--- /dev/null
+<!--#include virtual="/server/html5-header.html" -->
+<title>XBoard - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation - NEWS</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<!--#set var="article_name" value="/server/standards/boilerplate" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/gnun/initial-translations-list.html" -->
+<h2>What is new in WinBoard / XBoard 4.4.0?</h2>
+
+ <table cellpadding="20"><tr valign="top"><td>
+ <h4>New Features</h4>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#tag-A1">Improvements of the WinBoard front-end</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#tag-A2">Support for chess variants</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#tag-A3">Display of engine-output</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#tag-A4">Menu dialogs in XBoard</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#tag-A5">Setting engine options through the GUI</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <img src="../4.5.0/winboardF.png">
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.5.0/index.html">Follow-up release (4.5.0)</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.4.1/index.html">Minor bug-fixes (4.4.1)</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.4.0/index.html">Preceding release (4.2.7)</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.4.0/WinBoardF.html">WinBoard_F fork (4.3.x)</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a href="../4.4.0/Winboard_x.html">Winboard_x fork</a>
+ </p>
+ </td></tr></table>
+
+ <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
+ <h3><a name="tag-A1">Incorporating the Winboard_x fork</a></h3>
+ <p>
+ When official development of XBoard stalled after release of 4.2.7,
+ unofficial forks emerged further developing WinBoard without paying attention to XBoard.
+ Changes in the back-end even destroyed the possibility to build an XBoard from these modified sources.
+ XBoard 4.4.0 pulls some of these forks back into the main line of XBoard development,
+ by at least restoring the compatibility of the X11 front-end files with the common back-end,
+ even though most of the new front-end functions of WinBoard have not been ported yet.
+ </p><p>
+ In particular, XBoard 4.4.0 is based on the Winboard_x fork by Alessandro Scotti.
+ That means that a WinBoard built from these sources has all the enhancements associated with Winboard_x.
+ These include the auxiliary windows for engine output, move history and evaluation graph,
+ board textures and font-based rendering of pieces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For further details, see the page on
+ <a href="../4.4.0/Winboard_x.html">Winboard_x</a>.
+ </p>
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <img src="petite.gif">
+ </td></tr></table>
+
+ <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
+ <img src="couriersmall.gif">
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <h3><a name="tag-A2">Different board formats and unorthodox pieces</a></h3>
+ <p>
+ XBoard 4.4.0 also inorporates the enhancements of the WinBoard 4.3 fork (aka WinBoard F) by H.G.Muller.
+ This fork itself was built on Winboard_x.
+ At the later stages of this fork (from 4.3.14 on) the compatibility with XBoard was restored,
+ and they came with a working XBoard that could benefit from the enhancements in the common back-end.
+ These included:
+ <ul>
+ <li>Full awareness of castling and en-passant rights</li>
+ <li>Configurable board formats (e.g. 9x10 for Chinese chess)</li>
+ <li>Many unorthodox piece types supported (e.g. cannon and elephant)</li>
+ <li>Variant selectable from menu</li>
+ <li>Bughouse piece drops can be done from holdings displayed next to board</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>
+ For further details of the back-end enhancements, see the page on
+ <a href="../4.4.0/WinBoardF.html">WinBoard 4.3</a>.
+ </p>
+ </td></tr></table>
+
+ <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
+ <h3><a name="tag-A3">Improved analysis window</a></h3>
+ <p>
+ One of the first Winboad_x front-end features we ported to XBoard was the engine-output window,
+ which is an enhanced version of the old analysis window.
+ Rather than just displaying the latest line of engine output,
+ it displays the entire list of it for the current position.
+ Information like current move being searched, number of moves, and nodes searched
+ are displayed above the pane with engine output
+ (provided 'periocic updates' is switched on).
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The window is also made more generally available:
+ apart from in analysis mode, it can also be brought up when playing against an engine,
+ so you can see the full engine output, rather than just the latest line in the message field above the board.
+ In Two Machines mode the window even splits into two identical panes,
+ so you can see the output of both engines.
+ An icon above each pane indicates whether the engine producing that output is thinking or pondering.
+ </p>
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <img src="EngOutXB.png">
+ </td></tr></table>
+
+ <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
+ <table cellpadding="5"><tr><td>
+ <img src="TCold.png">
+ </td></tr><tr><td>
+ <img src="CommonOld.png">
+ </td></tr></table>
+ </td><td valign="center">
+ <img src="AdjuOld.png">
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <h3><a name="tag-A4">Some new menu dialogs</a></h3>
+ <p>
+ Previous versions of XBoard were sorely lacking in menu dialogs,
+ and had to be controlled almost entirely through command-line options.
+ Only options that had a simple on/off setting could be controlled through the Options menu.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The menu dialogs with the most important option settings have now been ported from WinBoard.
+ In particular, the dialogs to specify the time control,
+ general settings common to all engines,
+ and the adjudication options now have their own menu dialogs.
+ The latter options came with the WinBoard F back-end,
+ as reliable adjudication of games only became possible when XBoard was fully aware of castling and en-passant rights.
+ The general engine settings apply mainly to UCI engines supported through Polyglot.
+ </p>
+ </td></tr></table>
+
+ <table cellpadding="20"><tr><td valign="top">
+ <h3><a name="tag-A5">Configuring an engine through the GUI</a></h3>
+ <p>
+ An entirely new feature is a dialog through which you can interactively set the private options of engines.
+ Especially UCI engines have many options, but this feature can work for native XBoard engines as well,
+ through extensions of the protocol.
+ Each engine can define its own set of options with name of its choosing,
+ and tell XBoard what type of values the option can take (numeric, on/off, text, multiple choice).
+ XBoard will then present these options to the user in an Engine Settings dialog,
+ which will thus look completely different for each engines.
+ When the user alters a value here, the new value is relayed to the engine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shown are the Engine Settings dialogs for Glaurung 2.2 and Fairy-Max 4.8o
+ </p>
+ <img src="EngineSet.png">
+ </td><td valign="top">
+ <img src="settings.png">
+ </td></tr></table>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF.<br />
+Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions to
+<a href="mailto:bug-xboard@gnu.org"><bug-xboard@gnu.org></a>.</p>
+
+<p>Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+
+<p>Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2012/02/29 05:45:26 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>
projects / xboard.git / commitdiff
