Continue later

[Gábor Szots]

I don't know how this is supposed to work. When I click on it, e.g. to install an engine, and then invoke the tournament editor again, I find that the tournament file name got lost, and several settings have been altered, e.g. Step through lines/positions in file becomes ticked when it was unticked before.

[H.G.Muller]

I guess the problem with "Step through lines" occurs because it is really an auxiliary checkbox that does not correspond to a WB option. Form the command line the stepping is controlled by -lgi (-loadGameIndex) -1 or -2 (the latter for doing all lines twice). But the problem was that Windows dialogs do not allow you to type the minus sign in a numeric entry. (Apparently negative numbers are unknown at MicroSoft?!?) So I added the checkboxes, and on leaving the dialog, when they are checked, the line or position number is replaced by the -1 or -2 that the user could not type. But if they are unchecked, it just leaves the line/position number in the corresponding entry.

The problem you experience probably occurs because a -1 or -2 already found its way into the line/position number entries, e.g. because the -lgi/-lpi command-line options were used when starting WInBoard, or from previous use of the Tournament Options dialog in the same session (leaving it by "Continue Later" after ticking the checkboxes). This then causes the position index to be set to -1 or -2 (intended), and when re-opening the dialog, it then ticks the checkboxes accordingly (also intended). But if you then untick the boxes, and leave the dialog (again with "Continue Later" or "OK"), the -1 or -2 in the index entry keeps hanging there, which has the same effect as ticking the boxes. (The numeric entries can display negative numbers, you just cannot type them there!) So I guess the issue is that when you untick the checkboxes, so that there is no automatick stepping, you are also expected to type a value for the index to indicate which line/position should be used in all of the games, especially so if there is an invalid number there.

I guess this unexpected behavior can be ameliorated by checking on leaving the dialog whether the index is negative when the checkboxes are not ticked (meaning the user must have just unticked them, but failed to specify a position number), and if such an inconsistent setting occurs, replace the index by 0, so that at least no auto-stepping will occur.

As for the torurneyFile name, this is more tricky. On opening the dialog always proposes a new name of a file that it doesn't expect to exist yet. It must be like that, because you might have just finished another tourney without closing WinBoard, and you don't want it to keep using that tourney file (adding more rounds) by default. The idea was that one new proposed name wouldbe as good as any other, so that you would not really care whether it would use the name it proposed first, or the name it proposed when you re-opened after closing the dialog with "Continue Later". But I guess it is annoying when you don't accept the proposed names, but name the tourney files yourself.

To alterthat it would have to distinguish between the case of a left-over name from a previous tournament and a name defined earlier due to "Continue Later". I guess this should be possible: when the dialog opens, and a name is pre-defined, it could test if a file of this name already exists. (The tourney file is only created on "OK", not on "Continue Later".) If it doesn't, there is no harm in keeping that name. So it wouldn't have to propose a new one in that case. I will add such a test in the next release.