NAME¶
xboard - X graphical user interface for chess
SYNOPSIS¶
xboard [options]
xboard -ics -icshost hostname [options]
xboard -ncp [options]
|pxboard
cmail [options]
DESCRIPTION¶
XBoard is a graphical chessboard that can serve as a user interface to chess
engines (such as GNU Chess), the Internet Chess Servers, electronic mail
correspondence chess, or your own collection of saved games.
This manual documents version 4.6.2 of XBoard.
MAJOR MODES¶
XBoard always runs in one of four major modes. You select the major mode from
the command line when you start up XBoard.
- xboard [options]
- As an interface to GNU Chess or another chess engine
running on your machine, XBoard lets you play a game against the machine,
set up arbitrary positions, force variations, watch a game between two
chess engines, interactively analyze your stored games or set up and
analyze arbitrary positions. (Note: Not all chess engines support
analysis.)
- xboard -ics -icshost hostname [options]
- As Internet Chess Server (ICS) interface, XBoard lets you
play against other ICS users, observe games they are playing, or review
games that have recently finished. Most of the ICS "wild" chess
variants are supported, including bughouse.
- xboard -ncp [options]
- XBoard can also be used simply as an electronic chessboard
to play through games. It will read and write game files and allow you to
play through variations manually. You can use it to browse games off the
net or review games you have saved. These features are also available in
the other modes.
- |pxboard
- If you want to pipe games into XBoard, use the supplied
shell script `pxboard'. For example, from the news reader `xrn', find a
message with one or more games in it, click the Save button, and type
`|pxboard' as the file name.
- cmail [options]
- As an interface to electronic mail correspondence chess,
XBoard works with the cmail program. See CMail below for
instructions.
BASIC OPERATION¶
To move a piece, you can drag it with the left mouse button, or you can click
the left mouse button once on the piece, then once more on the destination
square. In crazyhouse, bughouse or shogi you can drag and drop pieces to the
board from the holdings squares displayed next to the board.
Old behavior, where right-clicking a square brings up a menu where you can
select what piece to drop on it can still be selected through the `Drop Menu'
option. Only in Edit Position mode right and middle clicking a square is still
used to put a piece on it, and the piece to drop is selected by sweeping the
mouse vertically with the button held down.
The default function of the right mouse button in other modes is to display the
position the chess program thinks it will end up in. While moving the mouse
vertically with this button pressed XBoard will step through the principal
variation to show how this position will be reached. Lines of play displayed
in the engine-output window, or PGN variations in the comment window can
similarly be played out on the board, by right-clicking on them. Only in
Analysis mode, when you walk along a PV, releasing the mouse button will
forward the game upto that point, like you entered all previous PV moves. As
the display of the PV in that case starts after the first move a simple
right-click will play the move the engine indicates.
When connected to an ICS, it is possible to call up a graphical representation
of players seeking a game in stead of the chess board, when the latter is not
in use (i.e. when you are not playing or observing). Left-clicking the display
area will switch between this 'seek graph' and the chess board. Hovering the
mouse pointer over a dot will show the details of the seek ad in the message
field above the board. Left-clicking the dot will challenge that player.
Right-clicking a dot will 'push it to the back', to reveal any dots that were
hidden behind it. Right-clicking off dots will refresh the graph.
Most other XBoard commands are available from the menu bar. The most frequently
used commands also have shortcut keys or on-screen buttons. These shortcut
keystrokes are mostly non-printable characters. Typing a letter or digit while
the board window has focus will bring up a type-in box with the typed letter
already in it. You can use that to type a move in siuations where it is your
turn to enter a move, type a move number to call up the position after that
move in the display, or, in Edit Position mode, type a FEN. Some rarely used
parameters can only be set through options on the command line used to invoke
XBoard.
XBoard uses a settings file, in which it can remember any changes to the
settings that are made through menus or command-line options, so they will
still apply when you restart XBoard for another session. The settings can be
saved into this file automatically when XBoard exits, or on explicit request
of the user. The default name for the settings file is
/etc/xboard/xboard.conf, but in a standard install this file is only used as a
master settings file that determines the system-wide default settings, and
defers reading and writing of user settings to a user-specific file like
~/.xboardrc in the user's home directory.
When XBoard is iconized, its graphical icon is a white knight if it is White's
turn to move, a black knight if it is Black's turn.
- New Game
- Resets XBoard and the chess engine to the beginning of a
new chess game. The `Ctrl-N' key is a keyboard equivalent. In Internet
Chess Server mode, clears the current state of XBoard, then resynchronizes
with the ICS by sending a refresh command. If you want to stop playing,
observing, or examining an ICS game, use an appropriate command from the
Action menu, not `New Game'. See Action Menu.
- New Shuffle Game
- Similar to `New Game', but allows you to specify a
particular initial position (according to a standardized numbering system)
in chess variants which use randomized opening positions (e.g. Chess960).
You can also press the `Pick Fixed' button to let XBoard generate a random
number for you. The thus selected opening position will then persistently
be chosen on any following New Game command until you use this menu to
select another. Selecting position number -1 (or pushing the `Randomize'
button) will produce a newly randomized position on any new game. Using
this menu item in variants that normally do not shuffle their opening
position does cause these variants to become shuffle variants until you
use the `New Shuffle Game' menu to explicitly switch the randomization
off, or select a new variant.
- New Variant
- Allows you to select a new chess variant in non-ICS mode.
(In ICS play, the ICS is responsible for deciding which variant will be
played, and XBoard adapts automatically.) The shifted `Alt+V' key is a
keyboard equivalent. If you play with an engine, the engine must be able
to play the selected variant, or the command will be ignored. XBoard
supports all major variants, such as xiangqi, shogi, chess, chess960,
Capablanca Chess, shatranj, crazyhouse, bughouse. But not every board size
has built-in bitmaps for un-orthodox pieces! Only sizes bulky (72) and
middling (49) have all pieces, while size petite (33) has most. These
sizes would have to be set at startup through the `size' command-line
option when you start up XBoard for such variants to be playable.
You can overrule the default board format of the selected variant, (e.g. to
play suicide chess on a 6 x 6 board), in this dialog, but normally you
would not do that, and leave them at '-1', which means 'default'.
- Load Game
- Plays a game from a record file. The `Ctrl-O' key is a
keyboard equivalent. A pop-up dialog prompts you for the file name. If the
file contains more than one game, a second pop-up dialog displays a list
of games (with information drawn from their PGN tags, if any), and you can
select the one you want. Alternatively, you can load the Nth game in the
file directly, by typing the number `N' after the file name, separated by
a space.
The game file parser will accept PGN (portable game notation), or in fact
almost any file that contains moves in algebraic notation. Notation of the
form `P@f7' is accepted for piece-drops in bughouse games; this is a
nonstandard extension to PGN. If the file includes a PGN position (FEN
tag), or an old-style XBoard position diagram bracketed by `[--' and `--]'
before the first move, the game starts from that position. Text enclosed
in parentheses, square brackets, or curly braces is assumed to be
commentary and is displayed in a pop-up window. Any other text in the file
is ignored. PGN variations (enclosed in parentheses) also are treated as
comments; however, if you rights-click them in the comment window, XBoard
will shelve the current line, and load the the selected variation, so you
can step through it. You can later revert to the previous line with the
`Revert' command. This way you can walk quite complex varation trees with
XBoard. The nonstandard PGN tag [Variant "varname"] functions
similarly to the -variant command-line option (see below), allowing games
in certain chess variants to be loaded. Note that it must appear before
any FEN tag for XBoard to recognize variant FENs appropriately. There is
also a heuristic to recognize chess variants from the Event tag, by
looking for the strings that the Internet Chess Servers put there when
saving variant ("wild") games.
- Load Position
- Sets up a position from a position file. A pop-up dialog
prompts you for the file name. The shifted `Ctrl-O' key is a keyboard
equivalent. If the file contains more than one saved position, and you
want to load the Nth one, type the number N after the file name, separated
by a space. Position files must be in FEN (Forsythe-Edwards notation), or
in the format that the Save Position command writes when oldSaveStyle is
turned on.
- Load Next Position
- Loads the next position from the last position file you
loaded. The shifted `PgDn' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Load Previous Position
- Loads the previous position from the last position file you
loaded. The shifted `PgUp' key is a keyboard equivalent. Not available if
the last position was loaded from a pipe.
- Save Game
- Appends a record of the current game to a file. The
`Ctrl-S' key is a keyboard equivalent. A pop-up dialog prompts you for the
file name. If the game did not begin with the standard starting position,
the game file includes the starting position used. Games are saved in the
PGN (portable game notation) format, unless the oldSaveStyle option is
true, in which case they are saved in an older format that is specific to
XBoard. Both formats are human-readable, and both can be read back by the
`Load Game' command. Notation of the form `P@f7' is accepted for
piece-drops in bughouse games; this is a nonstandard extension to
PGN.
- Save Position
- Appends a diagram of the current position to a file. The
shifted `Ctrl+S' key is a keyboard equivalent. A pop-up dialog prompts you
for the file name. Positions are saved in FEN (Forsythe-Edwards notation)
format unless the `oldSaveStyle' option is true, in which case they are
saved in an older, human-readable format that is specific to XBoard. Both
formats can be read back by the `Load Position' command.
- Mail Move
- Reload CMail Message
- See CMail.
- Exit
- Exits from XBoard. The `Ctrl-Q' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Copy Game
- Copies a record of the current game to an internal
clipboard in PGN format and sets the X selection to the game text. The
`Ctrl-C' key is a keyboard equivalent. The game can be pasted to another
application (such as a text editor or another copy of XBoard) using that
application's paste command. In many X applications, such as xterm and
emacs, the middle mouse button can be used for pasting; in XBoard, you
must use the Paste Game command.
- Copy Position
- Copies the current position to an internal clipboard in FEN
format and sets the X selection to the position text. The shifted `Ctrl-C'
key is a keyboard equivalent. The position can be pasted to another
application (such as a text editor or another copy of XBoard) using that
application's paste command. In many X applications, such as xterm and
emacs, the middle mouse button can be used for pasting; in XBoard, you
must use the Paste Position command.
- Copy Game List
- Copies the current game list to the clipboard, and sets the
X selection to this text. A format of comma-separated double-quoted
strings is used, including all tags, so it can be easily imported into
spread-sheet programs.
- Paste Game
- Interprets the current X selection as a game record and
loads it, as with Load Game. The `Ctrl-V' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Paste Position
- Interprets the current X selection as a FEN position and
loads it, as with Load Position. The shifted `Ctrl-V' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Edit Game
- Allows you to make moves for both Black and White, and to
change moves after backing up with the `Backward' command. The clocks do
not run. The `Ctrl-E' key is a keyboard equivalent.
In chess engine mode, the chess engine continues to check moves for legality
but does not participate in the game. You can bring the chess engine into
the game by selecting `Machine White', `Machine Black', or `Two Machines'.
In ICS mode, the moves are not sent to the ICS: `Edit Game' takes XBoard out
of ICS Client mode and lets you edit games locally. If you want to edit
games on ICS in a way that other ICS users can see, use the ICS `examine'
command or start an ICS match against yourself.
- Edit Position
- Lets you set up an arbitrary board position. The shifted
`Ctrl-E' key is a keyboard equivalent. Use mouse button 1 to drag pieces
to new squares, or to delete a piece by dragging it off the board or
dragging an empty square on top of it. To drop a new piece on a square,
press mouse button 2 or 3 over the square. This puts a white or black pawn
in the square, respectively, but you can change that to any other piece
type by dragging the mouse down before you release the button. You will
then see the piece on the originally clicked square cycle through the
available pieces (including those of opposite color), and can release the
button when you see the piece you want. To alter the side to move, you can
click the clock (the words White and Black above the board) of the side
you want to give the move to. To clear the board you can click the clock
of the side that alread has the move (which is highlighted in black). The
old behavior with a piece menu can still be configured with the aid of the
`pieceMenu' option. Selecting `Edit Position' causes XBoard to discard all
remembered moves in the current game.
In ICS mode, changes made to the position by `Edit Position' are not sent to
the ICS: `Edit Position' takes XBoard out of `ICS Client' mode and lets
you edit positions locally. If you want to edit positions on ICS in a way
that other ICS users can see, use the ICS `examine' command, or start an
ICS match against yourself. (See also the ICS Client topic above.)
- Edit Tags
- Lets you edit the PGN (portable game notation) tags for the
current game. After editing, the tags must still conform to the PGN tag
syntax:
<tag-section> ::= <tag-pair> <tag-section>
<empty>
<tag-pair> ::= [ <tag-name> <tag-value> ]
<tag-name> ::= <identifier>
<tag-value> ::= <string>
See the PGN Standard for full details. Here is an example:
[Event "Portoroz Interzonal"]
[Site "Portoroz, Yugoslavia"]
[Date "1958.08.16"]
[Round "8"]
[White "Robert J. Fischer"]
[Black "Bent Larsen"]
[Result "1-0"]
Any characters that do not match this syntax are silently ignored. Note that
the PGN standard requires all games to have at least the seven tags shown
above. Any that you omit will be filled in by XBoard with `?' (unknown
value), or `-' (inapplicable value).
- Edit Comment
- Adds or modifies a comment on the current position.
Comments are saved by `Save Game' and are displayed by `Load Game',
`Forward', and `Backward'.
- Edit Book
- Pops up a window listing the moves available in the GUI
book (specified in the `Common Engine Settings' dialog) from the currently
displayed position, together with their weights and (optionally in braces)
learn info. You can then edit this list, and the new list will be stored
back into the book when you press OK. Note that the listed percentages are
neither used, nor updated when you change the weights; they are just there
as an optical aid.
- Revert
- Annotate
- If you are examining an ICS game and Pause mode is off,
Revert issues the ICS command `revert'. In local mode, when you were
editing or analyzing a game, and the `-variations' command-line option is
switched on, you can start a new variation by holding the Shift key down
while entering a move not at the end of the game. Variations can also
become the currently displayed line by clicking a PGN variation displayed
in the Comment window. This can be applied recursively, so that you can
analyze variations on variations; each time you create a new variation by
entering an alternative move with Shift pressed, or select a new one from
the Comment window, the current variation will be shelved. `Revert' allows
you to return to the most recently shelved variation. The difference
between `Revert' and `Annotate' is that with the latter, the variation you
are now abandoning will be added as a comment (in PGN variation syntax,
i.e. between parentheses) to the original move where you deviated, for
later recalling. The `Home' key is a keyboard equivalent to `Revert'.
- Truncate Game
- Discards all remembered moves of the game beyond the
current position. Puts XBoard into `Edit Game' mode if it was not there
already. The `End' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Backward
- Steps backward through a series of remembered moves. The
`[<]' button and the `Alt+LeftArrow' key are equivalents, as is turning
the mouse wheel towards you. In addition, pressing the Control key steps
back one move, and releasing it steps forward again.
In most modes, `Backward' only lets you look back at old positions; it does
not retract moves. This is the case if you are playing against a chess
engine, playing or observing a game on an ICS, or loading a game. If you
select `Backward' in any of these situations, you will not be allowed to
make a different move. Use `Retract Move' or `Edit Game' if you want to
change past moves.
If you are examining an ICS game, the behavior of `Backward' depends on
whether XBoard is in Pause mode. If Pause mode is off, `Backward' issues
the ICS backward command, which backs up everyone's view of the game and
allows you to make a different move. If Pause mode is on, `Backward' only
backs up your local view.
- Forward
- Steps forward through a series of remembered moves (undoing
the effect of `Backward') or forward through a game file. The `[>]'
button and the `Alt+RightArrow' key are equivalents, as is turning the
mouse wheel away from you.
If you are examining an ICS game, the behavior of Forward depends on whether
XBoard is in Pause mode. If Pause mode is off, `Forward' issues the ICS
forward command, which moves everyone's view of the game forward along the
current line. If Pause mode is on, `Forward' only moves your local view
forward, and it will not go past the position that the game was in when
you paused.
- Back to Start
- Jumps backward to the first remembered position in the
game. The `[<<]' button and the `Alt+Home' key are equivalents.
In most modes, Back to Start only lets you look back at old positions; it
does not retract moves. This is the case if you are playing against a
local chess engine, playing or observing a game on a chess server, or
loading a game. If you select `Back to Start' in any of these situations,
you will not be allowed to make different moves. Use `Retract Move' or
`Edit Game' if you want to change past moves; or use Reset to start a new
game.
If you are examining an ICS game, the behavior of @samp{Back to Start}
depends on whether XBoard is in Pause mode. If Pause mode is off, `Back to
Start' issues the ICS `backward 999999' command, which backs up everyone's
view of the game to the start and allows you to make different moves. If
Pause mode is on, @samp{Back to Start} only backs up your local view.
- Forward to End
- Jumps forward to the last remembered position in the game.
The `[>>]' button and the `Alt+End' key are equivalents.
If you are examining an ICS game, the behavior of @samp{Forward to End}
depends on whether XBoard is in Pause mode. If Pause mode is off, `Forward
to End' issues the ICS `forward 999999' command, which moves everyone's
view of the game forward to the end of the current line. If Pause mode is
on, `Forward to End' only moves your local view forward, and it will not
go past the position that the game was in when you paused.
- Flip View
- Inverts your view of the chess board for the duration of
the current game. Starting a new game returns the board to normal. The
`F2' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Show Engine Output
- Shows or hides a window in which the thinking output of any
loaded engines is displayed. The shifted `Alt+O' key is a keyboard
equivalent. XBoard will display lines of thinking output of the same depth
ordered by score, (highest score on top), rather than in the order the
engine produced them. Usually this amounts to the same, as a normal engine
search will only find new PV (and emit it as thinking output) when it
searches a move with a higher score than the previous variation. But when
the engine is in multi-variation mode this needs not always be true, and
it is more convenient for someone analyzing games to see the moves sorted
by score. The order in which the engine found them is only of interest to
the engine author, and can still be deduced from the time or node count
printed with the line.
- Show Move History
- Shows or hides a list of moves of the current game. The
shifted `Alt+H' key is a keyboard equivalent. This list allows you to move
the display to any earlier position in the game by clicking on the
corresponding move.
- Show Evaluation Graph
- Shows or hides a window which displays a graph of how the
engine score(s) evolved as a function of the move number. The shifted
`Alt+E' key is a keyboard equivalent. Clicking on the graph will bring the
corresponding position in the board display.
- Show Game List
- Shows or hides the list of games generated by the last
`Load Game' command. The shifted `Alt+G' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Tags
- Pops up a window which shows the PGN (portable game
notation) tags for the current game. For now this is a duplicate of the
`Edit Tags' item in the `Edit' menu.
- Comments
- Pops up a window which shows any comments to or variations
on the current move. For now this is a duplicate of the `Edit Comment'
item in the `Edit' menu.
- ICS Input Box
- If this option is set in ICS mode, XBoard creates an extra
window that you can use for typing in ICS commands. The input box is
especially useful if you want to type in something long or do some editing
on your input, because output from ICS doesn't get mixed in with your
typing as it would in the main terminal window.
- Board
- Summons a dialog where you can customaize the look of the
chess board. Here you can specify the directory from which piece images
should be taken, when you don't want to use the built-in piece images (see
`pixmapDirectory' and `bitmapDirectory' options), an external pixmap to be
used for the board squares (`liteBackTextureFile' and
`darkBackTextureFile' options), and square and piece colors for the
built-ins.
- Game List Tags
- a duplicate of the Game List dialog in the Options
menu.
- Machine White
- Tells the chess engine to play White. The `Ctrl-W' key is a
keyboard equivalent.
- Machine Black
- Tells the chess engine to play Black. The `Ctrl-B' key is a
keyboard equivalent.
- Two Machines
- Plays a game between two chess engines. The `Ctrl-T' key is
a keyboard equivalent.
- Analysis Mode
- XBoard tells the chess engine to start analyzing the
current game/position and shows you the analysis as you move pieces
around. The `Ctrl-A' key is a keyboard equivalent. Note: Some chess
engines do not support Analysis mode.
To set up a position to analyze, you do the following:
1. Select Edit Position from the Mode Menu
2. Set up the position. Use the middle and right buttons to bring up the
white and black piece menus.
3. When you are finished, click on either the Black or White clock to tell
XBoard which side moves first.
4. Select Analysis Mode from the Mode Menu to start the analysis.
You can now play legal moves to create follow-up positions for the engine to
analyze, while the moves will be remembered as a stored game, and then
step backward through this game to take the moves back. Note that you can
also click on the clocks to set the opposite side to move (adding a
so-called `null move' to the game).
The analysis function can also be used when observing games on an ICS with
an engine loaded (zippy mode); the engine then will analyse the positions
as they occur in the observed game.
- Analyze Game
- This option subjects the currently loaded game to automatic
analysis by the loaded engine. The `Ctrl-G' key is a keyboard equivalent.
XBoard will start auto-playing the game from the currently displayed
position, while the engine is analyzing the current position. The game
will be annotated with the results of these analyses. In particlar, the
score and depth will be added as a comment, and the PV will be added as a
variation. The time the engine spends on analyzing each move can be
controlled through the command-line option `-timeDelay'. Note: Some chess
engines do not support Analysis mode.
- Edit Game
- Duplicate of the item in the Edit menu. Note that `Edit
Game' is the idle mode of XBoard, and can be used to get you out of other
modes. E.g. to stop analyzing, stop a game between two engines or stop
editing a position.
- Edit Position
- Duplicate of the item in the Edit menu.
- Training
- Training mode lets you interactively guess the moves of a
game for one of the players. You guess the next move of the game by
playing the move on the board. If the move played matches the next move of
the game, the move is accepted and the opponent's response is auto-played.
If the move played is incorrect, an error message is displayed. You can
select this mode only while loading a game (that is, after selecting `Load
Game' from the File menu). While XBoard is in `Training' mode, the
navigation buttons are disabled.
- ICS Client
- This is the normal mode when XBoard is connected to a chess
server. If you have moved into Edit Game or Edit Position mode, you can
select this option to get out.
To use xboard in ICS mode, run it in the foreground with the -ics option,
and use the terminal you started it from to type commands and receive text
responses from the chess server. See Chess Servers below for more
information.
XBoard activates some special position/game editing features when you use
the `examine' or `bsetup' commands on ICS and you have `ICS Client'
selected on the Mode menu. First, you can issue the ICS position-editing
commands with the mouse. Move pieces by dragging with mouse button 1. To
drop a new piece on a square, press mouse button 2 or 3 over the square.
This brings up a menu of white pieces (button 2) or black pieces (button
3). Additional menu choices let you empty the square or clear the board.
Click on the White or Black clock to set the side to play. You cannot set
the side to play or drag pieces to arbitrary squares while examining on
ICC, but you can do so in `bsetup' mode on FICS. In addition, the menu
commands `Forward', `Backward', `Pause', and `Stop Examining' have special
functions in this mode; see below.
- Machine Match
- Starts a match between two chess programs, with a number of
games and other parameters set through the `Match Options' menu dialog.
When a match is already running, selecting this item will make XBoard drop
out of match mode after the current game finishes.
- Pause
- Pauses updates to the board, and if you are playing against
a chess engine, also pauses your clock. To continue, select `Pause' again,
and the display will automatically update to the latest position. The `P'
button and keyboard `Pause' key are equivalents.
If you select Pause when you are playing against a chess engine and it is
not your move, the chess engine's clock will continue to run and it will
eventually make a move, at which point both clocks will stop. Since board
updates are paused, however, you will not see the move until you exit from
Pause mode (or select Forward). This behavior is meant to simulate
adjournment with a sealed move.
If you select Pause while you are observing or examining a game on a chess
server, you can step backward and forward in the current history of the
examined game without affecting the other observers and examiners, and
without having your display jump forward to the latest position each time
a move is made. Select Pause again to reconnect yourself to the current
state of the game on ICS.
If you select `Pause' while you are loading a game, the game stops loading.
You can load more moves manually by selecting `Forward', or resume
automatic loading by selecting `Pause' again.
- Accept
- Accepts a pending match offer. The `F3' key is a keyboard
equivalent. If there is more than one offer pending, you will have to type
in a more specific command instead of using this menu choice.
- Decline
- Declines a pending offer (match, draw, adjourn, etc.). The
`F4' key is a keyboard equivalent. If there is more than one offer
pending, you will have to type in a more specific command instead of using
this menu choice.
- Call Flag
- Calls your opponent's flag, claiming a win on time, or
claiming a draw if you are both out of time. The `F5' key is a keyboard
equivalent. You can also call your opponent's flag by clicking on his
clock.
- Draw
- Offers a draw to your opponent, accepts a pending draw
offer from your opponent, or claims a draw by repetition or the 50-move
rule, as appropriate. The `F6' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Adjourn
- Asks your opponent to agree to adjourning the current game,
or agrees to a pending adjournment offer from your opponent. The `F7' key
is a keyboard equivalent.
- Abort
- Asks your opponent to agree to aborting the current game,
or agrees to a pending abort offer from your opponent. The `F8' key is a
keyboard equivalent. An aborted game ends immediately without affecting
either player's rating.
- Resign
- Resigns the game to your opponent. The `F9' key is a
keyboard equivalent.
- Stop Observing
- Ends your participation in observing a game, by issuing the
ICS observe command with no arguments. ICS mode only. The `F10' key is a
keyboard equivalent.
- Stop Examining
- Ends your participation in examining a game, by issuing the
ICS unexamine command. ICS mode only. The `F11' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Upload to Examine
- Create an examined game of the proper variant on the ICS,
and send the game there that is currenty loaded in XBoard (e.g. through
pasting or loading from file). You must be connected to an ICS for this to
work.
- Adjudicate to White
- Adjudicate to Black
- Adjudicate Draw
- Terminate an ongoing game in Two-Machines mode (including
match mode), with as result a win for white, for black, or a draw,
respectively. The PGN file of the game will accompany the result string by
the comment "user adjudication".
- Load Engine
- Pops up a dialog where you can select or specify an engine
to be loaded. You will always have to indicate whether you want to load
the engine as first or second engine, through the ‘Load menitioned
engine as’ drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog. You can even
replace engines during a game, without disturbing that game. (Beware that
after loading an engine, XBoard will always be in Edit Game mode, so you
will have to tell the new engine what to do before it does anything!) When
you select an already installed engine from the ‘Select Engine from
List’ drop-down list, all other fields of the dialog will be
ignored. In other cases, you have to specify the engine executable,
possible arguments on the engine command line (if the engine docs say the
engine needs any), and the directory where the engine should look for its
files (if this cannot be deduced automatically from the specification of
the engine executable). You will also have to specify (with the aid of
checkboxes) if the engine is UCI. If ‘Add this engine to the
list’ is ticked (which it is by default), the engine will be added
to the list of installed engines in your settings file, (provided you save
the settings!), so that next time you can select it from the drop-down
list. You can also specify a ‘nickname’, under which the
engine will then appear in that drop-down list, and even choose to use
that nickname for it in PGN files for engine-engine games. The info you
supply with the checkboxes whether the engine should use GUI book, or (for
variant engines) automatically switch to the current variant when loaded,
will also be included in the list. For obsolete XBoard engines, which
would normally take a long delay to load because XBoard is waiting for a
response they will not give, you can tick ‘WB protocol v1’ to
speed up the loading process.
- Engine #N Settings
- Pop up a menu dialog to alter the settings specific to the
applicable engine. (The second engine is only accessible once it has been
used in Two-Machines mode.) For each parameter the engine allows to be
set, a control element will appear in this dialog that can be used to
alter the value. Depending on the type of parameter (text string, number,
multiple choice, on/off switch, instantaneous signal) the appropriate
control will appear, with a description next to it. XBoard has no idea
what these values mean; it just passes them on to the engine. How this
dialog looks is completely determined by the engine, and XBoard just
passes it on to the user. Many engines do not have any parameters that can
be set by the user, and in that case the dialog will be empty (except for
the OK and cancel buttons). UCI engines usually have many parameters. (But
these are only visible with a sufficiently modern version of the Polyglot
adapter needed to run UCI engines, e.g. Polyglot 1.4.55b.) For native
XBoard engines this is less common.
- Hint
- Displays a move hint from the chess engine.
- Book
- Displays a list of possible moves from the chess engine's
opening book. The exact format depends on what chess engine you are using.
With GNU Chess 4, the first column gives moves, the second column gives
one possible response for each move, and the third column shows the number
of lines in the book that include the move from the first column. If you
select this option and nothing happens, the chess engine is out of its
book or does not support this feature.
- Move Now
- Forces the chess engine to move immediately. Chess engine
mode only. The `Ctrl-M' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Retract Move
- Retracts your last move. In chess engine mode, you can do
this only after the chess engine has replied to your move; if the chess
engine is still thinking, use `Move Now' first. In ICS mode, `Retract
Move' issues the command `takeback 1' or `takeback 2' depending on whether
it is your opponent's move or yours. The `Ctrl-X' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Recently Used Engines
- At the bottom of the engine menu there can be a list of
names of engines that you recently loaded through the Load Engine menu
dialog in previous sessions. Clicking on such a name will load that engine
as first engine, so you won't have to search for it in your list of
installed engines, if that is very long. The maximum number of displayed
engine names is set by the `recentEngines'command-line option.
- General Options
- The following items to set option values appear in the
dialog summoned by the general Options menu item.
- Absolute Analysis Scores
- Controls if scores on the Engine Output window during
analysis will be printed from the white or the side-to-move
point-of-view.
- Almost Always Queen
- If this option is on, 7th-rank pawns automatically change
into Queens when you pick them up, and when you drag them to the promotion
square and release them there, they will promote to that. But when you
drag such a pawn backwards first, its identity will start to cycle through
the other available pieces. This will continue until you start to move it
forward; at which point the identity of the piece will be fixed, so that
you can safely put it down on the promotion square. If this option is off,
what happens depends on the option `alwaysPromoteToQueen', which would
force promotion to Queen when true. Otherwise XBoard would bring up a
dialog box whenever you move a pawn to the last rank, asking what piece
you want to promote to.
- Animate Dragging
- If Animate Dragging is on, while you are dragging a piece
with the mouse, an image of the piece follows the mouse cursor. If Animate
Dragging is off, there is no visual feedback while you are dragging a
piece, but if Animate Moving is on, the move will be animated when it is
complete.
- Animate Moving
- If Animate Moving is on, all piece moves are animated. An
image of the piece is shown moving from the old square to the new square
when the move is completed (unless the move was already animated by
Animate Dragging). If Animate Moving is off, a moved piece instantly
disappears from its old square and reappears on its new square when the
move is complete. The shifted `Ctrl-A' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Auto Flag
- If this option is on and one player runs out of time before
the other, XBoard will automatically call his flag, claiming a win on
time. The shifted `Ctrl-F' key is a keyboard equivalent. In ICS mode, Auto
Flag will only call your opponent's flag, not yours, and the ICS may award
you a draw instead of a win if you have insufficient mating material. In
local chess engine mode, XBoard may call either player's flag and will not
take material into account (?).
- Auto Flip View
- If the Auto Flip View option is on when you start a game,
the board will be automatically oriented so that your pawns move from the
bottom of the window towards the top.
If you are playing a game on an ICS, the board is always oriented at the
start of the game so that your pawns move from the bottom of the window
towards the top. Otherwise, the starting orientation is determined by the
`flipView' command line option; if it is false (the default), White's
pawns move from bottom to top at the start of each game; if it is true,
Black's pawns move from bottom to top. See User interface
options.
- Blindfold
- If this option is on, XBoard displays the board as usual
but does not display pieces or move highlights. You can still move in the
usual way (with the mouse or by typing moves in ICS mode), even though the
pieces are invisible.
- Drop Menu
- Controls if right-clicking the board in crazyhouse /
bughouse will pop up a menu to drop a piece on the clicked square (old,
deprecated behavior) or allow you to step through an engine PV (new,
recommended behavior).
- Hide Thinking
- If this option is off, the chess engine's notion of the
score and best line of play from the current position is displayed as it
is thinking. The score indicates how many pawns ahead (or if negative,
behind) the chess engine thinks it is. In matches between two machines,
the score is prefixed by `W' or `B' to indicate whether it is showing
White's thinking or Black's, and only the thinking of the engine that is
on move is shown. The shifted `Ctrl-H' key is a keyboard equivalent.
- Highlight Last Move
- If Highlight Last Move is on, after a move is made, the
starting and ending squares remain highlighted. In addition, after you use
Backward or Back to Start, the starting and ending squares of the last
move to be unmade are highlighted.
- Highlight with Arrow
- Causes the highlighting described in Highlight Last Move to
be done by drawing an arrow between the highlighted squares, so that it is
visible even when the width of the grid lines is set to zero.
- Move Sound
- Enables the sounding of an audible signal when the computer
performs a move. For the selection of the sound, see `Sound Options'. If
you turn on this option when using XBoard with the Internet Chess Server,
you will probably want to give the `set bell 0' command to the ICS, since
otherwise the ICS will ring the terminal bell after every move (not just
yours). (The `.icsrc' file is a good place for this; see ICS
options.)
- One-Click Moving
- If this option is on, XBoard does not wait for you to click
both the from- and the to-square, or drag the piece, but performs a move
as soon as it is uniqely specified. This applies to clicking an own piece
that only has a single legal move, clicking an empty square or opponent
piece where only one of your pieces can move (or capture) to. Furthermore,
a double-click on a piece that can only make a single capture will cause
that capture to be made. Promoting a Pawn by clicking its to-square will
suppress the promotion popup or other methods for selecting an
under-promotion, and make it promote to Queen.
- Periodic Updates
- If this option is off (or if you are using a chess engine
that does not support periodic updates), the analysis window will only be
updated when the analysis changes. If this option is on, the Analysis
Window will be updated every two seconds.
- Ponder Next Move
- If this option is off, the chess engine will think only
when it is on move. If the option is on, the engine will also think while
waiting for you to make your move. The shifted `Ctrl-P' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Popup Exit Message
- If this option is on, when XBoard wants to display a
message just before exiting, it brings up a modal dialog box and waits for
you to click OK before exiting. If the option is off, XBoard prints the
message to standard error (the terminal) and exits immediately.
- Popup Move Errors
- If this option is off, when you make an error in moving
(such as attempting an illegal move or moving the wrong color piece), the
error message is displayed in the message area. If the option is on, move
errors are displayed in small pop-up windows like other errors. You can
dismiss an error pop-up either by clicking its OK button or by clicking
anywhere on the board, including down-clicking to start a move.
- Scores in Move List
- If this option is on, XBoard will display the depth and
score of engine moves in the Move List, in the format of a PGN
comment.
- Show Coords
- If this option is on, XBoard displays algebraic coordinates
along the board's left and bottom edges.
- Show Target Squares
- If this option is on, all squares a piece that is 'picked
up' with the mouse can legally move to are highighted with a fat colored
dot in the highlightColor (non-captures) or premoveHighlightColor
(captures). Legality testing must be on for XBoard to know how the piece
moves.
- Test Legality
- If this option is on, XBoard tests whether the moves you
try to make with the mouse are legal and refuses to let you make an
illegal move. The shifted `Ctrl-L' key is a keyboard equivalent. Moves
loaded from a file with `Load Game' are also checked. If the option is
off, all moves are accepted, but if a local chess engine or the ICS is
active, they will still reject illegal moves. Turning off this option is
useful if you are playing a chess variant with rules that XBoard does not
understand. (Bughouse, suicide, and wild variants where the king may
castle after starting on the d file are generally supported with Test
Legality on.)
- Flash Moves
- Flash Rate
- If this option is non-zero, whenever a move is completed,
the moved piece flashes the specified number of times. The flash-rate
setting determines how rapidly this flashing occurs.
- Animation Speed
- Determines the duration (in msec) of an animation step,
when `Animate Moving' is swiched on.
- Zoom factor in Evaluation Graph
- Sets the valueof the `evalZoom' option, indicating the
factor by which the score interval (-1,1) should be blown up on the
vertical axis of the Evaluation Graph.
- Time Control
- Pops up a sub-menu where you can set the time-control
parameters interactively. Allows you to select classical or incremental
time controls, set the moves per session, session duration, and time
increment. Also allows specification of time-odds factors for one or both
engines. If an engine is given a time-odds factor N, all time quota it
gets, be it at the beginning of a session or through the time increment or
fixed time per move, will be divided by N. The shifted `Alt+T' key is a
keyboard equivalent.
- Common Engine
- Pops up a sub-menu where you can set some engine parameters
common to most engines, such as hash-table size, tablebase cache size,
maximum number of processors that SMP engines can use, and where to find
the Polyglot adapter needed to run UCI engines under XBoard. The feature
that allows setting of these parameters on engines is new since XBoard
4.3.15, so not many XBoard/WinBoard engines respond to it yet, but UCI
engines should.
It is also possible to specify a GUI opening book here, i.e. an opening book
that XBoard consults for any position a playing engine gets in. It then
forces the engine to play the book move, rather than to think up its own,
if that position is found in the book. The book can switched on and off
independently for either engine. The way book moves are chosen can be
influenced through the settings of book depth and variety. After both
sides have played more moves than the specified depth, the book will no
longer be consulted. When the variety is set to 50, moves will be played
with the probability specified in the book. When set to 0, only the
move(s) with the highest probability will be played. When set to 100, all
listed moves will be played with equal pobability. Other settings
interpolate between that. The shifted `Alt+U' key is a keyboard
equivalent.
- Adjudications
- Pops up a sub-menu where you can enable or disable various
adjudications that XBoard can perform in engine-engine games. The shifted
`Alt+J' key is a keyboard equivalent. You can instruct XBoard to detect
and terminate the game on checkmate or stalemate, even if the engines
would not do so, to verify engine result claims (forfeiting engines that
make false claims), rather than naively following the engine, to declare
draw on positions which can never be won for lack of mating material,
(e.g. KBK), or which are impossible to win unless the opponent seeks its
own demise (e.g. KBKN). For these adjudications to work, `Test Legality'
should be switched on. It is also possible to instruct XBoard to enforce a
50-move or 3-fold-repeat rule and automatically declare draw (after a
user-adjustable number of moves or repeats) even if the engines are
prepared to go on. It is also possible to have XBoard declare draw on
games that seem to drag on forever, or adjudicate a loss if both engines
agree (for 3 consecutive moves) that one of them is behind more than a
user-adjustable score threshold. For the latter adjudication to work,
XBoard should be able to properly understand the engine's scores. To
facilitate the latter, you can inform xboard here if the engines report
scores from the viewpoint of white, or from that of their own color.
- ICS Options
- The following options occur in a dialog summoned by the ICS
Options menu item.
- Auto Kibitz
- Setting this option when playing with or aginst a chess
program on an ICS will cause the last line of thinking output of the
engine before its move to be sent to the ICS in a kibitz command. In
addition, any kibitz message received through the ICS from an opponent
chess program will be diverted to the engine-output window, (and
suppressed in the console), where you can play through its PV by
right-clicking it.
- Auto Comment
- If this option is on, any remarks made on ICS while you are
observing or playing a game are recorded as a comment on the current move.
This includes remarks made with the ICS commands `say', `tell', `whisper',
and `kibitz'. Limitation: remarks that you type yourself are not
recognized; XBoard scans only the output from ICS, not the input you type
to it.
- Auto Observe
- If this option is on and you add a player to your `gnotify'
list on ICS, XBoard will automatically observe all of that player's games,
unless you are doing something else (such as observing or playing a game
of your own) when one starts. The games are displayed from the point of
view of the player on your gnotify list; that is, his pawns move from the
bottom of the window towards the top. Exceptions: If both players in a
game are on your gnotify list, if your ICS `highlight' variable is set to
0, or if the ICS you are using does not properly support observing from
Black's point of view, you will see the game from White's point of
view.
- Auto Raise Board
- If this option is on, whenever a new game begins, the
chessboard window is deiconized (if necessary) and raised to the top of
the stack of windows.
- Auto Save
- If this option is true, at the end of every game XBoard
prompts you for a file name and appends a record of the game to the file
you specify. Disabled if the `saveGameFile' command-line option is set, as
in that case all games are saved to the specified file. See Load and
Save options.
- Background Observe
- Setting this option will make XBoard suppress display of
any boards from observed games while you are playing. In stead the last
such board will be remembered, and shown to you when you right-click the
board. This allows you to peek at your bughouse partner's game when you
want, without disturbing your own game too much.
- Dual Board
- Setting this option in combination with `Background
Observe' will display boards of observed games while you are playing on a
second board next to that of your own game.
- Get Move List
- If this option is on, whenever XBoard receives the first
board of a new ICS game (or a different game from the one it is currently
displaying), it retrieves the list of past moves from the ICS. You can
then review the moves with the `Forward' and `Backward' commands or save
them with `Save Game'. You might want to turn off this option if you are
observing several blitz games at once, to keep from wasting time and
network bandwidth fetching the move lists over and over. When you turn
this option on from the menu, XBoard immediately fetches the move list of
the current game (if any).
- Quiet Play
- If this option is on, XBoard will automatically issue an
ICS `set shout 0' command whenever you start a game and a `set shout 1'
command whenever you finish one. Thus, you will not be distracted by
shouts from other ICS users while playing.
- Seek Graph
- Setting this option will cause XBoard to display an graph
of currently active seek ads when you left-click the board while idle and
logged on to an ICS.
- Auto-Refresh Seek Graph
- In combination with the `Seek Graph' option this will cause
automatic update of the seek graph while it is up. This only works on FICS
and ICC, and requires a lot of bandwidth on a busy server.
- Premove
- Premove White
- Premove Black
- First White Move
- First Black Move
- If this option is on while playing a game on an ICS, you
can register your next planned move before it is your turn. Move the piece
with the mouse in the ordinary way, and the starting and ending squares
will be highlighted with a special color (red by default). When it is your
turn, if your registered move is legal, XBoard will send it to ICS
immediately; if not, it will be ignored and you can make a different move.
If you change your mind about your premove, either make a different move,
or double-click on any piece to cancel the move entirely.
You can also enter premoves for the first white and black moves of the
game.
- ICS Alarm
- ICS Alarm Time
- When this option is on, an alarm sound is played when your
clock counts down to the icsAlarmTime in an ICS game. (By default, the
time is 5 seconds, but you can pecify other values with the Alarm Time
spin control.) For games with time controls that include an increment, the
alarm will sound each time the clock counts down to the icsAlarmTime. By
default, the alarm sound is the terminal bell, but on some systems you can
change it to a sound file using the soundIcsAlarm option; see below.
- Colorize Messages
- Ticking this options causes various types of ICS messages
do be displayed with different foreground or background colors in the
console. The colors can be individually selected for each type, through
the accompanying text edits.
- Match Options
- Summons a dialog where you can set options important for
playing automatic matches between two chess programs (e.g. by using the
`Machine Match' menu item in the `Mode' menu).
- Tournament file
- To run a tournament, XBoard needs a file to record its
progress, so it can resume the tourney when it is interrupted. When you
want to conduct anything more complex than a simple two-player match with
the currently loaded engines, (i.e. when you select a list of
participants), you must not leave this field blank. When you enter the
name of an existing tournament file, XBoard will ignore all other input
specified in the dialog, and will take them from that tournament file.
This resumes an interrupted tournament, or adds another XBoard agent
playing games for it to those that are already doing so. Specifying a
not-yet-existing file will cause XBoard to create it, according to the
tournament parameters specified in the rest of the dialog, before it
starts the tournament on ‘OK’. Provided that you specify
participants; without participants no tournament file will be made, but
other entered values (e.g. for the file with opening positions) will take
effect. Default: configured by the `defaultTourneyName' option.
- Sync after round
- Sync after cycle
- The sync options, when on, will cause WinBoard to refrain
from starting games of the next round or cycle before all games of the
previous round or cycle are finished. This guarantees correct ordering in
the games file, even when multiple XBoard instances are concurrently
playing games for the same tourney. Default: sync after cycle, but not
after round.
- Select Engine
- Tourney participants
- With the Select Engine drop-down list you can pick an
engine from your list of installed engines in the settings file, to be
added to the tournament. The engines selected so far will be listed in the
‘Tourney participants’ memo. The latter is a normal text edit,
so you can use normal text-editing functions to delete engines you
selected by accident, or change their order. Do not type names yourself
there, because names that do not exactly match one of the names from the
drop-down list will lead to undefined behavior.
- Tourney type
- Here you can specify the type of tournament you want.
XBoard’s intrinsic tournament manager support round-robins (type =
0), where each participant plays every other participant, and
(multi-)gauntlets, where one (or a few) so-called ‘gauntlet
engines’ play an independent set of opponents. In the latter case,
you specify the number of gauntlet engines. E.g. if you specified 10
engines, and tourney type = 2, the first 2 engines each play the remaining
8. A value of -1 instructs XBoard to play Swiss; for this to work an
external pairing engine must be specified through the `pairingEngine'
option. Each Swiss round will be considered a tourney cycle in that case.
Default:0
- Number of tourney cycles
- Default number of Games
- You can specify tourneys where every two opponents play
each other multiple times. Such multiple games can be played in a row, as
specified by the ‘number of games per pairing’, or by
repeating the entire tournament schedule a number of times (specified by
the ‘number of tourney cycles’). The total number of times two
engine meet will be the product of these two. Default is 1 cycle; the
number of games per pairing is the same as the default number of match
games, stored in your settings file through the `defaultMatchGames'
option.
- Save Tourney Games
- File where the tournament games are saved (duplicate of the
item in the `Save Game Options').
- Game File with Opening Lines
- File with Start Positions
- Game Number
- Position Number
- Rewind Index after
- These items optionally specify the file with move sequences
or board positions the tourney games should start from. The corresponding
numbers specify the number of the game or position in the file. Here a
value -1 means automatic stepping through all games on the file, -2
automatic stepping every two games. The Rewind-Index parameter causes a
stepping index to reset to one after reaching a specified value. A setting
of -2 for the game number will also be effective in a tournament without
specifying a game file, but playing from the GUI book instead. In this
case the first (odd) games will randomly select from the book, but the
second (even) games will select the same moves from the book as the
previous game. (Note this leads to the same opening only if both engines
use the GUI book!) Default: No game or position file will be used. The
default index if such a file is used is 1.
- Disable own engine bools be default
- Setting this option reverses the default situation for use
of the GUI opening book in tournaments from what it normally is, namely
not using it. So unless the engine is installed with an option to
explicitly specify it should not use the GUI book (i.e.
`-firstHasOwnBookUCI true'), it will be made to use the GUI book.
- Replace Engine
- Upgrade Engine
- With these two buttons you can alter the participants of an
already running tournament. After opening the Match Options dialog on an
XBoard that is playing for the tourney, you will see all the tourney
parameters in the dialog fields. You can then replace the name of one
engine by that of another by editing the `participants' field. (But
preserve the order of the others!) Pressing the button after that will
cause the substitution. With the `Upgrade Engine' button the substitution
will only affect future games. With `Replace Engine' all games the
substituted engine has already played will be invalidated, and they will
be replayed with the substitute engine. In this latter case the engine
must not be playing when you do this, but otherwise there is no need to
pause the tournament play for making a substitution.
- Clone Tourney
- Pressing this button after you have specified an existing
tournament file will copy the contents of the latter to the dialog, and
then puts the originally proposed name for the tourney file back. You can
then run a tourney with the same parameters (possibly after changing the
proposed name of the tourney file for the new tourney) by pressing 'OK'.
- Load Game Options
- Summons a dialog where you can set the `autoDisplayComment'
and `autoDisplayTags' options, (which control popups when viewing loaded
games), and specify the rate at which loaded games are auto-played, in
seconds per move (which can be a fractional number, like 1.6). You can
also set search criteria for determining which games will be displayed in
the Game List for a multi-game file, and thus be eligible for
loading:
- Elo of strongest player
- Elo of weakest player
- year
- These numeric fields set thresholds (lower limits) on the
Elo rating of the mentioned player, or the date the game was played.
Defaults: 0
- Search mode
- This setting determines which positions in a game will be
considered a match to the position currently displayed in the board window
when you press the `find position' button in the Game List. You can search
for an exact match, a position that has all shown material in the same
place, but might contain additional material, a position that has all
Pawns in the same place, but can have the shown material anywhere, a
position that can have all shown material anywhere, or a position that has
material between certain limits anywhere. For the latter you have to place
the material that must be present in the four lowest ranks of the board,
and optional additional material in the four highest ranks of the board.
You can request the optional material to be balanced.
- number of consecutive positions
- When you are searching by material, rather than for an
exact match, this parameter indicates forhowmany consecutive game
positions the same amount of material must be on the board before it is
considered a match.
- Also match reversed colors
- Also match left-right flipped position
- When looking for matching positions rather than by
material, these settings determine whether mirror images (in case of a
vertical flip in combination with color reversal) will be also considered
a match. The left-right flipping is only useful after all castling rights
have expired (or in Xiangqi).
- Save Game Options
- Summons a dialog where you can specify the files on which
XBoard should automtically save any played or entered games, (the
`saveGameFile' option), or the final position of such games (the
`savePositionfile' option). You can also select 'auto-save' without a file
name, in which case XBoard will prompt the user for a file name after each
game. You can also set the default value for the PGN Event tag that will
be used for each new game you start. Various options for the format of the
game can be specified as well, such as whether scores and depths of engine
games should be saved as comments, and if a tag with info about the score
with which the engine came out of book should be included. For Chess,
always set the format to PGN, rather than "old save stye"!
- Game List
- Pops up a dialog where you can select the PGN tags that
should appear on the lines in the game list, and their order.
- Sound Options
- Summons a dialog where you can specify the sounds that
should accompany various events that can occur XBoard. Most events are
only relevant to ICS play, but the move sound is an important exception.
For each event listed in the dialog, you can select a standard sound from
a menu. You can also select a user-supplied sound file, by typing its name
into the designated text-edit field first, and then selecting "Above
WAV File" from the menu for the event. A dummy event has been
provided for trying out the sounds with the "play" button next
to it. The directory with standard sounds, and the external program for
playing the sounds can be specified too, but normally you would not touch
these once XBoard is properly installed. When a move sound other than
'None' is selected, XBoard alerts you by playing that sound after each of
your opponent's moves (or after every move if you are observing a game on
the Internet Chess Server). The sound is not played after moves you make
or moves read from a saved game file.
- Save Settings Now
- Selecting this menu item causes the current XBoard settings
to be written to the settings file, so they will also apply in future
sessions. Note that some settings are 'volatile', and are not saved,
because XBoard considers it too unlikely that you want those to apply next
time. In particular this applies to the Chess program names, and all
options giving information on those Chess programs (such as their
directory, if they have their own opening book, if they are UCI or native
XBoard), or the variant you are playing. Such options would still be
understood when they appear in the settings file in case they were put
there with the aid of a text editor, but they would disappear from the
file as soon as you save the settings.
Note that XBoard no longer pays attention to options values specified in the
.Xresources file. (Specifying key bindings there will still work, though.)
To alter the default of volatile options, you can use the following
method: Rename your ~/.xboardrc settings file (to ~/.yboardrc, say), and
create a new file ~/.xboardrc, which only contains the options
-settingsFile ~/.yboardrc
-saveSettingsFile ~/.yboardrc
This will cause your settings to be saved on ~/.yboardrc in the future, so
that ~/.xboardrc is no longer overwritten. You can then safely specify
volatile options in ~/.xboardrc, either before or after the settingsFile
options. Note that when you specify persistent options after the
settingsFile options in ~/.xboardrc, you will essentially turn them into
volatile options with the specified value as default, because that value
will overrule the value loaded from the settings file (being read
later).
- Save Settings on Exit
- Setting this option has no immediate effect, but causes the
settings to be saved when you quit XBoard. What happens then is otherwise
identical to what happens when you use select "Save Settings
Now", see there.
- Info XBoard
- Displays the XBoard documentation in info format. For this
feature to work, you must have the GNU info program installed on your
system, and the file `xboard.info' must either be present in the current
working directory, or have been installed by the `make install' command
when you built XBoard.
- Man XBoard
- Displays the XBoard documentation in man page format. The
`F1' key is a keyboard equivalent. For this feature to work, the file
`xboard.6' must have been installed by the `make install' command when you
built XBoard, and the directory it was placed in must be on the search
path for your system's `man' command.
- About XBoard
- Shows the current XBoard version number.
Other Shortcut Keys¶
- Show Last Move
- By hitting `Enter' the last move will be re-animated.
- Load Next Game
- Loads the next game from the last game record file you
loaded. The `Alt+PgDn' key triggers this action.
- Load Previous Game
- Loads the previous game from the last game record file you
loaded. The `Alt+PgUp' key triggers this action. Not available if the last
game was loaded from a pipe.
- Reload Same Game
- Reloads the last game you loaded. Not available if the last
game was loaded from a pipe. Currently no keystroke is assigned to this
ReloadGameProc.
- Reload Same Position
- Reloads the last position you loaded. Not available if the
last position was loaded from a pipe. Currently no keystroke is assigned
to this ReloadPositionProc.
You can add or remove shortcut keys using the X resources `form.translations'.
Here is an example of what would go in your `.Xresources' file:
XBoard*form.translations: \
Shift<Key>?: AboutGameProc() \n\
<Key>y: AcceptProc() \n\
<Key>n: DeclineProc() \n\
<Key>i: NothingProc()
Binding a key to `NothingProc' makes it do nothing, thus removing it as a
shortcut key. The XBoard commands that can be bound to keys are:
AbortProc, AboutGameProc, AboutProc, AcceptProc, AdjournProc,
AlwaysQueenProc, AnalysisModeProc, AnalyzeFileProc,
AnimateDraggingProc, AnimateMovingProc, AutobsProc, AutoflagProc,
AutoflipProc, AutoraiseProc, AutosaveProc, BackwardProc,
BlindfoldProc, BookProc, CallFlagProc, CopyGameProc, CopyPositionProc,
DebugProc, DeclineProc, DrawProc, EditCommentProc, EditGameProc,
EditPositionProc, EditTagsProc, EnterKeyProc, FlashMovesProc,
FlipViewProc, ForwardProc, GetMoveListProc, HighlightLastMoveProc,
HintProc, IcsAlarmProc, IcsClientProc, IcsInputBoxProc,
InfoProc, LoadGameProc, LoadNextGameProc, LoadNextPositionProc,
LoadPositionProc, LoadPrevGameProc, LoadPrevPositionProc,
LoadSelectedProc, MachineBlackProc, MachineWhiteProc, MailMoveProc,
ManProc, MoveNowProc, MoveSoundProc, NothingProc, OldSaveStyleProc,
PasteGameProc, PastePositionProc, PauseProc, PeriodicUpdatesProc,
PonderNextMoveProc, PopupExitMessageProc, PopupMoveErrorsProc,
PremoveProc, QuietPlayProc, QuitProc, ReloadCmailMsgProc,
ReloadGameProc, ReloadPositionProc, RematchProc, ResetProc,
ResignProc, RetractMoveProc, RevertProc, SaveGameProc,
SavePositionProc, ShowCoordsProc, ShowGameListProc, ShowThinkingProc,
StopExaminingProc, StopObservingProc, TestLegalityProc, ToEndProc,
ToStartProc, TrainingProc, TruncateGameProc, and TwoMachinesProc.
OPTIONS¶
This section documents the command-line options to XBoard. You can set these
options in two ways: by typing them on the shell command line you use to start
XBoard, or by editing the settings file (usually ~/.xboardrc) to alter the
value of the setting that was saved there. Some of the options cannot be
changed while XBoard is running; others set the initial state of items that
can be changed with the
Options menu.
Most of the options have both a long name and a short name. To turn a boolean
option on or off from the command line, either give its long name followed by
the value true or false (`-longOptionName true'), or give just the short name
to turn the option on (`-opt'), or the short name preceded by `x' to turn the
option off (`-xopt'). For options that take strings or numbers as values, you
can use the long or short option names interchangeably.
Chess Engine Options¶
- -tc or -timeControl minutes[:seconds]
- Each player begins with his clock set to the `timeControl'
period. Default: 5 minutes. The additional options `movesPerSession' and
`timeIncrement' are mutually exclusive.
- -mps or -movesPerSession moves
- When both players have made `movesPerSession' moves, a new
`timeControl' period is added to both clocks. Default: 40 moves.
- -inc or -timeIncrement seconds
- If this option is specified, `movesPerSession' is ignored.
Instead, after each player's move, `timeIncrement' seconds are added to
his clock. Use `-inc 0' if you want to require the entire game to be
played in one `timeControl' period, with no increment. Default: -1, which
specifies `movesPerSession' mode.
- -clock/-xclock or -clockMode true/false
- Determines whether or not to display the chess clocks. If
clockMode is false, the clocks are not shown, but the side that is to play
next is still highlighted. Also, unless `searchTime' is set, the chess
engine still keeps track of the clock time and uses it to determine how
fast to make its moves.
- -st or -searchTime minutes[:seconds]
- Tells the chess engine to spend at most the given amount of
time searching for each of its moves. Without this option, the chess
engine chooses its search time based on the number of moves and amount of
time remaining until the next time control. Setting this option also sets
clockMode to false.
- -depth or -searchDepth number
- Tells the chess engine to look ahead at most the given
number of moves when searching for a move to make. Without this option,
the chess engine chooses its search depth based on the number of moves and
amount of time remaining until the next time control. With the option, the
engine will cut off its search early if it reaches the specified
depth.
- -firstNPS number
- -secondNPS number
- Tells the chess engine to use an internal time standard
based on its node count, rather then wall-clock time, to make its timing
decisions. The time in virtual seconds should be obtained by dividing the
node count through the given number, like the number was a rate in nodes
per second. Xboard will manage the clocks in accordance with this, relying
on the number of nodes reported by the engine in its thinking output. If
the given number equals zero, it can obviously not be used to convert
nodes to seconds, and the time reported by the engine is used to decrement
the XBoard clock in stead. The engine is supposed to report in CPU time it
uses, rather than wall-clock time, in this mode. This option can provide
fairer conditions for engine-engine matches on heavily loaded machines, or
with very fast games (where the wall clock is too inaccurate).
`showThinking' must be on for this option to work. Default: -1 (off). Not
many engines might support this yet!
- -firstTimeOdds factor
- -secondTimeOdds factor
- Reduces the time given to the mentioned engine by the given
factor. If pondering is off, the effect is indistinguishable from what
would happen if the engine was running on an n-times slower machine.
Default: 1.
- -timeOddsMode mode
- This option determines how the case is handled where both
engines have a time-odds handicap. If mode=1, the engine that gets the
most time will always get the nominal time, as specified by the
time-control options, and its opponent's time is renormalized accordingly.
If mode=0, both play with reduced time. Default: 0.
- -hideThinkingFromHuman true/false
- Controls the Hide Thinking option. See Options Menu.
Default: true. (Replaces the Show-Thinking option of older xboard
versions.)
- -thinking/-xthinking or -showThinking
true/false
- Forces the engine to send thinking output to xboard. Used
to be the only way to control if thinking output was displayed in older
xboard versions, but as the thinking output in xboard 4.3 is also used for
several other purposes (adjudication, storing in PGN file) the display of
it is now controlled by the new option Hide Thinking. See Options
Menu. Default: false. (But if xboard needs the thinking output for
some purpose, it makes the engine send it despite the setting of this
option.)
- -ponder/-xponder or -ponderNextMove true/false
- Sets the Ponder Next Move menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -smpCores number
- Specifies the maximum number of CPUs an SMP engine is
allowed to use. Only works for engines that support the
XBoard/WinBoard-protocol cores feature.
- -mg or -matchGames n
- Automatically runs an n-game match between two chess
engines, with alternating colors. If the `loadGameFile' or
`loadPositionFile' option is set, XBoard starts each game with the given
opening moves or the given position; otherwise, the games start with the
standard initial chess position. If the `saveGameFile' option is set, a
move record for the match is appended to the specified file. If the
`savePositionFile' option is set, the final position reached in each game
of the match is appended to the specified file. When the match is over,
XBoard displays the match score and exits. Default: 0 (do not run a
match).
- -mm/-xmm or -matchMode true/false
- Setting `matchMode' to true is equivalent to setting
`matchGames' to 1.
- -sameColorGames n
- Automatically runs an n-game match between two chess
engines, without alternating colors. Otherwise the same applies as for the
`-matchGames' option, over which it takes precedence if both are
specified. (See there.) Default: 0 (do not run a match).
- -fcp or -firstChessProgram program
- Name of first chess engine. Default: `Fairy-Max'.
- -scp or -secondChessProgram program
- Name of second chess engine, if needed. A second chess
engine is started only in Two Machines (match) mode. Default:
`Fairy-Max'.
- -fb/-xfb or -firstPlaysBlack true/false
- In games between two chess engines, firstChessProgram
normally plays white. If this option is true, firstChessProgram plays
black. In a multi-game match, this option affects the colors only for the
first game; they still alternate in subsequent games.
- -fh or -firstHost host
- -sh or -secondHost host
- Hosts on which the chess engines are to run. The default
for each is `localhost'. If you specify another host, XBoard uses `rsh' to
run the chess engine there. (You can substitute a different remote shell
program for rsh using the `remoteShell' option described below.)
- -fd or -firstDirectory dir
- -sd or -secondDirectory dir
- Working directories in which the chess engines are to be
run. The default is "", which means to run the chess engine in
the same working directory as XBoard itself. (See the CHESSDIR environment
variable.) This option is effective only when the chess engine is being
run on the local host; it does not work if the engine is run remotely
using the -fh or -sh option.
- -initString string or -firstInitString
- -secondInitString string
- The string that is sent to initialize each chess engine for
a new game. Default:
new
random
Setting this option from the command line is tricky, because you must type
in real newline characters, including one at the very end. In most shells
you can do this by entering a `\' character followed by a newline. Using
the character sequence `\n' in the string should work too, though.
If you change this option, don't remove the `new' command; it is required by
all chess engines to start a new game.
You can remove the `random' command if you like; including it causes GNU
Chess 4 to randomize its move selection slightly so that it doesn't play
the same moves in every game. Even without `random', GNU Chess 4
randomizes its choice of moves from its opening book. Many other chess
engines ignore this command entirely and always (or never) randomize.
You can also try adding other commands to the initString; see the
documentation of the chess engine you are using for details.
- -firstComputerString string
- -secondComputerString string
- The string that is sent to the chess engine if its opponent
is another computer chess engine. The default is `computer\n'. Probably
the only useful alternative is the empty string (`'), which keeps the
engine from knowing that it is playing another computer.
- -reuse/-xreuse or -reuseFirst true/false
- -reuse2/-xreuse2 or -reuseSecond true/false
- If the option is false, XBoard kills off the chess engine
after every game and starts it again for the next game. If the option is
true (the default), XBoard starts the chess engine only once and uses it
repeatedly to play multiple games. Some old chess engines may not work
properly when reuse is turned on, but otherwise games will start faster if
it is left on.
- -firstProtocolVersion version-number
- -secondProtocolVersion version-number
- This option specifies which version of the chess engine
communication protocol to use. By default, version-number is 2. In version
1, the "protover" command is not sent to the engine; since
version 1 is a subset of version 2, nothing else changes. Other values for
version-number are not supported.
- -firstScoreAbs true/false
- -secondScoreAbs true/false
- If this option is set, the score reported by the engine is
taken to be that in favor of white, even when the engine plays black.
Important when XBoard uses the score for adjudications, or in PGN
reporting.
- -niceEngines priority
- This option allows you to lower the priority of the engine
processes, so that the generally insatiable hunger for CPU time of chess
engines does not interfere so much with smooth operation of XBoard (or the
rest of your system). Negative values could increase the engine priority,
which is not recommended.
- -firstOptions string
- -secondOptions string
- The given string is a comma-separated list of (option
name=option value) pairs, like the following example:
"style=Karpov,blunder rate=0". If an option announced by the
engine at startup through the feature commands of the XBoard/WinBoard
protocol matches one of the option names (i.e. "style" or
"blunder rate"), it would be set to the given value (i.e.
"Karpov" or 0) through a corresponding option command to the
engine. This provided that the type of the value (text or numeric) matches
as well.
- -firstNeedsNoncompliantFEN string
- -secondNeedsNoncompliantFEN string
- The castling rights and e.p. fields of the FEN sent to the
mentioned engine with the setboard command will be replaced by the given
string. This can for instance be used to run engines that do not
understand Chess960 FENs in variant fischerandom, to make them at least
understand the opening position, through setting the string to "KQkq
-". (Note you also have to give the e.p. field!) Other possible
applications are to provide work-arounds for engines that want to see
castling and e.p. fields in variants that do not have castling or e.p.
(shatranj, courier, xiangqi, shogi) so that XBoard would normally omit
them (string = "- -"), or to add variant-specific fields that
are not yet supported by XBoard (e.g. to indicate the number of checks in
3check).
- -shuffleOpenings
- Forces shuffling of the opening setup in variants that
normally have a fixed initial position. Shufflings are symmetric for black
and white, and exempt King and Rooks in variants with normal castling.
Remains in force until a new variant is selected.
UCI + WB Engine Settings¶
- -fUCI or -firstIsUCI true/false
- -sUCI or -secondIsUCI true/false
- Indicates if the mentioned engine executable file is an UCI
engine, and should be run with the aid of the Polyglot adapter rather than
directly. Xboard will then pass the other UCI options and engine name to
Polyglot on its command line, according to the option
`adapterCommand'.
- -fUCCI
- -sUCCI
- -fUSI
- -sUSI
- Options similar to `fUCI' and `sUCI', except that they use
the indicated engine with the protocol adapter specified in the
`uxiAdapter' option. This can then be configured for running an UCCI or
USI adapter, as the need arises.
- -adapterCommand string
- The string conatins the command that should be issued by
XBoard to start an engine that is accompanied by the `fUCI' option. Any
identifier following a percent sign in the command (e.g. %fcp) will be
considered the name of an XBoard option, and be replaced by the value of
that option at the time the engine is started. For starting the second
engine, any leading "f" or "first" in the option name
will first be replaced by "s" or "second", before
finding its value. Default: 'polyglot -noini -ec "%fcp" -ed
"%fd"'
- -uxiAdapter string
- Similar to `adapterCommand', but used for engines
accompanied by the `fUCCI' or `fUSI' option, so you can configure XBoard
to be ready to handle more than one flavor of non-native protocols.
Default: ""
- -polyglotDir filename
- Gives the name of the directory in which the Polyglot
adapter for UCI engines resides. Default: "".
- -usePolyglotBook true/false
- Specifies if the Polyglot book should be used as GUI
book.
- -polyglotBook filename
- Gives the filename of the opening book. The book is only
used when the `usePolyglotBook' option is set to true, and the option
`firstHasOwnBookUCI' or `secondHasOwnBookUCI' applying to the engine is
set to false. The engine will be kept in force mode as long as the current
position is in book, and XBoard will select the book moves for it.
Default: "".
- -fNoOwnBookUCI or -firstXBook or -firstHasOwnBookUCI
true/false
- -sNoOwnBookUCI or -secondXBook or -secondHasOwnBookUCI
true/false
- Indicates if the mentioned engine has its own opening book
it should play from, rather than using the external book through XBoard.
Default: depends on setting of the option `discourageOwnBooks'.
- -discourageOwnBooks true/false
- When set, newly loaded engines will be assumed to use the
GUI book, unless they explicitly specify differently. Otherwise they will
be assumed to not use the GUI book, unless the specify differently (e.g.
with `firstXBook'). Default: false.
- -bookDepth n
- Limits the use of the GUI book to the first n moves of each
side. Default: 12.
- -bookVariation n
- A value n from 0 to 100 tunes the choice of moves from the
GUI books from totally random to best-only. Default: 50
- -fn string or -firstPgnName string
- -sn string or -secondPgnName string
- Indicates the name that should be used for the engine in
PGN tags of engine-engine games. Intended to allow you to install verions
of the same engine with different settings, and still distinguish them.
Default: "".
- -defaultHashSize n
- Sets the size of the hash table to n MegaBytes. Together
with the EGTB cache size this number is also used to calculate the memory
setting of XBoard/WinBoard engines, for those that support the memory
feature of the XBoard/WinBoard protocol. Default: 64.
- -defaultCacheSizeEGTB n
- Sets the size of the EGTB cache to n MegaBytes. Together
with the hash-table size this number is also used to calculate the memory
setting of XBoard/WinBoard engines, for those that support the memory
feature of the XBoard/WinBoard protocol. Default: 4.
- -defaultPathEGTB filename
- Gives the name of the directory where the end-game
tablebases are installed, for UCI engines. Default:
"/usr/local/share/egtb".
- -egtFormats string
- Specifies which end-game tables are installed on the
computer, and where. The argument is a comma-separated list of format
specifications, each specification consisting of a format name, a colon,
and a directory path name, e.g. "nalimov:/usr/local/share/egtb".
If the name part matches that of a format that the engine requests through
a feature command, xboard will relay the path name for this format to the
engine through an egtpath command. One egtpath command for each matching
format will be sent. Popular formats are "nalimov" DTM
tablebases and "scorpio" bitbases. Default: "".
- -firstChessProgramNames={names}
- This option lets you customize the drop-down list of chess
engine names that appears in the `Load Engine' and `Match Options' dialog.
It consists of a list of strings, one per line. When an engine is loaded,
the corresponding line is prefixed with "-fcp ", and processed
like it appeared on the command line. That means that apart from the
engine command, it can contain any list of XBoard options you want to use
with this engine. (Commonly used options here are -fd, -firstXBook, -fUCI,
-variant.)
The value of this option is gradually built as you load new engines through
the `Load Engine' menu dialog, with `Add to list' ticked. To change it,
edit your settings file with a plain text editor.
Tournament options¶
- -defaultMatchGames n
- Sets the number of games that will be used for a match
between two engines started from the menu to n. Also used as games per
pairing in other tournament formats. Default: 10.
- -matchPause n
- Specifies the duration of the pause between two games of a
match or tournament between engines as n milliseconds. Especially engines
that do not support ping need this option, to prevent that the move they
are thinking on when an opponent unexpectedly resigns will be counted for
the next game, (leading to illegal moves there). Default: 10000.
- -tf filename or -tourneyFile filename
- Specifies the name of the tournament file used in match
mode to conduct a multi-player tournament. This file is a special settings
file, which stores the description of the tournament (including progress
info), through normal options (e.g. for time control, load and save
files), and through some special-purpose options listed below.
- -tt number or -tourneyType number
- Specifies the type of tourney: 0 = round-robin, N>0 =
(multi-)gauntlet with N gauntlet engines, -1 = Swiss through external
pairing engine. Volatile option, but stored in tourney file.
- -cy number or -tourneyCycles number
- Specifies the number of cycles in a tourney. Volatile
option, but stored in tourney file.
- -participants list
- The list is a multi-line text string that specifies engines
occurring in the `firstChesProgramNames' list in the settings file by
their (implied or explicitly given) nicknames, one engine per line. The
mentioned engines will play in the tourney. Volatile option, but stored in
tourney file.
- -results string
- The string of +=- characters lists the result of all played
games in a toruney. Games currently playing are listed as *, while a space
indicates a game that is not yet played or playing . Volatile option, but
stored in tourney file.
- -defaultTourneyName string
- Specifies the name of the tournament file XBoard should
propose when the `Match Options' dialog is opened. Any %y, %M, %d, %h, %m,
%s in the string are replaced by the current year, month, day of the
month, hours, minutes, seconds of the current time, respectively, as
two-digit number. A %Y would be replaced by the year as 4-digit number.
Default: empty string.
- -pairingEngine filename
- Specifies the external program to be used to pair the
participants in Swiss tourneys. XBoard communicates with this engine in
the same way as it communicates with Chess engines. The only commands sent
to the pairing engine are “results N string”, (where N is the
number of participants, and string the results so far in the format of the
results option), and “pairing N”, (where N is the number of
the tourney game). To the latter the pairing engine should answer with
“A-B”, where A and B are participant numbers (in the range
1-N). (There should be no reply to the results command.) Default: empty
string.
- -afterGame string
- -afterTourney string
- When non-empty, the given string will be executed as a
system command after each tournament game, orafterthe tourney completes,
respectively. This can be used, for example, to autmatically run a
cross-table generator on the PGN file where games are saved, to update the
tourney standings. Default: ""
- -syncAfterRound true/false
- -syncAfterCycle true/false
- Controls whether different instances of XBoard concurrently
running the same tournament will wait for each other. Defaults: sync after
cycle, but not after round.
- -seedBase number
- Used to store the seed of the pseudo-random-number
generator in the tourneyFile, so that separate instances of XBoard working
on the same tourney can take coherent 'random' decisions, such as picking
an opening for a given game number.
ICS options¶
- -ics/-xics or -internetChessServerMode
true/false
- Connect with an Internet Chess Server to play chess against
its other users, observe games they are playing, or review games that have
recently finished. Default: false.
- -icshost or -internetChessServerHost host
- The Internet host name or address of the chess server to
connect to when in ICS mode. Default: `chessclub.com'. Another popular
chess server to try is `freechess.org'. If your site doesn't have a
working Internet name server, try specifying the host address in numeric
form. You may also need to specify the numeric address when using the
icshelper option with timestamp or timeseal (see below).
- -icsport or -internetChessServerPort
port-number
- The port number to use when connecting to a chess server in
ICS mode. Default: 5000.
- -icshelper or -internetChessServerHelper
prog-name
- An external helper program used to communicate with the
chess server. You would set it to "timestamp" for ICC
(chessclub.com) or "timeseal" for FICS (freechess.org), after
obtaining the correct version of timestamp or timeseal for your computer.
See "help timestamp" on ICC and "help timeseal" on
FICS. This option is shorthand for `-useTelnet -telnetProgram
program'.
- -telnet/-xtelnet or -useTelnet true/false
- This option is poorly named; it should be called useHelper.
If set to true, it instructs XBoard to run an external program to
communicate with the Internet Chess Server. The program to use is given by
the telnetProgram option. If the option is false (the default), XBoard
opens a TCP socket and uses its own internal implementation of the telnet
protocol to communicate with the ICS. See Firewalls.
- -telnetProgram prog-name
- This option is poorly named; it should be called
helperProgram. It gives the name of the telnet program to be used with the
`gateway' and `useTelnet' options. The default is `telnet'. The telnet
program is invoked with the value of `internetChessServerHost' as its
first argument and the value of `internetChessServerPort' as its second
argument. See Firewalls.
- -gateway host-name
- If this option is set to a host name, XBoard communicates
with the Internet Chess Server by using `rsh' to run the `telnetProgram'
on the given host, instead of using its own internal implementation of the
telnet protocol. You can substitute a different remote shell program for
`rsh' using the `remoteShell' option described below. See
Firewalls.
- -internetChessServerCommPort or -icscomm
dev-name
- If this option is set, XBoard communicates with the ICS
through the given character I/O device instead of opening a TCP
connection. Use this option if your system does not have any kind of
Internet connection itself (not even a SLIP or PPP connection), but you do
have dial-up access (or a hardwired terminal line) to an Internet service
provider from which you can telnet to the ICS.
The support for this option in XBoard is minimal. You need to set all
communication parameters and tty modes before you enter XBoard.
Use a script something like this:
stty raw -echo 9600 > /dev/tty00
xboard -ics -icscomm /dev/tty00
Here replace `/dev/tty00' with the name of the device that your modem is
connected to. You might have to add several more options to these stty
commands. See the man pages for `stty' and `tty' if you run into problems.
Also, on many systems stty works on its standard input instead of standard
output, so you have to use `<' instead of `>'.
If you are using linux, try starting with the script below. Change it as
necessary for your installation.
#!/bin/sh -f
# configure modem and fire up XBoard
# configure modem
(
stty 2400 ; stty raw ; stty hupcl ; stty -clocal
stty ignbrk ; stty ignpar ; stty ixon ; stty ixoff
stty -iexten ; stty -echo
) < /dev/modem
xboard -ics -icscomm /dev/modem
After you start XBoard in this way, type whatever commands are necessary to
dial out to your Internet provider and log in. Then telnet to ICS, using a
command like `telnet chessclub.com 5000'. Important: See the paragraph
below about extra echoes, in Limitations.
- -icslogon or -internetChessServerLogonScript
file-name
- Whenever XBoard connects to the Internet Chess Server, if
it finds a file with the name given in this option, it feeds the file's
contents to the ICS as commands. The default file name is `.icsrc'.
Usually the first two lines of the file should be your ICS user name and
password. The file can be either in $CHESSDIR, in XBoard's working
directory if CHESSDIR is not set, or in your home directory.
- -msLoginDelay delay
- If you experience trouble logging on to an ICS when using
the `-icslogon' option, inserting some delay between characters of the
logon script may help. This option adds `delay' milliseconds of delay
between characters. Good values to try are 100 and 250.
- -icsinput/-xicsinput or -internetChessServerInputBox
true/false
- Sets the ICS Input Box menu option. See Mode Menu.
Default: false.
- -autocomm/-xautocomm or -autoComment true/false
- Sets the Auto Comment menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
- -autoflag/-xautoflag or -autoCallFlag
true/false
- Sets the Auto Flag menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
- -autobs/-xautobs or -autoObserve true/false
- Sets the Auto Observe menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
- -autoKibitz
- Enables kibitzing of the engines last thinking output
(depth, score, time, speed, PV) before it moved to the ICS, in zippy mode.
The option `showThinking' must be switched on for this option to work.
Also diverts similar kibitz information of an opponent engine that is
playing you through the ICS to the engine-output window, as if the engine
was playing locally.
- -seekGraph true/false or -sg
- Enables displaying of the seek graph by left-clicking the
board when you are logged on to an ICS and currently idle. The seek graph
show all players currently seeking games on the ICS, plotted according to
their rating and the time control of the game they seek, in three
different colors (for rated, unrated and wild games). Computer ads are
displayed as squares, human ads are dots. Default: false.
- -autoRefresh true/false
- Enables automatic updating of the seek graph, by having the
ICS send a running update of all newly placed and removed seek ads. This
consumes a substantial amount of communication bandwidth, and is only
supported for FICS and ICC. Default: false.
- -backgroundObserve true/false
- When true, boards sent to you by the ICS from other games
while you are playing (e.g. because you are observing them) will not be
automatically displayed. Only a summary of time left and material of both
players will appear in the message field above the board. XBoard will
remember the last board it has received this way, and will display it in
stead of the position in your own game when you press the right mouse
button. No other information is stored on such games observed in the
background; you cannot save such a game later, or step through its moves.
This feature is provided solely for the benefit of bughouse players, to
enable them to peek at their partner's game without the need to logon
twice. Default: false.
- -dualBoard true/false
- In combination with -backgroundObserve true, this option
will display the board of the background game side by side with that of
your own game, so you can have it in view permanently. Any board or
holdings info coming in will be displayed on the secondary board
immediately. This feature is still experimental and largely unfinished.
There is no animation or highlighting of moves on the secondary board.
Default: false.
- -disguisePromotedPieces true/false
- When set promoted Pawns in crazyhouse/bughouse are
displayed identical to primordial pieces of the same type, rather than
distinguishable. Default: true.
- -moves/-xmoves or -getMoveList true/false
- Sets the Get Move List menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -alarm/-xalarm or -icsAlarm true/false
- Sets the ICS Alarm menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: true.
- -icsAlarmTime ms
- Sets the time in milliseconds for the ICS Alarm menu
option. See Options Menu. Default: 5000.
- lowTimeWarning true/false
- Controls a color change of the board as a warning your time
is running out. See Options Menu. Default: false.
- -pre/-xpre or -premove true/false
- Sets the Premove menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: true.
- -prewhite/-xprewhite or -premoveWhite
- -preblack/-xpreblack or -premoveBlack
- -premoveWhiteText string
- -premoveBlackText string
- Set the menu options for specifying the first move for
either color. See Options Menu. Defaults: false and empty strings,
so no pre-moves.
- -quiet/-xquiet or -quietPlay true/false
- Sets the Quiet Play menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
- -colorizeMessages or -colorize/-xcolorize
- Setting colorizeMessages to true tells XBoard to colorize
the messages received from the ICS. Colorization works only if your xterm
supports ISO 6429 escape sequences for changing text colors. Default:
true.
- -colorShout foreground,background,bold
- -colorSShout foreground,background,bold
- -colorCShout foreground,background,bold
- -colorChannel1 foreground,background,bold
- -colorChannel foreground,background,bold
- -colorKibitz foreground,background,bold
- -colorTell foreground,background,bold
- -colorChallege foreground,background,bold
- -colorRequest foreground,background,bold
- -colorSeek foreground,background,bold
- -colorNormal foreground,background,bold
- These options set the colors used when colorizing ICS
messages. All ICS messages are grouped into one of these categories:
shout, sshout, channel 1, other channel, kibitz, tell, challenge, request
(including abort, adjourn, draw, pause, and takeback), or normal (all
other messages).
Each foreground or background argument can be one of the following: black,
red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, or default. Here
``default'' means the default foreground or background color of your
xterm. Bold can be 1 or 0. If background is omitted, ``default'' is
assumed; if bold is omitted, 0 is assumed.
- -soundProgram progname
- If this option is set to a sound-playing program that is
installed and working on your system, XBoard can play sound files when
certain events occur, listed below. The default program name is
"play". If any of the sound options is set to "$", the
event rings the terminal bell by sending a ^G character to standard
output, instead of playing a sound file. If an option is set to the empty
string "", no sound is played for that event.
- -soundDirectory directoryname
- This option specifies where XBoard will look for sound
files, when these are not given as an absolute path name.
- -soundShout filename
- -soundSShout filename
- -soundCShout filename
- -soundChannel filename
- -soundChannel1 filename
- -soundKibitz filename
- -soundTell filename
- -soundChallenge filename
- -soundRequest filename
- -soundSeek filename
- These sounds are triggered in the same way as the
colorization events described above. They all default to "", no
sound. They are played only if the colorizeMessages is on. CShout is
synonymous with SShout.
- -soundMove filename
- This sound is used by the Move Sound menu option. Default:
"$".
- -soundIcsAlarm filename
- This sound is used by the ICS Alarm menu option. Default:
"$".
- -soundIcsWin filename
- This sound is played when you win an ICS game. Default:
"" (no sound).
- -soundIcsLoss filename
- This sound is played when you lose an ICS game. Default:
"" (no sound).
- -soundIcsDraw filename
- This sound is played when you draw an ICS game. Default:
"" (no sound).
- -soundIcsUnfinished filename
- This sound is played when an ICS game that you are
participating in is aborted, adjourned, or otherwise ends inconclusively.
Default: "" (no sound).
Load and Save options¶
- -lgf or -loadGameFile file
- -lgi or -loadGameIndex index
- If the `loadGameFile' option is set, XBoard loads the
specified game file at startup. The file name `-' specifies the standard
input. If there is more than one game in the file, XBoard pops up a menu
of the available games, with entries based on their PGN (Portable Game
Notation) tags. If the `loadGameIndex' option is set to `N', the menu is
suppressed and the N th game found in the file is loaded immediately. The
menu is also suppressed if `matchMode' is enabled or if the game file is a
pipe; in these cases the first game in the file is loaded immediately. Use
the `pxboard' shell script provided with XBoard if you want to pipe in
files containing multiple games and still see the menu. If the
loadGameIndex specifies an index -1, this triggers auto-increment of the
index in `matchMode', which means that after every game the index is
incremented by one, causing each game of the match to be played from the
next game in the file. Similarly, specifying an index value of -2 causes
the index to be incremented every two games, so that each game in the file
is used twice (with reversed colors). The `rewindIndex' option causes the
index to be reset to the first game of the file when it has reached a
specified value.
- -rewindIndex n
- Causes a position file or game file to be rewound to its
beginning after n positions or games in auto-increment `matchMode'. See
`loadPositionIndex' and `loadGameIndex'. default: 0 (no rewind).
- -td or -timeDelay seconds
- Time delay between moves during `Load Game' or `Analyze
File'. Fractional seconds are allowed; try `-td 0.4'. A time delay value
of -1 tells XBoard not to step through game files automatically. Default:
1 second.
- -sgf or -saveGameFile file
- If this option is set, XBoard appends a record of every
game played to the specified file. The file name `-' specifies the
standard output.
- -autosave/-xautosave or -autoSaveGames
true/false
- Sets the Auto Save menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false. Ignored if `saveGameFile' is set.
- -lpf or -loadPositionFile file
- -lpi or -loadPositionIndex index
- If the `loadPositionFile' option is set, XBoard loads the
specified position file at startup. The file name `-' specifies the
standard input. If the `loadPositionIndex' option is set to N, the Nth
position found in the file is loaded; otherwise the first position is
loaded. If the loadPositionIndex specifies an index -1, this triggers
auto-increment of the index in `matchMode', which means that after every
game the index is incremented by one, causing each game of the match to be
played from the next position in the file. Similarly, specifying an index
value of -2 causes the index to be incremented every two games, so that
each position in the file is used twice (with the engines playing opposite
colors). The `rewindIndex' option causes the index to be reset to the
first position of the file when it has reached a specified value.
- -spf or -savePositionFile file
- If this option is set, XBoard appends the final position
reached in every game played to the specified file. The file name `-'
specifies the standard output.
- -pgnExtendedInfo true/false
- If this option is set, XBoard saves depth, score and time
used for each move that the engine found as a comment in the PGN file.
Default: false.
- -pgnEventHeader string
- Sets the name used in the PGN event tag to string. Default:
"Computer Chess Game".
- -pgnNumberTag true/false
- Include the (unique) sequence number of a tournament game
into the saved PGN file as a 'number' tag. Default: false.
- -saveOutOfBookInfo true/false
- Include the information on how the engine(s) game out of
its opening book in a special 'annotator' tag with the PGN file. Default:
true.
- -oldsave/-xoldsave or -oldSaveStyle true/false
- Sets the Old Save Style menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: false.
- -gameListTags string
- The character string lists the PGN tags that should be
printed in the Game List, and their order. The meaning of the codes is
e=event, s=site, d=date, o=round, p=players, r=result, w=white Elo,
b=black Elo, t=time control, v=variant, a=out-of-book info, c=result
comment. Default: "eprd"
- -ini or -settingsFile filename
- -saveSettingsFile filename
- @filename
- When XBoard encounters an option -settingsFile (or -ini for
short), or @filename, it tries to read the mentioned file, and substitutes
the contents of it (presumaby more command-line options) in place of the
option. In the case of -ini or -settingsFile, the name of a successfully
read settings file is also remembered as the file to use for saving
settings (automatically on exit, or on user command). An option of the
form @filename does not affect saving. The option -saveSettingsFile does
specify a name of the file to use for saving, without reading any options
from it, and is thus also effective when the file did not exist yet. So
the settings will be saved to the file specified in the last
-saveSettingsFile or succesfull -settingsFile / -ini command, if any, and
in /etc/xboard/xboard.conf otherwise. Usually the latter is only
accessible for the system administrator, though, and will be used to
contain system-wide default setings, amongst which a -saveSettingsFile and
-settingsFile options to specify a settings file accessible to the
individual user, such as ~/.xboardrc in the user's home directory.
- -saveSettingsOnExit true/false
- Controls saving of options on the settings file. See
Options Menu. Default: true.
User interface options¶
- -display
- -geometry
- -iconic
- -name
- These and most other standard Xt options are accepted.
- -noGUI
- Suppresses all GUI functions of XBoard (to speed up
automated ultra-fast engine-engine games, which you don't want to watch).
There will be no board or clock updates, no printing of moves, and no
update of the icon on the task bar in this mode.
- -recentEngines number
- -recentEngineList list
- When the number is larger than zero, it determines how many
recently used engines will be appended at the bottom of the `Engines'
menu. The engines will be saved in your settings file as the option
`recentEngineList', by their nicknames, and the most recently used one
will always be sorted to the top. If the list after that is longer than
the specified number, the last one is discarded. Changes in the list will
only become visible the next session, provided you saved the settings.
Default: 6.
- -oneClickMove true/false
- When set, this option allows you to enter moves by only
clicking the to- or from-square, when only a single legal move to or from
that square is possible. Double-clicking a piece (or clicking an already
selected piece) will instruct that piece to make the only capture it can
legally do. Default: false.
- -movesound/-xmovesound or -ringBellAfterMoves
true/false
- Sets the Move Sound menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false. For compatibility with old XBoard versions, -bell/-xbell
are also accepted as abbreviations for this option.
- -exit/-xexit or -popupExitMessage true/false
- Sets the Popup Exit Message menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -popup/-xpopup or -popupMoveErrors true/false
- Sets the Popup Move Errors menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: false.
- -queen/-xqueen or -alwaysPromoteToQueen
true/false
- Sets the Always Queen menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
- -sweepPromotions true/false
- Sets the `Almost Always Promote to Queen' menu option. See
Options Menu. Default: false.
- -legal/-xlegal or -testLegality true/false
- Sets the Test Legality menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -size or -boardSize (sizeName |
n1,n2,n3,n4,n5,n6,n7)
- Determines how large the board will be, by selecting the
pixel size of the pieces and setting a few related parameters. The
sizeName can be one of: Titanic, giving 129x129 pixel pieces, Colossal
116x116, Giant 108x108, Huge 95x95, Big 87x87, Large 80x80, Bulky 72x72,
Medium 64x64, Moderate 58x58, Average 54x54, Middling 49x49, Mediocre
45x45, Small 40x40, Slim 37x37, Petite 33x33, Dinky 29x29, Teeny 25x25, or
Tiny 21x21. Orthodox pieces of all these sizes are built into XBoard.
Other sizes can be used if you have them; see the pixmapDirectory and
bitmapDirectory options. Complete sets of un-orthodox pieces are only
provided in sizes Bulky, Middling and (to a lesser extent) Petite;
Archbishop, Marshall and Amazon are also available in all sizes between
Bulky and Petite. When no bitmap is available, the piece will be displayed
as Amazon or King. The default depends on the size of your screen; it is
approximately the largest size that will fit without clipping.
You can select other sizes or vary other layout parameters by providing a
list of comma-separated values (with no spaces) as the argument. You do
not need to provide all the values; for any you omit from the end of the
list, defaults are taken from the nearest built-in size. The value `n1'
gives the piece size, `n2' the width of the black border between squares,
`n3' the desired size for the clockFont, `n4' the desired size for the
coordFont, `n5' the desired size for the messageFont, `n6' the smallLayout
flag (0 or 1), and `n7' the tinyLayout flag (0 or 1). All dimensions are
in pixels. If the border between squares is eliminated (0 width), the
various highlight options will not work, as there is nowhere to draw the
highlight. If smallLayout is 1 and `titleInWindow' is true, the window
layout is rearranged to make more room for the title. If tinyLayout is 1,
the labels on the menu bar are abbreviated to one character each and the
buttons in the button bar are made narrower.
- -overrideLineGap n
- When n >= 0, this forces the width of the black border
between squares to n pixels for any board size. Mostly used to suppress
the grid entirely by setting n = 0, e.g. in xiangqi or just getting a
prettier picture. When n < 0 this the size-dependent width of the grid
lines is used. Default: -1.
- -coords/-xcoords or -showCoords true/false
- Sets the Show Coords menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false. The `coordFont' option specifies what font to use.
- -autoraise/-xautoraise or -autoRaiseBoard
true/false
- Sets the Auto Raise Board menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -autoflip/-xautoflip or -autoFlipView
true/false
- Sets the Auto Flip View menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -flip/-xflip or -flipView true/false
- If Auto Flip View is not set, or if you are observing but
not participating in a game, then the positioning of the board at the
start of each game depends on the flipView option. If flipView is false
(the default), the board is positioned so that the white pawns move from
the bottom to the top; if true, the black pawns move from the bottom to
the top. In any case, the Flip menu option (see Options Menu) can
be used to flip the board after the game starts.
- -title/-xtitle or -titleInWindow true/false
- If this option is true, XBoard displays player names (for
ICS games) and game file names (for `Load Game') inside its main window.
If the option is false (the default), this information is displayed only
in the window banner. You probably won't want to set this option unless
the information is not showing up in the banner, as happens with a few X
window managers.
- -buttons/-xbuttons or -showButtonBar True/False
- If this option is False, xboard omits the [<<] [<]
[P] [>] [>>] button bar from the window, allowing the message
line to be wider. You can still get the functions of these buttons using
the menus or their keyboard shortcuts. Default: true.
- -evalZoom factor
- The score interval (-1,1) is blown up on the vertical axis
of the Evaluation Graph by the given factor. Default: 1
- -evalThreshold n
- Score below n (centiPawn) are plotted as 0 in the
Evaluation Graph. Default: 25
- -mono/-xmono or -monoMode true/false
- Determines whether XBoard displays its pieces and squares
with two colors (true) or four (false). You shouldn't have to specify
`monoMode'; XBoard will determine if it is necessary.
- -showTargetSquares true/false
- Determines whether XBoard can highlight the squares a piece
has legal moves to, when you grab that piece with the mouse. Default:
false.
- -flashCount count
- -flashRate rate
- -flash/-xflash
- These options enable flashing of pieces when they land on
their destination square. `flashCount' tells XBoard how many times to
flash a piece after it lands on its destination square. `flashRate'
controls the rate of flashing (flashes/sec). Abbreviations: `flash' sets
flashCount to 3. `xflash' sets flashCount to 0. Defaults: flashCount=0 (no
flashing), flashRate=5.
- -highlight/-xhighlight or -highlightLastMove
true/false
- Sets the Highlight Last Move menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: false.
- -highlightMoveWithArrow true/false
- Sets the Highlight with Arrow menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: false.
- -blind/-xblind or -blindfold true/false
- Sets the Blindfold menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
- -periodic/-xperiodic or -periodicUpdates
true/false
- Controls updating of current move andnode counts in
analysis mode. Default: true.
- -fSAN
- -sSAN
- Causes the PV in thinking output of the mentioned engine to
be converted to SAN before it is further processed. Warning: this might
lose engine output not understood by the parser, and uses a lot of CPU
power. Default: the PV is displayed exactly as the engine produced
it.
- -showEvalInMoveHistory true/false
- Controls whether the evaluation scores and search depth of
engine moves are displayed with the move in the move-history window.
Default: true.
- -clockFont font
- The font used for the clocks. If the option value is a
pattern that does not specify the font size, XBoard tries to choose an
appropriate font for the board size being used. Default:
-*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
- -coordFont font
- The font used for rank and file coordinate labels if
`showCoords' is true. If the option value is a pattern that does not
specify the font size, XBoard tries to choose an appropriate font for the
board size being used. Default:
-*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
- -messageFont font
- The font used for popup dialogs, menus, comments, etc. If
the option value is a pattern that does not specify the font size, XBoard
tries to choose an appropriate font for the board size being used.
Default: -*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
- -fontSizeTolerance tol
- In the font selection algorithm, a nonscalable font will be
preferred over a scalable font if the nonscalable font's size differs by
`tol' pixels or less from the desired size. A value of -1 will force a
scalable font to always be used if available; a value of 0 will use a
nonscalable font only if it is exactly the right size; a large value (say
1000) will force a nonscalable font to always be used if available.
Default: 4.
- -bm or -bitmapDirectory dir
- -pixmap or -pixmapDirectory dir
- These options control what piece images xboard uses. The
XBoard distribution includes one set of pixmap pieces in xpm format, in
the directory `pixmaps', and one set of bitmap pieces in xbm format, in
the directory `bitmaps'. Pixmap pieces give a better appearance on the
screen: the white pieces have dark borders, and the black pieces have
opaque internal details. With bitmaps, neither piece color has a border,
and the internal details are transparent; you see the square color or
other background color through them.
If XBoard is configured and compiled on a system that includes libXpm, the X
pixmap library, the xpm pixmap pieces are compiled in as the default. A
different xpm piece set can be selected at runtime with the
`pixmapDirectory' option, or a bitmap piece set can be selected with the
`bitmapDirectory' option.
If XBoard is configured and compiled on a system that does not include
libXpm (or the `--disable-xpm' option is given to the configure program),
the bitmap pieces are compiled in as the default. It is not possible to
use xpm pieces in this case, but pixmap pieces in another format called
"xim" can be used by giving the `pixmapDirectory' option. Or
again, a different bitmap piece set can be selected with the
`bitmapDirectory' option.
Files in the `bitmapDirectory' must be named as follows: The first character
of a piece bitmap name gives the piece it represents (`p', `n', `b', `r',
`q', or `k'), the next characters give the size in pixels, the following
character indicates whether the piece is solid or outline (`s' or `o'),
and the extension is `.bm'. For example, a solid 80x80 knight would be
named `n80s.bm'. The outline bitmaps are used only in monochrome mode. If
bitmap pieces are compiled in and the bitmapDirectory is missing some
files, the compiled in pieces are used instead.
If the bitmapDirectory option is given, it is also possible to replace
xboard's icons and menu checkmark, by supplying files named
`icon_white.bm', `icon_black.bm', and `checkmark.bm'.
For more information about pixmap pieces and how to get additional sets, see
zic2xpm below.
- -whitePieceColor color
- -blackPieceColor color
- -lightSquareColor color
- -darkSquareColor color
- -highlightSquareColor color
- -preoveHighlightColor color
- -lowTimeWarningColor color
- Colors to use for the pieces, squares, and square
highlights. Defaults:
-whitePieceColor #FFFFCC
-blackPieceColor #202020
-lightSquareColor #C8C365
-darkSquareColor #77A26D
-highlightSquareColor #FFFF00
-premoveHighlightColor #FF0000
-lowTimeWarningColor #FF0000
On a grayscale monitor you might prefer:
-whitePieceColor gray100
-blackPieceColor gray0
-lightSquareColor gray80
-darkSquareColor gray60
-highlightSquareColor gray100
-premoveHighlightColor gray70
-lowTimeWarningColor gray70
- -useBoardTexture true/false
- -liteBackTextureFile filename
- -darkBackTextureFile filename
- Indicate the pixmap files to be used for drawing the board
squares, and if they should be used rather than using simple colors. The
algorithm for cutting squares out of a given bitmap is such that the
picture is perfectly reproduced when a bitmap the size of the complete
board is given. Default: false and ""
- -drag/-xdrag or -animateDragging true/false
- Sets the Animate Dragging menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -animate/-xanimate or -animateMoving true/false
- Sets the Animate Moving menu option. See Options
Menu. Default: true.
- -animateSpeed n
- Number of milliseconds delay between each animation frame
when Animate Moves is on.
- -autoDisplayComment true/false
- -autoDisplayTags true/false
- If set to true, these options cause the window with the
move comments, and the window with PGN tags, respectively, to pop up
automatically when such tags or comments are encountered during the
replaying a stored or loaded game. Default: true.
- -pasteSelection true/false
- If this option is set to true, the Paste Position and Paste
Game options paste from the currently selected text. If false, they paste
from the clipboard. Default: false.
- -autoCopyPV true|false
- When this option is set, the position displayed on the
board when you terminate a PV walk (initiated by a right-click on board or
engine-output window) will be automatically put on the clipboard as FEN.
Default: false.
- -dropMenu true|false
- This option allows you to emulate old behavior, where the
right mouse button brings up the (now deprecated) drop menu rather than
displaying the position at the end of the principal variation. Default:
False.
- -pieceMenu true|false
- This option allows you to emulate old behavior, where the
right mouse button brings up the (now deprecated) piece menu in Edit
Position mode. From this menu you can select the piece to put on the
square you clicked to bring up the menu, or select items such as `clear
board'. You can also `promote' or `demote' a clicked piece to convert it
into an unorthodox piece that is not directly in the menu, or give the
move to `black' or `white'.
- -variations true|false
- When this option is on, you can start new variations in
Edit Game or Analyze mode by holding the Shift key down while entering a
move. When it is off, the Shift key will be ignored. Default: False.
- -absoluteAnalysisScores true|false
- When true, scores on the Engine Output window during
analysis will be printed from the white point-of-view, rather than the
side-to-move point-of-view. Default: False.
- -scoreWhite true|false
- When true, scores will always be printed from the white
point-of-view, rather than the side-to-move point-of-view. Default:
False.
Adjudication Options¶
- -adjudicateLossThreshold n
- If the given value is non-zero, XBoard adjudicates the game
as a loss if both engines agree for a duration of 6 consecutive ply that
the score is below the given score threshold for that engine. Make sure
the score is interpreted properly by XBoard, using `-firstScoreAbs' and
`-secondScoreAbs' if needed. Default: 0 (no adjudication)
- -adjudicateDrawMoves n
- If the given value is non-zero, XBoard adjudicates the game
as a draw if after the given number of moves it was not yet decided.
Default: 0 (no adjudication)
- -checkMates true/false
- If this option is set, XBoard detects all checkmates and
stalemates, and ends the game as soon as they occur. Legality-testing must
be switched on for this option to work. Default: true
- -testClaims true/false
- If this option is set, XBoard verifies all result claims
made by engines, and those who send false claims will forfeit the game
because of it. Legality-testing must be switched on for this option to
work. Default: true
- -materialDraws true/false
- If this option is set, XBoard adjudicates games as draws
when there is no sufficient material left to inflict a checkmate. This
applies to KBKB with like bishops (any number, actually), and to KBK, KNK
and KK. Legality-testing must be switched on for this option to work.
Default: true
- -trivialDraws true/false
- If this option is set, XBoard adjudicates games as draws
that cannot be usually won without opponent cooperation. This applies to
KBKB with unlike bishops, and to KBKN, KNKN, KNNK, KRKR and KQKQ. The draw
is called after 6 ply into these end-games, to allow quick mates that can
occur in some exceptional positions to be found by the engines. KQKQ does
not really belong in this category, and might be taken out in the future.
(When bitbase-based adjudications are implemented.) Legality-testing must
be on for this option to work. Default: false
- -ruleMoves n
- If the given value is non-zero, XBoard adjudicates the game
as a draw after the given number of consecutive reversible moves. Engine
draw claims are always accepted after 50 moves, irrespective of the given
value of n.
- -repeatsToDraw n
- If the given value is non-zero, xboard adjudicates the game
as a draw if a position is repeated the given number of times. Engines
draw claims are always accepted after 3 repeats, (on the 3rd occurrence,
actually), irrespective of the value of n. Beware that positions that have
different castling or en-passant rights do not count as repeats, XBoard is
fully e.p. and castling aware!
Other options¶
- -ncp/-xncp or -noChessProgram true/false
- If this option is true, XBoard acts as a passive
chessboard; it does not start a chess engine at all. Turning on this
option also turns off clockMode. Default: false.
- -mode or -initialMode modename
- If this option is given, XBoard selects the given modename
from the Mode menu after starting and (if applicable) processing the
loadGameFile or loadPositionFile option. Default: "" (no
selection). Other supported values are MachineWhite, MachineBlack,
TwoMachines, Analysis, AnalyzeFile, EditGame, EditPosition, and
Training.
- -variant varname
- Activates preliminary, partial support for playing chess
variants against a local engine or editing variant games. This flag is not
needed in ICS mode. Recognized variant names are:
normal Normal chess
wildcastle Shuffle chess, king can castle from d file
nocastle Shuffle chess, no castling allowed
fischerandom Fischer Random shuffle chess
bughouse Bughouse, ICC/FICS rules
crazyhouse Crazyhouse, ICC/FICS rules
losers Lose all pieces or get mated (ICC wild 17)
suicide Lose all pieces including king (FICS)
giveaway Try to have no legal moves (ICC wild 26)
twokings Weird ICC wild 9
kriegspiel Opponent's pieces are invisible
atomic Capturing piece explodes (ICC wild 27)
3check Win by giving check 3 times (ICC wild 25)
shatranj An ancient precursor of chess (ICC wild 28)
xiangqi Chinese Chess (on a 9x10 board)
shogi Japanese Chess (on a 9x9 board & piece drops)
capablanca Capablanca Chess (10x8 board, with Archbishop
and Chancellor pieces)
gothic similar, with a better initial position
caparandom An FRC-like version of Capablanca Chess (10x8)
janus A game with two Archbishops (10x8 board)
courier Medieval intermediate between shatranj and
modern Chess (on 12x8 board)
falcon Patented 10x8 variant with two Falcon pieces
berolina Pawns capture straight ahead, and move diagonal
cylinder Pieces wrap around the board edge
knightmate King moves as Knight, and vice versa
super Superchess (shuffle variant with 4 exo-pieces)
makruk Thai Chess (shatranj-like, P promotes on 6th rank)
spartan Spartan Chess (black has unorthodox pieces)
fairy A catchall variant in which all piece types
known to XBoard can participate (8x8)
unknown Catchall for other unknown variants
NOT ALL BOARDSIZES PROVIDE A COMPLETE SET OF BUILT-IN BITMAPS FOR ALL
UN-ORTHODOX PIECES, though. Only in `boardSize' middling and bulky all 22
piece types are provided, while -boardSize petite has most of them.
Archbishop, Chancellor and Amazon are supported in every size from petite
to bulky. Kings or Amazons are substituted for missing bitmaps. You can
still play variants needing un-orthodox pieces in other board sizes
providing your own bitmaps through the `bitmapDirectory' or
`pixmapDirectory' options.
In the shuffle variants, XBoard now does shuffle the pieces, although you
can still do it by hand using Edit Position. Some variants are supported
only in ICS mode, including bughouse, and kriegspiel. The winning/drawing
conditions in crazyhouse (off-board interposition on mate) are not fully
understood, but losers, suicide, giveaway, atomic, and 3check should be
OK. Berolina and cylinder chess can only be played with legality testing
off. In crazyhouse, XBoard now does keep track of off-board pieces. In
shatranj it does implement the baring rule when mate detection is switched
on.
- -boardHeight N
- Allows you to set a non-standard number of board ranks in
any variant. If the height is given as -1, the default height for the
variant is used. Default: -1
- -boardWidth N
- Allows you to set a non-standard number of board files in
any variant. If the width is given as -1, the default width for the
variant is used. With a non-standard width, the initial position will
always be an empty board, as the usual opening array will not fit.
Default: -1
- -holdingsSize N
- Allows you to set a non-standard size for the holdings in
any variant. If the size is given as -1, the default holdings size for the
variant is used. The first N piece types will go into the holdings on
capture, and you will be able to drop them on the board in stead of making
a normal move. If size equals 0, there will be no holdings. Default:
-1
- -defaultFrcPosition N
- Specifies the number of the opening position in shuffle
games like Chess960. A value of -1 means the position is randomly
generated by XBoard at the beginning of every game. Default: -1
- -pieceToCharTable string
- The characters that are used to represent the piece types
XBoard knows in FEN diagrams and SAN moves. The string argument has to
have an even length (or it will be ignored), as white and black pieces
have to be given separately (in that order). The last letter for each
color will be the King. The letters before that will be PNBRQ and then a
whole host of fairy pieces in an order that has not fully crystallized yet
(currently FEACWMOHIJGDVSLU, F=Ferz, Elephant, A=Archbishop, C=Chancellor,
W=Wazir, M=Commoner, O=Cannon, H=Nightrider). You should list at least all
pieces that occur in the variant you are playing. If you have less than 44
characters in the string, the pieces not mentioned will get assigned a
period, and you will not be able to distinguish them in FENs. You can also
explicitly assign pieces a period, in which case they will not be counted
in deciding which captured pieces can go into the holdings. A tilde '~' as
a piece name does mean this piece is used to represent a promoted Pawn in
crazyhouse-like games, i.e. on capture it turns back onto a Pawn. A '+'
similarly indicates the piece is a shogi-style promoted piece, that should
revert to its non-promoted version on capture (rather than to a Pawn).
Note that promoted pieces are represented by pieces 11 further in the
list. You should not have to use this option often: each variant has its
own default setting for the piece representation in FEN, which should be
sufficient in normal use. Default: ""
- -pieceNickNames string
- The characters in the string are interpreted the same way
as in the `pieceToCharTable' option. But on input, piece-ID letters are
first looked up in the nicknames, and only if not defined there, in the
normal pieceToCharTable. This allows you to have two letters designate the
same piece, (e.g. N as an alternative to H for Horse in Xiangqi), to make
reading of non-compliant notations easier. Default: ""
- -colorNickNames string
- The side-to-move field in a FEN will be first matched
against the letters in the string (first character for white, second for
black), before it is matched to the regular 'w' and 'b'. This makes it
easier to read non-compliant FENs, which, say, use 'r' for white. Default:
""
- -debug/-xdebug or -debugMode true/false
- Turns on debugging printout.
- -debugFile filename or -nameOfDebugFile
filename
- Sets the name of the file to which XBoard saves debug
information (including all communication to and from the engines). A `%d'
in the given file name (e.g. game%d.debug) will be replaced by the unique
sequence number of a tournament game, so that the debug output of each
game will be written on a separate file.
- -engineDebugOutput number
- Specifies how XBoard should handle unsolicited output from
the engine, with respect to saving it in the debug file. The output is
further (hopefully) ignored. If number=0, XBoard refrains from writing
such spurious output to the debug file. If number=1, all engine output is
written faithfully to the debug file. If number=2, any protocol-violating
line is prefixed with a '#' character, as the engine itself should have
done if it wanted to submit info for inclusion in the debug file. This
option is provided for the benefit of applications that use the debug file
as a source of information, such as the broadcaster of live games TLCV /
TLCS. Such applications can be protected from spurious engine output that
might otherwise confuse them.
- -rsh or -remoteShell shell-name
- Name of the command used to run programs remotely. The
default is `rsh' or `remsh', determined when XBoard is configured and
compiled.
- -ruser or -remoteUser user-name
- User name on the remote system when running programs with
the `remoteShell'. The default is your local user name.
- -userName username
- Name under which the Human player will be listed in the PGN
file. Default is the login name on your local computer.
- -delayBeforeQuit number
- -delayAfterQuit number
- These options specify how long XBoard has to wait before
sending a termination signal to rogue engine processes, that do not want
to react to the 'quit' command. The second one determines the pause after
killing the engine, to make sure it dies.
- -searchMode n
- The integer n encodes the mode for the `find position'
function. Default: 1 (= Exact position match)
- -eloThresholdBoth elo
- -eloThresholdAny elo
- Defines a lower limit for the Elo rating, which has to be
surpassed before a game will be considered when searching for a board
position. Default: 0
- -dateThreshold year
- Only games not played before the given year will be
considered when searching for a board position
CHESS SERVERS¶
An "Internet Chess Server", or "ICS", is a place on the
Internet where people can get together to play chess, watch other people's
games, or just chat. You can use either `telnet' or a client program like
XBoard to connect to the server. There are thousands of registered users on
the different ICS hosts, and it is not unusual to meet 200 on both
chessclub.com and freechess.org.
Most people can just type `xboard -ics' to start XBoard as an ICS client.
Invoking XBoard in this way connects you to the Internet Chess Club (ICC), a
commercial ICS. You can log in there as a guest even if you do not have a paid
account. To connect to the largest Free ICS (FICS), use the command `xboard
-ics -icshost freechess.org' instead, or substitute a different host name to
connect to your favorite ICS. For a full description of command-line options
that control the connection to ICS and change the default values of ICS
options, see
ICS options.
While you are running XBoard as an ICS client, you use the terminal window that
you started XBoard from as a place to type in commands and read information
that is not available on the chessboard.
The first time you need to use the terminal is to enter your login name and
password, if you are a registered player. (You don't need to do this manually;
the `icsLogon' option can do it for you. See
ICS options.) If you are
not registered, enter `g' as your name, and the server will pick a unique
guest name for you.
Some useful ICS commands include
- help <topic>
- to get help on the given <topic>. To get a list of
possible topics type "help" without topic. Try the help command
before you ask other people on the server for help.
For example `help register' tells you how to become a registered ICS
player.
- who <flags>
- to see a list of people who are logged on. Administrators
(people you should talk to if you have a problem) are marked with the
character `*', an asterisk. The <flags> allow you to display only
selected players: For example, `who of' shows a list of players who are
interested in playing but do not have an opponent.
- games
- to see what games are being played
- match <player> [<mins>]
[<inc>]
- to challenge another player to a game. Both opponents get
<mins> minutes for the game, and <inc> seconds will be added
after each move. If another player challenges you, the server asks if you
want to accept the challenge; use the `accept' or `decline' commands to
answer.
- accept
- decline
- to accept or decline another player's offer. The offer may
be to start a new game, or to agree to a `draw', `adjourn' or `abort' the
current game. See Action Menu.
If you have more than one pending offer (for example, if more than one
player is challenging you, or if your opponent offers both a draw and to
adjourn the game), you have to supply additional information, by typing
something like `accept <player>', `accept draw', or `draw'.
- draw
- adjourn
- abort
- asks your opponent to terminate a game by mutual agreement.
Adjourned games can be continued later. Your opponent can either `decline'
your offer or accept it (by typing the same command or typing `accept').
In some cases these commands work immediately, without asking your
opponent to agree. For example, you can abort the game unilaterally if
your opponent is out of time, and you can claim a draw by repetition or
the 50-move rule if available simply by typing `draw'.
- finger <player>
- to get information about the given <player>.
(Default: yourself.)
- vars
- to get a list of personal settings
- set <var> <value>
- to modify these settings
- observe <player>
- to observe an ongoing game of the given
<player>.
- examine
- oldmoves
- to review a recently completed game
Some special XBoard features are activated when you are in examine mode on ICS.
See the descriptions of the menu commands `Forward', `Backward', `Pause', `ICS
Client', and `Stop Examining' on the
Edit Menu,
Mode Menu, and
Action Menu.
FIREWALLS¶
By default, XBoard communicates with an Internet Chess Server by opening a TCP
socket directly from the machine it is running on to the ICS. If there is a
firewall between your machine and the ICS, this won't work. Here are some
recipes for getting around common kinds of firewalls using special options to
XBoard. Important: See the paragraph in the below about extra echoes, in
Limitations.
Suppose that you can't telnet directly to ICS, but you can telnet to a firewall
host, log in, and then telnet from there to ICS. Let's say the firewall is
called `firewall.example.com'. Set command-line options as follows:
xboard -ics -icshost firewall.example.com -icsport 23
Then when you run XBoard in ICS mode, you will be prompted to log in to the
firewall host. This works because port 23 is the standard telnet login
service. Do so, then telnet to ICS, using a command like `telnet chessclub.com
5000', or whatever command the firewall provides for telnetting to port 5000.
If your firewall lets you telnet (or rlogin) to remote hosts but doesn't let you
telnet to port 5000, you may be able to connect to the chess server on port 23
instead, which is the port the telnet program uses by default. Some chess
servers support this (including chessclub.com and freechess.org), while some
do not.
If your chess server does not allow connections on port 23 and your firewall
does not allow you to connect to other ports, you may be able to connect by
hopping through another host outside the firewall that you have an account on.
For instance, suppose you have a shell account at `foo.edu'. Follow the recipe
above, but instead of typing `telnet chessclub.com 5000' to the firewall, type
`telnet foo.edu' (or `rlogin foo.edu'), log in there, and then type `telnet
chessclub.com 5000'.
Suppose that you can't telnet directly to ICS, but you can use rsh to run
programs on a firewall host, and that host can telnet to ICS. Let's say the
firewall is called `rsh.example.com'. Set command-line options as follows:
xboard -ics -gateway rsh.example.com -icshost chessclub.com
Then when you run XBoard in ICS mode, it will connect to the ICS by using `rsh'
to run the command `telnet chessclub.com 5000' on host `rsh.example.com'.
Suppose that you can telnet anywhere you want, but you have to run a special
program called `ptelnet' to do so.
First, we'll consider the easy case, in which `ptelnet chessclub.com 5000' gets
you to the chess server. In this case set command line options as follows:
xboard -ics -telnet -telnetProgram ptelnet
Then when you run XBoard in ICS mode, it will issue the command `ptelnet
chessclub.com 5000' to connect to the ICS.
Next, suppose that `ptelnet chessclub.com 5000' doesn't work; that is, your
`ptelnet' program doesn't let you connect to alternative ports. As noted
above, your chess server may allow you to connect on port 23 instead. In that
case, just add the option `-icsport ""' to the above command. But if
your chess server doesn't let you connect on port 23, you will have to find
some other host outside the firewall and hop through it. For instance, suppose
you have a shell account at `foo.edu'. Set command line options as follows:
xboard -ics -telnet -telnetProgram ptelnet -icshost foo.edu -icsport ""
Then when you run XBoard in ICS mode, it will issue the command `ptelnet
foo.edu' to connect to your account at `foo.edu'. Log in there, then type
`telnet chessclub.com 5000'.
ICC timestamp and FICS timeseal do not work through some firewalls. You can use
them only if your firewall gives a clean TCP connection with a full 8-bit wide
path. If your firewall allows you to get out only by running a special telnet
program, you can't use timestamp or timeseal across it. But if you have access
to a computer just outside your firewall, and you have much lower netlag when
talking to that computer than to the ICS, it might be worthwhile running
timestamp there. Follow the instructions above for hopping through a host
outside the firewall (foo.edu in the example), but run timestamp or timeseal
on that host instead of telnet.
Suppose that you have a SOCKS firewall that will give you a clean 8-bit wide TCP
connection to the chess server, but only after you authenticate yourself via
the SOCKS protocol. In that case, you could make a socksified version of
XBoard and run that. If you are using timestamp or timeseal, you will to
socksify it, not XBoard; this may be difficult seeing that ICC and FICS do not
provide source code for these programs. Socksification is beyond the scope of
this document, but see the SOCKS Web site at
http://www.socks.permeo.com/. If
you are missing SOCKS, try
http://www.funbureau.com/.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
Game and position files are found in a directory named by the `CHESSDIR'
environment variable. If this variable is not set, the current working
directory is used. If `CHESSDIR' is set, XBoard actually changes its working
directory to `$CHESSDIR', so any files written by the chess engine will be
placed there too.
LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN BUGS¶
There is no way for two people running copies of XBoard to play each other
without going through an Internet Chess Server.
Under some circumstances, your ICS password may be echoed when you log on.
If you are connecting to the ICS by running telnet on an Internet provider or
firewall host, you may find that each line you type is echoed back an extra
time after you hit <Enter>. If your Internet provider is a Unix system,
you can probably turn its echo off by typing `stty -echo' after you log in,
and/or typing <^E><Enter> (Ctrl+E followed by the Enter key) to
the telnet program after you have logged into ICS. It is a good idea to do
this if you can, because the extra echo can occasionally confuse XBoard's
parsing routines.
The game parser recognizes only algebraic notation.
Many of the following points used to be limitations in XBoard 4.2.7 and earlier,
but are now fixed: The internal move legality tester in XBoard 4.3.xx does
look at the game history, and is fully aware of castling or en-passant-capture
rights. It permits castling with the king on the d file because this is
possible in some "wild 1" games on ICS. The piece-drop menu does not
check piece drops in bughouse to see if you actually hold the piece you are
trying to drop. But this way of dropping pieces should be considered an
obsolete feature, now that pieces can be dropped by dragging them from the
holdings to the board. Anyway, if you would attempt an illegal move when using
a chess engine or the ICS, XBoard will accept the error message that comes
back, undo the move, and let you try another. FEN positions saved by XBoard do
include correct information about whether castling or en passant are legal,
and also handle the 50-move counter. The mate detector does not understand
that non-contact mate is not really mate in bughouse. The only problem this
causes while playing is minor: a "#" (mate indicator) character will
show up after a non-contact mating move in the move list. XBoard will not
assume the game is over at that point, not even when the option Detect Mates
is on. Edit Game mode always uses the rules of the selected variant, which can
be a variant that uses piece drops. You can load and edit games that contain
piece drops. The (obsolete) piece menus are not active, but you can perform
piece drops by dragging pieces from the holdings. Fischer Random castling is
fully understood. You can enter castlings by dragging the King on top of your
Rook. You can probably also play Fischer Random successfully on ICS by typing
castling moves into the ICS Interaction window.
The menus may not work if your keyboard is in Caps Lock or Num Lock mode. This
seems to be a problem with the Athena menu widget, not an XBoard bug.
Also see the ToDo file included with the distribution for many other possible
bugs, limitations, and ideas for improvement that have been suggested.
REPORTING PROBLEMS¶
You can report bugs and problems with XBoard using the bug tracker at
`
https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/' or by sending mail to
`<bug-xboard@gnu.org>'. It can also be useful to report or discuss bugs
in the WinBoard Forum at `
http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/', WinBoard
development section.
Please use the `script' program to start a typescript, run XBoard with the
`-debug' option, and include the typescript output in your message. Also tell
us what kind of machine and what operating system version you are using. The
command `uname -a' will often tell you this.
If you improve XBoard, please send a message about your changes, and we will get
in touch with you about merging them in to the main line of development.
AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS¶
Chris Sears and Dan Sears wrote the original XBoard. They were responsible for
versions 1.0 through 1.2. The color scheme was taken from Wayne Christopher's
`XChess' program.
Tim Mann was primarily responsible for XBoard versions 1.3 through 4.2.7, and
for WinBoard (a port of XBoard to Microsoft Win32) from its inception through
version 4.2.7.
John Chanak contributed the initial implementation of ICS mode. Evan Welsh wrote
`CMail', and Patrick Surry helped in designing, testing, and documenting it.
Elmar Bartel contributed the new piece bitmaps introduced in version 3.2.
Jochen Wiedmann converted the documentation to texinfo. Frank McIngvale added
click/click moving, the Analysis modes, piece flashing, ZIICS import, and ICS
text colorization to XBoard. Hugh Fisher added animated piece movement to
XBoard, and Henrik Gram added it to WinBoard. Mark Williams contributed the
initial (WinBoard-only) implementation of many new features added to both
XBoard and WinBoard in version 4.1.0, including copy/paste, premove, icsAlarm,
autoFlipView, training mode, auto raise, and blindfold. Ben Nye contributed X
copy/paste code for XBoard.
In a fork from version 4.2.7, Alessandro Scotti added many elements to the user
interface of WinBoard, including the board textures and font-based rendering,
the evaluation-graph, move-history and engine-output window. He was also
responsible for adding the UCI support.
H. G. Muller continued this fork of the project, producing version 4.3. He made
WinBoard castling- and e.p.-aware, added variant support with adjustable board
sizes, the crazyhouse holdings, and the fairy pieces. In addition he added
most of the adjudication options, made WinBoard more robust in dealing with
buggy and crashing engines, and extended time control with a time-odds and
node-count-based modes. Most of the options that initially were WinBoard only
have now been back-ported to XBoard.
Michel van den Bergh provided the code for reading Polyglot opening books.
Meanwhile, some work continued on the GNU XBoard project maintained at
savannah.gnu.org, but version 4.2.8 was never released. Daniel Mehrmann was
responsible for much of this work.
Most recently, Arun Persaud worked with H. G. Muller to merge all the features
of the never-released XBoard/WinBoard 4.2.8 of the GNU XBoard project and the
never-released 4.3.16 from H. G.'s fork into a unified XBoard/WinBoard 4.4,
which is now available both from the savannah.gnu.org web site and the
WinBoard forum.
CMAIL¶
The `cmail' program can help you play chess by email with opponents of your
choice using XBoard as an interface.
You will usually run `cmail' without giving any options.
CMail options¶
- -h
- Displays `cmail' usage information.
- -c
- Shows the conditions of the GNU General Public License. See
Copying.
- -w
- Shows the warranty notice of the GNU General Public
License. See Copying.
- -v
- -xv
- Provides or inhibits verbose output from `cmail' and
XBoard, useful for debugging. The `-xv' form also inhibits the cmail
introduction message.
- -mail
- -xmail
- Invokes or inhibits the sending of a mail message
containing the move.
- -xboard
- -xxboard
- Invokes or inhibits the running of XBoard on the game
file.
- -reuse
- -xreuse
- Invokes or inhibits the reuse of an existing XBoard to
display the current game.
- -remail
- Resends the last mail message for that game. This inhibits
running XBoard.
- -game <name>
- The name of the game to be processed.
- -wgames <number>
- -bgames <number>
- -games <number>
- Number of games to start as White, as Black or in total.
Default is 1 as white and none as black. If only one color is specified
then none of the other color is assumed. If no color is specified then
equal numbers of White and Black games are started, with the extra game
being as White if an odd number of total games is specified.
- -me <short name>
- -opp <short name>
- A one-word alias for yourself or your opponent.
- -wname <full name>
- -bname <full name>
- -myname <full name>
- -oppname <full name>
- The full name of White, Black, yourself or your
opponent.
- -wna <net address>
- -bna <net address>
- -na <net address>
- -oppna <net address>
- The email address of White, Black, yourself or your
opponent.
- -dir <directory>
- The directory in which `cmail' keeps its files. This
defaults to the environment variable `$CMAIL_DIR' or failing that,
`$CHESSDIR', `$HOME/Chess' or `~/Chess'. It will be created if it does not
exist.
- -arcdir <directory>
- The directory in which `cmail' archives completed games.
Defaults to the environment variable `$CMAIL_ARCDIR' or, in its absence,
the same directory as cmail keeps its working files (above).
- -mailprog <mail program>
- The program used by cmail to send email messages. This
defaults to the environment variable `$CMAIL_MAILPROG' or failing that
`/usr/ucb/Mail', `/usr/ucb/mail' or `Mail'. You will need to set this
variable if none of the above paths fit your system.
- -logFile <file>
- A file in which to dump verbose debugging messages that are
invoked with the `-v' option.
- -event <event>
- The PGN Event tag (default `Email correspondence
game').
- -site <site>
- The PGN Site tag (default `NET').
- -round <round>
- The PGN Round tag (default `-', not applicable).
- -mode <mode>
- The PGN Mode tag (default `EM', Electronic Mail).
- Other options
- Any option flags not listed above are passed through to
XBoard. Invoking XBoard through CMail changes the default values of two
XBoard options: The default value for `-noChessProgram' is changed to
true; that is, by default no chess engine is started. The default value
for `-timeDelay' is changed to 0; that is, by default XBoard immediately
goes to the end of the game as played so far, rather than stepping through
the moves one by one. You can still set these options to whatever values
you prefer by supplying them on CMail's command line. See
Options.
Starting a CMail Game¶
Type `cmail' from a shell to start a game as white. After an opening message,
you will be prompted for a game name, which is optional -- if you simply press
<Enter>, the game name will take the form `you-VS-opponent'. You will
next be prompted for the short name of your opponent. If you haven't played
this person before, you will also be prompted for his/her email address.
`cmail' will then invoke XBoard in the background. Make your first move and
select `Mail Move' from the `File' menu. See
File Menu. If all is well,
`cmail' will mail a copy of the move to your opponent. If you select `Exit'
without having selected `Mail Move' then no move will be made.
Answering a Move¶
When you receive a message from an opponent containing a move in one of your
games, simply pipe the message through `cmail'. In some mailers this is as
simple as typing `| cmail' when viewing the message, while in others you may
have to save the message to a file and do `cmail < file' at the command
line. In either case `cmail' will display the game using XBoard. If you didn't
exit XBoard when you made your first move then `cmail' will do its best to use
the existing XBoard instead of starting a new one. As before, simply make a
move and select `Mail Move' from the `File' menu. See
File Menu.
`cmail' will try to use the XBoard that was most recently used to display the
current game. This means that many games can be in progress simultaneously,
each with its own active XBoard.
If you want to look at the history or explore a variation, go ahead, but you
must return to the current position before XBoard will allow you to mail a
move. If you edit the game's history you must select `Reload Same Game' from
the `File' menu to get back to the original position, then make the move you
want and select `Mail Move'. As before, if you decide you aren't ready to make
a move just yet you can either select `Exit' without sending a move or just
leave XBoard running until you are ready.
Multi-Game Messages¶
It is possible to have a `cmail' message carry more than one game. This feature
was implemented to handle IECG (International Email Chess Group) matches,
where a match consists of one game as white and one as black, with moves
transmitted simultaneously. In case there are more general uses, `cmail'
itself places no limit on the number of black/white games contained in a
message; however, XBoard does.
Completing a Game¶
Because XBoard can detect checkmate and stalemate, `cmail' handles game
termination sensibly. As well as resignation, the `Action' menu allows draws
to be offered and accepted for `cmail' games.
For multi-game messages, only unfinished and just-finished games will be
included in email messages. When all the games are finished, they are archived
in the user's archive directory, and similarly in the opponent's when he or
she pipes the final message through `cmail'. The archive file name includes
the date the game was started.
Known CMail Problems¶
It's possible that a strange conjunction of conditions may occasionally mean
that `cmail' has trouble reactivating an existing XBoard. If this should
happen, simply trying it again should work. If not, remove the file that
stores the XBoard's PID (`game.pid') or use the `-xreuse' option to force
`cmail' to start a new XBoard.
Versions of `cmail' after 2.16 no longer understand the old file format that
XBoard used to use and so cannot be used to correspond with anyone using an
older version.
Versions of `cmail' older than 2.11 do not handle multi-game messages, so
multi-game correspondence is not possible with opponents using an older
version.
OTHER PROGRAMS YOU CAN USE WITH XBOARD¶
Here are some other programs you can use with XBoard
GNU Chess¶
The GNU Chess engine is available from:
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuchess/
You can use XBoard to play a game against GNU Chess, or to interface GNU Chess
to an ICS.
Fairy-Max¶
Fairy-Max is a derivative from the once World's smallest Chess program
micro-Max, which measures only about 100 lines of source code. The main
difference with micro-Max is that Fairy-Max loads its move-generator tables
from a file, so that the rules for piece movement can be easily configured to
implement unorthodox pieces. Fairy-Max can therefore play a large number of
variants, normal Chess being one of those. In addition it plays Knightmate,
Capablanca and Gothic Chess, Shatranj, Courier Chess, Cylinder chess, Berolina
Chess, while the user can easily define new variants. It can be obtained from:
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/dwnldpage.html
HoiChess¶
HoiChess is a not-so-very-strong Chess engine, which comes with a derivative
HoiXiangqi, able to play Chinese Chess. It can be obtained from the standard
Linux repositories through:
sudo apt-get install hoichess
Crafty¶
Crafty is a chess engine written by Bob Hyatt. You can use XBoard to play a game
against Crafty, hook Crafty up to an ICS, or use Crafty to interactively
analyze games and positions for you.
Crafty is a strong, rapidly evolving chess program. This rapid pace of
development is good, because it means Crafty is always getting better. This
can sometimes cause problems with backwards compatibility, but usually the
latest version of Crafty will work well with the latest version of XBoard.
Crafty can be obtained from its author's FTP site:
ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/.
To use Crafty with XBoard, give the -fcp and -fd options as follows, where
<crafty's directory> is the directory in which you installed Crafty and
placed its book and other support files.
zic2xpm¶
The ``zic2xpm'' program is used to import chess sets from the ZIICS(*) program
into XBoard. ``zic2xpm'' is part of the XBoard distribution. ZIICS is
available from:
ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/DOS/ziics131.exe
To import ZIICS pieces, do this:
- 1. Unzip ziics131.exe into a directory:
-
unzip -L ziics131.exe -d ~/ziics
- 2. Use zic2xpm to convert a set of pieces to XBoard
format.
-
For example, let's say you want to use the FRITZ4 set. These files are named
``fritz4.*'' in the ZIICS distribution.
mkdir ~/fritz4
cd ~/fritz4
zic2xpm ~/ziics/fritz4.*
- 3. Give XBoard the ``-pixmap'' option when starting up,
e.g.:
-
xboard -pixmap ~/fritz4
(*) ZIICS is a separate copyrighted work of Andy McFarland. The ``ZIICS pieces''
are copyrighted works of their respective creators. Files produced by
``zic2xpm'' are for PERSONAL USE ONLY and may NOT be redistributed without
explicit permission from the original creator(s) of the pieces.
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (C) 1991 Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts.
All Rights Reserved.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that
the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that
the name of Digital not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission.
Digital disclaims all warranties with regard to this software, including all
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Published by the Free Software Foundation
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