fmax.ini being ignored? Also, editing variant start position

[althus]

Hi all,

The shatranj variant definition currently has king on d1/d8. I have shatranj pgns created with king on e1/e8 and would like to view them. As it is, Winboard gives illegal move errors with these files. So, I thought maybe it is a matter of editing fmax.ini where the start position is being defined. I did so, but Winboard is ignoring anything I change. Why is that, and is there anything I can do?

Thanks!

[H.G.Muller]

Shatranj is a standard variant, so WinBoard is not getting the rules from Fairy-Max. I suspect the problem is that your PGN does not contain a FEN tag that specifies the start position. If it would, WinBoard should set up that position, and send it to Fairy-Max, before starting to interpret and play any moves.