X-Git-Url: http://winboard.nl/cgi-bin?a=blobdiff_plain;f=READ_ME;h=637421d90ea6b116c4957a1ec76fe82a2a62df5f;hb=fa76217dec3666d46e537483a60ea7b9e9568e33;hp=17d4cbd4402b735fb0f7daaad6283801285c55bf;hpb=05bc30b15e31c427ce208495a889e9ff36e6642b;p=xboard.git diff --git a/READ_ME b/READ_ME index 17d4cbd..637421d 100644 --- a/READ_ME +++ b/READ_ME @@ -1,33 +1,62 @@ What is XBoard? =============== -XBoard is a graphical chessboard that can serve as a user interface -for GNU Chess, for the Internet Chess Server, or for electronic mail -correspondence chess. XBoard can also be used by itself. See the -manual page xboard.man for further details; use the command "nroff --man xboard.man | more" to read it. +XBoard is a graphical chessboard for the X Window System. It can +serve as a user interface for chess engines such as GNU Chess, for the +Internet Chess Server, or for electronic mail correspondence chess. +XBoard can also be used by itself. See the manual page xboard.txt for +further details. -Building XBoard -=============== -Quick start: You can build xboard on most systems with the commands +XBoard is free software, copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation +and released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). See the file +COPYING for details. + +You can build xboard on most systems with the following commands. - configure + ./configure make See the file INSTALL for more detailed instructions. -See the file FAQ for answers to frequently asked questions. +See the file FAQ.html for answers to frequently asked questions. + + +What is WinBoard? +================= +WinBoard is a port of XBoard to run natively on Windows. It is part +of the XBoard project and is released under the same terms as XBoard. + +You can build WinBoard using the free Cygwin toolchain from +www.cygnus.com with the following commands. + + cd winboard + make -f cygwin.mak + +You can build WinBoard using Microsoft Visual C with the following +commands, or by opening the project in Visual Studio and clicking the +build button. + + cd winboard + nmake -f msvc.mak + +There is also a contributed .mak file for Borland C. It's not +maintained and thus may need updating if you want to use it. + Reporting problems ================== -Report bugs and problems with XBoard to . Please -use the "script" program to start a typescript, run XBoard with the --debug option, and include the typescript output in your message. -Also tell us what kind of machine and what operating system version -you are using. The command "uname -a" will often tell you this. +Report bugs and problems with XBoard and WinBoard to +. With XBoard, please use the "script" program +to start a typescript, run XBoard with the -debug command line option, +and include the typescript output in your message. With WinBoard, +please use the /debug command line option and include the contents of +the file WinBoard.debug. Also tell us what kind of machine and what +operating system version you are using. On Unix, the command "uname +-a" will tell you this. On Windows, right-click on My Computer and +select Properties. -Here is a sample of approximately what you should type: +Here is a sample of approximately what you should type (on Unix): script uname -a @@ -35,7 +64,7 @@ Here is a sample of approximately what you should type: make ./xboard -debug exit - mail tim@tim-mann.org + mail bug-xboard@gnu.org Subject: Your short description of the problem Your detailed description of the problem ~r typescript @@ -45,19 +74,62 @@ If you improve XBoard, please send a message about your changes, and we will get in touch with you about merging them in to the main line of development. -Caveats -======= -XBoard depends on the Xt Intrinsics and Athena Widget Set of X11R4 or -later. In particular, X11R3 just won't do. - -XBoard works best with version 4.0 or 5.0 of GNU Chess. Older -versions may also work, but they are unsupported. The GNU Chess -project requests that you get a current copy of GNU Chess rather than -using older, bug-ridden versions. GNU Chess 4.0 must be compiled with -the -DXBOARD flag for use with XBoard. Use the "make gnuchessx" -target in GNU Chess 4.0 to do this. - -The Free Software Foundation would prefer to be able to distribute an -X chessboard program covered only by the GNU General Public License -and unencumbered by any other copyright. If you can help with this, -please contact the FSF. +Version 4.3.14 +============== + +This relaese was not made by the GNU xboard team, but by H.G.Muller. +It mainly contains developments on WinBoard. Nevertheless, an attempt +has been started to back-port the enormous number of improvements that +have been made to WinBoard since the Linux and Windows developments branched +to xboard. This is reflected by the source tree now having the same format +as that of xboard 4.2.7, including all the xboard sources. + +An enormous amount of work still has to be done to make the xboard version +fully equivalent to WinBoard, especially on user-interface side. As a modest +beginning, the xboard source files have been patched to allow their compilation +with the newer back-end files from WinBoard. To this end, the number of piece +types in xboard has been increased from 6 to 22, and the WinBoard bitmaps +have been converted to xboard source format (.bm) and are included in the +xboard bitmaps directory. Other quick patches include the coloring of the +board squares (for xiangqi and holdings), and some code in the user-move +handling to suppress all moves into or out of the area between board and +holdings in crazyhouse, and the treatment of king-captures-own-piece +as a possibly valid move (for FRC castling). This should make it possible +to run xboard with the new back-end files without too much inconvenience. + +New xboard command-line options have been added to make the added back-end +features available. The include the new variants (as argument of the old +-variant option), -boardWidth, -boardHeight and -holdingsSize. Be sure +to call xboard with "-boardSize middling" or "-boardSize bulky" if you +want to play with fairy pieces, or xboard might crash due to unavailability +of bitmaps. Other added xboard options are: + +ADJUDICATION OPTIONS: +-checkMates +-testClaims +-materialDraws +-trivialDraws +-ruleMoves +-repeatsToDraw +-adjudicateLossThreshold +-firstScoreAbsolute +-secondScoreAbsolute + +TIME-CONTROL OPTIONS +-firstTimeOdds +-secondTimeOdds +-timeOddsMode +-firstNPS +-secondNPS + +GENERAL OPTIONS +-matchPause +-engineDebugOutput +-userName +-pgnExtendedInfo +-pgnEventHeader +-hideThinkingFromHuman + +This is all completely untested, but as the options merely switch on well-tested +code in the back-end, there should not be too many problems with them. +Bugs can be reported in the WinBoard forum. \ No newline at end of file