new developer software and some simple instructions on how to build them

[xboard.git] / index.html

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<title>XBoard - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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<h2>XBoard</h2>

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<p>XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess in all its major
forms, including international chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess) and
shogi (Japanese chess), in addition to many minor variants such as
Losers Chess, Crazyhouse, Chess960 and Capabanca Chess. It displays a
chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads
and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). It serves as a
front-end for many different chess services, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>
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.</li>

<li>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.</li>

<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<p>XBoard runs on Unix and Unix-like systems that use the X Window
System. </p>

<h3>Winboard</h3>

<p>The project also includes a port to 32-bit Windows systems called
WinBoard.</p>

<p>You can find the download section for Winboard at
the <a href="http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewforum.php?f=19">Winboard
Forum</a>.</p>

<p>Development for Winboard, reporting bugs and any other requests can
also be done at the same places as for XBoard (see below).</p>

<h3>Downloading XBoard</h3>

<h4>stable version</h4>

<p>The current stable version
is: <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">4.4.2</a></p>

<p>It can be found on the main GNU ftp server:
<a href="http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/</a> (via http) and
<a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/</a> (via ftp).</p>

<p>It can also be found on one of the <a href="/prep/ftp.html">mirrors
of ftp.gnu.org</a>;
please <a href="http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/xboard">use a mirror</a> if
possible.</p>

<h4>development version</h4>

<p>It would be great if people would like help in the developing process. We can use all kind of help, from people who just use the software and have a feature request (send them to developer mailing list), to people who can update/check the documentation and especially people who test development versions (send problems to the developer mailing list). </p>

<p>At the moment we have three developer versions:</p>

<ul>
<li>A snapshot of the 4.4.3 branch: 
   This will become the next stable version.  <a href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">4.4.3.20100118</a></li>
<li>A snapshot of the master branch: <a href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">master-20100118</a>. <br />
   The master branch at this moment also includes changes that will go in future version, but not necessary in the next release. Since this includes lots of changes, chances for major bugs are higher.</li>
<li>A snapshot of the gtk branch: <a href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">gtk-20100118</a>. <br />
   In the gtk branch we are working on merging Winboard and Xboard back together using a gtk-frontend. This code doesn't work 100% yet, it will crash quite often, but you can almost play normal games against a machine already.</li>
</ul>

<h5>How to build the development version</h5>

<h6>git version</h6>
<p> After cloning the git-repository, do ./autogen.sh, ./configure and then a make.</p>

<h6>tar-balls</h6>
<p> Unpack the tar ball and do ./configure followed by make.</p>


<p>For development sources and other information, please see
the <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/">XBoard project
page</a> at <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org">savannah.gnu.org</a>.</p>

<p>A snapshot of the latest source code for all branches is available at
the <a href="http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/xboard.git">git
repository</a> on Savannah.</p>

<h4>archive</h4>

<p>You can also find an archive of old versions on <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/xboard/">the ftp server</a>.</p>

<h3>Documentation</h3>

<p><a href="manual/">Documentation for XBoard</a> is available online,
as is <a href="/manual/">documentation for most GNU software</a>.  You
may also find more information about XBoard by
running <em>info&nbsp;xboard</em> or <em>man&nbsp;xboard</em>, or by
looking at <em>/usr/doc/xboard/</em>,
<em>/usr/local/doc/xboard/</em>, or similar directories on your system.</p>

<p>The Chess Engine Communication Protocol can be found <a href="engine-intf.html">here</a>.</p>

<h3>Screenshots</h3>

<p>These are screenshots taken from version 4.4.0 (click to enlarge).</p>
<a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0.png" alt=" [screenshot normal game] " height="200" /></a>
<a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-variant.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-variant.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
<a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-showgi.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-showgi.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
<a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-petite.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-petite.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
<a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-XQ.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-XQ.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>

<h3>Links</h3>

<ul>
  <li> XBoard/Winboard 
    <ul>
      <li> <a href="http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html">Tim's original pages</a> are still available.</li>
      <li> XBoard can also run engines that use the UCI protocol, with
        the aid of the Polyglot protocol adapter.  A new Polyglot
        version, (1.4.30b), especially adapted to support the new
        features of XBoard 4.4.0, can be
        found <a href="http://alpha.uhasselt.be/Research/Algebra/Toga/polyglot-release/">here</a>.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li> Incomplete list of computer engines that work with XBoard
    <ul>
      <li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/chess/">GNU chess</a></li>
      <li><a href="http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/CVfairy.html">Fairy-Max</a></li>
      <li><a href="http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/lastupdates.htm">A list with lots of engines</a></li>
      <li><a href="http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/XQ.html">List of Xiangqi engines</a></li>
      <li> other popular engines are crafty, phalanx, fruit, toga2, glaurung, ... </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li> Chess server you can connect to using XBoard
    <ul>
      <li> <a href="http://www.freechess.org"> Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) </a></li>
      <li> <a href="http://www.chessclub.com/"> The Internet Chess Club </a> </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li> Other interfaces
    <ul>
      <li> <a href="http://www.bergo.eng.br/eboard/">eboard</a> </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

<h3>Frequently Asked Question(FAQ)</h3>

<p>If you have any questions, please check out our <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a>.</p>


<h3>Mailing Lists and Discussion Forums</h3>

<h4>mailing lists</h4>

<p>XBoard has two mailing lists:
<a href="mailto:bug-xboard@gnu.org">&lt;bug-xboard@gnu.org&gt;</a> and
<a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org">&lt;xboard-devel@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>

<p>The main discussion list is
<a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org">&lt;xboard-devel@gnu.org&gt;</a>,
and is used to discuss most aspects of XBoard, including development
and enhancement requests. Please send bug reports
to <a href="mailto:bug-xboard@gnu.org">&lt;bug-xboard@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>

<p>Announcements about XBoard and most other GNU software are made on
<a href="mailto:info-gnu@gnu.org">&lt;info-gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>

<p>To subscribe to these or any GNU mailing lists, please send an empty
mail with a Subject: header of just <tt>subscribe</tt> to the relevant
-request list.  For example, to subscribe yourself to the GNU
announcement list, you would send mail to <a
href="mailto:info-gnu-request@gnu.org?Subject=subscribe">&lt;info-gnu-request@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
Or you can use the <a
href="http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu">mailing list web
interface</a>.</p>

<h4>discussion forums</h4>

<p>A very active forum is the <a href="http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/">WinBoard Forum</a> (where our current main developer HGM can be found).</p>

<h3>Reporting Bugs</h3>

<p> If you think you found a bug, please check the <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=xboard">bugtracker</a> for open and already closed bugs. If you found a new bug, please, file a bug-report either via our bug-related email list or in the <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=xboard">bugtracker</a>.

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<p>Please remember that development of XBoard, and GNU in general, is a
volunteer effort, and you also can contribute. For information, please
read <a href="/help/">How to help GNU</a>.</p>


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