"http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
>http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>.
+<i>This FAQ is in need of revision. Please contact us if you'd like
+to help update it.</i>
+
<HR>
<H2>Outline</H2>
XBoard and WinBoard?</A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="#[A.4]">[A.4] Who is working on this project?</A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="#[A.5]">[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?</A></LI>
+<LI><a href="#[A.6]">[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and
+ WinBoard?</A></LI>
</UL>
<LI><A NAME="[B0]" HREF="#[B]">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</A></LI>
<li><a href="#[B.24]">[B.24]
The chess engines are too strong and always beat me. How can I adjust
the difficulty level to make them weaker?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#[B.25]">[B.25]
+ May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?</a></li>
</UL>
<LI><A HREF="#[C.19]">[C.19] XBoard or WinBoard tells me
"Error: first chess program (...) exited unexpectedly".</A></LI>
<li><a href="#[C.20]">[C.20]
- XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry".
+ XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or
+ "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or
+ "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".
</a></li>
<li><a href="#[C.21]">[C.21]
When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I
<H3><A NAME="[A.2]">[A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess
software?</A></H3>
-As a shortcut to most things mentioned in this FAQ, try my Chess Web page,
-<A HREF=
-"http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
->http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>.
-My Web page is the best place to get the latest versions of XBoard and WinBoard
-and the most up-to-date version of this FAQ.
+As a shortcut to most things mentioned in this FAQ, try Tim Mann's
+Chess Web page, <A HREF= "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
+>http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>. This page page is a good
+place to get the latest released versions of XBoard and WinBoard and
+the most up-to-date version of this FAQ. Also see our Savannah
+project pages at <a href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
+>https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>.
<p>If you have other questions about XBoard/WinBoard that aren't answered
in this FAQ, you can try Aaron Tay's WinBoard and Chess Engines FAQ, at
-<a href="http://www.chesskit.com/aarontay/Winboard/Winboard.html"
->http://www.chesskit.com/aarontay/Winboard/Winboard.html</a>.
+<a href="http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/"
+>http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/</a>.
<P>For general news and information about chess, try the newsgroup hierarchy
rec.games.chess.*, especially the groups rec.games.chess.misc and
200 Type set to I.
ftp> cd /pub/gnu/xboard
ftp> dir
- -rw-r--r-- 1 14910 wheel 393119 May 20 00:25 xboard-4.2.6.tar.gz
- ftp> get xboard-4.2.6.tar.gz
- 150 BINARY connection for xboard-4.2.6.tar.gz (393119 bytes).
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 14910 wheel 1057625 May 20 00:25 xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
+ ftp> get xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
+ 150 BINARY connection for xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz (1057625 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
</PRE>
At this writing, the current version numbers are:
<UL>
-<LI>XBoard 4.2.6</LI>
-<LI>WinBoard 4.2.6</LI>
+<LI>XBoard 4.2.7</LI>
+<LI>WinBoard 4.2.7</LI>
</UL>
<HR>
<H3><A NAME="[A.4]">[A.4] Who is working on this project?</A></H3>
-Tim Mann maintains this FAQ and is the lead developer on XBoard and
-WinBoard, but he has little time to work on the project. Many others
-occasionally contribute suggestions and snippets of code, for which we
-are grateful.
+Please see our Savannah project pages at <a
+href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
+>https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a> for a list of active
+developers. Many others occasionally contribute suggestions and
+snippets of code, for which we are grateful.
<HR>
<H3><A NAME="[A.5]">[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?</A></H3>
-<P>At present, bug reports, suggestions, and offers to help on XBoard
-or WinBoard should be sent directly to tim@tim-mann.org (Tim Mann).
-Beginner questions and discussion about the program may get faster
+<P>Bug reports, suggestions, and offers to help on XBoard
+or WinBoard should be sent to
+bug-xboard<a name="nospam">@</a>gnu.org.
+
+<p>Beginner questions and discussion about the program may get faster
answers on the WinBoard Forum at <a
href="http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/"
->http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/</a>. If you are developing a
+>http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/</a>.
+
+<p>If you are developing a
chess engine that works with XBoard or WinBoard (or an alternative
GUI that works with such engines), see the Chess Engines mailing
list, hosted at
what they were. The messages may seem meaningless to you, but they
are very meaningful to us and essential for diagnosing problems.
+<hr>
+<h3><a name="[A.6]">[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and
+ WinBoard?</a></h3>
+
+<p>Our plans are always in flux. As with most free software projects,
+the next release will happen when it happens -- or it may never
+happen. This has always been the policy for XBoard/WinBoard.
+Releases have never been promised in specific time frames.
+
+<p>Starting in November 2003, several new developers have joined the
+project, and work is now hosted at <a
+href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
+>https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>. Lots of work is just
+getting underway, but nothing is far along yet.
+
+<p>Here is a partial list of items that have a nonzero probability of
+happening in finite time.
+
+<ul>
+<li>Small bug fixes. Occasionally someone sends us a fix, or reports
+a small bug very clearly so that we're able to fix it in a few minutes
+work.<p>
+
+<li>Protocol version 3. The members of the chess engine authors'
+mailing list discussed a set of proposed features for the next version
+of the XBoard/WinBoard chess engine communication protocol.
+Unfortunately, this project has gotten only as far as that discussion
+took it; no revisions of the protocol spec or coding have been done
+yet. A few simple features are very clearly needed, though, and will
+probably appear in time.<p>
+
+<li>Contributed features. Several people have mailed me code to add
+various features. Most of this code is available on the
+XBoard/WinBoard extensions page at <a
+href="http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html"
+>http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html</a>, but it is not in any
+official releases yet. We are in the process of getting folks to
+formally assign the copyrights on their contributions to the Free
+Software Foundation so that we can include it in official releases in
+the future.<p>
+
+<li>Internationalization. Several people have expressed interest in
+internationalizing XBoard/WinBoard, and so hopefully this project will
+go forward. Once the internationalization support is in, we will need
+more translators. Watch for news on the xboard-devel mailing list on
+our Savannah pages.
+
+</ul>
+
<HR>
<H2><A NAME="[B]">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</A></H2>
<HR>
<HR>
<H3><A NAME="[B.4]">[B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?</A></H3>
-Because MacOS X has a Unix base, XBoard will compile and run on it.
-You do need an X11 (X Window System) server and client libraries.
-These do not come with Mac OS, but both free and commercial versions
-are available. Once you install the X11 package, XBoard is reported
-to compile and run without changes.
+Note: I am not a Mac user and have not tried this myself, so I cannot
+answer questions about it.
+
+<p>Because MacOS X has a Unix base, XBoard will compile and run on it.
+You do need an X11 (X Window System) server and client libraries. I'm
+told that these come standard with MacOS X 10.3 and later. Once you
+install the X11 package, XBoard is reported to compile and run without
+changes.
+
+<p>You can avoid having to compile XBoard (and GNU Chess) yourself by
+using the Fink sofware packaging system. See
+http://fink.sourceforge.net/ and
+http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/ for more info on Fink.
-There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native
+<p>There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native
(non-X11) Mac graphical interface, and none that runs on MacOS 9 or
earlier.
+
<HR>
<H3><A NAME="[B.5]">[B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?</A></H3>
No. This port would probably be a lot easier than the Win32 and Amiga
ports were, because VMS has the X Window system (under the name
-DECwindows) and is now POSIX compliant. However, I don't know enough
-about VMS to do the port myself, and I don't have time. If you do,
-give it a try! Send mail to me, tim@tim-mann.org (Tim Mann), if you're
-working on this.
+DECwindows) and is now POSIX compliant. If you are working on this,
+send mail to bug-xboard<a name="nospam">@</a>gnu.org to let us know.
<HR>
<H3><A NAME="[B.6]">[B.6] What is cmail?</A></H3>
<p><PRE>
gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
cd xboard-*/
- configure
+ ./configure
make
su
make install
<p><PRE>
gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
cd xboard-*/
- configure --prefix=$HOME
+ ./configure --prefix=$HOME
make
make install
</PRE>
engine will play more poorly. Consult whatever documentation came with
the engine you are using.
+<hr>
+<h3><a name="[B.25]">[B.25]
+ May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?</a></h3>
+
+<p>The piece bitmaps used in XBoard and WinBoard were designed by
+Elmar Bartel. He released them under the <a
+href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public
+License</a>. This means that if your program is also free software
+distributed under the GPL, you can use them freely. If your program
+is distributed under some other license, including commercial,
+shareware, or non-GPL freeware, then you cannot use the bitmaps unless
+you obtain special permission from Elmar. See the file README.bitmaps
+that comes with the XBoard and WinBoard source code for more
+information and an email address you can write to.
+
<HR><H2><A NAME="[C]">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems</A></H2>
<HR><H3><A NAME="[C.1]">[C.1] I can't build XBoard
program on my machine, the chess program keeps running in the background.
</A></H3>
-<p>If you are using Crafty, be certain to get the version compiled for
-Win32 (wcrafty.exe), not the version compiled for MS-DOS (crafty.exe).
-Also, be sure you have the current version of WinBoard. WinBoard
-3.4.1 and earlier had a bug that caused this problem to occur with all
-chess engines.
+<p>Be sure you have the current versions of WinBoard and the chess
+engine you are using. WinBoard 3.4.1 and earlier had a bug that
+caused this problem to occur with all chess engines. A buggy chess
+engine that does not respond to the "quit" command will also cause
+this.
-<p>This problem is reported to still happen occasionally, for unknown
-reasons. You can generally stop the rogue Crafty by pressing
-Ctrl+Alt+Del, selecting the Crafty process from the menu, and pressing
-the End Task button.
+<p>If you still see this problem, you can stop the rogue chess engine
+by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, selecting the chess engine process from the
+menu, and pressing the End Task button.
<hr>
<h3><a name="[C.12]">[C.12]
<p>After connecting to a chess server, XBoard 4.0.2 and later sends an
escape sequence to its terminal that is meant to display your handle
-and the ICS host name (for example, "user@chessclub.com") in the
+and the ICS host name (for example,
+"user<a name="nospam">@</a>chessclub.com") in the
terminal's banner and icon. It seems that several of the alternative
X terminal programs have a bug that makes them hang when sent this
escape sequence.
it.
<hr><h3><a name="[C.20]">[C.20]
- XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry".
+ XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or
+ "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or
+ "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".
</a></h3>
<p>You are running your X server with 8-bit color depth, and you are running
<p>If you have a modern machine, you probably have enough display
memory to run your X server with 16-, 24-, or 32-bit color depth. If
you're using "startx" to start the X server, try giving the command as
-"<tt>startx -- -bpp 24</tt>" (or 16, or 32). Further details on
+"<tt>startx -- -bpp 24</tt>" (or 16, or 32). On newer X servers you
+may have to use -depth instead of -bpp. Further details on
configuring your X server are beyond the scope of this FAQ.
<p>If you must run in 8-bit mode, try the following:
Avoid background images that use up all your colors. If you
run Netscape, try starting it up with the <tt>-install</tt> command-line
option; this gives Netscape its own private colormap that X will
-switch to when Netscape has the keyboard focus. If all else fails,
-another option is to run xboard in monochrome (black and white) mode
-by giving it the <tt>-mono</tt> command-line option.
+switch to when Netscape has the keyboard focus.
+
+<P>If all else fails, another possibility is to run xboard in
+monochrome (black and white) mode by giving it the <tt>-mono</tt>
+command-line option. XBoard will try this by itself in some cases.
+Monochrome mode works only with bitmap pieces, not pixmap pieces, so
+trying to use it may give you the error "XPM pieces cannot be used in
+monochrome mode". To get around this, either use the -bitmapDirectory
+command line option to point XBoard to the directory containing the
+bitmap pieces included with the XBoard source code, or rebuild XBoard
+with pixmap support disabled, using "./configure --disable-xpm ; make
+clean ; make".
<hr><h3><a name="[C.21]">[C.21]
When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I
Winsock Chess is derived from GNU Chess, but it is not maintained by
the GNU Chess team. You can get a copy from the Internet Chess
Library; see topic <A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2]</A>. For more information,
-contact its author, Donald Munro, ccahdm@beluga.upe.ac.za.
+contact its author, Donald Munro,
+ccahdm<a name="nospam">@</a>beluga.upe.ac.za.
<HR>
<H3><A NAME="[D.3]">[D.3] What is Crafty?</A></H3>
how to install Crafty as a command-line application on your machine.
<p>There is a Crafty mailing list.
-To subscribe, send email to majordomo@cis.uab.edu, with
+To subscribe, send email to
+majordomo<a name="nospam">@</a>cis.uab.edu, with
"subscribe crafty-list" in the body.
<HR>
<p>First, you need to get Crafty and install it as a command-line
application on your machine. See topic <A HREF="#[D.3]">[D.3]</A>.
-You must use the version of Crafty compiled for Win32 (wcrafty*.exe),
-not the version compiled for MS-DOS (crafty*.exe), and it is best to
-use the latest version of Crafty with the latest version of WinBoard to
-make sure all features are compatible and function correctly. You can
-install Crafty in any directory you like.
+It is best to use the latest version of Crafty with the latest version
+of WinBoard to make sure all features are compatible and function
+correctly. You can install Crafty in any directory you like.
<p>You also need to get WinBoard and install it in the normal way
using its built-in installer. You can do that either before or after
projects / xboard.git / blobdiff