(FICS) How to switch from observed game nr 1 to nr 2

[acconcio]

Hi, when i try to observe multiple games on fics, i have no control about the board i want to observe, last move set primary game to observe, it would be nice to add a feature like Ctrl-Tab to switch from one board to another, it would be nice to set off the automatic switch on game board where last move was played. This could be useful also playng bughouse.

ciao & thanks you

(xboard/linux)

[H.G.Muller]

Unfortunately WinBoard/XBoard is strictly a one-game interface; it can only store a single game at a time. If you observe multiple games on ICS, each time a board of one of the games comes in, that game will become the stored game, and erase whatever was there before. So there is no possibility to use Ctrl-Tab to switch between games; the other game will no longer be there. To store multiple games would require a complete rewrite of WinBoard.

I did recently add a feature 'Background Observe' (which you can tick in the ICS Options menu) which would not overwrite the currently played or observed game held by WinBoard with other games, but store the last board received from such a game in a separate place (only a single board, not the whole game). A righ-click on the board would allow you to peek at this stored position for as long as you hold the right mouse button down. If you observe more than two games, all games except the first would compete for this 'background board', and you would only see the last received board there.

If you are using this Background Observe mode, there is a feature 'Dual Board' (which is still somewhat experimental), which allows you to see all the time the 'background board' where all boards go not belonging to the current game, side by side with the principal game. (No display of clocks though.) In XBoard this would be displayed in a separate window (which does have clocks, but you still cannot step through the game as you can through the primary one, as there realy is no second game, just the latest position of it).

The Background Observe/Dual Board function should be good enough to watch Bughouse games (either as external observer, or playing one game and keep an eye on your partner's game on the secondary board). For which it is really intended. WinBoard is not really suitable for observing a multitude of games; for that it is better to log on to the ICS with multiple WinBoard instances, so that you have full functionality on each of the games.