WinBoard alpha

[hgm]

Indeed, the code for invoking Polyglot has been replaced completely. Before, a temporary file poyglot_1st.ini or polyglot_2nd.ini was used to instruct Polyglot what to do, and this new version puts everything on the command line in stead. So in the old versions the issue of an empty argument on the command line never occurred.

I guess the solution to the problem then would be to simply define the default for the /fd and /sd arguments as ".".

[F.Huber]

I guess the solution to the problem then would be to simply define the default for the /fd and /sd arguments as ".".

Yes, that would indeed be a good idea.

[hgm]

OK, I prepared a new version, where I changed several things relating to the Polyglot invocation. One of them is the mentioned defaults for the engine directories are now ".", because I am not sure Polyglot can handle an empty string here even when you would write -ed "" .

A second thing is that the (default) adapter command now contains explicit quoting, i.e. it has been changed to

polyglot -noini -ec ENGINENAME -ed ENGINEDIR

to

polyglot -noini -ec "ENGINENAME" -ed "ENGINEDIR"

This would be important in cases where the engine name or directory path would contain spaces. It had always be the plan to do this, but until recently XBoard could ot handle quotes in the engine command, so I left them out initially. But that has been fixed now.

I also changed the format of the adapter command as it has to be defned in the winboard.ini file, to make it easier to understand. (Which is normally not necessary, bu transparancy never hurts.) The default is now

polyglot -noini -ec "%fcp" -ed "%fd"

and the convention is used that if the option name given behind the % starts with "first" this is replaced by "second", and if it otherwise starts with "f" this is replaced by "s", when the command is used to start up the second engine.

Finally I repaired a bug in the PV parsing, which suppressed the displaying of the PV after the engine had moved (when it was not pondering). I only had this problem with Fruit (i.e. Polyglot) with WinBoard; strange enough this problem (which was due to a clear bug) did not manifest itself with XBoard.

The new WinBoard version is at the same link again.

[F.Huber]

Thanks, now everything's working again as it did before.

[hgm]

But by completely different means!

[hgm]

New version (4.20091228)!

In this one, you can not only display PV positions by right-clicking the board, but also by right-clicking the Engine-Output window. In the latter case, you can even select _which_ PV you want displayed, namely the one you (right-)click on.

The thus selected PV will be highlighted in the Engine-Output window, and you can step through it in the normal way, by moving the mouse vertically. You can do this both for the engine that is thinking and the engine that is pondering, no matter if it is first or second engine. You can also select a PV of a current or a previous iteration. Or you can use it to select which line to examine in multi-PV mode.

When pondering is off, you can even display the PV that the engine printed before the most recent move it did. There is one restricton in this case, however: it must be a PV that starts with the move that the engine actually played.

Download at: http://hgm.nubati.net/winboard.zip

Please let me know any problems / remarks / suggestions!

[hgm]

A small cosmetic fix (version 4.20091230): The highlighting of the PV you are displaying now persists even when you selected a PV of the thinking engine, and it added a new PV to the Engine-Output display. (Before, this cleared the highlighting.)