Winboard Forum

WinBoard / XBoard 4.8.0

WinBoard 4.8 is the follow-up line of WinBoard 4.7, which ended with version 4.7.3. A special version of WinBoard is available for visually impaired people, for working with the JAWS or NVDA screen readers, but for now the old 4.5.2 is the latest JAWS version available. (See the post below or click here to get there.) WinBoard 4.8.0 has several new features added compared to its predecessors.


In Cylinder Chess moves wrap across the board edges

WinBoard 4.8 can be downloaded as an installer package from here. This installer contains all essential support programs, such as Polyglot and timeseal, pre-installed and ready to run. It contains two demo engines, a native WinBoard engine (Fairy-Max 4.8) and a UCI engine (Fruit 2.1). The 4.8 installer also contains adapters for running Xiangqi UCI and UCCI engines, and Shogi USI engines, and optional engines for these and other Chess variants.

New features of WinBoard 4.8 are the possibility to display tablebase hits, selective depth and speed (nps) in the Engine Output window, (and select there what you display), probe bitbases to shorten engine-engine games, and save entire sub-selections of a database with one command. Setting up positions and hand-editing the opening book has been made easier. General variant support has been greatly improved, by offering engines the possibility to configure the GUI for initial position and piece moves. There exists a somewhat older experimental "Alien Edition", and as development goes on, new experimental versions will become available in the future.

Download WinBoard 4.8.0 installer (2.6MB)
Download experimental WinBoard executable (500 kB), (with support for some non-Chesslike games, such as Checkers and Amazons, see here).
Old versions:
WinBoard 4.7 downloads.
WinBoard 4.6 downloads.
WinBoard 4.5 downloads.
WinBoard 4.4 downloads.

This installer also contains optional sections for using WinBoard as a Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) GUI, and engines for Shogi (Japanese Chess), and for general Chess Variant aficionados. For more information about the Xiangqi capabilities of WinBoard, look here. The variants section provides engines for in total more than 20 widely different Chess Variants (most of them through the Fairy-Max and Pulsar engines), ranging from Chess960 and Gothic Chess to Crazyhouse, Losers and Atomic. For the exact rules of these games, see http://hgm.nubati.net/rules .

The source code for WinBoard 4.8.0 and previous versions can be obtained from the GNU website. Use the tar ball that is tagged 4.8.0 (xboard-4.8.0.tar.gz). Most unzippers should understand this format (e.g. 7Zip).

What is New?

An elaborate description of the new features can be found on the GNU web pages. There you can also find a (new) User Guide summarizing the features of XBoard, which, apart from the screenshots, should largely apply to WinBoard as well.


Columnar search info can be selectively displayed. Also note the fail-high/low indicators on the score

Note that the UCI support built in this WinBoard version can only be fully exploited with the most recent Polyglot versions (which are of course included in the 4.8.0 installer pack). The source code of these are now collected in an on-line git repository, hosted at http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi . Note that the Polyglot included with WinBoard 4.7.3 was obtained by compiling the 2.0.2 version in the "learn" branch of that repository. Older Polyglots would not support transmitting info on tablebase hits and such, and versions from before the 2.x.x series would not support exclusion of moves from analysis.

Variants - WinBoard 4.8.0 sets a new landmark in Chess-variant support. It is now possible for an engine to take control over highlighting of target squares of 'picked-up' pieces, allowing legality checking in games that WinBoard does not know the rules of. A limited form of multiple moving is also supported through this mechanism. In addition, it is possible for engines to set up the initial position of a game (including definition of the board size), have non-rectangular boards by selectively declaring squares of an encompassing rectangular board as inaccessible (displayed as black), and have the engine define how the various pieces move (to get perfect SAN and target-square highlighting, and make legality testing work even when it is off).

XBoard 4.8.0

Version 4.8.0 also includes a new XBoard which supports the same new features as WinBoard. Since version 4.7 the front-end of XBoard has been completely rewritten. It is now based on the Cairo graphics library, using png and (resizable) svg image files rather than the xpm and bm image formats used in previous versions. The build that uses the more modern GTK widget set (in stead of the very old Athena widget set) should now be considered stable, although the old Xaw version is still supported. The GTK build now even has features that the Xaw build dos not have (because they were impossible to implement with the primitive Athena widget set), namely an integrated ICS Interaction / Chat window. Another new feature it copied from WinBoard is the possibility to save entire combinations of graphical settings as 'board themes'. Binary packages for various Linux distributions should be available from the build server. (Consult the XBoard home page how to get there.) People using other Unix / Linux distributions can install from source. The sources are kept at the GNU XBoard website.

WinBoard / XBoard source code


XBoard 4.8.0's new ICS Interaction /Chat window of the GTK build

WinBoard 4.5 for JAWS

A screen reader is a tool to help blind people use a computer by reading out loud information that is in the display. There is a specially adapted version of WinBoard 4.5 available for use with a screen reader. This version can be controlled completely from the keyboard, as blind people cannot use a pointing device like a mouse. It is equipped with a special menu (and accelerator keys to activate the items in it) to have the screen reader recite the position of pieces on the board, the last move made by the opponent, (which is also announced spontaneously), etcetera.

Originally this accessible Chess program could only work with the JAWS screen reader marketed by Freedom Scientific, (see below), hence it was named WinBoard for JAWS. But since September 2011 it also supports the open-source N V D A screen reader, and would automatically choose between the two depending on whether it detected N V D A was running on your system or not.

WinBoard 4.5 for JAWS has all the functionality of WinBoard 4.5.2, 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. New compared to version 4.4 is that its menus and dialogs can now be translated into various languages other than English (available are Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch and Russian, although not all of these translations also cover the explicitly spoken text).

WinBoard 4.5 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 4.5 for JAWS (1,527,994 bytes)

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 1,527,994 bytes, the download must have been interrupted, and you should try again.

JAWS

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

N V D A

N V D A is a free, open source screen reader for Windows, and is available from the N V D A project page.

Note that WinBoard 4.5 has been superceded by WinBoard 4.6 as stable version.

WinBoard / XBoard 4.5.3

WinBoard 4.5 is the follow-up line of WinBoard 4.4, which ended with version 4.4.4. A special version is available for visually impaired people, for working with the JAWS screen reader, but for now the old 4.5.2 is the latest JAWS version available. (See the post below or click here to get there.) WinBoard 4.5.3 is a bugfix release, i.e. apart from fixing bugs that were discovered, it is the same as 4.5.2.



WinBoard 4.5 contains many new features compared to version 4.4.x. WinBoard 4.5 can be downloaded as an installer package from here. This installer contains all essential support programs, such as Polyglot and PSWBTM, pre-installed and ready to run. In this respect it is similar to the WinBoard 4.3 Gold Pack. It contains two demo engines, a native WinBoard engine (Fairy-Max 4.8) and a UCI engine (Fruit 2.1). The 4.5.3 installer also contains adapters for running Xiangqi UCI and UCCI engines, and Shogi USI engines, and optional engines for these and other Chess variants.

There also exist various experimental WinBoard versions. The 4.5-TM version is what probably will become the next stable version, which we are preparing for a release as 4.6.0. Compared to 4.5 it contains many enhancements, including a built-in tournament managers, on-the-fly engine loading, and the posibility to search a loaded PGN file for a specific position.

Download WinBoard 4.5.3 installer (2.9MB)
Download WinBoard 4.5.3 executable + master ini file (500 kB)
Download experimental WinBoard executable (500 kB), (with support for some non-Chesslike games, such as Checkers and Amazons, see here).
Download installer with WinBoard 4.6.0 beta version (currently still called 4.5-TM), with experimental built-in tournament manager (2.3MB)
Download XQ installer pack (2 MB), (A beta version of 4.6.0 installer configured for users only interested in Xiangqi.)
WinBoard 4.4 downloads.

This installer also contains optional sections for using WinBoard as a Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) GUI, and engines for Shogi (Japanese Chess), and for general Chess Variant afficionados. For more information about the Xiangqi capabilities of WinBoard, look here. The variants section provides engines for in total more than 20 widely different Chess Variants (most of them through the Fairy-Max and Pulsar engines), ranging from Chess960 and Gothic Chess to Crazyhouse, Losers and Atomic. For the exact rules of these games, see http://www.chessvariants.org .

The source code for WinBord 4.5.3 and previous versions can be obtained from the GNU website. Use the tar ball that is tagged 4.5.3 (xboard-4.5.3.tar.gz). Most unzippers should understand this format (e.g. 7Zip).

What is New?

An eleborate description of the new features can be found on the GNU web pages. Special mention deserve the fact that every user now has his own settings (winboard.ini) file, the ability to walk variation trees and engine PV, and ICS improvements like a seek graph and a dual-board display for bughouse.



The differences between 4.5.3 and 4.5.2 are tiny. A complete overview of all bugfixes can be found on the GNU website. In the package there now is an (optional) Dutch language file. Note that the UCI support built in this WinBoard version can only be fully exploited with Michel van den Bergh's recent Polyglot versions (which are of course included in the 4.5.3 installer pack). These can be obtained as source, Windows and Linux binaries from:

Polyglot downloads

XBoard 4.5.3

Version 4.5.3 also includes a new XBoard. This of course supports all the new back-end features. The 4.5.x series also implements several command-line options that were already avaiable in WinBoard, but (for no good reason) not in XBoard. XBoard 4.5.x has persistent settings, like WinBoard, and an evaluation-graph window. XBoard 4.5.3 will be available from Debian and Ubuntu repositories. A Debian package should also be available from the GNU XBoard home page. People using other Unix / Linux distributions can install from souce. The sources are kept at the GNU XBoard home page.

WinBoard / XBoard source code


XBoard 4.5.2 new Board Options menu dialog

Note that WinBoard 4.6 has been superceded by WinBoard 4.7 as stable version.

WinBoard / XBoard 4.6.2

WinBoard 4.6 is the follow-up line of WinBoard 4.5, which ended with version 4.5.3. A special version of WinBoard is available for visually impaired people, for working with the JAWS or NVDA screen readers, but for now the old 4.5.2 is the latest JAWS version available. (See the post below or click here to get there.) WinBoard 4.6.0 has many new features added compared to its predecessors. WinBoard 4.6.2 is a bug-fix release, which contains nothing new, but fixes some problems that were discovered in the new features of 4.6. (Note that 4.6.1 was a regression, and has been expunged.)



WinBoard 4.6 can be downloaded as an installer package from here. This installer contains all essential support programs, such as Polyglot and timeseal, pre-installed and ready to run. It contains two demo engines, a native WinBoard engine (Fairy-Max 4.8) and a UCI engine (Fruit 2.1). The 4.6 installer also contains adapters for running Xiangqi UCI and UCCI engines, and Shogi USI engines, and optional engines for these and other Chess variants. Note that there has been a change in configuring WinBoard 4.6.2 for ICS play: the menu items for FICS and ICC now save their settings in a file winboard_ics.ini in the user's AppData folder, rather than relying on fixed settings from the FICS.ini and ICC.ini settings file (which not everyone was happy about). So any setting changes the user makes are now fully remembered for the next ICS session, but do not affect, and are not influenced, by setting changes done when using WinBoard for other tasks.

New features of WinBoard 4.6 include a built-in tournament manager, on-the-fly engine loading, and the possibility to search a loaded PGN file for a specific position. There exists a somewhat older experimental "Alien Edition", and as development goes on, new experimental versions will become available in the future.

Download WinBoard 4.6.2 installer (2.3MB)
Download WinBoard 4.6.0 executable + master ini file (500 kB)
Download experimental WinBoard executable (500 kB), (with support for some non-Chesslike games, such as Checkers and Amazons, see here).
Old versions:
WinBoard 4.5 downloads.
WinBoard 4.4 downloads.

This installer also contains optional sections for using WinBoard as a Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) GUI, and engines for Shogi (Japanese Chess), and for general Chess Variant aficionados. For more information about the Xiangqi capabilities of WinBoard, look here. The variants section provides engines for in total more than 20 widely different Chess Variants (most of them through the Fairy-Max and Pulsar engines), ranging from Chess960 and Gothic Chess to Crazyhouse, Losers and Atomic. For the exact rules of these games, see http://www.chessvariants.org .

The source code for WinBoard 4.6.2 and previous versions can be obtained from the GNU website. Use the tar ball that is tagged 4.6.2 (xboard-4.6.2.tar.gz). Most unzippers should understand this format (e.g. 7Zip).

What is New?

An elaborate description of the new features can be found on the GNU web pages. There you can also find a (new) User Guide summarizing the features of XBoard, which, apart from the screenshots, should largely apply to WinBoard as well.



Note that the UCI support built in this WinBoard version can only be fully exploited with Michel van den Bergh's recent Polyglot versions (which are of course included in the 4.6.2 installer pack). The source code of these are now collected in an on-line git repository, hosted at http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi . Note that the Polyglot included with WinBoard 4.6.2 was obtained by compiling the 2.0.1 version in the "learn" branch of that repository.

XBoard 4.6.2

Version 4.6.2 also includes a new XBoard which supports the same new features as WinBoard. New for XBoard is that 4.6 includes a lot of "desktop support": it defines mime types and icons for pgn, fen and trn files, and associates these file with XBoard in various modes as handler, so that simply clicking the files is enough to start up XBoard in the applicable mode. Binary packages for various Linux distributions should be available from the build server. (Consult the XBoard home page how to get there.) People using other Unix / Linux distributions can install from source. The sources are kept at the GNU XBoard website.

WinBoard / XBoard source code


XBoard 4.6.0 new Match Options dialog

WinBoard / XBoard 4.7.3

WinBoard 4.7 is the follow-up line of WinBoard 4.6, which ended with version 4.6.2. A special version of WinBoard is available for visually impaired people, for working with the JAWS or NVDA screen readers, but for now the old 4.5.2 is the latest JAWS version available. (See the post below or click here to get there.) WinBoard 4.7.0 has many new features added compared to its predecessors. WinBoard 4.7.3 is the latest bugfix release of the 4.7 series.



WinBoard 4.7 can be downloaded as an installer package from here. This installer contains all essential support programs, such as Polyglot and timeseal, pre-installed and ready to run. It contains two demo engines, a native WinBoard engine (Fairy-Max 4.8) and a UCI engine (Fruit 2.1). The 4.7 installer also contains adapters for running Xiangqi UCI and UCCI engines, and Shogi USI engines, and optional engines for these and other Chess variants.

New features of WinBoard 4.7 are the possibility to exclude moves from interactive analysis, create opening books from files with games, and improved graphics options which can be organized as themes by means of a new dialog. It has also been made possible to start WinBoard by simply dragging files of various types (games, positions, tournaments, settings) on top of it; WinBoard will then start in the mode required to process files of the given type (as game viewer, playing the for the tournament, or with the specified settings). There exists a somewhat older experimental "Alien Edition", and as development goes on, new experimental versions will become available in the future.

Download WinBoard 4.7.3 installer (2.5MB)
Download experimental WinBoard executable (500 kB), (with support for some non-Chesslike games, such as Checkers and Amazons, see here).
Old versions:
WinBoard 4.6 downloads.
WinBoard 4.5 downloads.
WinBoard 4.4 downloads.

This installer also contains optional sections for using WinBoard as a Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) GUI, and engines for Shogi (Japanese Chess), and for general Chess Variant aficionados. For more information about the Xiangqi capabilities of WinBoard, look here. The variants section provides engines for in total more than 20 widely different Chess Variants (most of them through the Fairy-Max and Pulsar engines), ranging from Chess960 and Gothic Chess to Crazyhouse, Losers and Atomic. For the exact rules of these games, see http://www.chessvariants.org .

The source code for WinBoard 4.7.3 and previous versions can be obtained from the GNU website. Use the tar ball that is tagged 4.7.3 (xboard-4.7.3.tar.gz). Most unzippers should understand this format (e.g. 7Zip).

What is New?

An elaborate description of the new features can be found on the GNU web pages. There you can also find a (new) User Guide summarizing the features of XBoard, which, apart from the screenshots, should largely apply to WinBoard as well.



Note that the UCI support built in this WinBoard version can only be fully exploited with the most recent Polyglot versions (which are of course included in the 4.7.1 installer pack). The source code of these are now collected in an on-line git repository, hosted at http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi . Note that the Polyglot included with WinBoard 4.7.3 was obtained by compiling the 2.0.1 version in the "learn" branch of that repository. Older Polyglots would not support exclusion of moves from analysis.

XBoard 4.7.3

Version 4.7.3 also includes a new XBoard which supports the same new features as WinBoard. The front-end of XBoard 4.7 has been completely rewritten. It is now based on the Cairo graphics library, using png and (resizable) svg image files rather than the xpm and bm image formats used in previous versions. Also new is that an experimental port to the more modern GTK widget set (in stead of the very old Athena widget set) can be built from the same code base. To enhance ease of operation, a new mime type (xop) is defined for files containing XBoard command-line options, so that XBoard can be started with those options by double-clicking such a file. Binary packages for various Linux distributions should be available from the build server. (Consult the XBoard home page how to get there.) People using other Unix / Linux distributions can install from source. The sources are kept at the GNU XBoard website.

WinBoard / XBoard source code


XBoard 4.7.0 Load Engine dialog