WinBoard news page

[H.G.Muller]

To keep everyone informed about the latest developments on XBoard and WinBoard, I have instated an XBoard News Page on my personal XBoard website. This page will list the latest additions and enhancements, that can be obtained from the GNU XBoard website as development releases, or from the git repository at my own website, together with a short description.

[F.Huber]

Hi Harms,

a short note: your WB development versions are really a mess!

There are now 3 different locations to download Winboard.exe
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/winboard.zip
http://hgm.nubati.net/winboard.zip
http://hgm.nubati.net/seekgraph.zip (what a crazy name!)
and every new release seems to go just to any other one of these 3 addresses (the current one is the last).

Maybe you could finally decide which of these 3 links to definitely use for your updates - this would make it much easier to keep uptodate.

Thanks,
Franz

[H.G.Muller]

Well, the problem is that Arun talked me into using git for version control, so that I now typically start a new fork for every major feature I start working on, and merge them only later when they are reasonably bug free. So ther eno longer is such thing as the 'latest alpha', there are more, each with different features. This is why I posted the version with the seek graph separately. It was in a side branch.

[F.Huber]

Well, the problem is that Arun talked me into using git for version control, so that I now typically start a new fork for every major feature I start working on, and merge them only later when they are reasonably bug free. So ther eno longer is such thing as the 'latest alpha', there are more, each with different features. This is why I posted the version with the seek graph separately. It was in a side branch.

Ok, so which of these 3 links is now the recommended 'bugfree' version?

[H.G.Muller]

Seekgraph.zip has now evolved to a stage where I consider it stable, and I have already started adding fixes for unrelated problems and new features (the one-click moving) to it. I must keep the name, however, as I have given out links to it. So I wil probably freeze it soon. Further elaboration on the one-click moving will probably still be made to it, as this feature targets the same crowd as the Seek Graph, namely ICS users. But realy new things will probably be posted as winboard.zip on hgm.nubati.

[Roger Brown]

Seekgraph.zip has now evolved to a stage where I consider it stable, and I have already started adding fixes for unrelated problems and new features (the one-click moving) to it. I must keep the name, however, as I have given out links to it. So I wil probably freeze it soon. Further elaboration on the one-click moving will probably still be made to it, as this feature targets the same crowd as the Seek Graph, namely ICS users. But realy new things will probably be posted as winboard.zip on hgm.nubati.

Hello H. G.,

So for the cutting edge latest Winboard with the most features right at this moment where should I go?

Later.

[H.G.Muller]

seekgraph.zip. But all recently added features there are ICS features. The EPD suite is still on the drawing board only.

[Roger Brown]

seekgraph.zip. But all recently added features there are ICS features. The EPD suite is still on the drawing board only.

Ah, you are well aware of my interest in the proposed epd features!

Well, I am patient.

Later.

[Josh Pettus]

Wow, that background observe feature sounds amazing! Seriously, that is one of the best ideas I have ever heard. Much better than having two boards open cluttering your view. Just straight information on how your partner is doing and when you want to take a peek a simple right click. That was the last minus that FICS gave xboard/winboard, now they will have nothing left to complain about!

[H.G.Muller]

Funny you say that, because someone else told me that seeing the partner game would only be useful if it is displayed all the time. But I think I would prefer it this way, if I would play bughouse on line. (But I don't, so I am not sure if I am not misguided in this.) But you would have to take your eyes off your own board anyway, to look at the partner game. When I was playing this game OTB, (30 years ago), we only looked at the partner game occasionally. There just was not enough time to keep close tabs on it. The process I now implemented in WinBoard kind of mimics that.

I guess tastes differ, which is why it is good that there are different interfaces, and that they are not trying to all copy each other exactly.

Anyway, it seems now to work completely, including the holdings. (The ICS always sends those separately, and at first I had forgotten to have WinBoard capture those too.) There still can be funny effects if you start observing a game with a different board format than the game you are paying, but the feature is not intended for that. Especialy on ICC it is very important that you can follow the other game on the same session, as they charge for accounts, and guest accounts cannot see rated games, if they are allowed at all.

[Josh Pettus]

Well a bughouse board takes up a lot of space even if you have a wide-screen monitor, never mind other windows such as the ICS, move-list and chat. I just can't see putting 2 boards right next to each other without making the boards rather small, and not so fun to play on. Or I guess what people probably do is minimize the other board and then maximize and move it around when they want to look at their partner's screen. This way is a lot simpler and would work very well. And yes I agree, you have to take your eyes off your own board to look at someone elses anyway. So does it make that much of a difference?

Can there be a way for observers of a bughouse game to use this to take a look at the other pair playing? Or is that info simply not reported by the ICS for observers?

[H.G.Muller]

I was told there is a command "pfollow" that would automatically make you observer of the partner game as soon as it starts. So I did not mae any attempt to have WinBoard trying to figure out who your prtner is, an automatically send an observe command for his game. Haven't tried it, though.

Bughouse makes me regret that I decided to display the holdings left and right of the board. This makes the board all the wrong shape for displaying two. It would have been better to have the holdings below and above the board. But that would not be easy to fix at all.

[Josh Pettus]

In some way's I'm almost glad you have it on the sides as I'd have to re-size the board in order to see the holdings bar otherwise.
Well I tried the pfollow command. You should try observing a game on FICS with it. (Bughouse games are have a capital B in the game list) I typed it in to follow the white player's partner. It would flip back and forth between board as each partner moved. Sorta limiting it's usefulness because before you could take in the board it would flip to the other game because that partner moved. You had no control over it. Don't try watching a 2 minute game with it

Oddly enough after one game it will simply follow the partner into his next game and not switch back. A rather odd command to be sure.

[H.G.Muller]

So you were observing two games at the same time? This is what happens then, WB will just display each board as it comes in. When I just do "pfollow XXX" while otherwise idle, I follow the games of the partner of XXX, like "follow XXX" would have automatically observed the games of XXX itself.

The -backgroundObserve option cannot solve that: it only discriminates against observed games while you are playing a game yourself. With two observed games it cannot know which one is supposed to be foreground, and which is background. If you would observe two games, while playing a third, both the observed games would be background, and not disturb your own game. But when you would then press the mouse button, you would get exactly the behavior you describe, as you would now be observing two games. (And when your opponent moves, it would immediately switch back to your own game, even without releasing the right mouse button.)

[Josh Pettus]

In the new features I read that one is suppose to be able to automatically open up a chat box from the ICS context menu. How do I enable this? I click on a player's handle it brings up the menu but the Open Chat Box (name) command doesn't exist in this list. Naturally I am using winboard compiled from your hgm3 branch.

[H.G.Muller]

The context menu is defined in the winboard.ini file. I altered the compiled-in default setting for this menu to contain the "Open Chat Box" item, but if you are still using an old ini file from a previous version (or with your own customized menu), that will overrule it, and the new version will keep using the old menu.

In my ini file I currently have this:

Code: Select all

/icsMenu={-
&Who,who,0,1
Playe&rs,players,0,1
&Games,games,0,1
&Sought,sought,0,1
| ,none,0,0
Open Chat &Box (name),chat,1,0
&Tell (name),tell,1,0
M&essage (name),message,1,0
-
&Finger (name),finger,1,1
&Vars (name),vars,1,1
&Observe (name),observe,1,1
&Match (name),match,1,1
Pl&ay (name),play,1,1
}


Note two new lines, immediately after the vertical break '|': The first defines a disabled (grayed) entry 'none', which will ignore any up-click. The menu text of it is a single space, so you actually won't see it at all. This can be used to mimic old behavior (for people who liked it), where a stationary right up-down click would pop up the menu and do nothing else. If you delete that item, so that the next one becomes the top item in the right column (i.e. have "|Open Chat..."), the statonary up-down click will open the chat box.

You could make any other item the upper-right one too. Then that one becomes the 'default' one selected by stationary right-clicks. All other entries will still remain accessible, by moving there between up and down-click. By deleting the entire /icsMenu option from the ini file, you wil be able to se what the compiled-in default menu is.

Btw, I discovered that you can actually put multiple ICS commands under one context-menu button. E.g. changing your formula before sending a "sought" command, and changing it back. Simply include the newlines in the command text, like

Code: Select all

&Sought,set formula f9
sought
set formula f1,0,1


Also note that I added uploading of a local game into an ICS examined game, now.

[Josh Pettus]

Excellent! Thanks a lot!

[Josh Pettus]

These new chatboxs are a god send. Really spectacular work! I love the new button switching. Dead useful for keeping everything neat and organized and keeping that ICS interaction window clear. The chatbox launching command works like a charm as well!

[H.G.Muller]

Yes, although there are some problems with selecting the default item on a simple click when you are close to the screen edge. In that case the menu does not pop up in the requested relation to the mouse pointer, but in such a way that it is entirely visible. This is particularly annoying for people that have configured very large menus.

I wonder how I could minimize this. Perhaps I should make the menu pop up in such a way that the bottom-left item is under the mouse pointer? Then you won't collide with the screen edge if you are clicking something at the bottom or near the left margin of the console window. Which is where I expect most clicks to occur. You probaby won't be much near the right edge of the console, while I expect the top to be less frequently needed than the bottom of the window. On the downside is that this would pop up the menu in a different location than what people are used to.

[matematiko]

These new chatboxs are a god send. Really spectacular work! I love the new button switching. Dead useful for keeping everything neat and organized and keeping that ICS interaction window clear. The chatbox launching command works like a charm as well!

I will need to test this when I come back from work since I havent since these new features.

Is there a way to send an 'ics window clear' command or to add an 'ics window clear' button? If a button is too much of a hasle, a command that WinBoard will respond to will be enough. People that uses my ICS emulator had been asking for this, but there is nothing I can do because the ICS InterAction window belongs to WinBoard, not to the Emulator.

Cheers,