Questionf or Time Control Option

[levis77]

Hi, H.G.Muller,

I have a question for time control option, I changed the clock setting to "Conventional chess clcok" from "Fixed time per move", and click the "Save settings now" menu, but next time I open Winboard again, the clock seeting is still "Fixed time per move". Can you tell me how to fix it? Do I need change any setting, such as <.ini> file or others?

[H.G.Muller]

This is hard to answer without additional information. The problem is that ini files from which WinBoard reads the settings on startup can contain commands that instruct WinBoard to read other ini files, and use these for saving the settings. We usually pre-configure WinBoard such that its 'master ini file' (winboard.ini in the same folder) at the end specifies that settings should be read from and saved to a file with a user-dependent pathname in Window's AppData folder. (So that each user has its own settings.) That would overrule anything that was specified in the master ini file itself (as it is read later.) If there are any settings specified in the master ini file after this /settingsFile command, this would overrule the user-saved settings, though, as WinBoard always obeys the last setting it encounters.

There also is the possibility that you have been starting WinBoard from a shortcut (or start-menu item), which specifies a settings file on the command line. Options specified on the command line are always processed last, so these would overrule everything (and there never would be saved anything to those). So if this is the case, and the settings file for the shortcut would specify fixed time per move, it would explain why saving settings does not help.

[levis77]

Hi Muller,

Thanks for your reply, I disable the "/st 0:30" at the end of my <winboard.ini>file, and sucessfully change it to "Conventional chess clock" , and I works fine. But I seems that "Save settings now" menu is still not working, anyway thanks for your help.

<winboard.ini>
; Here we redirect the saving to another file (specific for the user)
;
/settingsFile=factory.ini
/replace='UCCI2WB -noini "%fd\\%fcp"'
/uxiAdapter={UCI2WB debug -%variant "%fcp" "%fd"}
/delayAfterQuit=1
/adapterCommand={UCI2WB debug -nice %niceEngines -kill %delayAfterQuit -c "%fcp" "%fd"}
/uxiAdapter={UCI2WB debug -nice %niceEngines -kill %delayAfterQuit -%variant "%fcp" "%fd"}
/saveSettingsFile=factory.ini
/engineList=%userprofile%\WB_engines.dat
;
; Any setting after this will make the option overrule the saved one
;
/st 0:30

[H.G.Muller]

Well, the cooment line at the end of the master ini file clearly states that any options specified after it (such as the /st 0:30 was) will overrule the saved settings, so that Save Settings Now won't have any effect on those. In fact all oprions after /settingsFile=factory.ini already behave like that.

I am not sure which setting exactly doesn't get saved on using Save Settings Now. Any of the options that are not defined as 'volatile' in the first place, and are not mentioned behind the /settingsFile= option in the master ini file, should be changed. If you have written another TC-specifying option as replacement of the /st=, then this will overrule the saved settings, just as the /st did.

Note that in the WinBoard package we distribute there is no line /st=0:30 at the end.