XBoard 4.5.0 released

[Dirt]

It seems you are missing the xaw package. Perhaps a Linux expert can tell how it should be installed? I hardly know Linux, and use Ubuntu, not Fedora.

Unfortunately, Ubuntu did not support my internet equipment; Fedora does.

That worked, I think. I installed the "Development files for libXaw" and some other stuff. I need to test it.

[Michel]

It seems you are missing the xaw package

This exposes a bug in configure.ac.

Configure should have detected the missing xaw header files and print an appropriate diagnostic.

I think a long time ago I submitted a patch to fix this.

[hgm]

OK, I will relay that to Arun, who does the automake stuff for XBoard.

[zamar]

After installing a program, I start it.

It fails with message:
xboard: Failed to start first chess program fairymax on localhost: fairymax: No such file or directory

After that many message boxes pop up saying:
xboard: Error writing to first chess program: Broken pipe

I do not know if this is wanted behaviour?

"xboard -ncp" works just fine.

[hgm]

Well, part of this is normal behaviour. If you run XBoard with an engine (which is the default mode), you need to have that engine installed on your system. Apparently you have not, which is just what the error message says.

I guess the error popup about the pipe could be considered spurious, but the error of specifying a non-existing engine would be fatal in itself.

[hgm]

It seems indeed that this release is defective for WinBoard in several ways:

*) The history.c file is missing from the release tar ball.
*) The file winboard/wsettings.c is corrupted by inclusion of a wrong patch, which does not belong in this branch. It should be replaced by the version from before the "-reset" commit.

With these two changes I can compile it with gcc under Cygwin. Don't know if this solves most of the MSVC problems.

[hgm]

I have made a WinBoard binary of 4.5.0 as it should have been, and incorporated it in an installer package. It can be downloaded from

http://hgm.nubati.net/WinBoard-4.5.0.exe .

Barring a major foul-up, this will be the package through which WinBoard 4.5.0 will be distributed. I hope some of you can test if everything works as it should. If I get no complaints today or tomorrow, I will create an official download link for it in WinBoard forum.

Changes compared to the 4.4.x downloads are that I threw out some of the variant engines, leaving only Pulsar and Fairy-Max (which together already cover a very wide range of variants), and added a Shogi section with one engine. There now also is an "internationalization" section with Spanish, Italian and German language files.

Note that the HTML help is not entirely up to date, and still describes the old menu organization. I did not want to delay the release just because of that, as it isnot clear when this will be fixed.

[Giorgio Medeot]

Hi H.G.,
did you read my post on the WB forum?
Not a big deal, but I've updated a couple of lines in the Italian language file.

• Giorgio

[hgm]

Yes, I did, and it was just in time to be included. When I made a diff with the previous one, it even pointed out an error that was in all files (the Chat window title), and I corrected it there too. I still wanted to answer you on that by PM.

[Giorgio Medeot]

Ok, fine!
Sorry for not pointing out that error, I've already noticed it and fixed in my language file some time ago.

• Giorgio