Moderator: Ras
xboard should listen to the user and not split the path. Engines that need to change directories to work are not well written (I think this would be extremely uncommon on Linux).I guess you could install the engine by browsing to it, (which would put the full path name in the command field), and put "." for directory name (to prevent XBoard will split up the path name in a directory and file).
Yes, there has been a change there, but only in analysis mode. People wanted to have a way to play the engine's move without really playing it, and clicking on the PVs seemed an obvious way. You can still do PV walking, but you would have to make sure you leave the PV before the first move when you are done with it. Because the game is now fast-forwarded along the PV to the point where you stopped the walk. And the walk starts after the first move.Michel wrote:Has there been a change in the way the PV walk feature is supposed to work?
If I right click on a PV line xboard seems to make the first move of the PV and
then the analysis continues after that.
Before, right clicking on the PV displayed the position at the end of the PV.
The splitting is basically a kludge to avoid the user has to browse separately for engine and directory in the case of a non-compliant engine (or in WinBoard). Browsing to the .exe would automatically fill the command field with a path name, but that would not help most Windows engines to get to their files. They really need an -fd option for that.Michel wrote:xboard should listen to the user and not split the path. Engines that need to change directories to work are not well written (I think this would be extremely uncommon on Linux).
So the default should be to not split, and a work around for badly written engines.
Well, I guess this is a fundamental problem. Because you could also want to save on a file that does exist. In WinBoard, when creating a new file, you browse to the desired folder, and you type the name in the browse window before you OK the browser dialog. Doesn't that work here?Richard Allbert wrote:When you press the browser button to set the savegame file, the file needs to exist, otherwise you can't save.
Better would to be able to select the directory
This is in WinBoard, I suppose? Indeed, I did not make any changes in that dialog since I allowed the increment to be a float. So using fractional -inc can still only be done through "Additional options".Richard Allbert wrote:And the increment box in the time control dialog doesn't allow 0.1 (or 0,1, I tried just in case)
Yes but you would be in an unexpected directory. If the engine writes for example a log file then I would expect to find it in the current directory (or for example in .engine/logs/) and not in the installation directory. I want the installation directory to remain pristine (in many cases it will not even be writable).then cd-ing to /path/name and executing the command ./exe there is a 100% guaranteed way to execute that binary, right?
No, there isn't. But for randomly picked openings the GUI book can be used. You can always let Polyglot turn a file with opening lines into a book, I suppose.Richard Allbert wrote:Is it possible to load a random position from an opening file? I didn't see this in the documentation.
Ok.... Unfortunately I cannot get this new feature to work as intended. Even if I move back to the beginning of the PV and release the mouse I am not in the original position. Perhaps I am doing the gestures incorrectly (I am using a trackpad and not a mouse). Perhaps other xboard users can comment?Yes, there has been a change there, but only in analysis mode. People wanted to have a way to play the engine's move without really playing it, and clicking on the PVs seemed an obvious way. You can still do PV walking, but you would have to make sure you leave the PV before the first move when you are done with it. Because the game is now fast-forwarded along the PV to the point where you stopped the walk. And the walk starts after the first move.
This was described in the news page...
Well, basically that "checkbox" now is the engine-directory text-edit itself. You "tick" it by leaving it empty. So what you are really saying is that it should not start empty, but with some default in it. It seems "." would be an obvious choice for this, because "cd ." is a no-op.Michel wrote:So IMHO the correct approach should be to provide a tick box "Obtain engine directory from path". On Linux it should be unticked by default. Perhaps on Windows it should be ticked.