<ul><li>
<a href="#tag-C5">Auto-Queen, and still under-promote?</a>
</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-C7">A new method for setting up positions</a>
+</li><li>
<a href="#tag-D7">Piece fonts and figurine fonts</a>
</li><li>
<a href="#tag-D11">Displaying PVs as SAN</a>
<a href="#tag-D13">How close is the 50-move draw?</a>
</li><li>
<a href="#tag-D14">Sign of the engine scores</a>
+</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-D18">Loading frequently used engines</a>
+</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-D19">Collapsing groups of engines</a>
</li></ul>
</td><td>
<a href="#tag-D8">Searching a position in a PGN file</a>
</li><li>
<a href="#tag-D3">Editing the opening book</a>
+</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-D21">Recording game sequence number in PGN</a>
+</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-D20">Each tourney game its own debug file</a>
</li></ul>
<h3>XBoard -> WinBoard Convergence</h3>
<a href="#tag-C6">A move type-in box (XB)</a>
</li><li>
<a href="#tag-D15">New-style Move History window (XB)</a>
+</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-D22">Associating XBoard with file types</a>
+</li><li>
+<a href="#tag-D23">Many Windows behave as one (XB)</a>
</li></ul>
</td><td>
<img src="winboardF.jpg">
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.6.2/index.html">Follow-up (bug-fix) release (4.6.2)</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.5.3/index.html">Preceding release (4.5.3)</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a href="http://hgm.nubati.net/news.html">Experimental and future stuff</a>
+ </p>
</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table valign="top" cellpadding="20"><tbody><tr><td>
A plain right-click will start with a black Pawn,
pressing the Shift key with it will start with a white Pawn.
</p><p>
+The side to move, as indicated by the clock,
+can be altered by clicking on the clock of the other side,
+as is (and already was in previous versions) also the case when using the piece menu.
+But in sweep-selection mode, clicking on the clock of the side that
+already has the move ('highlighted' in black) will clear the board.
+</p><p>
This manner of placing pieces is especially handy in variants,
where you might need piece types that are not in the piece menu,
which can only be obtained by promoting or demoting other pieces.
(WinBoard at least had a startup dialog, where you could select engines
through a combobox, displaying a list of engines configured in the
settings file.)
-This experimental patch allows you to change engines during a session,
+This new feature allows you to change engines during a session,
(or even during a game!),
through a new menu dialog.
</p><p>
and a number of 'cycles', i.e. repeats of the entire pairing scheme after all pairings are played.
When multiple instances of XBoard are working on the same tournament,
you can make them wait for each other at the end of a round or cycle.
-For a more elaborate description, look <a href="http://hgm.nubati.net/TM.html">here</a>.
+For a more elaborate description, look <a href="TM.html">here</a>.
</p>
<img src="TourneyWB2.png" align="right">
</td></tr></tbody></table>
starting where it gets interesting.
</p>
+<table cellpadding="10"><tbody><tr><td>
+<img src="Recent.jpg">
+</td><td>
+<h2><a name="tag-D18">Quickly loading recently used engines</a></h2>
+<p>
+XBoard and WinBoard now keep track of which engines are used (as first engine at startup, or through the Load Engine dialog).
+This information is stored in the settings file as the string option -recentEngineList,
+and next time you start XBoard, this list will be displayed at the bottom of the Engine menu.
+When you select one of these items, the corresponding engine will be loaded as first engine,
+exactly like you went to Load Engine, selected it from the combobox, and pressed OK.
+</p><p>
+By default WinBoard would show the 6 most-recently used engines in the menu, in order of least-recent use.
+This number can be changed with the aid of the presistent option -recentEngines.
+</p>
<h2><a name="tag-D17">Another interpretation of Asia rules</a></h2>
<p>
For perpetual-chase detection in Xiangqi XBoard had been relying on the legal-moves-only interpretation of Asia rules,
or recaptures that leave the King in a check that already existed before the capture
(provided these are the only checks it is left in).
</p>
+</td></tr></tbody></table>
+<table cellpadding="10"><tbody><tr><td>
+<h2><a name="tag-D19">Structuring the list of installed engines (WB)</a></h2>
+<p>
+The engine list (-firstChessProgramNames, for those used to editing the ini file)
+upto now has always been a large, unstructured pool of engines.
+From now on it is possible to group the engines, by including "# GROUPNAME" and "# end" tags amongst the engine lines.
+These tags delimit a group of engines, and the GROUPNAME could be any text you like.
+(The only important thing is that it starts with a # sign.)
+Engines belonging to such a group will normally not be displayed in the comboboxes for selecting engines
+in the Load Engine and Tournament Options dialogs.
+In stead they will be 'collapsed' to their group tag. (End tags will always be invisible.)
+</p><p>
+A group can be 'opened' by selecting the group tag from the combobox.
+This does not really select anything (e.g. no engine will be added to the tourney participants when you do this).
+So you have to make a selection from the combobox again, but now you will see the contents of the group there, and nothing else!
+The group will remain selected, so you can select multiple engines from it,
+until you close the dialog, or select the group header (first item).
+In the latter case you revert back to 'top-level view' of the combo-box,
+as when you first entered the dialog.
+</p><p>
+This grouping can be applied recursively.
+I.e., you can make groups within groups.
+</p>
+</td><td>
+<img src="GroupAll.png">
+</td><td>
+<img src="GroupXQ.png">
+</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<table cellpadding="10"><tbody><tr><td valign="top">
+<h2><a name="tag-D21">The PGN Number tag</a></h2>
+<p>
+A (persistent) Boolean option -pgnNumberTag has been added to enable writing a Number tag in PGN files saved during a tourney,
+containing the (unique) sequence number of the game within that tourney.
+This number corresponds to the one used in the debug file name,
+so the correct debug file for the game can be easily found.
+</p>
+</td><td valign="top">
+<h2><a name="tag-D20">A separate debug file for every tourney game</a></h2>
+<p>
+XBoard and WinBoard normally use one debug file for an entire session.
+But now it is possible to let them create a separate debug file for each game in a tournament.
+All you have to do is request a -debugfile name that contains %d in it.
+XBoard will then replace this %d by the sequence number of the game,
+and continue using that new file to write the debug information on.
+E.g. using -debugfile "debugs/game%d.txt" will create files game1.txt, game2.txt etc.
+in the directory 'debugs' (which must pre-exist!).
+</p>
</td></tr></tbody></table>
+<h2><a name="tag-D22">Associating file types with icons and actions</a></h2>
+<table cellpadding="10"><tbody><tr><td valign="top">
+<img src="Icons.png">
+</td><td valign="top">
+<p>
+New in the installation of XBoard 4.6.0 is that it now causes several mime types to be associated with XBoard,
+and will define icons for them.
+This means that clicking a PGN file with games in it will now automatically launch XBoard
+as game viewer.
+A control is added in the Load Options dialog, where the user can further configure what he wants XBoard to do
+when viewing games.
+E.g. whether a Chess engine should be involved for analysis, and if so, which one.
+Similarly, clicking a FEN file with Chess positions will start XBoard as position viewer.
+</p><p>
+A third file type which will be associated with XBoard are TRN tournament files.
+These files are created when you start an engine tournament throught the Match Options dialog.
+When you click on them, XBoard will be launched to play on that tournament.
+This makes it really easy to let multiple instances of XBoard work for the same tourney,
+playing the games in parallel.
+</p>
+</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<h2><a name="tag-D23">Dragging all windows as a unit</a></h2>
+<p>
+The option -stickyWindows, known from WinBoard, now also works in XBoard.
+An checkbox in the General Options menu dialog was added to switch it on or off.
+With this option, auxiliary windows (Game List, Engine Output, Move List and Eval Graph) which touch the main window
+will move together with it when the latter is dragged over the screen.
+Such 'docked' windows will also be repositioned and resized as needed
+to preserve their tiling relationship with each other and the main window,
+whenever the latter changes size because of a variant change.
+</p>
+<p>
+Whether this feature works can depend on your system's window manager.
+XBoard will order the repositioning of the windows as needed,
+but this obviously can only have the desired effect if the window manager actually obeys such orders.
+Some window managers don't, so it might be that this feature does not work at all, or causes erratic behavior.
+The best solution in that case is to leave it switched off.
+</p>
+
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<p>Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2012/01/11 04:40:09 $
+$Date: 2012/04/22 04:08:37 $
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projects / xboard.git / blobdiff