entirely through command-line options.
119 Only options that had a simple on/off setting could be controlled through the Options menu.
122 The menu dialogs with the most important option settings have now been ported from WinBoard.
123 In particular, the dialogs to specify the time control,
124 general settings common to all engines,
125 and the adjudication options now have their own menu dialogs.
126 The latter options came with the WinBoard F back-end,
127 as reliable adjudication of games only became possible when XBoard was fully aware of castling and en-passant rights.
128 The general engine settings apply mainly to UCI engines supported through Polyglot.
132 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
133 <h3><a name="tag-A5">Configuring an engine through the GUI</a></h3>
135 An entirely new feature is a dialog through which you can interactively set the private options of engines.
136 Especially UCI engines have many options, but this feature can work for native XBoard engines as well,
137 through extensions of the protocol.
138 Each engine can define its own set of options with name of its choosing,
139 and tell XBoard what type of values the option can take (numeric, on/off, text, multiple choice).
140 XBoard will then present these options to the user in an Engine Settings dialog,
141 which will thus look completely different for each engines.
142 When the user alters a value here, the new value is relayed to the engine.
145 Shown are the Engine Settings dialogs for Glaurung 2.2 and Fairy-Max 4.8o
147 <img src="EngineSet.png">
148 </td><td valign="top">
149 <img src="settings.png">
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156 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to
157 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>.
158 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
160 Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions to
161 <a href="mailto:bug-xboard@gnu.org"><bug-xboard@gnu.org></a>.</p>
164 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
165 README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
168 <p>Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
170 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
171 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/">Creative
172 Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License</a>.</p>
175 <!-- timestamp start -->
176 $Date: 2012/01/11 04:40:00 $
177 <!-- timestamp end -->