WinBoard 4.4 downloads

[H.G.Muller]

WinBoard 4.4 for JAWS

Alert: WinBoard 4.4 for JAWS has been superceded by WinBoard 4.5 for JAWS, click here.

JAWS is a screen reader, which is a tool to help blind people use a computer by reading out loud information that is in the display. It is marketed by Freedom Scientific, and a demo version of JAWS is available from their website.

JAWS Home Page

There is a specially adapted version of WinBoard 4.4 available for working with JAWS. This version can be controlled completely from the keyboard, as blind people cannot use a pointing device like a mouse. It is equiped with a special menu (and accelerator keys to activate the items in it) to have JAWS recite the position of pieces on the board, the last move made by the opponent, (which is also announced spontaneously), etcetera.

WinBoard 4.4 for JAWS has all the functionality of WinBoard 4.4.1, and will enable blind people to access and analyze Chess games in P G N files, play Chess on an Internet Chess Server such as FICS, or play against a Chess engine.

WinBoard 4.4 for JAWS can be installed from the WinBoard forum with Fruit 2.1 as optional demo Chess engine, by clicking the link below.

Install WinBoard 4.4 for JAWS (1,304,040 bytes)

Note that per Nov 2 this download contains an updated version 4.4.1, which fixes many small bugs from 4.4.0.

Some people have experienced problems downloading the file. If your system complains that the file is incomplete or damaged, check the size of what you downloaded. If necessary, choose "Save" in stead of "Open" from the download dialog initially, so that the file is saved, and then open it later. If its size is not 1,304,040 bytes, the download must have been interrupted, and you should try again.

[H.G.Muller]

WinBoard / xboard 4.3

WinBoard 4.3 is a WinBoard version developed independently from the original GNU-Savannah project administrated
by Tim Mann. It has many add-ons, mainly in the area of user interface, improved rule knowledge (castling, e.p. rights),
adjudication in engine-engine games, and improved variant support. WinBoard 4.3 is a direct descendant of Allessandro
Scotti's WinBoard_x, which again was derived from WinBoard 4.2.7, the last version released by Tim Mann's team.



WinBoard 4.3.14 with separate engine-output, move-history and eval-graph windows

Downloads

From here you will be able to download various WinBoard / xboard packages. The links below directly point
to the various downloads; The WinBoard Gold Pack should be unpacked inside the folder where you normally
store all your engine folders. The executable packages contain shortcuts to start up WinBoard, which you could
move to your desktop. No other install is needed.

WinBoard 4.3.15 Gold Pack (2.3 MB)
Windows executables of WinBoard 4.3.15, Polyglot 1.5w and PSWBTM 2.0 plus two pre-installed
demo engines (Fairy-Max as WB, CPW as UCI engine), plus a Polyglot Opening book, all ready
to use after unzipping.
bug-fixes: Polyglot 7-jan-09, WinBoard 14-jan-09.
For the new polyglot.exe only, see below in the Polyglot chapter

WinBoard 4.3.15m executable
Bug-fix of the winboard.exe originally included in the Gold Pack (per 14-jan-2009)

WinBoard 4.3.14 executable
Windows executable, plus Fairy-Max demo engine, ready to use after unzipping.

xboard 4.3.14 executable
Linux executable (Ubuntu/hardy), plus Fairy-Max demo engine, ready to use (tar archive).
(Preliminary release! Will be supplemented with some more support files later.)

WinBoard/xboard 4.3.14 source files
Complete (zipped) source tree, including all bitmaps, for WinBoard and xboard.

WinBoard/xboard 4.3.15 source files (2.9 MB)
Complete (zipped) source tree, including all bitmaps, for WinBoard and xboard.

Polyglot

WinBoard 4.3 does have provisions (inherited from WinBoard_x) for automatically invoking Polyglot
for running UCI engines. A version of Polyglot that does not need the cygwin1.dll can be found
on Fonzy's website. The direct download link is:

Polyglot 1.4 Windows zipped executable

Bug-fixed (7-jan-2009) Polyglot 1.5w executable

A newer Polyglot version, relaying the new WinBoard commands for setting hash size, Nalimov path and nr of CPUs
is included in the WinBoard Gold Pack for Windows. The sourcs for this version can be obtained from:

Polyglot 1.5 source code

from which a Linux version can be compiled.

Tournament Manager

WinBoard is a Graphical User Interface to conduct a single Chess game or match between two opponents.
WinBoard can be used for playing the games in tournaments with more than two engines, (gauntlets or
round-robins) through the use of a Tournament Manager. An easy-to-use WinBoard tournament manager
is Pradu Kannan's PSWBTM. The executable of PSWBTM is included in the WinBoard Gold Pack, but can also
be obtained from here:

PSWBTM Download link

PSWBTM home page



WinBoard as Crazyhouse GUI, with drag-and-drop holdings, and distinguishable promoted pieces

More Information

WinBoard 4.3 supports many variants with deviating board format or pieces, as can be seen in the
screen shots on H.G.Muller's website. Engine authors that want to be able to run their engines under
WinBoard 4.3, should take a careful look at the updated description of the WinBoard protocol description,
which specifies how the engine should communicate with WinBoard. The protocol for WinBoard 4.3
is not different from that of WinBoard 4.2.7, but the updated document details behavior of
WinBoard 4.3 in reaction to the various commands, and explains how you could use some new features.

Discussion Forum

You are invited to participate in the discussion on how to improve WinBoard, and develop
WinBoard protocol further. Bugs can also be reported in the WinBoard forum,
where the message you are now reading is one of the postings. There are usually also a lot of friendly
people around in this forum, that might be able to help you with problmes and questions on WinBoard,
and WinBoard-compatible Chess engines.



WinBoard used as game viewer, with a separate game-list window

Notes on xboard 4.3.14

Startng from WinBoard 4.3.14 there is again an xboard version supplied. This xboard uses the same back-end
source files as WinBoard 4.3.14, many, but not all of the modifications in the front-end (i.e. those pertaining
to the user interface, such as menus, looks and auxilary windows) have been added in xboard.4.3.15
Other new WinBoard 4.3 back-end features can already be used through command-line options,
though. We hope to narrow the development gap between xboard and WinBoard in future releases.



xboard 4.3.14 in Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) mode

Chess Fonts

As mentioned above, the WinBoard look can be adjusted with bitmaps defining the board texture,
and a Chess font defining the pieces. Many suitable Chess fonts can be found at the EN PASSANT website.
Some nice textures can be found at the Winboard_x website.



WinBoard (board size "small") with pieces derived from
the "Chess Mark" font, and a wooden board texture

[hgm]

Next to the stable versions described above, there is a WinBoard / XBoard development version. It is likely to be less stable, but it has many more features. For instance a seek graph, that can be used to easily challenge opponents on an ICS, the possibility to peek at your bughouse partner's game while you are playing, an upload command for games to the ICS, and smart-move. Such WinBoard versions have a name derived from the date they were made, like WinBoard 4.20100215. Eventually, these features will end up in a stable version, after they have been sufficiently tested. For an exhaustive description of the new features, and how to use them, see: http://hgm.nubati.net/news.html .

This version (WinBoard 4.20100222) is now available as Windows installer, which contains a minimal install tailored to ICS users. It contains timeseal and timestamp, the Fairy-Max engine, Polyglot 1.4.56b, the help files, and a prepared winboard.ini settings file that makes it all work 'out of the box' . It will create menu items for connecting to FICS and ICC, playing against Fairy-Max and the general WinBoard startup dialog, plus a README file that explain how to use the new ICS features (seek graph, observing your bughouse partner's game, one-click move and chat boxes) must be used.


Seek graph that appears in ICS play after clickcing the board

The hottest (but sometimes buggy) sources can also be obtained from nubati.


The command to upload games is in the Atction menu