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New WinBoard gimmick
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H.G.Muller



Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 12911
Location: Amsterdam
PostPost subject: New WinBoard gimmick    Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 10:14 pm Reply to topic Reply with quote
I have implemented a new experimental feature in WinBoard, and I would like to know opinions about it. It is intended to offer a solution for the problem that you see all engines as a huge, unstructured pool, which makes it very hard to find the one you need if you have many. (I know, you could sort them alphabetically...)

The new fature allows you to group engines in the list of installed engines (in the ini file), by enclosing them in lines # NAME and # end .

Code:
engine0.exe /fd=dir0
# GROUP NAME
engine1.exe /fd=dir1
engine2.exe /fd=dir2
...
engineN.exe /fd=dirN
# end
engineA.exe /fd=dirA


When you now select an engine in the Load Engine or Tournament Options dialog, (but not in the startup dialog!), the drop-down list will suppress listing of the enclosed engines, and will only list the group header. So you will see

Code:
engine0
# GROUP NAME
engineA


Now if you select the item # GROUP NAME from the list, you won't really select anything (i.e. you could not press OK now in the Load Engine dialog without getting an error popup, and you would not add anything to the tournament participants in the Tournament Options dialog). But when you now open the combobox again, the drop-down list will list only the engines within the group:

Code:
# GROUP NAME
engine1
engine2
...
engineN


This will continue until you close the dialog, or select the header # GROUP NAME again. In the latter case you will leave the group, and opening the combobox again will give you the top-level list (so you could open another group, or select an engine outside any group directly).

This can be applied recursively (i.e. groups within groups), so whole system looks a bit like the engines are grouped in folders, and you browse through those. So far the grouping can only be done through editing the engine list (which can be done through the Engine -> Edit Engine List menu item). And the # end lines are the only way to indicate where the groups end, so you cannot make a group named 'end'. But any other line starting with # is considered a group header.

Another new feature is that the Engine menu now contains a list of recently used engines in previous sessions. This only keeps tracks of engines loaded through the Load Engine dialog, or the first engine at startup. So not for engines in tournaments. When you click on such an engine menu item it loads the engine as first engine, like you would have opened the Load Engine, dialog, selected it from the list, and pressed OK.

The new version is at http://hgm.nubati.net/WinBoard-4.5TM.exe .
Please tell me what you think about it.
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Display posts from previous:   
Subject Author Date/Time
New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Wed Feb 08, 2012 10:14 pm
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:49 pm
            Re: New WinBoard gimmick Julien MARCEL Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:54 pm
                  Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:09 pm
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick Giorgio Medeot Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:38 pm
            Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:09 pm
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick Gabor Szots Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:38 pm
            Re: New WinBoard gimmick Roger Brown Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:46 pm
                  Re: New WinBoard gimmick Gabor Szots Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:12 pm
                        Re: New WinBoard gimmick Julien MARCEL Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:18 pm
            Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:07 pm
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:09 pm
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Fri Feb 10, 2012 10:24 pm
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick H.G.Muller Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:28 am
      Re: New WinBoard gimmick Roger Brown Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:27 am
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