Banksia GUI released

[phhnguyen]

...
2th question: Can I add / remove engines without losing all previous results in tournament? (On Arena Is very easy and fast)

Sure yes. All tournament data (engines, matches, games...) are stored in some JSON files. You can edit or copy them to backup. BSG can calculate Elo, display games... based on those JSON files, regardless engines being removed or not.

Just take care of some issues:
- If you remove engines, you can't continue un-played games
- If you create a new tournament, the previous JSON files may be overwritten. You can save those JSON files manually or use the function "Tournament Load/Save" (menu -> Tournament -> Tournament Load/Save) to store the old JSONE ones and re-load them whenever you need.

[AlexChess]

Dear,
Thank you for your answers! I really like BanksiaGui, but still I need some help to use it.

1. During the tournaments, crosstables shows values that I don't understand:



14.0, 4.5, 3.5 ...what is their meaning?

But once the tournament is finished, crosstables are perfect...



2. I have tried to edit tournament json, but it isn't easy. With Arena, during a tournament, I can remove / add engines using a graphical IDE and it recalculates all remaining games and updates results automatically, keeping all previous scores so I can simply continue the same tournament when a new engine is available.

Thank you again for this very nice program, I like it and continue to use also without updates
Kind regards,
AlexChess

[phhnguyen]

Dear,
Thank you for your answers! I really like BanksiaGui, but still I need some help to use it.

1. During the tournaments, crosstables shows values that I don't understand:



14.0, 4.5, 3.5 ...what is their meaning?

Thanks a lot for the report. It is a bug since the last version (0.38): I forgot to reset variants thus values of crosstable may be added in when you change from scores and detail. The bug will be fixed for the next release.

But once the tournament is finished, crosstables are perfect...



2. I have tried to edit tournament json, but it isn't easy. With Arena, during a tournament, I can remove / add engines using a graphical IDE and it recalculates all remaining games and updates results automatically, keeping all previous scores so I can simply continue the same tournament when a new engine is available.

Thank you again for this very nice program, I like it and continue to use also without updates
Kind regards,
AlexChess

BSG can help you a bit on that issue:
- You may export the current tournament into a PGN file, then edit that file as you want (it is a pure text file, easy to edit), say, add, remove games, merge with other PGN files, edit results... After all, you can drag & drop the PGN file back into BSG, it can open to view games and create stats for them, including crosstable, ELO... (Fig. 1). The PGN file is much better to store and use for multi-purposes and for a long time than JSON files.
- Use its JSON editor: the editor checks JSON content whenever you edit and inform you if there is a wrong
- You can easily edit the results of games in the tournament (Manually adjudicate game)

You can see the above functions from the popup menu over the Tournament panel as Fig. 2.


Fig. 1: view stats, ELO, crosstable... of games from a PGN file


Fig. 2 Popup menu of Tournament panel

[AlexChess]

Thank you!
You are very kind to give me this useful explanations!

I like BanksiaGui fully customizable, feature rich and stable while playing long engine tournamens and your work deserves to be continued.

I wish for you all the best,
AlexChess

[Frank Brenner]

First of all I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Nguyen Hong Pham for developing this really great chess GUI!

At the moment I'm only missing some features - maybe it is already implemented and I don't know how to use it:

1.) i would like to play a tournament with two (or more) Engines with two different time controls and two different thread-counts, individually per engine (not colour)

2.) When I am not playing a tournament, I am obviously in "game playing mode" as I understand it.
I would like to have an additional "analysis mode". In the analysis mode you should be able to manuelly play back and forward half-moves and start/stop thinking one or more of several loaded engines by clicking on them.


Currently I think your program has the potential to become the best user interface for chess.

Thank you

Frank

[AlexChess]

First of all I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Nguyen Hong Pham for developing this really great chess GUI!

At the moment I'm only missing some features - maybe it is already implemented and I don't know how to use it:

1.) i would like to play a tournament with two (or more) Engines with two different time controls and two different thread-counts, individually per engine (not colour)

2.) When I am not playing a tournament, I am obviously in "game playing mode" as I understand it.
I would like to have an additional "analysis mode". In the analysis mode you should be able to manuelly play back and forward half-moves and start/stop thinking one or more of several loaded engines by clicking on them.


Currently I think your program has the potential to become the best user interface for chess.

Thank you

Frank

I agree with you! With little improvements/fixes BanksiaGui could become perfect! (And it would be nice to have it compiled also for Ubuntu ARM64 and native Apple Silicon M1)

[Cornfed]

Just a quick question: is Banksia 0.38 for MS Windows (Merry Christmas Version) the current version?

[mephisto]

I have managed to load individual old chess computer ROM engines from the CB-Emu package but is there a way to load more than one ROM engine at the same time?

And this is how I instruct Banksia to load individual ROMS selecting that it is a UCI engine.
C:\Users\1952\Downloads\CB-Emu_Pro\CB-Emu\MessChess\Arena\mess.cmd

This is where the ROMS are stored in Arena as part of the CB-Emu package.
C:\Users\1952\Downloads\CB-Emu_Pro\CB-Emu\MessChess\roms

If I try to use the option "Add Engine - All engines in the main folder"
I get "Error: This engine does not support the selected protocol"

This error message is the same when I try to load an individual ROM but don't specify that it is a UCI engine.
Unfortunately when using the "Add Engine - All engines in the main folder" there is no option to select them as UCI engines.

Any suggestions please.

[F.Huber]

I have managed to load individual old chess computer ROM engines from the CB-Emu package but is there a way to load more than one ROM engine at the same time?

No, the ROM files are no Windows executables, you have to call 'MessChess.exe' with the 'engine' name as parameter.
This can be done by a batch file (engine.bat), but BanksiaGUI does NOT support BAT files with the feature "Add Engine - All engines in the main folder", a BAT file works only for adding 'One' engine.

I've explained a trick for making installation of CB-Emu engines much easier in the BanksiaGUI on our Schachcomputer.info forum especially for you - look here:
https://www.schachcomputer.info/forum/s ... stcount=10

Franz

[phhnguyen]

First of all I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Nguyen Hong Pham for developing this really great chess GUI!

At the moment I'm only missing some features - maybe it is already implemented and I don't know how to use it:

1.) i would like to play a tournament with two (or more) Engines with two different time controls

Yes, you can set engines to 5 different time controls. Just select "Multi timers" when creating a new tournament.

and two different thread-counts, individually per engine (not colour)

Simply turn off the mode "Overall options" (in New tournament dialog) and set manually threads/cores for each engine.

2.) When I am not playing a tournament, I am obviously in "game playing mode" as I understand it.
I would like to have an additional "analysis mode". In the analysis mode you should be able to manuelly play back and forward half-moves and start/stop thinking one or more of several loaded engines by clicking on them.

BSG has the function Analyse on the fly (menu -> File -> Game Analysis), users can make moves manually and freely, engines compute in the background. BSG can analyze with multi-engines too.



For more details about Analyse-on-the-fly and Analyse-a-game, take a look at my new tutorial video: