Best chess gui
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
-
- Posts: 70
- Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 12:26 pm
- Location: Australia
-
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:18 pm
Re: Best chess gui
Why did you start a new thread instead of posting to the old oneTrahald wrote:Best choice: Shredder, alternatively Winboard.
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39895
Greetings
Kurt
-
- Posts: 782
- Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:22 pm
Re: Best chess gui
Kurt wrote:Why did you start a new thread instead of posting to the old oneTrahald wrote:Best choice: Shredder, alternatively Winboard.
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39895
Greetings
Kurt
Hello Kurt,
Not his fault.
That thread was threatening to degenerate so I attempted to clean it up by splitting it. In the repair process I am afraid I orphaned this perfectly on-topic reply and it got lost on the board.
My apologies to the o.p.
Later.
-
- Posts: 736
- Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:48 am
Re: Best chess gui
Shredderchess is also my favorite GUI.Trahald wrote:Best choice: Shredder, alternatively Winboard.
I would also say Chesspad is underrated as database/GUI.
I find Winboard to be a little bit too much work for my taste.
-
- Posts: 27808
- Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:06 am
- Location: Amsterdam
- Full name: H G Muller
Re: Best chess gui
Just shopping for ideas for improvements:
Could you elaborate a bit on what is "too much work" when using WinBoard?
Could you elaborate a bit on what is "too much work" when using WinBoard?
-
- Posts: 736
- Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:48 am
Re: Best chess gui
I think in this case it is more of a personality thing. I don't think there is anything wrong wrong with WinBoard, I just don't mesh with it.hgm wrote:Just shopping for ideas for improvements:
Could you elaborate a bit on what is "too much work" when using WinBoard?
For example: I can never quite get an engine to install and then load. I always seem to miss a step. (I have tried quite a few times.)
I am not sure if it is possible to limit strength for an engine if I want to play against it.
All in all I just can't seem to find my way around it. I spend more time trying to figure it out then playing or studying chess. (a case in point: it is the same reason I don't use Aquarium) Again, I think this is more of a personality thing then anything that needs to be corrected in WinBoard.
The funny thing is I kind of want to be able to use WinBoard but as I said before I don't mesh well with it.
I hope this is helpful.
-
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2011 9:53 pm
Re: Best chess gui
When I first stepped into winboard, it was very hard for me to install my first engine. Other GUIs will just have a section for engines where you can go and load an engine, and winboard asked you just in the beginning and it was just impossible for a novice install a UCI engine (an admittedly a novice will want an UCI engine).hgm wrote:Just shopping for ideas for improvements:
Could you elaborate a bit on what is "too much work" when using WinBoard?
Once I figured out how to use polyglot and had all set, it was just a matter of putting the right shortcut in my desktop, nothing to worry about. But before that, it was really difficult.
On Linux I had problems too. When I wanted to check xboard, it would try to load fairymax, but it was nowhere to be found and the program would crash. Now either is solved or I have fairymax installed, because just typing xboard in terminal works as one would expect. Anyway it has been long time since I just fired xboard like that, I have my beautiful shortcuts now which call exactly what I want each time.
But anyway now you can load engines directly from the program interface, so I guess people just remember the old ugly days and start sweating in panic if they just give it another try they make like it now.
-
- Posts: 27808
- Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:06 am
- Location: Amsterdam
- Full name: H G Muller
Re: Best chess gui
Indeed, installing and loading engines should be trivial now, especially if they are UCI. (Just don't forget to tick UCI. ) WB engines sometimes require parameters, but that is more an engine problem than a GUI problem.
Just for people that do use WinBoard and wonder how to limit engine strength: the time-odds factors in the Time Control dialog are intended for that. Giving the engine a time odds of 100 should dumb it down some 450 Elo.
Just for people that do use WinBoard and wonder how to limit engine strength: the time-odds factors in the Time Control dialog are intended for that. Giving the engine a time odds of 100 should dumb it down some 450 Elo.
-
- Posts: 160
- Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:46 pm
- Location: Selden, NY
Re: Best chess gui
How do you get to the load engine screen I don't see that screen in winboard
What version of winboard has
that screen I have version 4.5
What version of winboard has
that screen I have version 4.5
-
- Posts: 3584
- Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:21 pm
Re: Best chess gui
Please forgive me if my info is out of date, I haven't looked at Winboard for many years. One option that I would find attractive and that I don't think exists at the moment, is to be able to instruct each of the 2 engines involved in an engine match to play both sides of each opening chosen, before moving onto the next opening.hgm wrote:Just shopping for ideas for improvements:
Could you elaborate a bit on what is "too much work" when using WinBoard?