computerchess on apple

[Richard Allbert]

Hi Joshua

First of all, great job.

I installed the beta, but the version in your last post still does not show check boxes on the menus.

Can you fix this?

As far as engines / polyglot are concerned I had no troubles with 4.7.

For reference, anyone installing engines, and installed engine looks like this in the Xboard.conf file:

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"Lime_v66" -fcp "./Lime_v66" -fd "/Users/taciturn_lemon/Documents/Chess/PlayingEngines/WB/Lime_v66/"

I thought I'd post this, because I can never get the engine install dialog to work, on windows or Apple.

Anyway great job from the team, and it runs just as well on my mac as my windows PC.

[hgm]

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"Lime_v66" -fcp "./Lime_v66" -fd "/Users/taciturn_lemon/Documents/Chess/PlayingEngines/WB/Lime_v66/"

I thought I'd post this, because I can never get the engine install dialog to work, on windows or Apple.

That is strange! It should just be a matter of using the Browse button on the engine command to browse to the executable, make the Engine directory text entry empty, and click 'OK', to generate exactly that line. The browsing would give you a full path name, and XBoard would use the first part of it as directory when no directory is given.

With XBoard the problem could be that the default directory is '.', (so the field is NOT initialized empty, as it is in WinBoard), as compliant Linux engines don't care about the directory. (They know to find their files in the standard place.)

[Richard Allbert]

Well, it's user error.

I'm making the point, because I know you've made a lot of effort to make XBoard user friendly - "all with mouse clicks", and it's pretty much there.

The engine dialog is confusing though. Maybe it's better just to have the browse field, and not the engine command field?

Because when I see both, I assume the first is for the directory only (as it says "engine directory" next to it) and the command field is the name of the executable.

However, as you point out, if you put in the path to the executable into the "engine directory" field, and leave the command field blank, it works fine.

[hgm]

The problem is that some engines might not want to have their directory equal to the directory they are in. Especially Linux engines tend to be in a sub-folder bin, while their books and ini files are in the parent folder. So splitting off the filename and using the rest as directory path does not always work.

Of course we could leave those 'hard cases' just for editing the engine list, to make it simpler for the simple cases.

An alternative would be to make a combobox for the common cases:
* Engine knows to find its own files (Linux compliant)
* Engine must run in its own directory
* Engine must run in different directory:

with only the latter one ungraying a directory text-entry / Browse button.

Would that be better?

[Richard Allbert]

The problem is that some engines might not want to have their directory equal to the directory they are in. Especially Linux engines tend to be in a sub-folder bin, while their books and ini files are in the parent folder. So splitting off the filename and using the rest as directory path does not always work.

Of course we could leave those 'hard cases' just for editing the engine list, to make it simpler for the simple cases.

An alternative would be to make a combobox for the common cases:
* Engine knows to find its own files (Linux compliant)
* Engine must run in its own directory
* Engine must run in different directory:

with only the latter one ungraying a directory text-entry / Browse button.

Would that be better?

I see, I didn't realize you can have the separation of executable and files like that.

I think the ungreying options sounds good.

Also, if I read the user guide on gnu.org, it is not clear what is needed -

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Only to load an engine never used before the rest of the dialog becomes relevant. You can specify the engine command there, which can be done by browsing to the executable for that engine. Some engines might need other stuff on their start command than just their name, however, like '-xboard', or a specification of the hash size

Reading this would lead me to use the second "Engine Command" dialog to browse for the engine and not the "Engine directory"

(Unless this is what I should have done)

Again, this is a minor point, but for a point and click user it is not quite clear enough imho.

Also, how do you stop a tournament running on the Mac?

I clicked pause, but the tournament continued.

When I selected file -> new game, it just carried on with the next tournament game

Please don't forget the checkbox issue on the Mac, as this is the biggest issue!

[hgm]

Also, if I read the user guide on gnu.org, it is not clear what is needed -

Code: Select all

Only to load an engine never used before the rest of the dialog becomes relevant. You can specify the engine command there, which can be done by browsing to the executable for that engine. Some engines might need other stuff on their start command than just their name, however, like '-xboard', or a specification of the hash size

Reading this would lead me to use the second "Engine Command" dialog to browse for the engine and not the "Engine directory"

(Unless this is what I should have done)

Yes, that is correct. In 'Engine command' you should browse for the engine binary. The file browser will fill the text entry with the full pathname, in that case. If you click OK at that point it would use that path name to start the engine, but start it from the current directory, (because the 'Engine directory' entry contained '.'), which is another directory as where it might be. (Which is no problem, since the full path name was used).

For compliant engines, like fruit, crafty, fairymax, gnuchess this is good enough, and you probably would not even browse to them (finding them in crowded directories like /usr/bin or /usr/games would be a pain), but just tye their name.

If you clear the 'Engine directory' after browsing for the engine binary in the 'Engine command' field, the pathname will be split into a directory part to use as directory, and ./engine as the command to issue in it.

Also, how do you stop a tournament running on the Mac?

Click 'Machine Match' in the mode menu. The tourney will then pause after the current game finishes. Or, if you are in a hurry, simply quit XBoard. (This will lose you the game in progress.)

When I selected file -> new game, it just carried on with the next tournament game

Well, that is exactly what you asked, right?

Please don't forget the checkbox issue on the Mac, as this is the biggest issue!

That one is for Joshua. I remember we (that is, people that actually have Mac, so not me) had this problem before, and it had to do with some style file for the interface that he packs in the App bundle.