WinBoard/XBoard protocol in Chess for Android

[abik]

Thanks for all feedback. At the moment I am inclined to abandon auto-detection, and simply prompt the user once for UCI/XBoard setup.

[Michel]

At the moment I am inclined to abandon auto-detection, and simply prompt the user once for UCI/XBoard setup.

Arena has the options Auto(default)/UCI/WinBoard. Auto is good for people
that have no clue about protocols (like myself not too long ago!).

As said "Auto" works fine for almost all engines.

[abik]

Chess for Android now contains sufficient functionality to perform the first inter-protocol tournament between the built-in Java engine, the UCI engine BikJump, and the WinBoard/XBoard engine Fairy-Max. Ten random opening book games between these engines at one second per move on a Nexus S ran without problems to completion with the following results.

Code: Select all

                    1          2          3          
1 BikJump v2.1P     ********** 111½111111 1111111101 18.5/20
2 Fairymax 4.8Q     000½000000 ********** 1½10½11½01  7.0/20
3 Chess for Android 0000000010 0½01½00½10 **********  4.5/20

[abik]

Version 3.0.1 of Chess for Android is now available at the Android market and as direct download. It introduces the first, albeit very simple support for the Chess Engine Communication Protocol (aka XBoard/WinBoard). Many features supported for UCI (e.g. options setup, infinite analysis) as well as some XBoard specific features (e.g. resign) are still missing for this first version. Nevertheless, it is already possible to run tournaments between engines.