Banksia GUI released

[Eduard]

Hello Pham,
would it be possible to create another subforum called "General Topics" in the Banksia Genaral Forum?
https://banksiagui.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=9

Eduard (Solista in Banksia Forums)

[pepechuy]

Hi.

Sorry to bother you so many times in such a short time.

When I load a pgn file and select a game, in the "Moves" window I only see the actual game moves.
I do not see the variations at all. I have toggled "show stats", "show comments" and "edit comment and symbol".
¿Perhaps there is something wrong with my pgn files? I created them with ChessPad 2. There I can see the game, the variations, the comments and the annotation symbols.
Or perhaps I am missing something very simple in Banskia.

Greetings.

[Rubinus]

I think I'll give it a try.
I have paid access to chess.com, which probably has a better selection of bots. Would it be possible to run bots there as well?

[phhnguyen]

Hi.

Sorry to bother you so many times in such a short time.

When I load a pgn file and select a game, in the "Moves" window I only see the actual game moves.
I do not see the variations at all. I have toggled "show stats", "show comments" and "edit comment and symbol".
¿Perhaps there is something wrong with my pgn files? I created them with ChessPad 2. There I can see the game, the variations, the comments and the annotation symbols.
Or perhaps I am missing something very simple in Banskia.

Greetings.

At the moment BSG doesn't support multi variations. That feature is still on my to-do list for a while. Sorry!

[phhnguyen]

I think I'll give it a try.
I have paid access to chess.com, which probably has a better selection of bots. Would it be possible to run bots there as well?

No, not for chess.com. As far as I know, that site doesn't want nor support any program to connect to play bots! They have planned to publish some API but I am not sure when it is ready and if it allows playing bots.

BTW, BSG can connect and play bots for Lichess and ICS servers, enough to play bots all time

[Eduard]

Hello Pham, it's fun on lichess. New bots are always being added there. The GUI no longer causes problems.

However, I had the following problem: When I updated GUI 51 to GUI 52 and started playing with it on Lichess, I didn't see any moves on the board at first, and nothing was to be seen in the Engine Info window. The engine played, however. Everything could be observed in the browser on Lichess.

At the start of the second game with the new GUI version, everything was suddenly normal, and in the following games too.

[phhnguyen]

Hello Pham, it's fun on lichess. New bots are always being added there. The GUI no longer causes problems.

However, I had the following problem: When I updated GUI 51 to GUI 52 and started playing with it on Lichess, I didn't see any moves on the board at first, and nothing was to be seen in the Engine Info window. The engine played, however. Everything could be observed in the browser on Lichess.

At the start of the second game with the new GUI version, everything was suddenly normal, and in the following games too.

Thanks for the info. I will check further.

[phhnguyen]

Version 0.53 released

Besides some minor bug fixes, there are some new things, including:

• Board clock: more options

• Test positions (test suites): more info and controllable. Work with the term “am” (avoid move). Can test with both EPD, PGN files

• Support uci_engineabout, uci_showcurrline

• Support displaying multi-PVs

• New online book & EGTB: use Lichess servers for querying opening and endgame (Syzygy 7 men) positions

• Online books (chessdb.cn & Lichess) can auto make moves for engines in non-tournament games

• Show how engines are set up: they are some vital options for engines, including the number of cores, mem, ponder mode, Syzygy path. That information is shown as tooltips, which users can verify frequently (Fig. 1)

• The last position of PV lines could be shown as tooltips (Fig. 2)

• Hover the mouse pointer in moves, graph panels to see corresponding boards as tooltips (Fig. 3, 4)

• More fonts’ sizes can be changed. They are the font for the whole app (affects almost all panels, bars, tables…), fonts for the plain text of tournament result, engine log…

• Analysis on the fly: all information is kept and displayed after being stopped; can set a timer instead of having infinite mode only; check threats: run analyses with the opposite side to check what he may do if the side to move (almost) do nothing

• The configuration folder could be changed

• New design and implementation for playing via local network (Fig. 5, 6)

• Engine Info, tournament results: can export into image, HTML, CVS files

Notes:

• We were surprised since there are more people than expected showed their interest and use the new feature Test positions - the one we thought would be useful for small numbers of developers only. As usual, after the first implementation, we continue improving the new feature with feedback and suggestions from users

• Configuration folder: on the previous versions, BSG used only one fixed folder, inside the home folder of the user. It is simple, hide details from users but it may get trouble when the user’s folders have some Unicode characters under Windows (BSG uses some standard libraries for all OSs which may not work well with Unicode paths under Windows). For advanced users sometimes need data from that folder but it may be buried deep and hidden from file browsers, making it hard to access. From this version, users can change this folder anywhere. It is fine if they have several configuration folders and frequently change between them. They can change back to the origin at any time too. That can help users to access easier to some configuration/vital data of BSG as well as avoid issues of having Unicode paths. Users may have different folders for their different tasks. Sometimes it can work as a kind of backup too

• Local network: from this version we change seriously the design with some new limits: humans can’t play anymore (via the local network) nor watch games created by other computers (even they run with engines in their computers). The gain is that users have much more control over remote engines and those engines can run fully for almost all tasks that require engines. For more info please read the blog

• Some tables such as the tournament’s result, the cross table could be exported into HTML files. That may help to publish quickly on some websites. It can help to solve the problem of having too large tables. Users can easily display them in some web browsers, change font sizes or even re-edit them for better views, use some external tools to capture images or convert them into new formats

• Viewing chess boards as tooltips is a fun factor of this version. We hope they bring some conveniences and fun since users can view visually boards almost everywhere

Fig. 1 Vital settings info of an engine is shown as a tooltip in Engine Info panel


Fig. 2 Show the last board of a PV line as a tooltip in Engine Info panel


Fig. 3 Show the corresponding board under the mouse pointer as a tooltip in Graph panel


Fig. 4 Show the corresponding board under the mouse pointer as a tooltip in Moves panel


Fig. 5 Remote engines on a local network could be viewed and set up their options


Fig. 6 New design and implementation for playing via local network

[AdminX]

Fabulous !!!

[Wilhelm]

Many thanks!
But no ECO-Codes in tournament games
Would be realy helpfull when working or testing opening books...