"set interface" string modification request.

[matematiko]

Mr. Muller,

Upon connection to an ICS server, WinBoard sends the string:
set interface WinBoard
or if using and engine (Crafty for example):
set interface WinBoard + Crafty21.exe

The problem is that polyglot is not an engine but yet WinBoard sends the string:
set interface WinBoard + polyglot.exe

Will be possible for WinBoard to detect that is using polyglot, extract the name of the engine from polyglot's ini file and send the string accordingly? Like for example:
set interface WinBoard + polyglot.exe + Rybka3x64.exe
or just:
WinBoard + Rybka3x64.exe

It will be nice if the ".exe" is stripped from the engine name as well from polyglot, resulting in:
set interface WinBoard + polyglot + Rybka3x64
or
set interface WinBoard + Rybka3x64

Best regards,

matematiko

EDIT: Ok I found a post I made in Feb. 2010 requesting exactly what WinBoard does now. My own request is now biting my butt. Never mind then, I will work around it.

[H.G.Muller]

Well, it would not do that if you started UCI engines with the -fUCI option.

There is something that could be improved, though: the programVersion string is created before the engine is started, in order to be able to use it as a header to the debug file. Most engines (especially engines running under Polyglot) do send their name to WinBoard in the myname feature, and this is the name you will see in the title bar, the PGN etc. But to the ICS, even though the connection to that is made only after the engine is started, it still sends the initially made programVersion.

I will make it such that after processing the features, WB will redo the programVersion string, so that the name reported by the engine itself will be sent to the ICS as part of interface string, rather than the tidied-up value of the -fcp option.

[matematiko]

Thank you very much.

Silly as it sounds, I guess I need to read what the -fUCI option does, cause I have never used it before. A quick assumption is that this option will allow me to use an UCI engine in WinBoard without polyglot, if this is the case, can I still use a polyglot book?

Cheers,

matematiko

[H.G.Muller]

You would still use Polyglot, but WinBoard would invoke it automatically. In WinBoard 4.4.2 Polyglot would also be instructed to use the Polyglot book specified in WinBoard. But this is not very useful, as WinBoard would already be using that same book as GUI book, so Polyglot + the UCI engine would never be requested to provide a move as long as you stay in book.

In the development version the book setting is therefore not automatically relayed to Polyglot (unless you configure it to be relayed through changing the adapterCommand), and you could set an independent book through the Engine#1 Settings dialog.