New WinBoard release

[George Tsavdaris]

With this new version of Winboard 4.3.13c i have the following problem(note that the problem is not only with the new version but it occurs in older also):

When i paste(ALT+V) the following FRC-Chess game it says:
Ambiguous move 72... Rg8

But 72...Rg8 is not ambiguous at all.
What's the problem?

[Event "Livingston Chess960 Computer World Championship"]
[Site "Chess Classic Mainz 2008"]
[Date "?"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Rybka"]
[Black "Naum "]
[Result "0-1"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[FEN "nnbbqrkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NNBBQRKR w HFhf - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]

1. Nb3 d6 2. e4 Nb6 3. f4 h5 4. h3 e5 5. fxe5 dxe5 6. d3 Be7 7. Nc3 Nc6 8. Be3
Qd8 9. Qd2 Nd4 10. Ne2 c5 11. c3 Ne6 12. c4 Qd6 13. Nc3 Bd7 14. Na5 Qc7 15. Kh2
Nd4 16. Rhg1 g6 17. Nb3 Kg7 18. Kh1 h4 19. Re1 f5 20. Bf2 f4 21. Nxd4 cxd4 22.
Nd5 Nxd5 23. exd5 Bf5 24. Bf3 a5 25. Qe2 Bd6 26. Bg4 b6 27. Rc1 Qd7 28. Bxf5
gxf5 29. Rge1 Rfg8 30. Rb1 Ra8 31. Qc2 Ra6 32. Re2 Ra7 33. Rbe1 Qc7 34. Qa4 Kg6
35. Kg1 Kg5 36. Rf1 Rb7 37. Qc2 b5 38. b3 a4 39. Qc1 bxc4 40. bxc4 a3 41. Rc2
Bc5 42. Qa1 Qb8 43. Qd1 Rhh7 44. Re2 Rb2 45. Rfe1 Re7 46. Rf1 Reb7 47. Rc2 Rb1
48. Rc1 R1b4 49. Qe1 Qh8 50. Ra1 Rb2 51. Qa5 Bb4 52. Qa6 Rg7 53. Kh1 Rg8 54.
Qa4 Bc3 55. Rac1 Qg7 56. Qd1 Rxa2 57. Qf3 Rb2 58. Rg1 a2 59. c5 Bd2 60. Ra1 Be3
61. Bxe3 dxe3 62. d6 Qf7 63. c6 Qe6 64. d7 Rf2 65. Rac1 Qd6 66. Qd1 a1=Q 67.
Rxa1 Qxc6 68. Ra7 Kh6 69. d8=Q Rxd8 70. Qa1 Qf6 71. Qa3 Re8 72. Qc5 Rg8 73. Rc7
Rg6 74. Rc8 Rb2 75. Rf8 Rc2 76. Qa3 Qd6 77. Rh8+ Kg5 78. Qa8 Rc6 79. Qa7 Rc7
80. Qa1 Qf6 81. Re8 Re7 82. Rd8 Qd6 83. Rh8 Rc7 84. Qa7 Rcg7 85. Qa1 Rh6 86.
Qe1 Rd7 87. Re8 Re6 88. Qc3 Rg6 89. Rg8 Qd4 90. Re8 Qd6 91. Rh8 Rc7 92. Qa1 Qf6
93. Re8 Re7 94. Rd8 Ra7 95. Qxa7 Qxd8 96. Qf7 Qf6 97. Qe8 Qd6 98. Rf1 Rg7 99.
Qh8 Rd7 100. Re1 Qf6 101. Qg8+ Qg7 102. Qb3 Rd8 103. Qa3 Qf8 104. Qb3 Qd6 105.
Qb7 Qd7 106. Qb4 Qc7 107. Qa3 Rc8 108. Qa2 Qc3 109. Rg1 Qc6 110. Qa7 Qc7 111.
Qa6 Qd7 112. Qa1 Qd4 113. Qa2 Rd8 114. Qe6 Qd6 115. Ra1 Qxd3 116. Qc8 Rd7 117.
Qf8 e2 118. Qg8+ Kh5 119. Qh8+ Kg6 120. Qe8+ Kg7 121. Rg1 Kf6 122. Qh8+ Ke6
123. Qh5 Qd1 124. Qe8+ 0-1

[hgm]

OK, thanks for reporting the bug. It was due to phantom FRC castlings and not passing on the initial castling rights when a FEN in a PGN tag was read, so that the initial castling rights of another random game were taken. (This was something you would not notice in a variant with a fixed opening setup, as the FEN would automatically have the same castling rights as the standard setup of the variant, if any.)

The latest alpha, containing the fix (4.3.14i) can be downloaded now from the usual place.

[Marc MP]

Hi H.G.,

When I go in the menu: Options -> Save Game... -> Save games automatically -> To file: , winboard crashes to the desktop when I try to locate the file.

Good luck with the enhanced winboard,

[hgm]

My mistake. I changed the type of an argument to the OpenFileDialog function, because the flavors 'append' and 'read' were n longer sufficient for saving the binary data of a diagram bitmap. But I forgot to recompile anoteher file from which this routine was also used.

The fix (4.3.14j) can be downloaded now as alpha.tst.

Unless more problems surface, this is pretty much the version I want to release. It features (compared to 4.3.13):

New command-line options:
/autoKibitz (for relaying the PV info of the engine to the ICS)
/userName="..." (for setting the name of the Human player, also as menu)
/engineDebugOutput=N (controlling the writing of engine output to debug file)
/firstNPS=N (for time management by node count or CPU time)
/secondNPS=N (likewise for the other engine)

New Menu items
+ Enter Username (same as /userName command-line option)
+ Save Diagram (for saving the Chessboard display as bitmap file)
+ Machine Both (not implemented yet, but menu item already provided)
+ New-Variant menu adds CRC, Janus and Berolina (the latter only with legality testing off!)
+ Any variant can be played from a shuffled opening setup

Bugfixes:
* Problems with switching the variant in ICS zippy mode solved
* In ICS observing mode game history is now fully accessible
* Moves are not fed to engine in zippy mode, when observing a game from a variant unknown to the engine

General enhancements:
* variant name displayed in title bar in ICS mode, when not 'normal'
* when receiving a challenge in ICS zippy mode, it is checked if the engine supports the variant (/zippyVariants="..." can still be used to limit the allowed variants, and for protocol-1 engines is still the only thing to go on)
* when loading a game from a PGN file, WB automatically switches to the variant specified in the PGN tags
* when starting from a loaded position (using /loadPositionFile), this position will be used on subsequent 'New Game' commands as well (until we switch variant)