Banksia GUI released

[Damir]

Guys give author of Banksia GUI a rest.
I am sure he is doing the best he can to fix the bugs. It does not help that you keep reporting this and that is not working every single second.

[phhnguyen]

So sorry. Noomen_2Ply_Book.pgn was a stupid choice. Meant pgn opening moves file, not opening positions.
Question still stands. Can each engine be given a different book of opening moves? Arena GUI allows this, although restricted to abk files.
If not, consider reply a feature request.
Sorry for confusion.

Yes, it is doable. BSG supports Polyglot books which can make move by move. When developer Banksia (the ancestor of BSG) I had considered playing different books for different engines. However, there are some problems:

1) Look like there is no benefit (of using different books for different engines). Those books are played by BSG, not engines. Thus there is no different to use two books or one book, Polyglot or positions books. In the end, the purpose is, BSG can take a "good" opening position for a pair of engines to start from.

Only book developers can get the benefit. However, they can easily use some engines which can use their own books instead.

2) Overcomplicated. Imagine how hard to set up individual books for individual engines, say 50 engines before a tournament. I don't know how Arena assigns those books. For BSG, IMO, it is not an easy and boring task for users, even editing JSON files or using some dialog boxes.

[phhnguyen]

Feature Request:

I don't know if this is within your scope for Banksia, however I have always been a fan of 'Live URLs' as they are implemented in Hiarcs Chess Explorer. They give you the ability to view live PGNs as the game is in progress at some major events. This allows you to use the engine of your choice to assist with game analysis.

Interesting function! Sure I will do. Just wait a bit. I will start implementing after BSG becomes stable enough.

Dock Placement Feature Request

is it possible to customize the placement of two docked windows side by side with no tabs. I would like the ability to have the 'Score Graph' dock to the left or right of the 'PV Board' dock. Currently I can only place it above or below. Maybe even with the ability to size them.

It will be done for the next release. Thanks.

[phhnguyen]

...
For example, BSG can work with an engine JSON:

Code: Select all

{
    "app" : 
    {
      "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/Gogobello_21-64/gogobello_21-64.exe",
      "name" : "Gogobello_21-64",
      "protocol" : "uci"
    },
...

Shouldn't this work then, but it doesn't?

Code: Select all

{
    "app" : 
    {
      "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/AbsoluteZero_2440-64/AbsoluteZero_2440-64.exe -u",
      "name" : "AbsoluteZero_2440-64",
      "protocol" : "uci",
      "working folder" : "C:\\Engines\\UCI\\AbsoluteZero_2440-64"
    },
},
{
    "app" : 
    {
      "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/RubiChess_16-64/RubiChess_16-64.exe",
      "name" : "RubiChess_16-64",
      "protocol" : "uci",
      "working folder" : "C:\\Engines\\UCI\\RubiChess_16-64"
    }
}

Sorry, my bad! My example is a part of JSON, not a full one. Your content is good, just need to fix to follow JSON grammar: add [] to begin/end and remove a redundant comma as the bellow code.

To check if that JSON correct from BSG, go to Settings dialog, General tab and click on the button "edit" to see if there is an error. You can use some online websites (json validator) to check too.

Code: Select all

[
    {
        "app" :
        {
          "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/AbsoluteZero_2440-64/AbsoluteZero_2440-64.exe -u",
          "name" : "AbsoluteZero_2440-64",
          "protocol" : "uci",
          "working folder" : "C:\\Engines\\UCI\\AbsoluteZero_2440-64"
        }
    },
    {
        "app" :
        {
          "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/RubiChess_16-64/RubiChess_16-64.exe",
          "name" : "RubiChess_16-64",
          "protocol" : "uci",
          "working folder" : "C:\\Engines\\UCI\\RubiChess_16-64"
        }
    }
]

[phhnguyen]

Guys give author of Banksia GUI a rest.
I am sure he is doing the best he can to fix the bugs. It does not help that you keep reporting this and that is not working every single second.

Thanks!
Sometimes I enjoy the life outside the chess, and/or my sleeping time, and/or some questions so hard make me longer pondering

[gerhard]

Hello Nguyen

first I want to thank you for this great GUI. You have a done a great job in short time.
Also I am very pleased your GUI is working under Debian 10 - that is very very fine

when you have time, maybe you can look at this:
my older notebook only has display resolution 1366x768, so when I open the option "new tournament" - I am not able to access the ok botton

it would be nice when this could be fixed
Thank you

[Guenther]

Sorry, my bad! My example is a part of JSON, not a full one. Your content is good, just need to fix to follow JSON grammar: add [] to begin/end and remove a redundant comma as the bellow code.

To check if that JSON correct from BSG, go to Settings dialog, General tab and click on the button "edit" to see if there is an error. You can use some online websites (json validator) to check too.

Code: Select all

[
    {
        "app" :
        {
          "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/AbsoluteZero_2440-64/AbsoluteZero_2440-64.exe -u",
          "name" : "AbsoluteZero_2440-64",
          "protocol" : "uci",
          "working folder" : "C:\\Engines\\UCI\\AbsoluteZero_2440-64"
        }
    },
    {
        "app" :
        {
          "command" : "C:/Engines/UCI/RubiChess_16-64/RubiChess_16-64.exe",
          "name" : "RubiChess_16-64",
          "protocol" : "uci",
          "working folder" : "C:\\Engines\\UCI\\RubiChess_16-64"
        }
    }
]

My bad too, I had the square brackets already, but not in my shown example.
It was the surprising comma, which had to be removed after all app commands and
and in my full json I had one engine left with options from cutechess and this entry
was badly converted ofc by my script.
For now 3721 engines are set. Some more to come later.

Edit:
And BTW I see different colors are now automatically chosen for all entries, even if the command is missing in the json.

[Guenther]

Can you tell me how to use a pgn 'book' with starting lines in a tournament setup?

I did not succeed with the engines using my pgn file instead they always used the start position.

The content looks like this:

Code: Select all

[Event "Book"]
[Site "RWBC"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "ABC"]
[Black "XYZ"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bb4 1/2-1/2

[Event "Book"]
[Site "RWBC"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "ABC"]
[Black "XYZ"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. d4 c5 2. d5 d6 3. e4 g6 1/2-1/2

Well it worked only for one game (screenshot was posted), but later after a fresh setup of the BanksiaGui it never worked again.
It simply doesn't write any entry for the selected pgn file into the banksiatour.json. What can be the reason?

The opening section there always looks empty like this at start of a tournament:

Code: Select all

  "openings" : 
  {
    "base" : 
    {
      "allone fen" : "",
      "seed" : -1,
      "select type" : "allnew"
    },
    "books" : null
  },

[phhnguyen]

Hello Nguyen

first I want to thank you for this great GUI. You have a done a great job in short time.
Also I am very pleased your GUI is working under Debian 10 - that is very very fine

Wow, such a good news. I did not have any experience with releasing the app for Linux desktop. I have compiled BSG under Ubuntu 18 and have no idea if it can run in other distros.

when you have time, maybe you can look at this:
my older notebook only has display resolution 1366x768, so when I open the option "new tournament" - I am not able to access the ok botton

it would be nice when this could be fixed
Thank you

Thanks for the report. I have reduced my screen resolution and see that issue. Sure, I have been finding the solution.

[phhnguyen]

Can you tell me how to use a pgn 'book' with starting lines in a tournament setup?

I did not succeed with the engines using my pgn file instead they always used the start position.

The content looks like this:

Code: Select all

[Event "Book"]
[Site "RWBC"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "ABC"]
[Black "XYZ"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bb4 1/2-1/2

[Event "Book"]
[Site "RWBC"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "ABC"]
[Black "XYZ"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. d4 c5 2. d5 d6 3. e4 g6 1/2-1/2

Well it worked only for one game (screenshot was posted), but later after a fresh setup of the BanksiaGui it never worked again.
It simply doesn't write any entry for the selected pgn file into the banksiatour.json. What can be the reason?

The opening section there always looks empty like this at start of a tournament:

Code: Select all

  "openings" : 
  {
    "base" : 
    {
      "allone fen" : "",
      "seed" : -1,
      "select type" : "allnew"
    },
    "books" : null
  },

Thanks for the report.

"book" : null means there is no book, either they did not set or BSG can't read them. If you use an older version of BSG, there may be a bug (BSG tried to share books between normal games and tournaments but conflicts on writing thus books may be lost from configurations).

Can you try with the latest version (0.8)?
- Set up books, verify if they are saved down well on JSON files
- Play some games/tournament to see if those books work
- Check JSON files if any missing

Thanks again.