From: Arun Persaud Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:46:15 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Add news page for WinBoard F X-Git-Url: http://winboard.nl/cgi-bin?a=commitdiff_plain;h=b739e7fc6cf01664bf09eb3f2b17a5609b51a594;p=xboard.git Add news page for WinBoard F --- diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/Shogi.png b/whats_new/4.4.0/Shogi.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f68acd Binary files /dev/null and b/whats_new/4.4.0/Shogi.png differ diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/WinBoardF.html b/whats_new/4.4.0/WinBoardF.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5b3f77 --- /dev/null +++ b/whats_new/4.4.0/WinBoardF.html @@ -0,0 +1,826 @@ + +XBoard - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation - NEWS + + + +

What is new in WinBoard 4.3?

+ +
+

New Features

+ + 		+ + +

+ Follow-up release (4.4.0) +

+

+ Preceding fork (Winboard_x) +

+
+ +

Treating castling and e.p. rights seriously

+

+ One of the most important changes betwen WinBoard 3.4 and predecessors is that it is fully aware of the game state. + That is, it keeps track of castling rights and e.p. status, + and takes that knowledge into account in legality checking of the moves and mate testing. + As a result it can do 100% reliable adjudications: + forfeit engines that do illegal moves, or make false result claims, + and terminate the game on 3-fold repetition of due to the 50-move rule. +

+ +
+

Supporting fairy pieces

+

+ WinBoard F does not only support the six piece types of orthdox chess, + but expanded the number to 22. + Most of these have well-specified moves known to WinBoard, + such as the Archbishop (a B+N compound) and the Chancellor (R+N) of Capablanca Chess. + Others are wild cards just supplied as graphics, and can only be used with legality testing off. +

+ In board sizes middling (49) and bulky (72) a bitmap for each of these 22 pieces is supplied, + while size petite (33) supports most. + In the intermediate sizes, only Archbishop and Chancellor are available, + while for sizes below 33 and above 72, none are. + Some of the more common piece types, such as those for Chinese or Capablanca Chess, + were added to the piece menu in Edit Position mode, + while others can be made by 'promoting' or 'demoting' the more common ones. +

+ 		+ +
+ +
+ + +

Configurable and non-square board formats

+

+ WinBoard F allows the use of other boards than 8x8. + In particular, the number of ranks does not have to be equal to the number of files. + Options -boardWidth and -boardHeight can be used to specify exactly the board you want, + but a value -1 for these options means WinBoard will use the default size for the + variant you are playing (so 8x8 for normal chess or suicide). +

+

Piece-ID letters in SAN and FEN

+

+ Unfortunately the names of fairy pieces are not as standardized as they are in orthodoc chess: + a piece that moves in the same way can be called Marshall in one variant, Chancellor in another, + and Champion in a third. + This affects the single-letter abbreviation one would use for writing SAN moves in notations for these variants. + WinBoard accounts for this through the -pieceToCharTable option, + where you can define for each of the 44 colored piece types what letter should be used for them. + This can also used to disable pieces, by setting their character to a period. + For each of the predefined variants, WinBoard has a default table, and uses that as soon as you select the variant. +

+
+ +
+

Predefined variants

+

+ With the unorthodox piece types and board formats WinBoard F can support a large number of chess variants. + Some of these variants are pre-defined: + they can be selected through a New Variant item in the File menu, + which brings you to a dialog where you can pick one, + and optionally change its board size from the default. +

+

+ For these predefined variants, WinBoard usually knows the rules exactly, + meaning that it can do legality checking, reliably detect checkmate, etc. + Some variants are only partially supported, however, and need to be played with legality testing off. + The predefined new variants are: +

+
    +
  • Xiangqi (Chinese chess)
    • +
  • Shogi (Japanese chess)
    • +
  • Capablanca, Gothic and Capa-random Chess (on 10x8 board)
    • +
  • Courier chess (a medieval precursor of modern chess)
    • +
  • Shatranj (ancient Arabic chess)
    • +
  • Knightmate (King moves as Knight, and vice versa)
    • +
  • Cylinder chess (the board wraps around at the edge files)
    • +
  • Berolina chess (Pawns capture straight and move diagonally)
    • +
+

+ The latter two can only be played with legality testing off. + The ICS variants that were already supported in 4.2.7 + (Fischerandom, Suicide, Losers, Giveaway, Atomic, Twokings, Threechecks) + are all fully supported in local mode, + and WinBoard is aware of their rules for victory, so it can adjudicate. +

+

+ Normally all these variants would be played with the piece symbols shown above. + But the almost infinite configurability of the WinBoard look + through board textures and font-based rendering + does allow you to perfectly mimic traditional representation of Asian variants, for example. + On the right you see how suppressing the grid that normally separates the squares, + and using a drawing of a Xiangqi board and the XIANGQI font for piece rendering + can give a very good looking Xiangqi interface. +

+ 		+ +
+ +

Dragging and dropping from displayed holdings in Bughouse

+
+ + +

+ Drop variants like Bughouse and Crazyhouse used to keep track of the holdings as text in the title bar, + and required a drop menu to select dropped pieces from. + This only worked in ICS mode, as the holdings were not updated in local play. + In WinBoard F, the holdings are displayed beside the board, + and you can grab and drag the piece to drop from there. + They are also fully updated in local Crazyhouse play. + (Bughouse still can only be played on an ICS, being a 4-player game where WinBoard is only a 2-player GUI.) +

+

+ Shogi is also a drop game, and uses the same mechanism. + In fact WinBoard F allows you to play any variant as a Crazyhouse-style drop game, + by configuring holdings for it through the options -holdingsSize, + where you can specify the number of piece types for which space should be reserved in the holdings. + (Beware: for practical reasons this cannot be larger than the number of board ranks!) + Piece types for which no space is reserved will revert to Pawn oon capture. +

+

Promoted Pawn or primordial piece?

+

+ In Bughouse promoted Pawns revert to Pawn on capture, and are thus in principle different pieces + than the primordial pieces of the same type. + WinBoard F shows this difference by using alternate representations for pieces obtained through promotions. + In sizes where these are available, fairy pieces are used; + in other sizes a slightly smaller representation of the normal chess piece. +

+
+ +
+

Displaying engine logos

+

+ WinBoard F offers the possibility to display logos of the playing engines next to the clock. + The options -firstLogo, -secondLogo allow you to explicitly specify bitmap files for those. + The logos will be scaled to 2x1 aspect ratio, so results are better if they already have this to begin with. +

+

+ There also is a persistent boolean option -autoLogo, + which makes WinBoard look automatically in the engine directory for a file called logo.bmp, + and display that if it finds it (and this is not overruled by an explicitly given file). + In ICS mode this option makes WinBoard look for a logo of the ICS in the logos folder, + e.g. freechess.org.bmp for FICS. +

+

Modernizing WinBoard protocol

+

+ WinBoard protocol lacked commands to control the engine's hash-table size and number of CPUs it could use. + This was of course because such things did not exist at the time when it was devised. + This situation was corrected in WinBoard 4.3, by adding the 'memory' and 'cores' commands. + These commands allow the GUI to specify the hash size and CPU number through the protocol interface, + with as a result they can now be set through the GUI, rather than requiring editing of obscure ini files. +

+

+ Of course this only works on engines that actually support these features. + But (through Polyglot) all UCI engines do, so the dialogs to set these options were useful from the beginning. +

+ 		+ +
+ +
+ + +

Bitmaps for traditional Japanese Shogi pieces

+

+ As an extra service to Japanese users, board size 'moderate' (58) uses a complete set of traditional Shogi pieces in variant shogi. + To properly use them, the options -allWhite and -flipBlack were added, and have to be set to true. + Other board sizes (i.e. middling and bulky) use the normal chess-style bitmaps, + except that special forms of the Gold are used to indicate some promoted pieces. +

+
+ +

Overview of new command-line options

+

+Below follows a table that lists the new features, +the command-line option needed to control them, +and if there is a menu provided that can switch the option while WinBoard is running +(command-line options exert their effect only at startup). +Note that, unlike WinBoard 4.2.7, the WinBoard 4.3 series is fully castling and e.p. aware, +and handles the castling, e.p. and 50-move field in FENs on input and output as should be expected. +

+
+

command-line option

+ 		+

description

+ 		+

menu

+
+ + + ENGINE-ENGINE ADJUDICATION OPTIONS + + +
+ -adjudicateLossThreshold 0 (*x) + + adjudicates engine-engine game based on score + + Options -> Engine... (x) +
+ -checkMates false (*x) + + detect and end game on checkmates and stalemates + + Options -> Engine... (x) +
+ -testClaims false (*x) + + WinBoard corrects false RESULT claims + + Options -> Engine.. (x) +
+ -materialDraws false (*x) + + adjudicate draw when no mating material present + + Options -> Engine.. (x) +
+ -trivialDraws false (*x) + + adjudicate draw in endgames like KRKR and KNNK + + Options -> Engine.. (x) +
+ -adjudicateDrawMoves 0 (*x) + + adjudicate draw when game lasts too long + + Options -> Engine.. (x) +
+ -ruleMoves 51 (*x) + + number of reversible moves after which to adjudicate draw + + Options -> Engine.. (x) +
+ -repeatsToDraw 6 (*x) + + adjudicate draw when a position occurs this many times + + Options -> Engine.. (x) +
+ -firstScoreAbs false (x) +
+ -secondScoreAbs false (x) + 		+ Engine indicates score for white, even when playing black + + Options -> Adjudications.. (xboard-only) +
+ - + + Adjudicate the game in progress as win to white, win to black, or draw + + Action -> Adjudicate to White +
+ Action -> Adjudicate to Black +
+ Action -> Adjudicate Draw +
+ + + TIME-CONTROL AND TIMING OPTIONS + + +
+ -firstTimeOdds 1 (x) +
+ -secondTimeOdds 1 (x) + 		+ reduce the thinking time of the mentioned engine by the given factor + + Options -> Engine Settings.. (xboard only) +
+ -timeOddsMode 1 (*x) + + determines what happens when both engine have time odds + + Options -> Engine Settings.. (xboard only) +
+ -firstNPS -1 (x) +
+ -secondNPS -1 (x) + 		+ engine must use node count for its time control, as if running at specified rate + + - +
+ -matchPause 10000 (*x) + + number of msec to wait between games in match mode + + - +
+ -delayBeforeQuit 0 (*x) +
+ -delayAfterQuit 0 (*x) + 		+ timing parameter specifying how to terminate the engine processes + + - +
+ - + + adjust the clocks by 1 minute (up or down) + + left- or right-cick on clock in edit-game mode +
+ -niceEngines 0 (*x) + + lower the CPU priority of the engines + + - +
+ + + DISPLAY-LOOK OPTIONS + + +
+ -liteBackTextureFile "" (*) +
+ -darkBackTextureFile "" (*) +
+ -liteBackTextureMode 1 (*) +
+ -darkBackTextureMode 1 (*) + 		+ Allows you to use any bitmap picture for displaying the board square + + - +
+ -renderPiecesWithFont "" (*) + + specifies a true-type Chess font to be used for piece symbols + + - +
+ -fontPieceToCharTable "" (*) + + specifies which font character to use for the various piece types + + - +
+ -overrideLineGap 1 (*) + + controls the width of the black grid lines between squares + + - +
+ -fontPieceBackColorWhite #0 (*) +
+ -fontPieceForeColorWhite #0 (*) +
+ -fontPieceBackColorBlack #0 (*) +
+ -fontPieceForeColorBlack #0 (*) + 		+ control piece colors in font-based rendering + + - +
+ -fontPieceSize 80 (*) + + tunes the size of pieces in font-based rendering (% of square size) + + - +
+ -highlightMoveWithArrow false (*) + + draws a big arrow to indicate the move last played + + Options -> General... +
+ -highlightArrowColor #FFFF80 (*) + + controls the color of the highlight arrow + + - +
+ -autoLogo false (*) +
+ -firstLogo "" +
+ -secondLogo "" + 		+ causes WinBoard to display player logos above the board, next to the clocks. + + - +
+ - + + Swap white and black clock + + Options -> Swap Clocks +
+ + + (UCI) ENGINE OPTIONS + + +
+ -polyglotDir "" (*x) + + tells WinBoard where you installed Polyglot, for automatic invocation with UCI engines + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -polyglotBook "" (*x) + + tells WinBoard which opening book it should use, or should make Polyglot use. + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -usePolyglotBook false (*x) + + turns the use of the Polygot book on or off + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -defaultPathEGTB "c:\egtb" (*x) + + folder where to find end-game tables + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -defaultCacheSizeEGTB 4 (*x) + + specifies the cache size for UCI engines + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -defaultHashSize 64 (*x) + + specifies the size of the main hash table for UCI engines and WinBoard engines implementing the memory command + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -firstIsUCI false (x) +
+ -secondIsUCI false (x) +
+ -fUCI (x) +
+ -sUCI (x) + 		+ tells WinBoard the corresponding engine should be run through Polyglot + + - +
+ -firstHasOwnBookUCI true (x) +
+ -secondHasOwnBookUCI true (x) +
+ -fNoOwnBookUCI true (x) +
+ -sNoOwnBookUCI true (x) +
+ -firstXBook (x) +
+ -secondXBook (x) + 		+ tells WinBoard (or Polyglot) if the engine should use its own opening book + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -smpCores 1 (*x) + + sets the maximum number of CPUs an SMP engine can use. + (only affects engines that support the cores command of WB protocol) + + Options -> Global Settings... (x) +
+ -egtFormats "" (*x) + + specifies which end-game tables are installed on the computer, + and where they can be found + (e.g. "nalimov:\chess\egtb,scorpio:\chess\bitbases") + + - +
+ -firstOptions "" (x) +
+ -secondOptions "" (x) + 		+ sets engine-defined options of UCI engines and WinBoard engines that support the option feature. + + Options -> Engine #1 Settings... (x) +
+ Options -> Engine #2 Settings... (x) +
+ -firstNeedsNoncompliantFEN "" (x) +
+ -secondNeedsNoncompliantFEN "" (x) + 		+ directly specifies castling and e.p. field to be used in all FENs sent to mentioned engine + + - +
+ + + CHESS-VARIANT OPTIONS + + +
+ -boardHeight -1 (*x) +
+ -boardWidth -1 (*x) +
+ -holdingsSize -1 (*x) + 		+ specifies the board format and nr of piece types that can be dropped, + when you want it to be different from what is usual in the chosen varint + + File -> New Variant... +
+ -variant normal (x) + + supports many new variants: xiangqi, shogi, fischerandom, capabanca, gothic, caparandom, janus, + shatranj, courier, knightmate, berolina, falcon, cylinder, fairy, super, great + + File -> New Variant... (x) +
+ -defaultFrcOpening -1 (x) + + allows you to play from a specific opening shuffle, or make a new shuffle each game + + File -> New Shuffle Game... (x) +
+ -pieceToCharTable "" (x) + + allows you to specify by which letters pieces are referred to in FEN and SAN, + if you want to deviate from what is usual for the current variant + + - +
+ -flipBlack fase (*x) + + displays opponent pieces uppside down (for Shogi) + + Options -> Board... +
+ -allWhite false (*x) + + use white bitmaps (with black outline) also for display of black pieces (for Shogi) + + Options -> Board... +
+ + + PGN FILE OPTIONS + + +
+ -pgnExtendedInfo false (*x) + + save engine output (depth, score time) in PGN + + Options->General... +
+ -pgnEventHeader
"Computer Chess Game" (*x) + 		+ specify the event for the PGN event tag + + - +
+ -saveOutOfBookInfo true (*) + + include an 'annotator' tag in the PGN file + + +
+ -hideThinkingFromHuman false (*x) + + suppresses the engine thinking output in the display, without the need to switch it off + (so it can still appear in the PGN file) + + Options -> General... (x) +
+ -userName "" (x) + + sets the name of the human player + + Mode -> Enter Username... (x) +
+ + + USER-INTERFACE OPTIONS AND WINDOW CONTROL + + +
+ -moveHistoryUp true (*) +
+ -moveHistoryX 0 (*) +
+ -moveHistoryY 0 (*) +
+ -moveHistoryW 0 (*) +
+ -moveHistoryH 0 (*) + 		+ controls opening, placement and size of a window containing the moves of the current game + (new in 4.4 is that all X and Y coordinates of auxiliary windows are stored relative to the main window) + + Mode -> Show Move History (x) +
+ -evalGraphUp true (*) +
+ -evalGraphX 0 (*) +
+ -evalGraphY 0 (*) +
+ -evalGraphW 0 (*) +
+ -evalGraphH 0 (*) + 		+ controls opening, placement and size of a window containing a graph of the + evaluation score of the engine(s) as a function of move number of the current game + + Mode -> Show Evaluation Graph +
+ -engineOutputUp true (*) +
+ -engineOutputX 0 (*) +
+ -engineOutputY 0 (*) +
+ -engineOutputW 0 (*) +
+ -engineOutputH 0 (*) + 		+ controls opening, placement and size of a window containing the thinking output of the engine(s) + + Mode -> Show Engine Output (x) +
+ -stickyWindows true (*) + + make the various windows snap onto each other, and stick together + + - +
+ -showEvalInMoveHistory true (*) + + depth/score info of the engine is included as comments in the move history window + + Options -> General... +
+ -evalHistColorWhite #FFFFB0 (*) +
+ -evalHistColorBlack #AD5D3D (*) + 		+ determines the color of the eval-score comments in the move-history window + + - +
+ -autoDisplayComment true (*) + + causes a window for displaying PGN comments to pop up automatically when such a comment is encountered + + - +
+ -autoDisplayTags true (*) + + causes a window with PGN tags to be displayed as soon as a PGN file is loaded + + - +
+ -gameListTags "eprd" (*) + + specifies the PGN tags that should be displayed in the game list + + Options -> Game List... +
+ -noGUI (x) + + suppress update of display on all machine and ICS moves (moves, clocks, icon) + + - +
+ + + ICS OPTIONS + + +
+ -autoKibitz (x) + + kibitz engine Thinking Output to ICS, and capture opponent kibitz for in PGN + + - +
+ -zippyShortGame 0 (x) + + ban opponents on ICS that abort without playing + + - +
+ + + MISCELLANEOUS + + +
+ -debugFile "winboard.debug" (x) +
+ -nameOfDebugFile "winboard.debug" (x) + 		+ allows you to specify an alternative name for saving the debug information + + - +
+ -engineDebugOutput 0 (x) + + tells WinBoard if and how to put protocol-violating output in the debug file + + - +
+ - + + save chess-board display as diagram in bitmap file + (only works for the smaller board formats!) + + File -> Save Diagram... +
+ -defaultFrcPosition -1 (*x) + + specify the number of the starting position in shuffle Chess variants + + File -> New Shuffle Game... (x) +
+ - + + display only those lines in the game list that contain a given string + + in Game-List window +
+ -rewindFile 0 (x) + + A nonzero value for this option causes the loadGameIndex or loadPositionIndex + to rewind to the beginning of the Games or Position file when it reaches + the given value in auto-increment match mode. + This mode is specified by a negative value as argument of the /lgi or /lpi options, + where -1 increments the index after every game of the match, + and -2 after every two games (so that each position is played with black and white). + + - +
+ -sameColorGames 0 (x) + + play a match, but without alternating the colors (overrules -matchGames) + + - +
+

+The value with which the option is listed is the default value. +If it is false or true, it is a Boolean option, a number implies an integer option. +A value starting with # indicates an RGB color indication in hexadecimal notation. +Options the settings of which are saved into the winboard.ini file are marked with (*). +

+ + + + + + + diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/WinBoardXQ2.png b/whats_new/4.4.0/WinBoardXQ2.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7341631 Binary files /dev/null and b/whats_new/4.4.0/WinBoardXQ2.png differ diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/crazy.gif b/whats_new/4.4.0/crazy.gif new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b540e7 Binary files /dev/null and b/whats_new/4.4.0/crazy.gif differ diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/fairies.png b/whats_new/4.4.0/fairies.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4523da1 Binary files /dev/null and b/whats_new/4.4.0/fairies.png differ diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/marble.png b/whats_new/4.4.0/marble.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c4d3c2 Binary files /dev/null and b/whats_new/4.4.0/marble.png differ diff --git a/whats_new/4.4.0/shatranj.gif b/whats_new/4.4.0/shatranj.gif new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b03d6ed Binary files /dev/null and b/whats_new/4.4.0/shatranj.gif differ