Banksia GUI released

[Rom77]

phhnguyen, thanks for BanksiaGui. This is a very useful GUI. I hope this GUI will eventually become the main tool for testing engines.

Yesterday I experimented a lot with your GUI and encountered various problems during various tests. Now I want to inform you about them (the first two points disturbed me the most):

1. New tournament => Time control:
After restarting the GUI, the values of "Increment:" and "Margin per move:" are rounded to 0.1. For example, if you start a tournament, and then interrupt it and restart the GUI, then time control of 8+0.02 sec in the tournament turns into 8+0 sec.

2. File => Tournaments Load/Save
I cannot save the current tournament in this table. After restarting the GUI, the table is always empty.

3. New tournament => Logs:
The GUI does not find files if the path to them contains non-Latin characters. For example, at: C:/Загрузки/Chess/BanksiaGui. I had to move log files to directories that contain only latin characters. The GUI works fine at any address, but just in case, I also put it in a directory whose address contains only Latin characters.

4. New tournament => Openings: => PGN
.pgn files cannot be read if games in them do not start from the start position (i.e with fen).

5. New tournament => Openings: => For a pair:
After restarting the GUI, "No special" is always set to the default.

6. Tournament result => Use percent
After restarting the GUI, "Use percent" is always set to the default. I would like this setting to keep the previously set value.

7. Moves => < and >
In the "Moves" window, during the game, when you press the < and > arrows repeatedly, this function does not work correctly (constantly returning to the end of the game).

8. In the "logresults.txt" file, the game number is written twice. For example, 3) 3)

9. After a fairly lengthy test, exit from the program in about half the cases ends with an error message. But this does not lead to data loss or any other problems.


______________________________
Sorry for Google translate

[Jonathan003]

How comes the book making is so slow in Banksia with these settings:
It's from the big pgn file Elo 2500 gg.pgn with more than 700000 games I send you earlier.
I also have a request. I would like to have the option uniform for book making.
In Lucas Chess there is an option to import all best moves from a bin book for one collar. If I can use the option uniform than all variations are imported. In Lucas Chess I can then export the Opening Lines to pgn.
It would also be nice to be able to merge books in pgn format so the one book has priority over the other like with bin book merging. But maybe that's technically impossible?

[MCDermont]

Hi
im new here and i have a question about the Banksia GUI
I have already tried a couple of times to copy a game into my bin book with the gui. ( Add current game to book )
But I can't find this line in my bin book afterwards.
I open Scid to look at the line but there is nothing (
I hope someone can help me .

thx in advance

[phhnguyen]

7-piece adjudication support will be appreciated by engine testers. It will speed up time consuming tournaments and endgame test suite considerable, compared to 6-piece.

BSG has supported Syzygy 7 men already in all ways:
- Users can download those endgames via BSG (tools -> Download -> Syzygy tab)
- Transfer Syzygy folders to engines as option's parameters
- Adjudication for tournaments

Note that for multi folders of Syzygy EGTB users can write them all in one line with Syzygy's define separators (use semicolon for Windows, colon for Unix-like OSs).

However, BSG has not been tested thoroughly with Syzygy 7 men due to the limit storage of my computer. Any help (to test with 7 men) is highly appreciated

[phhnguyen]

Here is some inspiration for you Banksia logo inspired by nature





I like the second one. Maybe Ovyron can make something grate of it.

The name fits!

Haha! Now, that's inspiration, you add two letters to his name and get 2 logos for 1!:

Wow, there are some more beautiful logos to chose from!

Thanks all a lot for your efforts, supports and helps!

Just need you all to change them a bit to adapt my needs as BSG logo. It should be:
- a color drawing/clip art
- so simple with a "few" strokes/shapes. A typical image usually has too many details, some details may be lost when zooming out
- easy to be recognized
- banksia + chess is the main topic but not compulsory

Thanks again

[phhnguyen]

phhnguyen, thanks for BanksiaGui. This is a very useful GUI. I hope this GUI will eventually become the main tool for testing engines.

Yesterday I experimented a lot with your GUI and encountered various problems during various tests. Now I want to inform you about them (the first two points disturbed me the most):

Thank you very much for using and a long, so detail report.

1. New tournament => Time control:
After restarting the GUI, the values of "Increment:" and "Margin per move:" are rounded to 0.1. For example, if you start a tournament, and then interrupt it and restart the GUI, then time control of 8+0.02 sec in the tournament turns into 8+0 sec.

The rounding of second is in purpose since the Windows time resolution is only about 18 ticks per second. If you think it should be higher I will change.

2. File => Tournaments Load/Save
I cannot save the current tournament in this table. After restarting the GUI, the table is always empty.

3. New tournament => Logs:
The GUI does not find files if the path to them contains non-Latin characters. For example, at: C:/Загрузки/Chess/BanksiaGui. I had to move log files to directories that contain only latin characters. The GUI works fine at any address, but just in case, I also put it in a directory whose address contains only Latin characters.

4. New tournament => Openings: => PGN
.pgn files cannot be read if games in them do not start from the start position (i.e with fen).

5. New tournament => Openings: => For a pair:
After restarting the GUI, "No special" is always set to the default.

6. Tournament result => Use percent
After restarting the GUI, "Use percent" is always set to the default. I would like this setting to keep the previously set value.

7. Moves => < and >
In the "Moves" window, during the game, when you press the < and > arrows repeatedly, this function does not work correctly (constantly returning to the end of the game).

8. In the "logresults.txt" file, the game number is written twice. For example, 3) 3)

9. After a fairly lengthy test, exit from the program in about half the cases ends with an error message. But this does not lead to data loss or any other problems.


______________________________
Sorry for Google translate

I have checked and confirmed all other issues/bugs. They all will be fixed/improved for the next release. Thanks a lot again.

[MCDermont]

Hi all
second try to get a answere for my question

Im new here and i have a question about the Banksia GUI
I have already tried a couple of times to copy a game into my bin book with the gui. ( Add current game to book )
But I can't find this line in my bin book afterwards.
I open Scid to look at the line but there is nothing
I hope someone can help me .

thx in advance

[phhnguyen]

How comes the book making is so slow in Banksia with these settings:
It's from the big pgn file Elo 2500 gg.pgn with more than 700000 games I send you earlier.

For that setup, BSG may take almost all games and all moves and make internal memory grow too fast. BSG has some optimized algorithms for processing and using memory. However, it is not good for that kind of behavior. I will work on that issue later.

I also have a request. I would like to have the option uniform for book making.
In Lucas Chess there is an option to import all best moves from a bin book for one collar. If I can use the option uniform than all variations are imported. In Lucas Chess I can then export the Opening Lines to pgn.
It would also be nice to be able to merge books in pgn format so the one book has priority over the other like with bin book merging. But maybe that's technically impossible?

Thanks for your requests/suggestions. I have added them to my TODO list and may implement them soon.

For merging PGN books it is easy. Actually you can merge them manually because they all are text files. BSG can do a bit better since it can filter out all double openings. However, what you say "one book has priority over the other" won't work since PGN books have no weights thus all openings are totally equal in term of priorities.

[Rom77]

The rounding of second is in purpose since the Windows time resolution is only about 18 ticks per second. If you think it should be higher I will change.

It would be very good, because in my tests I often use controls like 8+0.02

Probably the problem is not related to Windows. If, before starting the GUI, replace the file "banksiatour.json" with the same file with the value "increment": 0.02, then everything is ok. But unfortunately only once. After starting the GUI, the file "banksiatour.json" changes the value of the increment to "increment": 0.0.

[Laskos]

The rounding of second is in purpose since the Windows time resolution is only about 18 ticks per second. If you think it should be higher I will change.

First of all, an outstanding achievement, and that from a single person in such a short time! Hard to imagine. Thank you very much!

Now on this:
Isn't it about 100+ ticks per second? I am often seeing resolutions in the 0.010 seconds ballpark.
I would like also to have the possibility to set time control as 8.727s + 0.116s, even if the last digit is not that relevant (or not at all).

Thank you very much again!