Set Up Winboard Engine to Permanently Use Polyglot Book?

[Charles Browne]

Is it possible to set up a Winboard engine to always use a polyglot book in the winboard.ini file so there is no need to go through the GUI to make the selection?

This is only an example of one of the several things I've tried so far - no success.

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"Thinker 5.4c - Active" /fd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Chess Engines\Thinker" /fcp="Active-Thinker WBopt /firstHasOwnBookUCI false /usePolyglotBook true /PolyglotBook GS_medium091101.bin"


[H.G.Muller]

The WBopt is only needed when you want to hide WinBoard options in the engine command line. (Like you are forced to do in PSWBTM, where you can give only options that go on the engine cmmand line, and no options for the WinBoard command line.) Not when you put options on the WinBard command line. These are automatically meant for WinBoard. (Unless they are within quotes of the /fcp value.) For instance:

winboard /fcp "joker.exe 22 WBopt /xxx=yyy" /fd=C:\Joker

The /xxx=yyy wuld normally be part of the engine command line (like the 22) because it is in the quotes. The WBopt makes WB treat it like it was outside the quotes. So this would do the same as

winboard /fcp "joker.exe 22" /fd=C:\Joker /xxx=yyy

WBopt written on the WinBoard command line is not understood. In the winboard.ini file (which also counts as WB comamnd line), in the /firstProgramNames you should simply write

"joker.exe 22" /fd=C:\Joker /xxx=yyy

i.e. all options you want WinBoard to use, such as /firstXBook or /usePolyglotBook should be treated the same way as /fd, which is also just an option for the WB command line, written simply on the line seperated by a space from the rest. In fact, the way it works is that WinBoard prefixes what you give in the engine field of the sartup dialog by /fcp= and then adds the whole thing to the command line.

[Charles Browne]

i.e. all options you want WinBoard to use, such as /firstXBook or /usePolyglotBook should be treated the same way as /fd, which is also just an option for the WB command line, written simply on the line seperated by a space from the rest.

Before posting the first post one of the ways I had tried it was the way you wrote above (quoted)- with the equal sign - but I got a message about such and such not being recognized and then after closing the message's dialog box Winboard would exit instead of the program opening.

I have been using one of the earlier Winboard versions you released. When I have time I will try your latest version to see if it works for me in it.

[Charles Browne]

I got it.



And by the way - to set the record

The way I enter the engine data into the winboard.ini

This

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"Fruit 2.2.1" /sd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Polyglot" /scp="polyglot fruit221.ini"


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"Delfi 5.4" /sd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Chess Engines\Delfi 5.4" /scp=DelfiT


wasn't my idea at all, I couldn't remember where I saw it though.



A few months ago I was rereading the readme file that came with Winboard_X - Jan 29, 2006.

And it reminded me of where I saw it - in that readme file.


I tried a variation of it, and hey it worked, and hey I liked it.

[H.G.Muller]

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"Fruit 2.2.1" /sd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Polyglot" /scp="polyglot fruit221.ini"


Indeed, this will work, but it is not how it was intended, and exploits the fact that you can feed WinBoard myultiple copies of the same option. In which case it only takes the last one in account. (This must be so because if starts by reding the winboard.ini file, which pretty much defines every option, but afterwards can be overruled by what was on your actual command line.) So the above translates to

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winboard /scp="Fruit 2.2.1" /sd="C:\Program Files\Chess\Polyglot" /scp="polyglot fruit221.ini"


i.e. wth two /scp options. The first one of course makes no sense, but as it is ignored in the presence of the second one, you could pretty much write anything there that you want.

I agree that for engines with an obscure engine command (because you explicitly invoke Polyglot, perhaps even with a non-recognizable ini name such as "polyglot polyglot.ini", or because it has a cryptic .exe filename), this kludge reads much better. Of course I never put any engines in the winboard.ini file myself. They are all in the PSWBTM engine-manager database.