Looking for a Random Mover

[H.G.Muller]

It autosaves when a game finishes (mate, resign, adjudicate). But not when you abort a game by pressing 'New Game'. Btw, an alternative workaround might be to install POS with the extra WInBoard option -firstFeatures "myname=POS". This should overrule the myname feature that POS is sending itself, and allows you to select an aceptable name.

You don't have the --brain-mode within the double quotes that surround the pos.exe, which makes it a WinBoard option, and not a POS option.

When you just rin WinBoard with Additional option -recentEngineList "" to clear it, you can get the other two engines back in it quickly enough by selecting them from the listbox in the Load Engine dialog.

WinBoard has an option -initialMode MachineBlack that could be helpful. It seems you have multiple games in the PGN file; it might be that adding an -lgi N option automatically loads the Nth game from it. (I had no multi-game PGN files at hand to quickly try it.)

[chessp]

"POSrnd" -fcp "pos-1.20.exe --brain-mode random" -fd "C:\Users\Peter\Documents\_synceddocs\chess\downloads\pos-1.20" -fn "POSrnd" -firstFeatures "myname=POS"

does seem to create random fast moves. very good. but it does not change the engine name. it's still the one with the slash in the window caption and the save dialog is replaced by the error message.

[H.G.Muller]

Oh, I guess it needs double quotes around the name. So either

-firstFeatures 'myname="POS"'

(double within single quotes) or

-firstFeatures "myname=\"POS\""

(escaped double within double).

[chessp]

yes! thank you! this line works:

"POSrnd" -fcp "pos-1.20.exe --brain-mode random" -fd "C:\Users\Peter\Documents\_synceddocs\chess\downloads\pos-1.20" -fn "POSrnd" -firstFeatures 'myname="POS"'

[chessp]

also resetting

/recentEngineList={
}

in the file

C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Roaming\winboard48.ini

worked. thanks. note: the new entry for a recent engines in the engines menu should appear immediately after i loaded a new engine, not only after i saved settings and then restarted the program!

still one question: why is it that i cant ctrl-b right at the beginning of a game, but only after i moved a white piece? why not let me assign the enemy before the game starts?

[H.G.Muller]

note: the new entry for a recent engines in the engines menu should appear immediately after i loaded a new engine, not only after i saved settings and then restarted the program!

You think so? My reasoning was that the engine that is already loaded does not need to be there. And an engine that you loaded, and then replaced by another, is also not likely to be needed again. Don't forget that for every engine that is added, the one at the bottom disappears, so it seems undesirable to add engines that are very likely not needed in the current session. People that switch very often back and forth between a small group of engines will likely have all these engine in the menu always anyway.

still one question: why is it that i cant ctrl-b right at the beginning of a game, but only after i moved a white piece? why not let me assign the enemy before the game starts?

I guess this is a legacy from the fact that GNU Chess required this. The 'go' command sets the engine to play the side to move, and most engines do not support the 'playother' command that could do the opposite. But of course the GUI could remember that the engine is supposed to play, and delay sending the 'go' command to after the next move it sends to the engine. I probably should overhaul the code that controls this, to make it work through an entirely different system as it does now.