WinBoard with variation support

[H.G.Muller]

I now have a test version of WinBoard that supports variations (on Michel's suggestion):

This allows you to use EditGame and Analyze mode as Examine mode on an ICS: when you start to enter moves, it truncates the game before it appends your new moves to it (old behavior), but it now also remembers the moves it had to clip off. You can then restore the old game by using "Revert" in the menu.

You can do this recursively: "Revert" always restores the last game tail that was clipped off. So if you were in a sub-variation, you revert to the variation, and you would have to select "Revert" a second time to return to the main line. When you start a new game, or let engines continue game, all stored variations are forgotten.

If there is anyone that cares to test this: you can download it at http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/winboard.zip .

In the future I hope to add an "Annotate" item in the "Step" menu, which is just like "Revert" except that it appends the variation you just revert from to the comment on the branching move. Inversely, it should be possible to activate a variation in the comment, e.g. loaded from a PGN file. (Perhaps by left-clicking its opening parenthesis in the Comment popup?)

[F.Huber]

If there is anyone that cares to test this: you can download it at http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/winboard.zip .

"Missing jfwapi32.dll"

[H.G.Muller]

Arghhh. I had the JAWS flag still on, in my makefile.

Try the version that is there now.

[F.Huber]

Try the version that is there now.

Yes, working again ...

[H.G.Muller]

I now made it such that pressing "Revert" adds the moves of variation that you discard as comment to the first move of the line you revert to. This comment is in PGN variation format (i.e. SAN moves enclosed in parentheses). Eventually it should be selectable if you want to do this or not. (But currently you can always delete it with "Edit Comment".

I do not yet copy the comments to the discarded moves to the variation comment, so it does not work recursively yet. (I.e. you won't get a PGN with sub-variations, and the variations will be uncommented.)

[H.G.Muller]

I did work some more on this feature. It is now possible in WinBoard (not XBoard) to right-click a variation in the Comment Popup (where variations from a loaded PGN file would end up), to explore that variation. You must be in EditGame or Analyze mode for this. The main line will be shelved when you do this, and you can return to it through Step -> Revert.

There is a new menu item Step -> Annotate, which does the same as Revert, except that it will add the abandoned variation as a comment to the line you revert to. Ordinary Revert no longer does this.