UCI, xboard protocols and interfaces for Mac OS X Lion

[Roger Brown]

Cute Chess is cross-platform, so it will be available on Linux, Windows and OSX. But because it's still in development I haven't bothered with creating an easy-to-install package for Windows. Too many missing features and a couple of Windows-specific bugs prevent me from doing a release right now. I'm hoping to get a beta version out before Christmas, but you know how it is with schedules and software projects.

Hello Ilari,

I will wait. Impatiently, but I will wait.



Later.

[micron]

/usr/share/games is the directory that according to Debian standards programs in /usr/games should look for their data files. So the Debian package for fairymax does put the fmax.ini file that contains the move-generator tables for all of the supported variants in

/usr/share/games/fairymax/fmax.ini

On OS X, the best "native" location is probably something like /Library/Fairy-Max/ or ~/Library/Fairy-Max.

The directory /usr/local/etc is used to store XBoard's master configuration file, (/usr/local/etc/xboard.conf), which is used to (re)define the defaults for some of the options, including the file name of the user settings file (~/.xboardrc). This is a Debian standard for packages compiled from source. (In their own binary package for XBoard they use /usr/etc/xboard.conf in stead.)

This should probably also be something like /Library/XBoard, although keeping ~/.xboardrc should be ok-ish.

What would be the best solution here, if we were to make a special compile of XBoard using default file locations tailored to Mac OS?

I think looking in /Library and ~/Library is probably the way to go

Global support files go in:
/Library/Application\ Support/AppName/

Per-user support files go in:
~/Library/Application\ Support/AppName/

Of course, the installer must be fixed to set permissions correctly for newly created directories; this is more important than putting them in Mac-like places.
Robert P.

[hgm]

Let me make sure I get this right: there is a backslash plus space in one of the directory names?

To be specific, the fmax.ini file should go into

/Library/Application\ Support/fairymax/fmax.ini

and the XBoard master settings file in

/Library/Application\ Support/xboard/xboard.ini

and should define the file to save the actual settings in as

~/Library/Application\ Support/xboard/xboard.ini

?

[micron]

Yes. It's an escaped space character. Paths on the Mac often have spaces.

[hgm]

Ah, it is an escape. I guess this is only when you use the name in the shell, then, and that the actual name does not contain the backslash, but just the space.

[Evert]

Ah, it is an escape. I guess this is only when you use the name in the shell, then, and that the actual name does not contain the backslash, but just the space.

Yes.
Although I think that if you escape the space in the code it will just produce a space... if not, the compiler will complain.

[stevenaaus]

I'm asking myself which protocol implement in my new program: UCI or xboard (or both?) and if there are some interface working in Mac OS X Lion. I see that a lot of programmers use Arena but it seems to me that is only Windows.

I would like to try some automated tournament, to test the program, but using the Mac, not the Windows PC that i'm abandoning.

Any advise?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvsp ... g/download

[stegemma]

...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvsp ... g/download

Thanks! This one works without any installation problem... now i try to link to my engine...

[stevenaaus]

Let me make sure I get this right: there is a backslash plus space in one of the directory names?

To be specific, the fmax.ini file should go into

/Library/Application\ Support/fairymax/fmax.ini
...

The backslash in the pathname is not necessary for xboard methinks. It's only when entering the dirname from the command line.

This is one of Steve J's stupider ideas imho. Using a space embedded filename for all config files is begging for trouble.
Using $HOME/.xboard/ will work fine.