Chess for Android: version 6.1.1

[abik]

Is the full parsing and evaluation of engine specific UCI options already implemented? If not, that would be a nice feature.

It is on my (long) to-do list. Implementing features goes in bursts for me. Now I am focused on online play. Then suddenly I feel like improving UCI/XBoard engine support again. But spare time is scarce (and many other hobbies does not help either). But it is not forgotten!

[PeterO]

Hi Aart,

sorry if this question is stupid „full parsing and evaluation of engine specific UCI option“. What is the advantage of this. What would it change?

Peter

[abik]

sorry if this question is stupid „full parsing and evaluation of engine specific UCI option“. What is the advantage of this. What would it change?

In the current implementation of Chess for Android (which goes back 10 years ), a setup dialog is used that allows setting a few common UCI options that I hand-picked (hash table size, opening book path, etc.). The reason for this was to have full control over the layout of the dialog. A better approach, however, would be to simply "parse" the UCI options of an engine and dynamically build a setup dialog for these. That would allow setting even the most esoteric of options. The UCI standard was clearly designed with this dynamic creation of widgets in mind.

[PeterO]

Hi Aart,

Thanks for the quick answer. Very interesting - better approach. But it sounds like a lot of work!

Peter

[adams161]

Version 6.1.5 of Chess for Android is gradually rolling out which now provides the choice between FICS or ICC. I still have tons of ideas for making improvements (and other ideas are welcome too of course), but I wanted to make sure everyone has a choice between the two servers now. This is also a step toward supporting 8x8 checkers on ICC.

My Chess for Android hadn't updated tonight when i checked but I went to Chess for Android's page and got the update option.

The play on ICC option worked well. I was wondering how my formula(there was a formula remembered maybe it was from my previous FICS login) would effect things but I saw quickly a 10 0 u ( i was on as a guest) and started a game. Game was solid. Guy was not a push over. I was the one who blundered in the end, missing I was dropping a piece. One thing though, i could not find 'resign'. I did new game then disconnect so i think it resigned me but I wasn't sure on procedure there.

[abik]

The play on ICC option worked well. I was wondering how my formula(there was a formula remembered maybe it was from my previous FICS login) would effect things but I saw quickly a 10 0 u ( i was on as a guest) and started a game. Game was solid. Guy was not a push over. I was the one who blundered in the end, missing I was dropping a piece. One thing though, i could not find 'resign'. I did new game then disconnect so i think it resigned me but I wasn't sure on procedure there.

The "formula" for FICS is exact, i.e. assuming the formula is well-formed, only seek ads that match the formula are prompted to the users. For ICC, things are not so clear at the moment unfortunately. The formula is used to post seek ads, but it does not filter out non-matching seek ads. There is "sfilter" on ICC, but this only provides filters at a high level, not precisely on time and increments (and it is ignored in guest mode). So I am still pondering what to do next for ICC (own filtering perhaps), but did not want to block the release on this any longer.

Click one king and then the other king to open a dialog to offer a draw or resign. If the opponent offers a draw, use the same mechanism (in that case offering really means accepting).