XBoard

XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess. It displays a chessboard on the screen, accept moves made with the mouse, and load and save games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:

• Chess engines that will run on your machine and play a game against you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess, Crafty, or many others.
• Chess servers on the Internet, where you can connect to play chess with people from all over the world, watch other users play, or just hang out and chat.
• Correspondence chess played by electronic mail. The CMail program automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you've chosen it.

XBoard runs on Unix and Unix-like systems that use the X Window System. The project also includes a port to 32-bit Windows systems called WinBoard.

Other information

Tim's original pages are still available.

Downloading XBoard

stable version

Xboard can be found on the main GNU ftp server: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/ (via http) and ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/ (via ftp). It can also be found on one of the mirrors of ftp.gnu.org; please use a mirror if possible.

new version

For development sources and other information, please see the Xboard project page at savannah.gnu.org.

A snapshot of the latest source code will be made available soon.

Documentation

Documentation for Xboard is available online, as is documentation for most GNU software. You may also find more information about Xboard by running info xboard or man xboard, or by looking at /usr/doc/xboard/, /usr/local/doc/xboard/, or similar directories on your system.

Mailing Lists

Xboard has two mailing lists: <bug-xboard@gnu.org> and <xboard-devel@gnu.org>.

The main discussion list is <xboard-devel@gnu.org>, and is used to discuss most aspects of Xboard, including development and enhancement requests. Please send bug reports to <bug-xboard@gnu.org>.

Announcements about Xboard and most other GNU software are made on <info-gnu@gnu.org>.

To subscribe to these or any GNU mailing lists, please send an empty mail with a Subject: header of just subscribe to the relevant -request list. For example, to subscribe yourself to the GNU announcement list, you would send mail to <info-gnu-request@gnu.org>. Or you can use the mailing list web interface.

Maintainer

Xboard is currently being maintained by Tim Mann and Arun Persaud. Please use the mailing lists above for contact.

Please remember that development of Xboard, and GNU in general, is a volunteer effort, and you also can contribute. For information, please read How to help GNU.