Release of XBoard 4.9.0 soon

[Canoike]

You release new versions almost every day on winboard.nl
I have compiled a beta 4.9 dated of April. Which one is better to download now ? and when will the stable 4.9 version be ready ?

[hgm]

I am currently working on implementing Maka Dai Dai Shogi in my engine HaChu, and this game needs some very unusual GUI support (promotion of almost any piece only by capturing something, anywhere on the board rather than in apromotionzone, contageous pieces to which you must promote in deviation of normal promotion rules whe you capture them, all possibly in combination with double or triple capture). It seems that this all works now, in the latest version. Most of the changes are from debugging that, and would not affect any of the pre-defined variants (including normal Chess) in any way.

But Joshua had discovered that saving the graphics settings as a 'theme' for later recalling did ignore some settings that XBoard has but WinBoard has not, and did not take account of transparency (so that it did not save square colors when board textures were used, even if the textures contained transparency). So this was a fix that would benefit all users, (which I only got right on a second attempt).

I suppose Arun should be back from his travels by now, and able to do an official release. In any case I will sync my own repository with GNU Savannah, and push everything there.

[Canoike]

About the new features :
https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/wha ... index.html

Downloading the source :
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/

[hgm]

Indeed, yesterday was the official release, after we ironed out a remaining problem on the OSX version with too long filenames earlier last week.

As the list of new features shows, most of the novelties are specific to XBoard, and won't affect WinBoard. Nevertheless I will try to make a new WinBoard binary install for 4.9 later this week.

[JoshPettus]

The OSX app can be found here

[Guenther]

Yes probably the time left would be even better especially for all other time controls.

OK, I added an option -pgnTimeLeft true|false. When set it causes the time printed in the {score/depth time} comments to be the time left on the clock of the player that just moved. It will always be printed as integer seconds, and always preceded by a sign.

I am really sorry. It seems that one slipped through completely, probably because I started the revival of the XB/UCI chronology at the same time.

It seems to work as you have described! (tested with your new WB_AA package)

Code: Select all

[Event "RWBC"]
[Site "CAPPUCCINO"]
[Date "2016.12.28"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Abrok 5.0"]
[Black "Abrok 5.0"]
[Result "*"]
[TimeControl "3600"]
[Annotator "14. +0.58   13... -0.60"]

1. c4 {+0.02/99 +3600} c5 {+0.02/99 +3599} 2. Nf3 {+0.02/99 +3599} Nf6
{+0.02/99 +3599} 3. Nc3 {+0.02/99 +3599} d5 {+0.02/99 +3599} 4. cxd5
{+0.02/99 +3599} Nxd5 {+0.02/99 +3599} 5. g3 {+0.02/99 +3599} g6
{+0.02/99 +3599} 6. Bg2 {+0.02/99 +3599} Bg7 {+0.02/99 +3599} 7. O-O
{+0.02/99 +3599} O-O {+0.02/99 +3599} 8. Nxd5 {+0.02/99 +3599} Qxd5
{+0.02/99 +3599} 9. d3 {+0.02/99 +3599} Nc6 {+0.02/99 +3599} 10. Be3
{+0.02/99 +3599} Qd6 {+0.02/99 +3599} 11. Rc1 {+0.02/99 +3599} Bxb2
{+0.02/99 +3599} 12. Bxc5 {+0.02/99 +3599} Qc7 {+0.02/99 +3599} 13. Rc2
{+0.02/99 +3599} Bf6 {-0.60/16 +3484} 14. Nd4 {+0.58/16 +3479}
{xboard exit (Clocks: 3479, 3447)} *

But just now I realized that we missunderstood each other, or I did not describe exactly what I wanted, or I even did not know it exactly at that time.

It would be much better to have the time left shown somehow from already played PGNs, thus they don't need to be changed but only the times should be displayed somewhere.
A possibility would be to adjust the clocks according to the given times in the pgn or creating another window for displaying the rest time like the comment or tags window.
A third possibility would be to have a new graph just for showing time usage. IIRC method 1 (clock display) for accumulated or left time already exists or existed (?) once in CB GUIs.
Method 3 (time graph) too, but not for accumulation just for used time for each move...

Edit:
As an example this game was posted today and I simply wanted to know
how much time Black had left before losing on time to whatever bug or environment glitch...
And there will be often cases when you just want to load a game and check the time usage.

Code: Select all

[Event "60 Minutes/Game"]
[Site "EndOf2016, DESKTOP-8B4SES4"]
[Date "2016.12.28"]
[Round "1.7"]
[White "Komodo 10.3 64-bit C0x12"]
[Black "Houdini 5.01 Pro x64-popc x12"]
[Result "1-0"]
[PlyCount "83"]
[EventDate "2016.??.??"]

1. e4 {book 0s} e6 {book 0s} 2. d4 {book 0s} b6 {book 0s} 3. Nf3 {
+0.47/32 1:39m} Bb7 {book 0s} 4. Bd3 {+0.50/33 1:19m} d5 {book 0s (c5)} 5. exd5
{+0.65/31 51s} Qxd5 {book 0s} 6. c4 {+0.62/33 2:31m} Qd8 {+0.67/27 2:27m} 7.
O-O {+0.62/32 1:29m} Bd6 {+0.67/26 1:23m} 8. Nc3 {+0.52/33 3:08m (Re1)} Nf6 {
+0.57/25 1:43m} 9. d5 {+0.70/31 30s (Re1)} O-O {+0.50/26 3:32m} 10. dxe6 {
+0.66/31 43s} fxe6 {+0.52/24 16s} 11. Ng5 {+0.67/33 2:03m} Qd7 {+0.51/25 52s}
12. Re1 {+0.70/34 48s} Na6 {+0.64/27 2:49m} 13. Nxe6 {+0.51/35 1:18m} Rfe8 {
+0.64/25 0s} 14. Bf5 {+0.45/37 1:02m} Nc5 {+0.63/28 1:01m} 15. Nxc5 {
+0.49/39 56s} Qxf5 {+0.84/27 14s} 16. Rxe8+ {+0.49/41 1:47m} Rxe8 {+0.84/26 0s}
17. Nxb7 {+0.48/41 39s} Ng4 {+0.73/29 49s} 18. Be3 {+0.66/40 1:35m} Rxe3 {
+0.80/30 4:35m} 19. Qd5+ {+0.63/43 1:16m} Qxd5 {+0.71/32 1:09m} 20. cxd5 {
+0.69/42 51s} Bxh2+ {+0.78/35 1:16m} 21. Kh1 {+0.63/43 25s} Re8 {+0.78/34 14s}
22. f3 {+0.69/43 35s} Bf4 {+0.82/35 1:09m (Rb8)} 23. fxg4 {+0.68/41 29s} Rb8 {
+0.82/34 0s} 24. Rf1 {+0.64/43 1:00m} g5 {+0.89/36 1:34m} 25. Ne2 {+0.80/39 44s
} Rxb7 {+0.89/34 14s} 26. Nxf4 {+0.75/39 23s} gxf4 {+0.89/33 0s} 27. Rxf4 {
+0.80/41 35s} a5 {+0.90/34 1:23m} 28. Re4 {+0.81/38 21s} Rb8 {+0.96/28 11s} 29.
Kh2 {+0.81/39 27s} Rd8 {+0.83/29 42s} 30. Re5 {+0.81/37 27s} a4 {+0.84/31 1:41m
} 31. Kg3 {+0.84/35 24s} Ra8 {+0.76/29 58s} 32. Kf4 {+0.77/37 1:03m} Ra5 {
+0.95/28 13s} 33. b3 {+0.90/39 55s (b4)} axb3 {+0.74/29 32s} 34. axb3 {
+0.92/39 27s} Rb5 {+0.65/24 9s (Kf7)} 35. Kf5 {+1.80/43 1:54m (Re8+)} Kf7 {
0.00/35 36s} 36. d6 {+1.90/40 18s (Kg5)} Rxe5+ {0.00/50 53s} 37. Kxe5 {
+1.62/43 3:11m} cxd6+ {0.00/50 32s} 38. Ke4 {+1.44/40 5:33m (Kf5)} Ke6 {
-5.21/23 30s} 39. g5 {-M40/35 21s} d5+ {-6.47/21 30s} 40. Kd4 {-M37/38 3s (Kf4)
} Kd6 {-11.03/21 31s} 41. b4 {-M34/38 3s} b5 {-95.76/27 41s (Ke6)} 42. g4 {
-M26/37 3s (g3) time} 1-0