3 (see http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/whats_new/4.5.0/ for more details)
7 * User specific settings files
8 * More logical (and standard) menu structure
9 * Translation into other languages (WB)
10 * Walking the PV of an engine
11 * Exploring variations
12 * Playing through PGN variations
13 * Annotating a game with analysis results
15 * Controlling move choice of the GUI book
16 * Keeping the clock in sync in tournaments
17 * Starting an engine match from the menu
18 * Fixed thinking time per move
19 * Improved multi-PV support
20 * Where your pieces can move to
21 * Editing crazyhouse holdings
22 * Thai Chess (Makruk) and Seirawan Chess
23 * Non-compliant FEN and SAN input
24 * Improved Xiangqi adjudications
25 * Allowing engines to setup a position
27 Merging XBoard & WinBoard
28 ------------------------------
29 * Evaluation graph (XB)
31 * Filtering the game list (XB)
32 * Game-List options dialog (XB)
33 * Recalling the ICS input history (XB)
34 * Aribtrary board textures (XB)
35 * Highlight arrow (XB)
37 ICS-client Enhancements
38 -----------------------
39 * Maintaining a healty ICS connection
40 * Claiming a draw after your move
43 * Observing your bughouse partner
44 * Improved Chat-Box interface (WB)
45 * Uploading games to an ICS
51 * Repair exit-popup deadlock patch
52 * Fix bug in sending "usermove" when forcing book moves
53 * Let move parser return ImpossibleMove for off-board moves
54 * Prevent engine stall on perpetual-chase evasion
55 * Pop down old tags on loadng new game in WinBoard
56 * Fix game end during dragging
57 * Repair animate dragging
58 * Fix bug in sending cores command to engine
59 * Fix parsing of SAN shogi promotions
60 * Fix variant switch on PGN loading
61 * Allow -flipBlack to work with font-based piece rendering
62 * Allow font-based piece rendering in board sizes below petite
63 * Fix WinBoard game-list title
64 * Fix deadlock in match-result display
65 * Fix regression in colorization of zippy-matched commands
66 * Fix zippy handling of draw offers from ICS
67 * Make some more zippy code obey the --disable-zippy flag
68 * Remove unnecessary double equals from configure.ac.
69 * Cut board squares out of texture bitmap more cleverly
74 * Implement castling for variant CRC
75 * Extensive bugfix of -autoKibitz
76 * Accept <Enter> for changing chat partner
77 * Change opening array -variant fairy
78 * Send continuation lines to chat box they belong to
79 * Use -keepAlive option to determine connection health
80 * Fix of ancient WinBoard bug: check value of int options
81 * Fix bug for incommensurate time odds
82 * Fix piece-to-char table -variant fairy
83 * Fix TwoKings ICS castling-rights bug
84 * Fix reading castling rights FEN in knightmate and twokings
85 * Fix OO-castling in FRC after pasting FEN
86 * Fix bug in display of logos
87 * Fix highlighting bug in XBoard
88 * Match handles with multiple titles for channel Chat Boxes
89 * Make WinBoard makefiles use parser.c in XBoard directory
90 * Added missing sounds files to be able to compile on windows
91 * Added logo files for xboard
92 * Bugfix stale first-click
93 * Fix copying of WB Chat Window contents
94 * Fix XB crash on giving keyboard focus to non-text widget
95 * Bugfix copying from Chat Box, own lines
96 * Fix 'mamer bug' in Chat Boxes
97 * Fix copying of kibitzed lines from WB Engine-Output window
98 * Do not recognize non-ICS variants from PGN event tag
99 * Remake programVersion string after receiving engine features
100 * Set keyboard focus at startup to board window
101 * Fix window-position upset on failing engine start in WinBoard
102 * Allow lower-case promochar in moves of type h8=Q
103 * Small bugfixed for JAWS version
108 * add Winboard source files into tar-ball
109 * remove trailing \r in xboard output
110 * double buffer size to prevent overflow
111 * fix problem with empty string in -firstNeedsNoncompliantFEN
112 * updates makefiles to include dependency on config.h
113 * correctly apply some check boxes from the option menu
114 * score sign in analysis mode
115 * fix for bug #28077: xboard needs to link against x11
116 * fix castling rights when copying FEN to clipboard (again)
117 * fixed some outstanding pixmaps
118 * fix the irritating wandering off of the MoveHistory window in XBoard on opening/closing.
119 * use xtell for talking to handles, but tell for talking into a channel.
120 * fix bug in bughouse drop menu
121 * removing some rather verbose debug messages that seem no longer needed.
122 * fix engine-sync on move-number type-in bug
123 * fix declaration of engineOutputDialogUp
124 * fix double start of zippy engine after switch to gothic
125 * the last move before the time control now gets its time listed in the PGN
126 * fix casting rights after FEN pasting
127 * fix crash on engine crash
128 * fixed build on openbsd
129 * cleaned up some debug messages and typos
130 * removed files that should only be in the windboard directory
131 * added missing library for build on OS X
135 * added chat windows to keep track of multiple conversations (WinBoard only)
136 * allow the result comment as a display item in the game list
137 * added a "Mute All Sounds" item in the WinBoard Options menu
138 * new -forceIllegalMoves option
139 * new -keepAlive option (for ICS play)
140 * ported -autoDisplayComment and -autoDisplayTags to xboard, controling popups
141 * replaces analysispopup with engineoutputpopup in xboard
142 * allow copy/paste position and game to use clipboard (xboard)
143 * updated several bitmaps (xboard)
144 * Made the beep sounds for JAWS board navigation configurable
145 through command-line options
146 * added the result comment to the game-list tags when the game
147 list is exported to the clipboard
149 * fixed premove problem
150 * fixed engine did not start playing when out of GUI book on second
152 * fix bug using opening books (file were not closed)
153 * fixed crash when opening Engine #1 Settings when there were no
154 text-edit options in the dialog
155 * fixed loading of games from command lines, fixes cmail bug
156 * fix joining lines split by ICS and resizing terminal window when using ICS
157 (new option -keepLineBreaksICS, -wrapContinuationSequence, -useInternalWrap)
158 * fixed -autoDisplayComment
159 * fixed wrong default value for engineDebugOutput in xboard
160 * swapped 'tell' and 'message' parsing order for correct colorization.
161 * fixed parse bug for pgn files
162 * fix for edit-position "moves" being sent by XBoard to the engine
163 * bugfix for protocol extensions: egtbpath -> egtpath
165 * further bugfixes: #8847, #10990, #27427, #27642,
166 #27666, #27667, #27668, #27715, #27751, #27760,
167 #27772, #27799, #27826 and several small ones
168 * use "make distcheck" to generate tar-balls
169 * prepared a system to internationalize winboard menus
170 * improved mouse handler
171 * rewrote wevalgraph for better frontend/backend separation
176 A new release of both XBoard and WinBoard is now available. Version
177 4.4.0 includes many changes. It is the first major release of
178 xboard/winboard after a fork of the project after version 4.2.7. It
179 includes small changes made in the main line and changes made by a
180 fork of Alessandro Scotti and lots of changes made afterwards by
181 H.G. Muller (released as versions 4.3.x). This release represents a
182 unified version of all changes made after the fork. It includes many
183 new features and bugfixes.
185 You can get both XBoard and WinBoard from the Savannah
188 https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/
190 If you find a bug, please report it in the bug tracker at
191 https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/ or by email to bug-xboard
197 New command-line options
198 /niceEngines=N for adjusting the priority of engine processes so they don't soak up all your system resources
199 /firstOptions="..." Allows the setting of options that engines define through the feature option="..." commands
201 /firstLogo=filename.bmp Displays the mentioned bitmap next to the clock (with H:W =1:2 aspect ratio) (WB only)
202 /secondLogo=filename.bmp
203 /autoLogo=false get logo files automatically from engineDirectory\logo.bmp
205 General enhancements:
206 * New WB-protocol command: 'feature option="NAME -TYPE VALUE OTHER"', which engines can use to define options
207 * New WB-protocol command: 'option NAME VALUE' used to set value of engine-defned options.
208 * implements /delayAfterQuit and /delayBeforeQuit in XBoard, and uses SIGKILL to terminate rogue engine processes
213 New command-line options
214 /rewindIndex=N (for the new auto-increment mode of the loadGameIndex or loadPositionIndex in match mode)
215 /sameColorGames=N (for playing a match where the same player has white all the time)
216 /egtFormats="..." (for specifying where various end-game tables are installed on the computer)
219 + Time-odds factors can be set in the time-control dialog
220 + Nr of CPUs for SMP engines can be set in the Options -> UCI dialog
221 + Own-Book options can be switched from the Options -> UCI dialog
222 + The ScoreIsAbs options can be set from the Options -> Engine dialog
223 + New-Variant menu adds Superchess
225 General Enhancements:
226 * WinBoard engines can now also use the Polyglot opening book (implemented as general GUI book)
227 * New WB-protocol commands memory, cores and egtpath make interactive setting of these parameters
228 possible on WB engines
229 * New Polyglot is available that relays the interactive setting of these parameters to UCI engines
230 * Match mode suports an auto-increment mode, so that all games or positions from a file can be played
231 * Draw claims with Kings and an arbitrary number of like Bishops (e.g. KBBKB) are accepted
233 The source tree in original xboard 4.2.7 format can now be compiled under Cygwin with the aid
234 of the cygwin.mak file in the ~/winboard/ subdirectory of the source releasy, after you put
235 the hep-file from an executabl distribution there. Maefiles for other compilers are not updated
236 since 4.2.7, as I do not have those compilers.
241 This relaese was not made by the GNU xboard team, but by H.G.Muller.
242 It mainly contains developments on WinBoard. Nevertheless, an attempt
243 has been started to back-port the enormous number of improvements that
244 have been made to WinBoard since the Linux and Windows developments branched
245 to xboard. This is reflected by the source tree now having the same format
246 as that of xboard 4.2.7, including all the xboard sources.
248 An enormous amount of work still has to be done to make the xboard version
249 fully equivalent to WinBoard, especially on user-interface side. As a modest
250 beginning, the xboard source files have been patched to allow their compilation
251 with the newer back-end files from WinBoard. To this end, the number of piece
252 types in xboard has been increased from 6 to 22, and the WinBoard bitmaps
253 have been converted to xboard source format (.bm) and are included in the
254 xboard bitmaps directory. Other quick patches include the coloring of the
255 board squares (for xiangqi and holdings), and some code in the user-move
256 handling to suppress all moves into or out of the area between board and
257 holdings in crazyhouse, and the treatment of king-captures-own-piece
258 as a possibly valid move (for FRC castling). This should make it possible
259 to run xboard with the new back-end files without too much inconvenience.
261 New xboard command-line options have been added to make the added back-end
262 features available. The include the new variants (as argument of the old
263 -variant option), -boardWidth, -boardHeight and -holdingsSize. Be sure
264 to call xboard with "-boardSize middling" or "-boardSize bulky" if you
265 want to play with fairy pieces, or xboard might crash due to unavailability
266 of bitmaps. Other added xboard options are:
268 ADJUDICATION OPTIONS:
275 -adjudicateLossThreshold
292 -hideThinkingFromHuman
294 This is all completely untested, but as the options merely switch on well-tested
295 code in the back-end, there should not be too many problems with them.
296 Bugs can be reported in the WinBoard forum.
299 ** Version 4.3.14k **
301 Compared to version 4.3.13 described below, this version features
303 New command-line options:
304 /autoKibitz (for relaying the PV info of the engine to the ICS)
305 /userName="..." (for setting the name of the Human player, also as menu)
306 /engineDebugOutput=N (controlling the writing of engine output to debug file)
307 /firstNPS=N (for time management by node count or CPU time)
308 /secondNPS=N (likewise for the other engine)
311 + Enter Username (same as /userName command-line option)
312 + Save Diagram (for saving the Chessboard display as bitmap file)
313 + Machine Both (not implemented yet, but menu item already provided)
314 + New-Variant menu adds CRC, Janus and Berolina (the latter only with legality testing off!)
315 + Any variant can be played from a shuffled opening setup
318 * Problems with switching the variant in ICS zippy mode solved
319 * In ICS observing mode game history is now fully accessible
320 * Moves are not fed to engine in zippy mode, when observing a game from a variant unknown to the engine
321 * a problem with loading PGN of FRC games with move disambiguation and initial castling rights was fixed.
322 * A bug in the clock display that made previous versions of WinBoard crash for tiny displays is fixed
324 General enhancements:
325 * variant name displayed in title bar in ICS mode, when not 'normal'
326 * when receiving a challenge in ICS zippy mode, it is checked if the engine supports the variant (/zippyVariants="..." can still be used to limit the allowed variants, and for protocol-1 engines is still the only thing to go on)
327 * when loading a game from a PGN file, WB automatically switches to the variant specified in the PGN tags
328 * when starting from a loaded position (using /loadPositionFile), this position will be used on subsequent 'New Game' commands as well (until we switch variant)
330 New is also that the source tree is now brought back in the original WinBoard 4.2.7 format, including
331 xboard source files. Note, however, that the xboard sources are from an older date, and I did not test
332 if they still compile together with the much newer backend sources. I did add code in xboard.c to recognize
333 the new command-line options I added since then, and in so far they are back-end options that should be enough
334 to make them work. This is completely untested, though; I did not even try to compile it. Last time anyone
335 built a working xboard.exe from this was at a stage where WinBoard did have adjustable board size, allowing
336 it to play Xiangqi. But no crazyhouse holdings yet.
339 ** Version 4.3.13a **
341 This version of WinBoard_F fixes several bugs in 4.3.12, and also addse a few new features.
342 The new features include:
343 - some more fairy pieces, so that each side now has 22 piece types in stead of 17,
344 making most fairy pieces available in board size "petite" (next to "bulky" and "middling"),
345 making the ArchBishop and Chancellor, as well as one wildcard piece (the Lance) available in all
346 sizes from "petite" to "bulky".
347 - The FRC support is fully fixed, both in local and ICS mode.
348 - A mechanism is provided for safe draw claiming in cases where a 3-fold repetition woud occur only
349 after your own move. In this case a draw will be awarded by WinBoard if the engine sends "offer draw"
350 before making its move.
351 - Genuine draw offers are not passed on immediately to the opponent but held up to when the offerer announces
353 - Variants FRC, Cylinder and Falcon are added to the "New Variant..." menu.
354 - Support for playing time-odds games is added. (Options /firstTimeOdds, /secondTimeOdds, /timeOddsMode)
355 - A mechanism is provided for attaching WinBoard options to the engine command, to create options that
356 follow the engine (e.g. time odds) in a tournament run under a tournament manager.
358 - Shatranj in ICS mode (did not work at all before)
359 - Some draw adjudications (QRKR was mistaken for KRKR, and KBKB with like Bishops is now recognized)
360 - time info in the PGN is now correct
362 ** Winboard_F.4.3.12 release notes
364 This WinBoard (beta-)version is derived from Allessandro Scotti's
365 Winboard_x, and supports the following new options, mainly in the area
366 of adjudication of engine-engine games, improved Crazyhouse support,
367 and allowing variants with non-conventional pieces and or board
368 sizes. (All option are shown here with their default values):
371 This (already existing) option has been expanded with
372 several new variants, involving non-conventional pieces and deviating
373 board sizes. The board size is automatically adapted to the selected
374 variant, unless explicitly overruled (see below). The new variants are
375 (with default board size, files x ranks, in parentheses):
377 variant name Game board description
378 knightmate Knightmate (8x8) Variant where the King moves as a Knight, and vice versa
379 capablanca Capablanca Chess (10x8) Variant featuring Archbishop and Chancellor as new pieces
380 gothic Gothic Chess (10x8) Same as Capablanca, with a more interesting opening position
381 courier Courier Chess (12x8) a Medieval form that combines elements of Shatranj and modern Chess
382 shogi Shogi (9x9) Japanese Chess
383 xiangqi Xiangqi (9x10) Chinese Chess
384 fairy Fairy Chess (8x8) Variant were you can use all pieces of other variants together
386 The variant can be set from the newly added "File -> New Variant..."
387 sub-menu. Extra board files are indicated by the letters i, j, k, l,
388 ... For boards with more than 9 ranks, the counting starts at zero!
389 More than 10 ranks is not tested and unlikely to work in the area of
390 PGN saving / reading. Non-FIDE pieces will be referred to in FENs and
391 PGN by letters that depend on the variant, and might collide with
392 piece designators in other variants. E.g. in Xiangqi 'C' is a Cannon,
393 in Capablanca Chess it is a Chancellor. Pieces that do not belong in a
394 variant cannot be addressed in FEN and PGN either, for as long as that
395 variant is selected, unless the letter assignment is overruled with
396 the aid of the /pieceToCharTable option. The variant is not saved in
397 the winboard.ini file; on start-up we always get variant "normal"
398 unless we use the command-line option, or have added the option to the
399 winboard.ini file manually (in which case it will disappear when this
400 file is overwritten by WinBoard saving its options). WinBoard_F knows
401 the movement of all pieces occurring in Capablanca Chess (of which
402 FIDE Chess is a subset), Shatranj, Courier, Xiangqi and 9x9 Shogi, so
403 that these games can be played with legality testing enabled.
405 /pieceToCharTable="PNBRQFWEMOUHACGSKpnbrqfwemouhacgsk"
406 Each piece that WinBoard knows (in its legality test) has a letter
407 associated with it, by which it will be referred to in FEN or PGN. The
408 default assignment can be overruled with this option. The value has to
409 be a string of even length, with at least 12 characters. The first
410 half of the string designates the white pieces, the second half the
411 black. The last letter for each color will be assigned to the
412 King. (This is the piece that moves as an orthodox King; note that
413 Nightmate and Xiangqi have a different royal piece.) All letters
414 before it will be assigned to the other pieces in the order:
416 P Pawn (move often depends on variant)
417 N Knight (move subtly different in Xiangqi (where it is written as H) or Shogi)
420 Q Queen (Lance L in Shogi)
421 F Ferz/General (The Shatranj 'Queen' and Xiangqi 'Adviser', used for Silver General S in Shogi.)
422 W Wazir/GrandVizer (Gold General G in Shogi, in Xiangqi it is royal and denoted by K)
423 E Alfil/Elephant (Moves subtly different in Xiangqi vs Shatranj/Courier)
426 U Unicorn (representation of Royal Knight in Knightmate, used as promoted Pawn in Shogi)
427 H Nightrider (Promoted Knight in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
428 A Archbishop/Cardinal (Promoted Bishop in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
429 C Chancellor/Marshall (Promoted Rook in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
430 G Grasshopper (Promoted Queen in Crazyhouse, promoted Lance in Shogi)
431 S (Promoted Silver in Shogi)
434 Pieces that are not mentioned (because the argument has less than 34
435 characters) will remain disabled. Mentioned pieces can be disabled by
436 assigning them a '.' (period). They are then not recognized in FEN or
437 PGN input. Non-FIDE pieces that are not assigned a letter will also
438 not appear on the promotion menu. It is not advisable to disable a
439 piece that is present in the opening position of the selected variant,
441 Promoted pieces that need to be distinguished from original pieces of
442 the same type (because of demotion on capture and transfer to the
443 holdings) will be indicated by the letter for the unpromoted piece
444 with a '+' in front of it (Shogi), or by the letter of the promoted
445 piece with a '~' after it (Crazyhouse, Bughouse, in general everything
446 with holdings that is not Shogi). To achieve this, they should be
447 assigned the characters '+' or '~', respectively.
448 All the new pieces have a native bitmap representation in the board
449 sizes 'bulky' and 'middling'. For all window sizes that do not support
450 such fairy bitmaps, promoted NBRQ are represented as a 2-sizes-smaller
451 normal piece symbol, so that Crazyhouse can be played at any
452 size. People disliking the fairy representations might even prefer
454 There is an enhanced 'Edit Position' menu popup (right-clicking on the
455 squares after selecting this mode in the main menu), featuring some
456 common non-FIDE pieces, and 'promote' and 'demote' options to make
457 those not directly in the menu. The promotion popup shows ArchBishop
458 and Chancellor in Capablanca and Gothic, (or in fact in any game where
459 this piece is not disabled or a promoted version of a normal piece),
460 and leaves only the options YES / NO in Shogi. In Xiangqi there are no
463 /fontPieceToCharTable="PNBRQFWEMOUHACGSKpnbrqfwemouhacgsk"
464 This option is similar to /pieceToCharTable, but sets the font
465 character that is used to display the piece on the screen (when
466 font-based rendering is in use), rather than in the FEN or PGN. The
467 default setting should work with George Tsavdaris' WinboardF font,
468 which uses the 'intuitive' mapping of font characters to symbols. With
469 font-based rendering the fairy pieces can be used at any board size.
470 Note that UHACGS are also used to represent the promoted versions of
471 PNBRQF, in games like Crazyhouse and Shogi, where the promotion has to
472 be undone on capture. In such games you are likely to prefer a
473 different representation of those pieces then when they represent true
477 Traditional Shogi bitmaps are only included for size "moderate". For
478 other sizes you must depend on font-based rendering.
486 The option /materialDraws=TRUE causes games with insufficient mating
487 material to be adjudicated immediately as draws, in case the engines
488 would not claim these draws. This applies to KK, KNK and KBK. The
489 option /trivialDraws adjudicates KNNK, KBKB, KNKN, KBKN, KRKR and KQKQ
490 to draws after 3 moves (to allow for a quick tactical win). Note that
491 in KQKQ this might not be sound, but that problem would disappear once
492 bitbase probing is implemented.
495 The flag-fell condition is now indicated as '(!)' behind the displayed
496 time, to eliminate the necessity for overwriting the message in the
497 title bar (which might contain indispensible information in match
500 Other improvements / changes
501 Castling rights and e.p. rights are now fully maintained, and
502 considered in legality testing. They are imported from and written to
503 FEN, as is the 50-move counter. (When reading an incomplete FEN they
504 are still guessed, though.) The time (in sec, or min:sec) is now
505 always stored together with the PV information to the PGN, if storing
506 the latter was requested (through ticking "extended PGN info" in
507 "Options -> General..."). The saved time is the WinBoard clock time
508 (as opposed to the time reported by the engine).
510 ** Winboard_F.4.3.8 release notes
512 This Winboard supports the following new options (shown here with their default values):
515 This (already existing) option has been expanded with several new
516 variants, involving non-conventional pieces and deviating board
517 sizes. The board size is automatically adapted to the selected
518 variant, unless explicitly overruled (see below). The new variants are
519 (with default board size, files x ranks, in parentheses):
521 variant name Game board description
522 knightmate Knightmate (8x8) Variant where the King moves as a Knight, and vice versa
523 capablanca Capablanca Chess (10x8) Variant featuring Archbishop and Chancellor as new pieces
524 gothic Gothic Chess (10x8) Same as Capablanca, with a more interesting opening position
525 courier Courier Chess (12x8) a Medieval form that combines elements of Shatranj and modern Chess
526 shogi Shogi (9x9) Japanese Chess
527 xiangqi Xiangqi (9x10) Chinese Chess
528 fairy Fairy Chess (8x8) Variant were you can use all pieces of other variants together
530 The variant can be set from the newly added "File -> New Variant..." sub-menu.
531 Extra board files are indicated by the letters i, j, k, l, ... For
532 boards with more than 9 ranks, the counting starts at zero! Non-FIDE
533 pieces will be referred to in FENs and PGN by letters that depend on
534 the variant, and might collide with piece designators in other
535 variants. E.g. in Xiangqi 'C' is a Cannon, in Capablanca Chess it is a
536 Chancellor. Pieces that do not belong in a variant cannot be addressed
537 in FEN and PGN either as long as that variant is selected, unless the
538 letter assignment is overruled by the /pieceToCharTable option. The
539 variant is not saved in the winboard.ini file; on start-up we always
540 get variant "normal" unless we use the command-line opton, or have
541 added the option to the winboard.ini file manually (in which case it
542 will disappear when this file is overwritten). WinBoard_F knows the
543 movement of all pieces occurring in Capablanca Chess (of which FIDE
544 Chess is a subset), Shatranj, Courier, Xiangqi and 9x9 Shogi, so that
545 these games can be played with legality testing enabled.
547 /pieceToCharTable="PNBRQFWEMOUHACGSKpnbrqfwemouhacgsk"
548 Each piece that WinBoard knows (in its legality test) has a letter
549 associated with it, by which it will be referred to in FEN or PGN. The
550 default assignment can be overruled with this option. The value has to
551 be a string of even length, with at least 12 characters. The first
552 half of the string designates the white pieces, the second half the
553 black. The last letter for each color will be assigned to the
554 King. (This is the piece that moves as an orthodox King; note that
555 Nightmate and Xiangqi have a different royal piece.) All letters
556 before it will be assigned to the other pieces in the order:
558 P Pawn (move often depends on variant)
559 N Knight (move subtly different in Xiangqi (where it is written as H) or Shogi)
562 Q Queen (Lance L in Shogi)
563 F Ferz/General (Silver General S in Shogi)
564 W Wazir/GrandVizer (Gold General G in Shogi, in Xiangqi it is royal and denoted by K)
565 E Alfil/Elephant (Moves subtly different in Xiangqi vs Shatranj/Courier)
568 U Unicorn (representation of Royal Knight in Knightmate, used as promoted Pawn in Shogi)
569 H Nightrider (Promoted Knight in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
570 A Archbishop/Cardinal (Promoted Bishop in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
571 C Chancellor/Marshall (Promoted Rook in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
572 G Grasshopper (Promoted Queen in Crazyhouse, promoted Lance in Shogi)
573 S (Promoted Silver in Shogi)
576 Pieces that are not mentioned (because the argument has less than 34
577 characters) will remain disabled. Mentioned pieces can be disabled by
578 assigning them a '.' (period). They are then not recognized in FEN or
579 PGN input. It is not advisable to disable a piece that is present in
580 the opening position of the selected variant, though.
581 Promoted pieces that need to be distinguished from original pieces of
582 the same type (because of demotion on capture and transfer to the
583 holdings) will be indicated by the letter for the unpromoted piece
584 with a '+' in front of it (Shogi), or by the letter of the promoted
585 piece with a '~' after it (Crazyhouse, Bughouse, in general everything
586 with holdings that is not Shogi).
587 All the new pieces have a native biytmap representation in the board
588 sizes 'bulky' and 'middling'. For all window sizes that do not support
589 such fairy bitmaps, promoted NBRQ are represented as a 2-sizes-smaller
590 normal piece symbol, so that Crazyhouse can be played at any
591 size. People disliking the fairy representations might even prefer
593 There is an enhanced 'Edit Position' menu popup (right-clicking on the
594 squares after selecting this mode in the main menu), featuring some
595 common non-FIDE pieces, and 'promote' and 'demote' options to make
596 those not directly in the menu. The promotion popup shows ArchBishop
597 and Chancellor in Capablanca and Gothic, (or in fact in any game where
598 this piece is not disabled), and leaves only the options YES / NO in
599 Shogi. In Xiangqi there are no promotions.
602 This option does not seem to work for reading PGN files. Saving works
603 fine. For now, using it is not recommended. In the future it might be
604 redefined as only affecting engine-engine communication, .
607 Setting this option will cause upside-down display of the native piece
608 bitmaps used to represent the pieces of the side that plays black, as
609 would be needed for a traditional representation of Shogi pieces. It
610 can be set from the "Options -> Board..." sub-menu, and it is saved in
611 the winboard.ini file. For now, traditional Shogi bitmaps are not
614 Other improvements / changes
615 Castling rights and e.p. rights are now fully maintained, and
616 considered in legality testing. They are imported from and written to
617 FEN, as is the 50-move counter. The time (in sec, or min:sec) is now
618 always stored together with the PV information to the PGN, if storing
619 the latter was requested (through ticking 'extended PGN info' in
620 "Options -> General..."). The saved time is the Winboard clock time
621 (as opposed to the time reported by the engine).
623 ** Winboard_F.4.3.7 release notes
625 This Winboard supports the following new options (shown here with
626 their default values):
629 This (already existing) option has been expanded with several new
630 variants, involving non-conventional pieces and deviating board
631 sizes. The board size is automatically adapted to the selected
632 variant, unless explicitly overruled (see below). The new variants are
633 (with default board size, files x ranks, in parentheses):
635 variant name Game board description
636 knightmate Knightmate (8x8) Variant where the King moves as a Knight, and vice versa
637 capablanca Capablanca Chess (10x8) Variant featuring Archbishop and Chancellor as new pieces
638 gothic Gothic Chess (10x8) Same as Capablanca, with a more interesting opening position
639 courier Courier Chess (12x8) a Medieval form that combines elements of Shatranj and modern Chess
640 shogi Shogi (9x9) Japanese Chess
641 xiangqi Xiangqi (9x10) Chinese Chess
642 fairy Fairy Chess (8x8) Variant were you can use all pieces of other variants together
644 The variant can be set from the newly added "File -> New Variant..." sub-menu.
645 Extra board files are indicated by the letters i, j, k, l, ... For
646 boards with more than 9 ranks, the counting starts at zero! Non-FIDE
647 pieces will be referred to in FENs and PGN by letters that depend on
648 the variant, and might collide with piece designators in other
649 variants. E.g. in Xiangqi 'C' is a Cannon, in Capablanca Chess it is a
650 Chancellor. Pieces that do not belong in a variant cannot be addressed
651 in FEN and PGN either as long as that variant is selected, unless the
652 letter assignment is overruled by the /pieceToCharTable option. The
653 variant is not saved in the winboard.ini file; on start-up we always
654 get variant "normal" unless we use the command-line opton, or have
655 added the option to the winboard.ini file manually (in which case it
656 will disappear when this file is overwritten). WinBoard_F knows the
657 movement of all pieces occurring in Capablanca Chess (of which FIDE
658 Chess is a subset), Shatranj, Courier, Xiangqi and 9x9 Shogi, so that
659 these games can be played with legality testing enabled.
661 /pieceToCharTable="PNBRQFWEMOUHACGSKpnbrqfwemouhacgsk"
662 Each piece that WinBoard knows (in its legality test) has a letter
663 associated with it, by which it will be referred to in FEN or PGN. The
664 default assignment can be overruled with this option. The value has to
665 be a string of even length, with at least 12 characters. The first
666 half of the string designates the white pieces, the second half the
667 black. The last letter for each color will be assigned to the
668 King. (This is the piece that moves as an orthodox King; note that
669 Nightmate and Xiangqi have a different royal piece.) All letters
670 before it will be assigned to the other pieces in the order:
672 P Pawn (move often depends on variant)
673 N Knight (move subtly different in Xiangqi (where it is written as H) or Shogi)
676 Q Queen (Lance L in Shogi)
677 F Ferz/General (Silver General S in Shogi)
678 W Wazir/GrandVizer (Gold General G in Shogi, in Xiangqi it is royal and denoted by K)
679 E Alfil/Elephant (Moves subtly different in Xiangqi vs Shatranj/Courier)
682 U Unicorn (representation of Royal Knight in Knightmate, used as promoted Pawn in Shogi)
683 H Nightrider (Promoted Knight in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
684 A Archbishop/Cardinal (Promoted Bishop in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
685 C Chancellor/Marshall (Promoted Rook in Shogi and CrazyHouse)
686 G Grasshopper (Promoted Queen in Crazyhouse, promoted Lance in Shogi)
687 S (Promoted Silver in Shogi)
690 Pieces that are not mentioned (because the argument has less than 34
691 characters) will remain disabled. Mentioned pieces can be disabled by
692 assigning them a '.' (period). They are then not recognized in FEN or
693 PGN input. It is not advisable to disable a piece that is present in
694 the opening position of the selected variant, though.
695 Promoted pieces that need to be distinguished from original pieces of
696 the same type (because of demotion on capture and transfer to the
697 holdings) will be indicated by the letter for the unpromoted piece
698 with a '+' in front of it (Shogi), or by the letter of the promoted
699 piece with a '~' after it (Crazyhouse, Bughouse, in general everything
700 with holdings that is not Shogi).
701 All the new pieces have a native biytmap representation in the board
702 sizes 'bulky' and 'middling'. For all window sizes that do not support
703 such fairy bitmaps, promoted NBRQ are represented as a 2-sizes-smaller
704 normal piece symbol, so that Crazyhouse can be played at any
705 size. People disliking the fairy representations might even prefer
707 There is an enhanced 'Edit Position' menu popup (right-clicking on the
708 squares after selecting this mode in the main menu), featuring some
709 common non-FIDE pieces, and 'promote' and 'demote' options to make
710 those not directly in the menu. The promotion popup shows ArchBishop
711 and Chancellor in Capablanca and Gothic, (or in fact in any game where
712 this piece is not disabled), and leaves only the options YES / NO in
713 Shogi. In Xiangqi there are no promotions.
715 /fontPieceToCharTable="PNBRQFWEMOUHACGSKpnbrqfwemouhacgsk"
716 This option is similar to /pieceToCharTable, but sets the font
717 character that is used to display the piece on the screen (when
718 font-based rendering is in use), rather than in the FEN or PGN. The
719 default setting should work with the WinboardF font, which uses the
720 'intuitive' mapping of font characters to symbols. Note that UHACGS
721 are also used to represent the promoted versions of PNBRQF, in games
722 like Crazyhouse and Shogi, where the promotion has to be undone on
725 /boardWidth=-1 /boardHeight=-1
726 Set a number of files and ranks of the playing board to a value that
727 will override the defaults for the variant that is selected. A value
728 of -1 means the variant default board size will be used for the
729 corresponding parameter (and is itself the default value of these
730 options). These parameters can be set in the "Files -> New Variant..."
731 sub-menu, where they are reset to the default -1 is you OK the chosen
732 variant without typing something to overrule it. These parameters are
733 saved in the winboard.ini file. (But unless you saved while a variant
734 with board-size override was selected, they will always be saved as
736 A variant with a non-standard board size will be communicated to the
737 engine(s) with the board size prefixed to the variant name,
738 e.g. "variant 12x8_capablanca". In protocol 2 the engine must first
739 enable this feature by sending "boardsizeFxR" amongst the accepted
740 variants, where F is the maximum number of files, and R the maximum
741 number of ranks, as decimal numbers.
744 Set the size of the holdings for dropable pieces to a value that will
745 override the default for the variant that is selected. A value of -1
746 means the variant default holdings size will be used for that
747 parameter (and is itself the default value of this options). This
748 parameter can be set in the Files -> New Variant... sub-menu, where it
749 is reset to the default -1 is you OK the chosen variant without typing
750 something to overrule it. This parameters is saved in the winboard.ini
751 file. To disable holdings, set their size to 0. They will then not be
752 displayed. For non-zero holding size N, the holdings are displayed
753 left and right of the board, and piece drops can be effected by
754 dragging pieces from the holdings to the drop square. In bughouse, the
755 holdings will be filled by the ICS. In all other variants, captured
756 pieces will go into the holdings (after reversing their color). Only
757 the first N pieces of the /pieceToCharTable argument will go into the
758 holdings. All other pieces will be converted to Pawns. (In Shogi,
759 however they will be demoted in the regular way before determining if
760 they fit.) Pieces that are disabled (per default and per
761 /pieceToCharTable option) might not be counted when determining what
762 are the first N pieces. Non-standard holdingsize will be communicated
763 to the engine by prefixing it (together with the board size, even if
764 this is standard) to the variant name, e.g. "variant 7x7+5_shogi". In
765 protocol 2 the engine should enable this feature by sending
766 "holdingsH" amongst the variant names, where H is the maximum
767 acceptable holdings size as a decimal number.
770 When this parameter is true, a-h are converted to 1-9, and vice versa,
771 in all move output and input (to PGN files or SAN move display as well
772 as in communication with the engine). This might be useful for Shogi,
773 where conventionally one uses letters to designate ranks, and digits
774 to designate files. Engines that want to use this option must make
775 sure pieces are never represented by lower case! This option can be
776 set from the Files -> New Variant... menu, where it defaults to FALSE
777 unless you explicitly set it. It is not saved in the winboard.ini
778 file. Note that the PGN format in Shogi also leaves out the trailing
779 '+' as check indicator: In Shogi such a trailing '+' means promotion,
780 while a trailing '=' means defer promotion. Prefix '+' signs are used
781 on moves with promoted pieces, disambiguation is done western SAN
785 Causes the outline of the 'white' pieces to be superimposed onto the
786 'black' piece symbols as well (as a black outline) when native bitmaps
787 are used (as opposed to font-based rendering). This is useful if we
788 choose a very light color to represent the 'black' pieces. It might be
789 particularly useful in Shogi, where the conventional representation of
790 the 'black' pieces is as upside-down white pieces, so that both colors
791 would be white. This option is saved in the winboard.ini file, and can
792 be set in the "Options -> Board..." sub-menu.
795 This option is reserved for future use. It will cause upside-down
796 display of the 'black' native piece bitmaps, as would be needed for
797 Shogi. For now it can be set from the "Options -> Board..." sub-menu,
798 and it is saved in the winboard.ini file, but it is ignored.
806 These are all options that only affect engine-engine play, and can be
807 set from the "Options -> Engine..." sub-menu. They are all related to
808 adjudication of games by the GUI. Legality checking must be switched
809 on for them to work. If /detectMate is TRUE, the GUI recognizes
810 checkmate and stalemate (but not in games with holdings!), and ends
811 the game accordingly before the engines can claim. This is convenient
812 for play with engines that fail to claim, and just exit. With
813 /testClaim set, all result and illegal-move claims by engines that
814 claim more than their own loss are scrutinized for validity, and false
815 claims result in forfeit of the game. Useful with buggy engines. The
816 option /materialDraws=TRUE causes games with insufficient mating
817 material to be adjudicated immediately as draws, in case the engines
818 would not claim them. The option /trivialDraws adjudicates KNNK,
819 KBKB, KNKN, KBKN, KRKR and KQKQ to draws after 3 moves (to allow for a
820 quick tactical win. Note that in KQKQ this might not be sound, but
821 that problem would disappear once bitbase probing is added). The
822 /ruleMoves determine after how many reversible moves the game is
823 adjudicated as a draw. Setting this to 0 turns this option off. Draw
824 claims by the engine are still accepted (by /testClaim) after 50
825 reversible moves, even if /ruleMoves species a larger number. Note
826 that it is perfectly legal according to FIDE rules to play on after 50
827 reversible moves, but in tournaments having two engines that want to
828 play on forever is a nuisance in endings like KBNKR, where one of the
829 engines thinks it is ahead and can avoids repeats virtually forever.
830 The option /repeatsToDraw makes the GUI adjudicate a game as draw
831 after the same position has occurred the specified number of times. If
832 it is set to a value > 3, engines can still claim the draw after
833 3-fold repeat. All these options are saved in the winboard.ini file.
836 There is an "Options -> flip Clocks" command, that swaps the position
837 of white and black clocks (convenient in over-the-board matches, where
838 the screen is next to the board, and you want your own time to be
839 displayed on your side of the screen). The clocks can be adjusted in
840 "edit game" mode: right-clicking them adds one minute, left-clicking
841 subtracts one minute. (Also for OTB matches, to keep them synchronized
842 with the official match clock.) The flag-fell condition is now
843 indicated as (!) behind the time.
846 Castling rights and e.p. rights are now fully maintained, and
847 considered in legality testing. They are imported from and written to
848 FEN, as is the 50-move counter.
852 These are the release notes of Winboard_F 4.3.2, which is released
853 under the GPL. This version was derived from Allessandro Scotti's
854 Winboard_x 4.2.7 source files. It only includes the files that were
870 and some bitmaps for piece symbols
872 I made modifications in the following areas:
874 1) Adjudication and claim verification
875 2) Fairy pieces and board sizes other than 8x8
881 is an option to set the length of the pause between two games of a
882 match. The value is in msec, default value is 10000 (I will present
883 all newly implemented options with their default value as example). Be
884 aware that some engines might not be stopped yet if you make the pause
885 too small, but might still be puking output, which then will interfere
886 with the next game. But the fixed value of 10 sec of the old Winboard
887 seemed like overdoing it.
890 When you ask for the PV-info to be stored in the PGN (a Winboard_x
891 option), it now also stores the time spent on the move with it.
894 In engine-engine games the messge "white/black/both" flag(s) fell" no
895 longer appears in the window caption, but as an exclamation point
896 behind the clock time. (To prevent the annoying overwriting of the
899 Adjudications and Claim verification.
901 These functions are only present in engine-engine games, and only if
902 legality-testing is switched on. (The latter will be typically
903 switched off in games with bizarre rules, which the GUI doesn't know,
904 and in that case the GUI can never have an opinion on the outcome of a
908 As soon as one of the engines plays an illegal move, it forfeits the
909 game. This feature was already present, but it should be 100% reliable
910 now, as it also takes e.p. and castling rights into account, rather
911 than erring on the safe side.
914 From the above, it follows that any illegal-move claims by an engine
915 must be false, and will result in forfeiting the game. (In Winboard_x
916 this message is ignored, causing the game or match to hang.)
918 Checkmate adjudication
919 As soon as one of the engines does a move that results in checkmate,
920 the GUI declares the game won, without waiting for the engine to claim
923 Insufficient mating material
924 As soon as the material on the board has shrunk to KK, KNK or KBK, the
925 game is declared draw.
927 /adjudicateLossThreshold=0
928 This option was already present in Winboard_x, (to declare a game lost
929 for which both engines agree for 3 moves that the score is below the
930 given threshold), but a non-zero value is now also used to enable the
931 following adjudications. If you only want the latter, just make the
932 threshold impossibly low (-40000 will usually do the trick).
935 If we are 3 moves into a KQKQ, KRKR, KBKB KBKN or KNKN end-game, the
936 game is adjudicated as draw.
939 When the specified number of repeats occurs, the game is adjudicated
940 draw. Should keep track of e.p. and castling rights. This does not
941 require legality-testing to be switched on. The engines retain the
942 legal right to claim after a 3-fold repetition, though. If you set
943 this parameter to 3 or less, they will never get the chance. Better
944 not set it to 1 or less.
947 After the given number of full moves without capture or Pawn move, the
948 game is adjudicated draw. Even without legality testing. The engines
949 retain the legal right to claim after 50 moves.
952 When enabled, this option verifies all result claims made by the
953 engines, and overrules the claim if it is false (forfeiting the game
954 for the claimer). An engine can still safely claim a win for its
955 opponent on a nonsense reason, though; this is taken to be the
956 equivalent of 'resign'. Draw claims (made before a draw adjudication)
957 are checked against the 50-move, 3-fold-repetition or
958 insufficient-material rules. Win claims are always considered false,
959 as the GUI adjudicates checkmates (and stalemates) before any engine
965 Sets the number of files on the board. The additional files are named
966 i, j, k, l... in PGN, and should be indicated this way in
967 communicating moves to and from the engine. Currently works upto
968 12. No guarantees on how the rest of the display (clocks, etc.) looks
969 if you make this number < 8.
972 Sets the number of ranks. Extra ranks are numbered 9, 10, 11... in
973 PGN. This is so far largely untested, and unlikely to work for
974 double-digit ranks. Displaying boards with upto 12 ranks seems to
975 work, though, but double-digit ranks might cause all kind of unforseen
976 problems in PGN file and move parser, or in communication with the
977 engine. To avoid such problems as much as possible, in boards with
978 more than 9 ranks the counting of ranks will start at zero rather than
981 /fontPieceToCharTable="......."
982 This paramater, controlling the mapping of font symbols to piece
983 types, was already present in Winboard_x. The default is dependent on
984 the font selected with the /renderPiecesWithFont option. It can now
985 accept upto 32 pieces, but the length should always be even. The first
986 half designates the white pieces, the second half the black, both in
987 the order PNBRACHFEWDOGMQK. (The letters mentioned here are the
988 letters by which the pieces will be indicated in PGN and FEN notation,
989 what you have to give as argument depends on the font you use. A black
990 king might be 'l', for instance). If you give fewer then 32 pieces,
991 this will go at the expense of what is just before Queen. So the last
992 two symbols you give for each color are always Queen and King, the
993 others are assigned in the order Pawn, Knight, ... Pieces that do not
994 get a symbol assigned will remain invisible.
997 The letters ACDEFGHMOW are accepted in FENs in addition to the regular
998 PNBRQK,(and of course the lower case versions for black), and are
999 passed to the engine in a setboard or edit menu. Double-digit skips
1000 are acceptable in FENs. 'x' is interpreted as a skip of 10. Castling
1001 rights should no longer be ignored. (Doesn't work for FRC yet,
1002 though.) The 50-move-plies field should also be meaningful now.
1004 Legality testing for Fairy pieces
1005 There is a build in notion of what some of the new pieces can do, according to
1006 A = Archbishop (aka Cardinal) = N+B
1007 C = Chancellor (aka Marshall) = N+R
1008 F = Ferz (aka General), moves 1 step diagonal
1009 W = Wazir (aka Grand Vizer), moves 1 step orthogonal
1010 E = Elephant (aka Alfil), jumps 2 steps diagonal
1011 D = Dabbabah (aka War Machine), jumps 2 steps orthogonal
1012 M = Man (aka Commoner), moves as King, but is not a royal piece
1013 O = Cannon, moves along Rook lines, but cannot capture unless it jumps over
1014 exactly one piece (friend or foe), and captures the first piece
1015 it encounters thereafter. It can only jump if it captures something.
1016 The piece jumped over (the 'platform') is not affected.
1017 The other pieces have not yet any moves implemented:
1020 In games that use the mentioned pieces as described (Shatranj,
1021 Courier, Capablanca Chess) you can leave legality testing on. If you
1022 use them to represent pieces that move differently, you should switch
1023 legality testing off.
1026 Pawn motion is made dependent on the variant played: in Shatranj and
1027 Courier the double move is forbidden. In those games promotions are
1028 always to Ferz. In Capablanca Chess the ArchBishop and Chancellor also
1029 appear as choices in the promotion popup box.
1033 Several new variants names are added (replacing "variant31" upto
1034 "variant36"). They affect the initial position. (Board size has to be
1035 set separately.) They are: courier (a Medieval predecessor of modern
1036 Chess, played on a 12x8 board) capablanca (on a 10x8 board, featuring
1037 Archbishop and Chancellor) gothic (as Capablanca, but with a more
1038 exciting initial setup) xiangqi (Chinese Chess) shogi (Japanese Chess,
1039 no support yet) fairy (This variant plays on 8x8 with HEW in stead of
1040 NBR on the Queen side, so that all back-rank pieces are (potentially)
1041 different) Make sure the selected board size matches the variant; this
1044 Xiangqi and Shogi support (or lack thereof)
1045 Xiangqi is only partially supported. The board display is
1046 western-style (the pieces play on squares, rather than grid
1047 intersections). The legality testing uses the Shatranj Knight and
1048 Elephant, that cannot be blocked, and thus allows some moves that
1049 should be illegal in Xiangqi. The Palace region is indicated on the
1050 board, but there is no testing if the King or Mandarins (implemented
1051 as ordinary Ferzes) leave the Palace. SAN might be non-standard, as it
1052 uses O to indicate Cannon. Most of this will be fixed in a future
1053 version. Shogi is not yet supported at all, first the shaky
1054 implementation of Crazyhouse will have to be beefed up.
projects / xboard.git / blob