Send a pause command

[salim]

Hi, I'm trying to interface Matlab with Winboard 4.8.0 and so far its going good (Im using buddhichal in order to interface). What I need to know its that if there is a way to send a pause command to winboard so that winboard will pause the game. When i say command i mean not clicking pause button on winboard interface but sending a command in the same way like usermove e2e5. Is this possible?

[H.G.Muller]

There is no way for engines to pause the game. But pausing the game is essentially just stopping the clock. There is a way for pseudo-engines (i.e. engines installed with the -first/secondPseudo option) to adjust WinBoard's clock: they just can send it 'time' and 'otim' commands similar to those WinBoard sends to normal engines. By sending those periodically you could prevent the clock from advancing.

[salim]

What about using StopClocks() and StartClocks() methods? They seem to work for me but how do those methods behave?

[H.G.Muller]

Well, these start and stop the clocks, and are probably invoked when you press the 'P' button. There is currently no way for the engine to invoke them, however.