X-Git-Url: http://winboard.nl/cgi-bin?p=xboard.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=NEWS;h=9560ae4e0fda6b3b15dadc0c7a1f6549e631653e;hp=12eadb046efc90963888446877d41fa01049103d;hb=76d2f540a0bc0a54bbb2aba5e29d5412e7f2191c;hpb=064f39c035588d458888f942798a5178e928669a diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 12eadb0..9560ae4 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -1,14 +1,28 @@ -** Announcing the release of XBoard and WinBoard, version 4.4.0 ** +** Version 4.4.1 ** + + * use "make distcheck" to generate tar-balls + * fixed wrong default value for engineDebugOutput + * fixed loading of games from command lines, fixes cmail bug + * swapped 'tell' and 'message' parsing order for correct colorization. + * added a chat window to keep track of multiple conversations + * allow the result comment as a display item in the game list + * fixed parse bug for pgn files + * rewrote wevalgraph for better frontend/backend separation + * added the result comment to the game-list tags when the game + list is exported to the clipboard + * Made the beep sounds for JAWS board navigation configurable + through command-line options + * updated RTF docs + * added a "Mute All Sounds" item in the WinBoard Options menu + * fixed crash when opening Engine #1 Settings when there were no + text-edit options in the dialog + * fixed engine did not start playing when out of GUI book on second + move with white + * fix for edit-position "moves" being sent by XBoard to the engine + * bugfix for protocol extensions: egtbpath -> egtpath + * minor bugfixes -XBoard is a graphical chessboard for the X Window System that can -serve as a user interface for GNU Chess, Crafty, and other chess -engines, for the Internet Chess Servers, and for electronic mail -correspondence chess. XBoard can also be used by itself. It can read -and write game files in PGN (portable game notation). - -WinBoard is a similar program for 32-bit Microsoft Windows. It -includes all the major features of XBoard except email correspondence -chess. +** Version 4.4.0 ** A new release of both XBoard and WinBoard is now available. Version 4.4.0 includes many changes. It is the first major release of @@ -27,3 +41,172 @@ https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/ If you find a bug, please report it in the bug tracker at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/ or by email to bug-xboard (AT) gnu.org. + + +** Version 4.3.16 ** + +New command-line options +/niceEngines=N for adjusting the priority of engine processes so they don't soak up all your system resources +/firstOptions="..." Allows the setting of options that engines define through the feature option="..." commands +/secondOptions="..." +/firstLogo=filename.bmp Displays the mentioned bitmap next to the clock (with H:W =1:2 aspect ratio) (WB only) +/secondLogo=filename.bmp +/autoLogo=false get logo files automatically from engineDirectory\logo.bmp + +General enhancements: +* New WB-protocol command: 'feature option="NAME -TYPE VALUE OTHER"', which engines can use to define options +* New WB-protocol command: 'option NAME VALUE' used to set value of engine-defned options. +* implements /delayAfterQuit and /delayBeforeQuit in XBoard, and uses SIGKILL to terminate rogue engine processes + + +** Version 4.3.15 ** + +New command-line options +/rewindIndex=N (for the new auto-increment mode of the loadGameIndex or loadPositionIndex in match mode) +/sameColorGames=N (for playing a match where the same player has white all the time) +/egtFormats="..." (for specifying where various end-game tables are installed on the computer) + +New menu items ++ Time-odds factors can be set in the time-control dialog ++ Nr of CPUs for SMP engines can be set in the Options -> UCI dialog ++ Own-Book options can be switched from the Options -> UCI dialog ++ The ScoreIsAbs options can be set from the Options -> Engine dialog ++ New-Variant menu adds Superchess + +General Enhancements: +* WinBoard engines can now also use the Polyglot opening book (implemented as general GUI book) +* New WB-protocol commands memory, cores and egtpath make interactive setting of these parameters + possible on WB engines +* New Polyglot is available that relays the interactive setting of these parameters to UCI engines +* Match mode suports an auto-increment mode, so that all games or positions from a file can be played +* Draw claims with Kings and an arbitrary number of like Bishops (e.g. KBBKB) are accepted + +The source tree in original xboard 4.2.7 format can now be compiled under Cygwin with the aid +of the cygwin.mak file in the ~/winboard/ subdirectory of the source releasy, after you put +the hep-file from an executabl distribution there. Maefiles for other compilers are not updated +since 4.2.7, as I do not have those compilers. + + +** Version 4.3.14k ** + +Compared to version 4.3.13 described below, this version features + +New command-line options: +/autoKibitz (for relaying the PV info of the engine to the ICS) +/userName="..." (for setting the name of the Human player, also as menu) +/engineDebugOutput=N (controlling the writing of engine output to debug file) +/firstNPS=N (for time management by node count or CPU time) +/secondNPS=N (likewise for the other engine) + +New Menu items ++ Enter Username (same as /userName command-line option) ++ Save Diagram (for saving the Chessboard display as bitmap file) ++ Machine Both (not implemented yet, but menu item already provided) ++ New-Variant menu adds CRC, Janus and Berolina (the latter only with legality testing off!) ++ Any variant can be played from a shuffled opening setup + +Bugfixes: +* Problems with switching the variant in ICS zippy mode solved +* In ICS observing mode game history is now fully accessible +* Moves are not fed to engine in zippy mode, when observing a game from a variant unknown to the engine +* a problem with loading PGN of FRC games with move disambiguation and initial castling rights was fixed. +* A bug in the clock display that made previous versions of WinBoard crash for tiny displays is fixed + +General enhancements: +* variant name displayed in title bar in ICS mode, when not 'normal' +* 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) +* when loading a game from a PGN file, WB automatically switches to the variant specified in the PGN tags +* when starting from a loaded position (using /loadPositionFile), this position will be used on subsequent 'New Game' commands as well (until we switch variant) + +New is also that the source tree is now brought back in the original WinBoard 4.2.7 format, including +xboard source files. Note, however, that the xboard sources are from an older date, and I did not test +if they still compile together with the much newer backend sources. I did add code in xboard.c to recognize +the new command-line options I added since then, and in so far they are back-end options that should be enough +to make them work. This is completely untested, though; I did not even try to compile it. Last time anyone +built a working xboard.exe from this was at a stage where WinBoard did have adjustable board size, allowing +it to play Xiangqi. But no crazyhouse holdings yet. + + +** Version 4.3.13a ** + +This version of WinBoard_F fixes several bugs in 4.3.12, and also addse a few new features. +The new features include: +- some more fairy pieces, so that each side now has 22 piece types in stead of 17, +making most fairy pieces available in board size "petite" (next to "bulky" and "middling"), +making the ArchBishop and Chancellor, as well as one wildcard piece (the Lance) available in all +sizes from "petite" to "bulky". +- The FRC support is fully fixed, both in local and ICS mode. +- A mechanism is provided for safe draw claiming in cases where a 3-fold repetition woud occur only + after your own move. In this case a draw will be awarded by WinBoard if the engine sends "offer draw" + before making its move. +- Genuine draw offers are not passed on immediately to the opponent but held up to when the offerer announces + its move. +- Variants FRC, Cylinder and Falcon are added to the "New Variant..." menu. +- Support for playing time-odds games is added. (Options /firstTimeOdds, /secondTimeOdds, /timeOddsMode) +- A mechanism is provided for attaching WinBoard options to the engine command, to create options that +follow the engine (e.g. time odds) in a tournament run under a tournament manager. +Bugfixes include: +- Shatranj in ICS mode (did not work at all before) +- Some draw adjudications (QRKR was mistaken for KRKR, and KBKB with like Bishops is now recognized) +- time info in the PGN is now correct + + + +** Version 4.3.14 ** + +This relaese was not made by the GNU xboard team, but by H.G.Muller. +It mainly contains developments on WinBoard. Nevertheless, an attempt +has been started to back-port the enormous number of improvements that +have been made to WinBoard since the Linux and Windows developments branched +to xboard. This is reflected by the source tree now having the same format +as that of xboard 4.2.7, including all the xboard sources. + +An enormous amount of work still has to be done to make the xboard version +fully equivalent to WinBoard, especially on user-interface side. As a modest +beginning, the xboard source files have been patched to allow their compilation +with the newer back-end files from WinBoard. To this end, the number of piece +types in xboard has been increased from 6 to 22, and the WinBoard bitmaps +have been converted to xboard source format (.bm) and are included in the +xboard bitmaps directory. Other quick patches include the coloring of the +board squares (for xiangqi and holdings), and some code in the user-move +handling to suppress all moves into or out of the area between board and +holdings in crazyhouse, and the treatment of king-captures-own-piece +as a possibly valid move (for FRC castling). This should make it possible +to run xboard with the new back-end files without too much inconvenience. + +New xboard command-line options have been added to make the added back-end +features available. The include the new variants (as argument of the old +-variant option), -boardWidth, -boardHeight and -holdingsSize. Be sure +to call xboard with "-boardSize middling" or "-boardSize bulky" if you +want to play with fairy pieces, or xboard might crash due to unavailability +of bitmaps. Other added xboard options are: + +ADJUDICATION OPTIONS: +-checkMates +-testClaims +-materialDraws +-trivialDraws +-ruleMoves +-repeatsToDraw +-adjudicateLossThreshold +-firstScoreAbsolute +-secondScoreAbsolute + +TIME-CONTROL OPTIONS +-firstTimeOdds +-secondTimeOdds +-timeOddsMode +-firstNPS +-secondNPS + +GENERAL OPTIONS +-matchPause +-engineDebugOutput +-userName +-pgnExtendedInfo +-pgnEventHeader +-hideThinkingFromHuman + +This is all completely untested, but as the options merely switch on well-tested +code in the back-end, there should not be too many problems with them. +Bugs can be reported in the WinBoard forum.