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This section documents the command-line options to XBoard. You can set these options in two ways: by typing them on the shell command line you use to start XBoard, or by setting them as X resources (typically in your .Xresources file). Many of the options cannot be changed while XBoard is running; others set the initial state of items that can be changed with the Options menu.
Most of the options have both a long name and a short name. To turn a boolean option on or off from the command line, either give its long name followed by the value true or false (‘-longOptionName true’), or give just the short name to turn the option on (‘-opt’), or the short name preceded by ‘x’ to turn the option off (‘-xopt’). For options that take strings or numbers as values, you can use the long or short option names interchangeably.
Each option corresponds to an X resource with the same name, so if you like, you can set options in your .Xresources file or in a file named XBoard in your home directory. For options that have two names, the longer one is the name of the corresponding X resource; the short name is not recognized. To turn a boolean option on or off as an X resource, give its long name followed by the value true or false (‘XBoard*longOptionName: true’).