Banksia GUI released

[phhnguyen]

Thank you Pham!

Today's new GUI works fine so far. I overlooked the activation of books, sorry.

I have some questions:

1. What exactly is set with the book parameter "top" (in %)?

A given position may have multi-moves from an opening book. For Polyglot ones, each move has a weight number/a score, indicating how good the move is (the larger the better). You may turn on the panel "Books/Egtb" and take a look at them (as the below image).



For auto-playing, BSG can take only one move from them to play. It chops them by top% then takes randomly from the rest. Top 100% means total random. Top 10% of 20 opening-moves means BSG pickups randomly from the top 2 moves. Top 0% means it is always the first/the best one (not random at all).

2. If both, the GUI book and another book is selected in the engine options, will both books be used?

If there are more than two active opening books, each time BSG first selects a book randomly then pickup moves from that book. Thus, it may happen: at the first move of the game, the opening-move is picked up from book 2; at 2nd move, the opening-move is picked up from book 1, and so on.

3. Here is a graphic: What is shown in the fields marked in green?

BSG calls them bubbles. They help to show some information visually such as opening moves, Lc0's stats...

For opening books, you may control them from Settings, turn on/off, set size, color, display one or two parameters.

When the human player is in turn, BSG probes all opening books and displays all results in those bubbles. You can see a light link connecting between each bubble and a piece to show which move is. Move the mouse over a piece, BSG will display all related bubbles to that piece only.

The 1st number is the weight/score we have mentioned above. The best one (with the highest score) will be shown with a bold, dark border.

If you set to show 2nd param, it is winrate value. Polyglot books don't have those values thus you always see 0 instead. However, other books may have them such as the online book from chessdb.cn (click on the button "Online book/egtb" from Settings to add that book).

[Eduard]

Thank you Pham!

I understand so far. Very interesting everything. I have just tested a book with an engine that cannot load books. The engine was playing on Lichess with book and the bubbles were also displayed on the board. That's very nice, I like it.

In the picture, however, you can see that no moves are displayed in the book panel.


The book is activated (called Predator.bin), but no moves are displayed although moves were played from the book. What is wrong?

[phhnguyen]

Thank you Pham!

I understand so far. Very interesting everything. I have just tested a book with an engine that cannot load books. The engine was playing on Lichess with book and the bubbles were also displayed on the board. That's very nice, I like it.

In the picture, however, you can see that no moves are displayed in the book panel.


The book is activated (called Predator.bin), but no moves are displayed although moves were played from the book. What is wrong?

The game you are showing probably is in middle or even endgame periods since it’s at move 29 (58 plies) thus there may be no opening move to show (out of the book).

On another hand, BSG may search opening books to show information in that panel/bubbles IF there is a human playing and he is in turn. If it is the engine's turn or you go back to view previous moves, BSG won’t update that information either.

If you want to verify that opening book, find out why you cannot see opening moves anymore, etc, you may try:
- setup a game human vs human, make moves one by one to find the opening book limit
- use the Opening viewer as the below illustration: it shows the moves of an opening book in the form of a tree. Expand branches to understand that tree. You even can edit the score for each move (by double-clicking and editing).

[Eduard]

Dear Pham, I can see moves in the opening viewer, but not in the book panel, regardless of whether at move 1, 5, 10, or 20. I also see bubbles while the opponent is calculating, but my engine is still in the book. There are no moves to be seen in the book panel. Nothing is ever displayed. Is that due to the OS (I had a similar problem with infinityChess, no books were displayed. I had to install some drivers)?

Does anyone else have this problem as well?

Btw, When the GUI started, Human vs Human was briefly displayed and then I saw book moves in the panel. How do I start a single game Human vs Human? Oh, I see, just click on new game and it will automatically choose Human vs Human. It would be nice if that would also work with Engine vs Engine.

[phhnguyen]

Dear Pham, I can see moves in the opening viewer, but not in the book panel, regardless of whether at move 1, 5, 10, or 20. I also see bubbles while the opponent is calculating, but my engine is still in the book. There are no moves to be seen in the book panel. Nothing is ever displayed. Is that due to the OS (I had a similar problem with infinityChess, no books were displayed. I had to install some drivers)?

Does anyone else have this problem as well?

Btw, When the GUI started, Human vs Human was briefly displayed and then I saw book moves in the panel. How do I start a single game Human vs Human? Oh, I see, just click on new game and it will automatically choose Human vs Human. It would be nice if that would also work with Engine vs Engine.

I am not sure why you can't see those opening moves on the book panel. Did you active multi-books? If yes, just change the book at the top of the Book panel to see their belonging moves. Bubbles are combined from moves of all active books thus you may see them even the current list on the book panel is empty.

[Eduard]

Dear Pham,
all is well. I can see the book when I'm in Human vs Human mode:



I only loaded one book. It doesn't make much sense for me to look at books in human mode, I just play with engines. But: for me it is not important that I see book moves. The bubbles are completely sufficient.

I edit bin books with SCID, I like the functions there very much (I create books with the Polyglot Tolerant).



Under SCID you can edit every move as you like and enter new moves. You can play all moves back and forth on the board without losing the book. In addition, several engines can be run in parallel in analysis mode - and games can be loaded in PGN. For me, Banksia is important for playing, tools are available elsewhere.

[phhnguyen]

Dear Pham,
all is well. I can see the book when I'm in Human vs Human mode:



I only loaded one book. It doesn't make much sense for me to look at books in human mode, I just play with engines. But: for me it is not important that I see book moves. The bubbles are completely sufficient.

I edit bin books with SCID, I like the functions there very much (I create books with the Polyglot Tolerant).



Under SCID you can edit every move as you like and enter new moves. You can play all moves back and forth on the board without losing the book. In addition, several engines can be run in parallel in analysis mode - and games can be loaded in PGN. For me, Banksia is important for playing, tools are available elsewhere.

You can edit the move's scores in BSG too, just double click on that field from the Book panel (or the node on the Opening viewer). I still have a long-time-logged feature of adding new moves to books in my TODO list. Just too lazy to do

[Chessqueen]

Dear Pham,
all is well. I can see the book when I'm in Human vs Human mode:



I only loaded one book. It doesn't make much sense for me to look at books in human mode, I just play with engines. But: for me it is not important that I see book moves. The bubbles are completely sufficient.

I edit bin books with SCID, I like the functions there very much (I create books with the Polyglot Tolerant).



Under SCID you can edit every move as you like and enter new moves. You can play all moves back and forth on the board without losing the book. In addition, several engines can be run in parallel in analysis mode - and games can be loaded in PGN. For me, Banksia is important for playing, tools are available elsewhere.

You can edit the move's scores in BSG too, just double click on that field from the Book panel (or the node on the Opening viewer). I still have a long-time-logged feature of adding new moves to books in my TODO list. Just too lazy to do

How do you fix this problem ? When I try to install Banksia GUI it tells me The code execution cannot procced because MSVCP 140_1.dll was not found.

[Eduard]

I had this problem on my laptop too. I had to download "MSVCP140_1.dll" from the internet.

[Chessqueen]

I had this problem on my laptop too. I had to download "MSVCP140_1.dll" from the internet.

I downloaded it, placed it in C:\Windows\System32 and is still not working