3 <title>WGP: Shortcuts for WinBoard</title>
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6 <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td>
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7 <h1>The WinBoard Gold Pack 4.4.0</h1>
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8 <h2>For the ultimate WinBoard experience!</h2>
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10 <img src="mini.gif">
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12 <h3>Customizing WinBoard through Shortcuts</h3>
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14 The most convenient way to run invoke WinBoard is usually through PSWBTM,
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15 as this combines an easy way to select the engine with a large choice of engines.
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16 A viable alternative for things you do very often
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17 (e.g. play on FICS, or play your own engine on ICC)
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18 is to use a shortcut.
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19 Such a shortcut hardly offers any flexibility, as it always starts WinBoard with exactly
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20 the same combination of options.
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21 But it does allow you to start this combination with a single mouse click,
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22 which can be convenient for something you do frequently.
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23 And the WinBoard menus offer you a possibility to tailor some settings later.
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25 If you browse to the WinBoard directory of this package (~\WinBoard),
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26 starting from "My Computer" on the desk top,
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27 You will see a number of black-knight icons.
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28 Except for the one marked "winboard" these are all shortcuts
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29 (recognizable from the small arrow in their lower left).
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30 They were defined as examples for how shortcuts can be used to ease some common tasks.
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32 A good example to look how this works at is the "PGN viewer" shortcut.
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33 Double-click this, and you will see WinBoard pop up.
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34 Only the WinBoard main and move-history window will be there.
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35 Compare this to what you get when you click the winboard icon itself (i.e. not a shotcut):
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36 this will pop up the start-up dialog first, where you would have to tick that you want
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37 to use WinBoard to view or edit games only, after which it would come up in the default mode,
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38 with game history, engine output and evaluation graph all open up.
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39 (Unless you changed this default after downloading.)
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40 So to get into the same mode as was pre-programmed in the "PGN Viewer" shortcut,
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41 you would first have to close these auxiiary windows (in the "Mode" menu).
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42 So the shortcut does save quite some effort.
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44 In a shortcut you can include any command-line options with the command that invokes WinBoard
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45 (in the target field that you see when you right-click the shortcut, and select "properties").
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46 The shortcuts in this package are all based on the use of "indirection" file arguments.
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47 That means that the actual arguments for, say, the "PGN Viewer" icon,
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48 are collected into a file "viewer.ini".
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49 The only option on the command-line in the shortcut is then "@viewer".
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50 Such a name preceded by a '@' sign is interpreted by WinBoard as the name of an .ini file
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51 (in this case viewer.ini), which is then read to get the actual option settings.
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52 This allows for far more options than can be put in the target line of the shortcut,
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53 and allows you to easily modify the options with a text editor like NotePad,
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54 rather than in the cramped confines of the shortcut properties dialog.
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56 So when you want to change the settings of the shortcuts,
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57 you only have to change the contents of the corresponding .ini file.
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58 The shortcuts themselves only contain
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60 ~\WinBoard\winboard.exe @INIFILENAME
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62 in their target field,
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63 where the twiddle stands for the path where you installed the Gold Pack.
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64 (Windows XP adapts this automatically, first time you use the shortcut.)
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65 And this can always stay that way.
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66 (Note that Windows XP and Vista do not show you the "@INIFILENAME" in the target field,
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67 when you open its properties dialog, which is a bit confusing.)
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69 <h3>Changing the Shortcut Settings</h3>
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71 There is thus no reason to ever touch the shortcuts themselves.
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72 All you have to do is to edit or replace the corresponding.ini file.
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73 For instance, for the shortcut to play against Fairy-Max,
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74 the settingsfile "fairy.ini" contains:
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78 ; parameters for playing against an engine
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81 /firstChessProgram="fmax 22"
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82 /firstDirectory="../Fairy-Max"
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83 /secondChessProgram="fmax 22"
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84 /secondDirectory="../Fairy-Max"
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87 ; define window layout
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92 /engineOutputUp=false
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93 /hideThinkingFromHuman=true
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95 ; define window positions
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105 ; prevent these settings from becoming default
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107 /saveSettingsOnExit=false</pre>
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109 One thing that is apparent is that a .ini file can contain "comments"
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110 describing what the options do, in lines starting with a semicolon.
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111 From top to bottom, the options tell WinBoard that we want it
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112 to run a Chess program (so it skips the startup dialog),
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113 which one, and where to find it.
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114 Note that WinBoard always wants to have two Chess programs in this mode,
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115 so we give it the same twice.
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116 (The second program is only used when you select Two-Machines Mode.)
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117 In the next section we tell WinBoard that it should try to find logos
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118 to display with the players,
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119 that of the three auxiliary windows only the move history should be open,
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120 and that the Human opponent should not be alowed to see what the engine
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123 Then follows a section which describes exactly where to locate the windows,
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124 in this case only the move-history window.
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125 The position of this is given (in pixels) compared to the position of
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127 Note it does not specify where to position the main window,
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128 or what boardSize to use.
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129 So for this the default value will be used.
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130 (Usually what was used last time, as remembered in the winboard.ini file.)
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131 For reference, though, the width and height of the main window for
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132 which the position information on the other windows refers,
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133 is mentioned first, as /winWidth and /winHeight.
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134 This allows WinBoard to conclude at startup that the move-history window
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135 was touching the main window on the right edge
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136 (since winWidth = moveHistoryX).
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137 So that it can retain this attachment if we start up WinBoard with
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138 a main window of a different width.
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139 (E.g. because we are playing Gothic Chess on a 10x8 board.)
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141 At the bottom there is an option that says all this should not be copied
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142 to the win board.ini file automatically.
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143 After all, because these settings are collected in a shortcut,
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144 you can summon them at the click of a mouse.
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145 So there is no reason to make them disturb the carefuly chosen settings
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146 of your previous session,
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147 which might take you a lot of effort to reproduce.
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149 OK, that was pretty nasty, especially the coordinates part.
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150 You don't want to calculate coordinates by hand, and find out by trial and
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151 error what looks nice.
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152 A more convenient way of adjusting this,
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153 is to start WinBoard not through a shortcut, but through the startup dialog,
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154 and then drag and size the windows where you want them
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155 (or close them if you don't want them).
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156 You then save the settings in winboard.ini
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157 (usually done automatically, when you close WinBoard,
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158 but you can do it also with the "Options -> Save Settings Now" menu).
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159 Now you can open winboard.ini with the text editor,
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160 and at the end you will see all the coordinates of the windows as
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161 you just layed them out.
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162 Simply copy this information (starting with the /winWidth parameter)
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163 to the .ini file of the shortcut you are customizing.
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165 <h3>Making a Shortcut from Scratch</h3>
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167 If you want to create an entirely new shortcut,
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168 e.g. for a task you commonly perform, but which was not delivered with this package,
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169 you can use the following procedure:
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171 First start up WinBoard, and bring it in exactly the state you would want it
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172 to start up in through the shortcut.
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173 Then save the settings on the winboard.ini file,
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174 make a copy of winboard.ini, and rename that copy to "MyShortcut.ini" (say).
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175 Then open this MyShortcut.ini in NotePad (usually by double-left-clicking it).
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176 Now you can add option settings to it which are normally not remembered
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177 from session to session (because they are not saved in winboard.ini),
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178 such as the variant (e.g. /variant=fischerandom),
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179 or the chess program and its folder (e.g. /fcp=Fruit /fd="..\Fruit" /fUCI).
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181 Right-click the "winboard" knight icon (which is not a shortcut),
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182 and select "Make Shortcut" from the popup menu.
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183 Change the name of the newly appearing shortcut to "MyShortcut".
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184 Then right-click this shortcut, and select "Propeties".
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185 The text in the "target" field of the popup will now just be the name of the winboard.exe.
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186 Click this text at the end to put the cursor there (posibly with help of the arrow keys).
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187 Then add to this line " @MyShortcut.ini", so the line becomes:
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189 ~\WinBoard\winboard.exe @MyShortcut.ini
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191 and click "OK". This completes the process.
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193 This is pretty much all that can be said about how to mak shortcuts;
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194 the main problem is to figure out what the options are that do what you want done.
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195 Looking in the winboard.ini file often can provide inspiration, and when all else fails,
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196 as a final resort, you can read the manual!
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projects / xboard.git / blob