WinBoard 4.3.15

"For the ultimate WinBoard experience"

Introduction

The WinBoard 4.3 series is a continuation of the WinBoard_x line by Allessandro Scotti. It is been further developed, and is maintained, by H.G. Muller. Most addtions and improvements that went into this since the last version produced by the GNU-Savannah xboard project team, WinBoard 4.2.7b, are unfortunately not parallelled in xboard. On the contrary, they have destroyed the compatibility of the back-end sources shared by WinBoard and xboard with the xboard front-end of version 4.2.7b. Since WinBoard 4.3.14, however, the releases again coms with a compatible xboard front-end. That does not mean that all the features added to WinBoard can already be used in this xboard version. But some can, an in 4.3.15 many more have been added.

The description below applies specifically to WinBoard, although we have tried to mark features that can also be used in xboard by (x) everywhere. This version of xboard does does have som new menus added to control such features. Other functionss, if they work at all, must be switched on from the command line.


WinBoard 4.3.15, with opened engine-output, move-history and eval-graph windows

New features since 4.2.7b

Below follows a table that lists the new features, the command-line option needed to control them, and if there is a menu provided that can switch the option while WinBoard is running (command-line options exert their effect only at startup). Note that, unlike WinBoard 4.2.7, the WinBoard 4.3 series is fully castling and e.p. aware, and handles the castling, e.p. and 50-move field in FENs on input and output as should be expected.

command-line option

description

menu

ENGINE-ENGINE ADJUDICATION OPTIONS
-adjudicateLossThreshold 0 (*x) adjudicates engine-engine game based on score Options -> Engine... (x)
-checkMates false (*x) detect and end game on checkmates and stalemates Options -> Engine... (x)
-testClaims false (*x) WinBoard corrects false RESULT claims Options -> Engine.. (x)
-materialDraws false (*x) adjudicate draw when no mating material present Options -> Engine.. (x)
-trivialDraws false (*x) adjudicate draw in endgames like KRKR and KNNK Options -> Engine.. (x)
-adjudicateDrawMoves 0 (*) adjudicate draw when game lasts too long Options -> Engine.. (x)
-ruleMoves 51 (*x) number of reversible moves after which to adjudicate draw Options -> Engine.. (x)
-repeatsToDraw 6 (*x) adjudicate draw when a position occurs this many times Options -> Engine.. (x)
-firstScoreAbs false (x)
-secondScoreAbs false (x)
Engine indicates score for white, even when playing black Options -> Adjudications.. (xboard-only)
- Adjudicate the game in progress as win to white, win to black, or draw Action -> Adjudicate to White
Action -> Adjudicate to Black
Action -> Adjudicate Draw
TIME-CONTROL AND TIMING OPTIONS
-firstTimeOdds 1 (x)
-secondTimeOdds 1 (x)
reduce the thinking time of the mentioned engine by the given factor Options -> Engine Settings.. (xboard only)
-timeOddsMode 1 (*x) determines what happens when both engine have time odds Options -> Engine Settings.. (xboard only)
-firstNPS -1 (x)
-secondNPS -1 (x)
engine must use node count for its time control, as if running at specified rate -
-matchPause 10000 (*x) number of msec to wait between games in match mode -
-delayBeforeQuit 0 (*)
-delayAfterQuit 0 (*)
timing parameter specifying how to terminate the engine processes -
- adjust the clocks by 1 minute (up or down) left- or right-cick on clock in edit-game mode
DISPLAY-LOOK OPTIONS
-liteBackTextureFile "" (*)
-darkBackTextureFile "" (*)
-liteBackTextureMode 1 (*)
-darkBackTextureMode 1 (*)
Allows you to use any bitmap picture for displaying the board square -
-renderPiecesWithFont "" (*) specifies a true-type Chess font to be used for piece symbols -
-fontPieceToCharTable "" (*) specifies which font character to use for the various piece types -
-overrideLineGap 1 (*) controls the width of the black grid lines between squares -
-fontPieceBackColorWhite #0 (*)
-fontPieceForeColorWhite #0 (*)
-fontPieceBackColorBlack #0 (*)
-fontPieceForeColorBlack #0 (*)
control piece colors in font-based rendering -
-fontPieceSize 80 (*) tunes the size of pieces in font-based rendering (% of square size) -
-highlightMoveWithArrow false (*) draws a big arrow to indicate the move last played Options -> General...
-highlightArrowColor #FFFF80 (*) controls the color of the highlight arrow -
- Swap white and black clock Options -> Swap Clocks
UCI ENGINE OPTIONS
-polyglotDir "" (*) tells WinBoard where you installed Polyglot, for automatic invocation with UCI engines Options -> UCI... (x)
-polyglotBook "" (*) tells WinBoard which opening book it should use, or should make Polyglot use. Options -> UCI... (x)
-usePolyglotBook false (*) turns the use of the Polygot book on or off Options -> UCI... (x)
-defaultPathEGTB "c:\egtb" (*) folder where to find end-game tables Options -> UCI... (x)
-defaultCacheSizeEGTB 4 (*) specifies the cache size for UCI engines Options -> UCI... (x)
-defaultHashSize 64 (*) Specifies the size of the main hash table for UCI engines Options -> UCI... (x)
-firstIsUCI false
-secondIsUCI false
-fUCI
-sUCI
tells WinBoard the corresponding engine should be run through Polyglot -
-firstHasOwnBookUCI true
-secondHasOwnBookUCI true
-fNoOwnBookUCI true
-sNoOwnBookUCI true
tells Polyglot if the engine should use its own opening book Options -> Engine Settings... (xboard only)
-smpCores 1 (*x) Sets the maximum number of CPUs an SMP engine can use. (only affects engines that support the cores command of WB protocol) Options -> Engine Settings... (xboard only)
-egtFormats "" (*x) Specifies which end-game tables are installed on the computer, and where they can be found (e.g. "nalimov:\chess\egtb,scorpio:\chess\bitbases") -
CHESS-VARIANT OPTIONS
-boardHeight -1 (*x)
-boardWidth -1 (*x)
-holdingsSize -1 (*x)
specifies the board format and nr of piece types that can be dropped, when you want it to be different from what is usual in the chosen varint File -> New Variant...
-variant normal (x) supports many new variants: xiangqi, shogi, fischerandom, capabanca, gothic, caparandom, janus, shatranj, courier, knightmate, berolina, falcon, cylinder, fairy, super File -> New Variant... (x)
-defaultFrcOpening -1 (x) allows you to play from a specific opening shuffle, or make a new shuffle each game File -> New Shuffle Game... (x)
-pieceToCharTable "" (x) allows you to specify by which letters pieces are referred to in FEN and SAN, if you want to deviate from what is usual for the current variant -
-flipBlack fase (*x) displays opponent pieces uppside down (for Shogi) Options -> Board...
-allWhite false (*x) use white bitmaps (with black outline) also for display of black pieces (for Shogi) Options -> Board...
PGN FILE OPTIONS
-pgnExtendedInfo false (*x) save engine output (depth, score time) in PGN Options->General...
-pgnEventHeader
"Computer Chess Game" (*x)
specify the event for the PGN event tag -
-saveOutOfBookInfo true (*) include an 'annotator' tag in the PGN file
-hideThinkingFromHuman false (*x) suppresses the engine thinking output in the display, without the need to switch it off (so it can still appear in the PGN file) Options -> General... (x)
USER-INTERFACE OPTIONS AND WINDOW CONTROL
-moveHistoryUP true (*)
-moveHistoryX 0 (*)
-moveHistoryY 0 (*)
-moveHistoryW 0 (*)
-moveHistoryH 0 (*)
controls opening, placement and size of a window containing the moves of the current game Mode -> Show Move History (x)
-evalGraphUp true (*)
-evalGraphX 0 (*)
-evalGraphY 0 (*)
-evalGraphW 0 (*)
-evalGraphH 0 (*)
controls opening, placement and size of a window containing a graph of the evaluation score of the engine(s) as a function of move number of the current game Mode -> Show Evaluation Graph
-engineOutputUp true (*)
-engineOutputX 0 (*)
-engineOutputY 0 (*)
-engineOutputW 0 (*)
-engineOutputH 0 (*)
controls opening, placement and size of a window containing the thinking output of the engine(s) Mode -> Show Engine Output (x)
-stickyWindows true (*) make the various windows snap onto each other, and stick together -
-showEvalInMoveHistory true (*) depth/score info of the engine is included as comments in the move history window Options -> General...
-evalHistColorWhite #FFFFB0 (*)
-evalHistColorBlack #AD5D3D (*)
determines the color of the eval-score comments in the move-history window -
-autoDisplayComment true (*) causes a window for displaying PGN comments to pop up automatically when such a comment is encountered -
-autoDisplayTags true (*) causes a window with PGN tags to be displayed as soon as a PGN file is loaded -
-gameListTags "eprd" (*) specifies the PGN tags that should be displayed in the game list Options -> Game List...
MISCELLANEOUS
-debugFile "winboard.debug"
-nameOfDebugFile "winboard.debug"
allows you to specify an alternative name for saving the debug information -
- save chess-board display as diagram in bitmap file (only works for the smaller board formats!) File -> Save Diagram...
- display only those lines in the game list that contain a given string in Game-List window
-rewindIndex 0 (x) A nonzero value for this option causes the loadGameIndex or loadPositionIndex to rewind to the beginning of the Games or Position file when it reaches the given value in auto-increment match mode. This mode is specified by a negative value as argument of the /lgi or /lpi options, where -1 increments the index after every game of the match, and -2 after every two games (so that each position is played with black and white). -

The value with which the option is listed is the default value. If it is false or true, it is a Boolean option, a number implies an integer option. A value starting with # indicates an RGB color indication in hexadecimal notation. Options the settings of which are saved into the winboard.ini file are marked with (*).