Provided by: xboard_4.9.1-1_amd64 
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 4.9.1 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. To run engines that use
the UCI standard XBoard will draw upon the Polyglot adapter fully transparently,
but you will need to have the polyglot package installed for this to work.
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. To under-promote
a Pawn you can drag it backwards until it morphs into the piece you want to promote to,
after which you drag that forward to the promotion square. Or after selecting the pawn
with a first click you can then click the promotion square and move the mouse while
keeping the button down until the piece that you want appears in the promotion square. To
castle you move the King to its destination or, in Chess960, on top of the Rook you want
to castle with. 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 might 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.
In Analysis mode you can also make a move by grabbing the piece with a double-click of the
left mouse button (or while keeping the `Ctrl' key pressed). In this case the move you
enter will not be played, but will be excluded from the analysis of the current position.
(Or included if it was already excluded; it is a toggle.) This only works for engines
that support this feature.
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 situations 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. Note that the board window can be sized
by the user, but that this will not affect the size of the clocks above it, and won't be
remembered in the settings file. To persistently change the size of the clocks, use the
`size' command-line option when starting XBoard. 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.
MENUS, BUTTONS, AND KEYS
File Menu
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).
shuffle
Ticking `shuffle' will cause the current variant to be played with shuffled initial
position. Shuffling will preserve the possibility to castle in the way allowed by
the variant.
Fischer castling
Ticking `Fischer castling' will allow castling with Kings and Rooks that did not
start in their normal place, as in Chess960.
Start-position number
randomize
pick fixed
The `Start-position number' selects a particular start position from all allowed
shufflings, which will then be used for every new game. Setting this to -1 (which
can be done by pressing the `randomize' button) will cause a fresh random position
to be picked for every new game. Pressing the `pick fixed' button causes `Start-
position number' to be set to a random value, to be used for all subsequent games.
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
corresponding choice will be disabled. XBoard supports all major variants, such as
xiangqi, shogi, chess, chess960, makruk, Capablanca Chess, shatranj, crazyhouse,
bughouse.
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' for the chosen variant.
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.
Save Selected Games
Will cause all games selected for display in the current Game List to be appended
to a file of the user's choice.
Save Games as Book
Creates an opening book from the currently loaded game file, incorporating only the
games currently selected in the Game List. The book will be saved on the file
specified in the `Common Engine' options dialog. The value of `Book Depth'
specified in that same dialog will be used to determine how many moves of each game
will be added to the internal book buffer. This command can take a long time to
process, and the size of the buffer is currently limited. At the end the buffer
will be saved as a Polyglot book, but the buffer will not be cleared, so that you
can continue adding games from other game files.
Mail Move
Reload CMail Message
See CMail.
Exit Exits from XBoard. The `Ctrl-Q' key is a keyboard equivalent.
Edit Menu
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. When you do this keeping the `Ctrl' key pressed, or start dragging with a
double-click, you will move a copy of the piece, leaving the piece itself where it
was. In variants where pieces can promote (such as Shogi), left-clicking an
already selected piece promotes or demotes 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. (Note
you can swap the function of button 2 and 3 by pressing the shift key, and that
there is an option `monoMouse' to combine al functions in one button, which then
acts as button 3 over an empty square, and as button 1 over a piece.) 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 already has the move (which is highlighted in black). If
you repeat this the board will cycle from empty to a `pallette board' containing
every piece once to the initial position to the one before clearing. The quickest
way to set up a position is usually to start with the pallette board, and move the
pieces to were you want them, duplicating them where necessary by using the `Ctrl'
key, dragging those you don't want off board, and use static button 2 or 3 clicks
to place the Pawns. The old behavior with a piece menu can still be configured
with the aid of the `pieceMenu' option. Dragging empty squares off board can
create boards with holes (inaccessible black squares) in them. 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', PGN variations will also be printed in this
window, and can be promoted to main line by right-clicking them. `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 'save
changes'. When you press the button 'add next move', and play a move on the board,
that move will be added to the list with weight 1. Note that the listed
percentages are neither used, nor updated when you change the weights; they are
just there as an optical aid. When you right-click a move in the list it will be
played.
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 ??? 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.
View Menu
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. Right-
clicking a line in this window, and then moving the mouse vertically with the right
button kept down, will make XBoard play through the PV listed there. The use of
the board window as 'variation board' will normally end when you release the right
button, or when the opponent plays a move. But beware: in Analysis mode, moves
thus played out might be added to the game, depending on the setting of the option
'Play moves of clicked PV', when you initiate the click left of the PV in the score
area. The Engine-Output pane for each engine will contain a header displaying the
multi-PV status and a list of excluded moves in Analysis mode, which are also
responsive to right-clicking: Clicking the words 'fewer' or 'more' will alter the
number of variations shown at each depth, through the engine's MultiPV option,
while clicking in between those and moving the mouse horizontally adjust the option
'Multi-PV Margin'. (In so far the engines support those.)
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. The title bar shows the score (and search depth at which it was
obtained) of the currently displayed position numerically. Clicking on the graph
will bring the corresponding position in the board display. A button 3 click will
toggle the display mode between plain and differential (showing the difference in
score between successive half moves). Using the mouse wheel over the window will
change the scale of the low-score region (from -1 to +1).
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. The line describing each game is
built from a selection of the PGN tags. Which tags contribute, and in what order,
can be changed by the `Game list tags' menu dialog, which can be popped up through
the `Tags' button below the Game List. Display can be restricted to a sub-set of
the games meeting certain criteria. A text entry below the game list allows you to
type a text that the game lines must contain in order to be displayed. Games can
also be selected based on their Elo PGN tag, as set in the `Load Game Options'
dialog, which can be popped up through the `Thresholds' button below the Game List.
Finally they can be selected based on containing a position similar to the one
currently displayed in the main window, by pressing the 'Position' button below the
Game List, (which searches the entire list for the position), or the 'Narrow'
button (which only searches the already-selected games). What counts as similar
enough to be selected can also be set in the `Load Game Options' dialog, and ranges
from an exact match to just the same material.
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.
ICS/Chat Console
This menu item opens a window in which you can interact with the ICS, so you don't
have to use the messy xterm from which you launched XBoard for that. The window
has a text entry at the bottom where you can type your commands and messages
unhindered by the stream of ICS output. The latter will be displayed in a large
pane above the input field, the ICS Console. Up and down arrow keys can be used to
recall previous input lines. Typing an <Esc> character in the input field
transfers focus back to the board window (so you could operate the menus there
through accelerator keys). Typing a printable character in the board window
transfers focus back to the input field of the `ICS Chat/Console' window.
Chats There is a row of buttons at the top of the `ICS Chat/Console' dialog, which can be
used to navigate between upto 5 'chats' with other ICS users (or channels). These
will switch the window to 'chat mode', where the ICS output pane is vertically
split to divert messages from a specific user or ICS channel to the lower half.
Lines typed in the input field will then be interpreted as messages to be sent to
that user or channel, (automatically prefixed with the apporpriate ICS command and
user name) rather than as commands to the ICS. Chats will keep collecting ICS
output intended for them even when not displayed, and their buttons will turn
orange to alert the user there has been activity. Typing <Tab> in the input field
will switch to another active chat, giving priority to those with content you have
not seen yet.
New Chat
Buttons for chats currently not assigned to a user or channel will carry the text
`New Chat', and pressing them will switch to chat mode, enabling you to enter the
user name or channel number you want to use it for. Typing Ctrl-N in the input
field is a keyboard equivalent.
Chat partner
To (re-)assign a chat, write the name of your chat partner, the channel number, or
the words 'shouts', 'whispers', 'cshouts' in the `Chat partner' text entry (ending
with <Enter>!). Typing Ctrl-O in the input field at the bottom of the window will
open a chat with the person that last sent you a 'tell' that was printed in the ICS
Console output pane. The `ICS text menu' can contain a button `Open Chat (name)'
that can be used to open a chat with as partner the word/number you right-clicked
in the output pane to pop up this menu.
End Chat
This button, only visible when the chat pane is open, will clear the `Chat partner'
field, so that the chat can be assigned to a new user or channel. Typing Ctrl-E in
the input field is a keyboard equivalent.
Hide This button, only visible when the chat pane is open, will close the latter, so you
can use the input field to give commands to the ICS again. Typing Ctrl-H in the
input field is a keyboard equivalent.
ICS text menu
Brings up a menu that is user-configurable through the `icsMenu' option. Buttons
in this menu can sent pre-configured commands directly to the ICS, or can put
partial commands in the input field of the `ICS Chat/Console' window, so that you
can complete those with some text of your own before sending them to the ICS by
pressing Enter. This menu item can also be popped up by right-clicking in the text
memos of the ICS Chat/Console window. In that case the word that was clicked can
be incorporated in the message sent to the ICS. E.g. to challenge a player whose
name you click for a game, or prepare for sending him a message through a 'tell'
commands.
Edit ICS menu
Brings up an edit box with the definition of the `ICS text menu', so you can adapt
its appearance to your needs. The menu is defined by a semi-colon-separated list,
each button through a pair of items in it. The first item of each pair is the text
on the button, the second the text to be sent when the button is pressed. The word
'$input' in the text will put that text in the input field of the `ICS
Chat/Console' with the cursor in that place, the word '$name' will be replaced by
the word right-clicked to pop up the text menu.
Edit Theme List
Brings up an edit box with the definitions of the themes shown in the listbox of
the `Board' dialog, so you can delete, re-order or alter themes defined previously.
Board Summons a dialog where you can customize the look of the chess board.
White Piece Color
Black Piece Color
Light Square Color
Dark Square Color
Highlight Color
Premove Highlight Color
These items set the color of pieces, board squares and move highlights (borders or
arrow). Square colors are only used when the `Use Board Textures' option is off,
the piece colors only when `Use piece bitmaps with their own colors' is off. You
can type the color as hexadecimally encoded RGB value preceded by '#', or adjust it
through the R, G, B and D buttons to make it redder, greener, bluer or darker. A
sample of the adjusted color will be displayed behind its text description;
pressing this colored button restores the default value for the color.
Flip Pieces Shogi Style
With this option on XBoard will swap white and black pieces, when you flip the view
of the board to make white play downward. This should be used with piece themes
that do not distinguish sides by color, but by orientation.
Mono Mode
This option sets XBoard to pure black-and-white display (no grey scales, and thus
no anti-aliasing).
Logo Size
Specifies the width of the engine logos displayed next to the clocks, in pixels.
Setting it to 0 suppresses the display of such logos. The height of the logo will
be half its width. In the GTK build of XBoard any non-zero value is equivalent,
and the logos are always sized to 1/4 of the board width.
Line Gap
This option specifies the width of the grid lines that separate the squares, which
change color on highlighting the move. Setting it to 0 suppresses these lines,
which in general looks better, but hides the square-border highlights, so that you
would have to rely on other forms of highlighting. Setting the value to -1 makes
XBoard choose a width by itself, depending on the square size.
Use Board Textures
Light-Squares Texture File
Dark-Squares Texture File
When the option `Use Board Textures' is set, the squares will not be drawn as
evenly colored surfaces, but will be cut from a texture image, as specified by the
`Texture Files'. Separate images can be used for light and dark squares. XBoard
will try to cut the squares out of the texture image with as little overlap as
possible, so they all look different. The name of the texture file can contain a
size hint, e.g. `xqboard-9x10.png', alerting XBoard to the fact that it contains a
whole-board image, out of which squares have to be cut in register with the nominal
sub-division.
Use external piece bitmaps with their own color
When this option is on XBoard will ignore the piece-color settings, and draw the
piece images in their original colors. The piece-color settings would only work
well for evenly colored pieces, such as the default theme.
Directory with Pieces Images
When a directory is specified here, XBoard will first look for piece images (SVG or
PNG files) in that directory, and fall back on the image from the default theme
only for images it cannot find there. An image file called White/BlackTile in the
directory will be prefered as fall-back for missing pieces over the default image,
however.
Selectable themes
New name for current theme
When a theme name is specified while pressing 'OK', the combination of settings
specified in the dialog will be stored in XBoard's list of themes, which will be
saved with the other options in the settings file (as the `themeNames' option).
This name will then appear in the selection listbox next time you open the dialog,
so that you can recall the entire combination of settings by double-clicking it.
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 `pieceImageDirectory' option),
external images to be used for the board squares (`liteBackTextureFile' and
`darkBackTextureFile' options), and square and piece colors for the default pieces.
The current combination of these settings can be assigned a 'theme' name by typing
one in the text entry in the lower-left of the dialog, and closing the latter with
OK. It will then appear in the themes listbox next time you open the dialog, where
you can recall the complete settings combination with a double-click.
Fonts Pops up a dialog where you can set the fonts used in the main elements of various
windows. Pango font names can be typed for each window type, and behind each text
entry there are buttons to adjust the point size, and toggle the 'bold' or 'italic'
attributes of the font.
Game List Tags
a duplicate of the Game List dialog in the Options menu.
Mode 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. Set up the position by any means. (E.g. using `Edit Position' mode, pasing a FEN
or loading a game and stepping to the position.)
2. 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).
You can also tell the engine to exclude some moves from analysis. (Engines that do
not support the exclude-moves feature will ignore this, however.) The general way
to do this is to play the move you want to exclude starting with a double click on
the piece. When you use drag-drop moving, the piece you grab with a double click
will also remain on its square, to show you that you are not really making the
move, but just forbid it from the current position. Playing a thus excluded move a
second time will include it again. Excluded moves will be listed as text in a
header line in the Engine Output window, and you can also re-include them by right-
clicking them there. This header line will also contain the words 'best' and
'tail'; right-clicking those will exclude the currently best move, or all moves not
explicitly listed in the header line. Once you leave the current position all
memory of excluded moves will be lost when you return there.
Selecting this menu item while already in `Analysis Mode' will toggle the
participation of the second engine in the analysis. The output of this engine will
then be shown in the lower pane of the Engine Output window. The analysis function
can also be used when observing games on an ICS with an engine loaded (zippy mode);
the engine then will analyze 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.
Normally the analysis would stop after reaching the end of the game. But when a
game is loaded from a multi-game file while `Analyze Game' was already switched on,
the analysis will continue with the next game in the file until the end of the file
is reached (or you switch to another mode).
The time the engine spends on analyzing each move can be controlled through the
command-line option `-timeDelay', which can also be set from the `Load Game
Options' menu dialog. 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 `Tournament 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.
Action Menu
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".
Engine Menu
Edit Engine List
Opens a window that shows the list of engines registered for use by XBoard,
together with the options that would be used with them when you would select them
from the `Load Engine' dialogs. You can then edit this list, e.g. for re-ordering
the engines, or adding uncommon options needed by this engine (e.g. to cure non-
compliant behavior).
By editing you can also organize the engines into collapsible groups. By
sandwiching a number of engine lines between lines "# NAME" and "# end", the thus
enclosed engines will not initially appear in engine listboxes of other dialogs,
but only the single line "# NAME" (where NAME can be an arbitrary text) will appear
in their place. Selecting that line will then show the enclosed engines in the
listbox, which recursively can contain other groups. The line with the group name
will still present as a header, and selecting that line will collapse the group
again, and makes the listbox go back to displaying the surrounding group.
Load New 1st Engine
Load New 2nd Engine
Pops up a dialog where you can select or specify an engine to be loaded. 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!)
Select engine from list
The listbox shows the engines registered for use with XBoard before. (This means
XBoard has information on the engine type, whether it plays book etc. in the
engine list stored in its settings file.) Double-clicking an engine here will load
it and close the dialog. The list can also contain groups, indicated by a starting
'#' sign. Double-clicking such a group will 'open' it, and show the group contents
in the listbox instead of the total list, with the group name as header. Double-
clicking the header will 'close' the group again.
Nickname
Use nickname in PGN player tags of engine-engine games
When a `Nickname' is specified, the engine will appear under this name in the
`Select Engine' listbox. Otherwise the name there will be a tidied version of the
engine command. The user can specify if the nickname is also to be used in PGN
tags; normally the name engines report theselves would be used there.
Engine Command
The command needed to start the engine from the command line. For compliantly
installed engine this is usually just a single word, the name of the engine package
(e.g. 'crafty' or 'stockfish'). Some engines need additional parameters on the
command line. For engines that are not in a place where the system would expect
them a full pathname can be specified, and usually the browse button for this
oprion is the easiest way to obtain that.
Engine Directory
Compliant engines could run from any directory, and by default this option is
proposed as '.', the current directory. If a (path)name is specified here, XBoard
will start the engine in that directory. If you make the field empty, it will try
to derive the directory from the engine command (if that was a path name).
UCI When the `UCI' checkbox is ticked XBoard will assume the engine is of UCI type, and
will invoke the corresponding adapter (as specified in the `adapterCommand' option
stored in its settings file)to use it. By default this adapter is Polyglot, which
must be installed from a separate package!
USI/UCCI
Ticking this checkbox informs XBoard that the engine is of USI or UCCI type (as
Shogi or Xiangqi engines often are). This makes XBoard invoke an adapter to run
the engines, as specified by the `uxiAdapter' option stored in its settings file.
The UCI2WB program is an adapter that can handle both these engine types, as well
as UCI.
WB protocol v1
Ticking this checkbox informs XBoard the engine is using an old version (1) of the
communication protocol, so that it won't respond to a request to interrogate its
properties. XBoard then won't even try that, saving you a wait of several seconds
each time the engine is started. Do not use this on state-of-the-art engines, as
it would prevent XBoard from interrogating its capabilities, so that many of its
features might not work!
Must not use GUI book
By default XBoard assumes engines are responsible for their own opening book, but
unticking this option makes XBoard consult its own book (as per `Opening-Book
Filename') on behalf of the engine.
Add this engine to the list
By default XBoard would add the engine you specified, with all the given options to
its list of registered engines (kept in its settings file), when you press 'OK'.
Next time you could then simply select it from the listbox, or use the command
"xboard -fe NICKNAME" to start XBoard with the engine and accompanying options.
New engines are always added at the end of the existing list, or, when you have
opened a group in the `Select Engine' listbox, at the end of that group. But can
be re-ordered later with the aid of the `Edit Engine List' menu item. When you
untick this checkbox before pressing 'OK' the engine will be loaded, but will not
be added to the engine list.
Force current variant with this engine
Ticking this option will make XBoard automatically start the engine in the current
variant, even when XBoard was set for a different variant when you loaded the
engine. Useful when the engine plays multiple variants, and you specifically want
to play one different from its primary one.
Engine #1 Settings
Engine #2 Settings
Pop up a menu dialog to alter the settings specific to the applicable engine. 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 2.0.1.) For native XBoard engines this is less common.
Common Settings
Pops up a menu dialog 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. The shifted `Alt+U' key is a keyboard
equivalent. Older XBoard/WinBoard engines might not respond to these settings, but
UCI engines always should.
Maximum Number of CPUs per Engine
Specifies the number of search threads any engine can maximally use. Do not set it
to a number larger than the number of cores your computer has. (Or half of it when
you want two engines to run simultaneously, as in a Two-Machines game with `Ponder
Next Move' on.)
Polyglot Directory
Hash-Table Size
Specifies the maximum amount of memory (RAM) each engine is allowed to use for
storing info on positions it already searched, so it would not have to search them
again. Do not set it so that it is more than half (or if you use two engines, more
than a quarter) of the memory your computer has, or it would slow the engines down
by an extreme amount.
EGTB Path
Sets the value of the `egtFormats' option, which specifies where on your computer
the files for End-Game Tables are stored. It must be a comma-separated list of
path names, the path for each EGT flavor prefixed with the name of the latter and a
colon. E.g. "nalimov:/home/egt/dtm,syzygy:/home/egt/dtz50". The path names after
the colon will be sent to the engines that say they can use the corresponding EGT
flavor.
EGTB Cache Size
Specifies the amount of memory the engine should use to buffer end-game
information. Together with the `Hash-Table Size' this determines how much memory
the engine is allowed to use in total.
Use GUI Book
Opening-Book Filename
The `Opening-Book Filename' specifies an opening book in Polyglot format (usually a
.bin file), from which XBoard can play moves on behalf of the engine. This is also
the book file on which the `Edit Book' and `Save Games as Book' menu items operate.
A checkbox `Use GUI Book' can be used to temporarily disable the book without
losing the setting. (This does not prevent editing or saving games on it!)
Book Depth
Book Variety
The way moves are selected from the book can be controlled by two options. `Book
Depth' controls for how deep into the game the book will be consulted (measured in
full moves). `Book Variety' controls the likelihood of playing weaker moves. 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.
Engine #1 Has Own Book
Engine #2 Has Own Book
These checkboxes control on a per-engine basis whether XBoard will consult the
opening book for them. If ticked, XBoard will never play moves from its GUI book,
giving the engine the opportunity to use its own. These options are automatically
set whenever you load an engine, based on the setting of `Must not use GUI book'
when you installed that through the `Load Engine' menu dialog.
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. Many engines won't respond to this.
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.
Options Menu
Mute all Sounds
Ticking this menu item toggles all sounds XBoard can make on or off, without losing their
definitions.
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.
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).
Enable Variation Trees
If this option is on, playing a move in Edit Game or Analyze mode while keeping the
Shift key pressed will start a new variation. You can then recall the previous
line through the `Revert' menu item. When off, playing a move will truncate the
game and append the move irreversibly.
Headers in Engine Output Window
Controls the presence of column headers above the variations and associated
information printed by the engine, on which you can issue button 3 clicks to open
or close the columns. Available columns are search depth, score, node count, time
used, tablebase hits, search speed and selective search depth.
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.
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.
Play Move(s) of Clicked PV
If this option is on, right-clicking on the first move of a PV or on the data
fields left of it in the Engine Output window during Analyze mode will cause the
first move of that PV to be played. You could also play more than one (or no) PV
move by moving the mouse to engage in the PV walk such a right-click will start, to
seek out another position along the PV where you want to continue the analysis,
before releasing the mouse button. Clicking on later moves of the PV only
temporarily show the moves for as long you keep the mouse button down, without
adding them to the game.
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 yellow (non-captures) or
red (captures). Special moves might have other colors (e.g. magenta for promotion,
cyan for a partial move). Legality testing must be on for XBoard to know how the
piece moves, but with legality testing off some engines would offer this
information.
Sticky Windows
Controls whether the auxiliary windows such as Engine Output, Move History and
Evaluation Graph should keep touching XBoard's main window when you move the
latter.
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.)
Top-Level Dialogs
Controls whether the auxiliary windows will appear as icons in the task bar and
independently controllable, or whether they open and minimize all together with the
main window.
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 value of 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. The
shifted `Alt+T' key is a keyboard equivalent.
classical
Selects classical TC, where the game is devided into sessions of a certain number
of moves, and after each session the start time is again added to the clocks.
incremental
Selects a TC mode where the game will start with a base time on the clocks, and
after every move an 'increment' will be added to it.
fixed max
Selects a TC mode where you have to make each move within a given time, and any
left-over time is not carried over to the next move.
Divide entered times by 60
To allow entering of sub-minute initial time or sub-second increment, you can tick
this checkbox. The initial time can then be entered in seconds, and the increment
in units of 1/60 second.
Moves per session
Sets the duration of a session for classical time control.
Initial time
Time initially on the clock in classical or incremental time controls. In
classical time controls this time will also be added to the clock at the start of
ach new session.
Increment or max
Time to be added to the clock after every move in incremental TC mode. Fore 'fixed
maximum' TC mode, the clock will be set to this time before every move,
irrespective of how much was left on that clock.
Time-Odds factors
When these options are set to 1 the clocks of the players will be set according to
the other specified TC parameters. Players can be given unequal times by
specifying a time-odds factor for one of them (or a different factor for both of
them). Any time received by that player will then be divided by that factor.
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.
Detect all Mates
When this option is set XBoard will terminate the game on checkmate or stalemate,
even if the engines would not do so. Only works when `Test Legality' is on.
Verify Engine Result Claims
When this option is set XBoard will verify engine result claims, (forfeiting
engines that make false claims), rather than naively beleiving the engine. Only
works when `Test Legality' is on.
Draw if Insufficient Mating Material
When this option is set XBoard will terminate games with a draw result when so
little material is left that checkmate is not longer possible. In normal Chess
this applies to KK, KNK, KBK and some positions with multiple Bishops all on the
same square shade. Only works when `Test Legality' is on.
Adjudicate Trivial Draws
When this option is set XBoard will terminate games with a draw result in positions
that could only be won against an idiot. In normal Chess this applies to KNNK,
KRKR, KBKN, KNKN, and KBKB with Bishops on different square shades. KQKQ will also
be adjudicated a draw (possibly unjustly so). Only works when `Test Legality' is
on.
N-Move Rule
When this option is set to a value differnt from zero XBoard will terminate games
with a draw result after the specified number of reversible moves (i.e. without
captures or pawn pushes) is made.
N-fold Repeats
When this option is set to a value larger than 1, XBoard will terminate games with
a draw result when the same position has occurred the specified number of times.
Draw after N Moves Total
When this option is set to a value different from zero, XBoard will terminate games
with a draw result after that many moves have been played. Useful in automated
engine-engine matches, to prevent one game between stubborn engines will soak up
all your computer time.
Win / Loss Threshold
When this option is set to a value different from zero, XBoard will terminate games
as a win when both engines agree the score is above the specified value
(interpreted as centi-Pawn) for three successive moves.
Negate Score of Engine #1
Negate Score of Engine #2
These options should be used with engines that report scores from the white point
of view, rather than the side-to-move POV as XBoard would otherwise assume when
adjudicating games based on the engine score. When the engine is installed with
the extra option `firstScoreIsAbs' true in the engine list the option would be
automatically set when the engine is loaded throuhgh the Engine menu, or with the
`fe' or `se' command-line option.
ICS Options
Pops up a menu dialog where options can be set that affect playing against an Internet
Chess Server.
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 while Playing
Setting this option will make XBoard suppress display of any boards from observed
games while you are playing. Instead 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 for Background-Observed Game
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.
Auto-InputBox PopUp
Controls whether the ICS Input Box will pop up automatically when you type a
printable character to the board window in ICS mode.
Quit After Game
Controls whether XBoard will automatically disconnect from the ICS and close when
the game currently in progress finishes.
Premove
Premove for White
Premove for Black
First White Move
First Black Move
If the `Premove' 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.
Alarm
Alarm Time
When this option is on, an alarm sound is played when your clock counts down to the
`Alarm Time' in an ICS game. (By default, the time is 5 seconds, but you can
specify 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.
-icsMenu string
The string defines buttons for the `ICS text menu'. Each button definition
consists of two semi-colon-terminated pieces of text, the first giving the label to
be written on the button, the second the text that should be sent to the ICS when
that button is pressed. This second part (the 'message') can contain linefeeds, so
that you can send multiple ICS commands with one button. Some message in the text,
all starting with a $-sign, are treated special. When the message contains
'$input', it will not be sent directly to the ICS, but will be put in the input
field of the `ICS Chat/Console', with the text cursor at the indicated place, so
you can addsome text to the message before sending it off. If such a message
starts with '$add' it will be placed behind any text that is already present in the
input field, otherwise this field will be cleared first. The word '$name'
occurring in the message will be replaced by the word that was clicked (through
button 3) in the ICS Chat/Console. There are two special messages: '$chat' will
open a new chat with the clicked word in the chat-partner field, while '$copy' will
copy the text that is currently-selected in the ICS Console to the clipboard. An
example of a text menu as it might occur in your settings file (where you could
edit it):
-icsMenu {copy;$copy;
list players;who;
list games;games;
finger (player);finger $name;
bullet (player);match $name 1 1 r;
blitz (player);match $name 5 1 r;
rapid (player);match $name 30 0 r;
open chat (player);$chat;
tell (player);tell $name $input;
ask pieces;ptell Please give me a $input;
P;$add Pawn $input;
N;$add Knight $input;
B;$add Bishop $input;
R;$add Rook $input;
Q;$add Queen $input;
}
Tournament Options
Summons a dialog where you can set options important for playing automatic matches between
two or more 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 the corresponding info 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
From the Select Engine listbox you can pick an engine from your list of engines
registered 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 accidentally, or change their order. Typing names here yourself is
not recommended, because names that do not exactly match one of the names from the
selection listbox 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 in Match
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
engines 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.
Pause between Match Games
Time (in milliseconds) XBoard waits before starting a new game after a previous
match or tournament game finishes. Such a waiting period is important for engines
that do not support 'ping', as these sometimes still produce a move long after the
game finished because of the opponent resigning, which would be mistaken for a move
in the next game if that had already started.
Save Tourney Games on
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 this many Games
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 books by 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'.
Continue Later
Pressing the `Continue Later' button confirms the current value of all items in the
dialog and closes it, but will not automatically start the tournament. This allows
you to return to the dialog later without losing the settings you already entered,
to adjust paramenters through other menu dialogs. (The `Common Engine Setting',
`Time Control' and `General Options' dialogs can be accessed without closing the
`Tournament Options' dialog through the respective buttons at the bottom of the
latter.)
Load Game Options
Summons a dialog where you can set options that control loading of games.
Auto-Display Tags
Setting this option causes a window to pop up on loading a game, displaying the PGN
Tags for that game.
Auto-Display Comment
Setting this option causes a window to pop up whenever there is a comment to (or
variation on) the currently displayed move.
Auto-Play speed of loaded games
This option sets the number of seconds between moves when a newly loaded game is
auto-playing. A decimal fraction on the number is understood. Setting it to -1
disables auto-play, staying in the start position of the game after the loading
completes. Setting it to 0 will instantly move to the final position of the game.
The `Auto-Play speed' is also used to determine the analysis time for each move
during `Analyze Game'. Note that auto-playing (including game analysis) can be
stopped at any time through the `P' button above the board.
options to use in game-viewer mode
Specifies the options automatically set when XBoard is invoked with the option
`-viewer' on its command line, as will happen when it is started in response to
clicking a PGN game file. The default setting would start XBoard without engine
(due to the `-ncp' option), but if you want it to automatically start with your
favorite engine, and automatically start analyzing, you could include the necessary
options for that here (e.g. `-fe <engine> -initialMode analysis').
Thresholds for position filtering in game list
The following options can be set to limit the display of games in the `Game List'
window to a sub-set, meeting the specified criteria.
Elo of strongest player at least
Elo of weakest player at least
Games with an Elo tag specifying a lower rating for the mentioned player will not
be diplayed in the `Game List'.
No games before year
Games with a Date tag before the specified year will not be diplayed in the `Game
List'.
Final nr of pieces
A single number or a range (like 8-10) can be entered here, and will cause only
games where the number of men in the final position is in the given range will be
diplayed in the `Game List'.
Minimum nr consecutive positions
Specifies for how many consecutive positions the more fuzzy position-matching
criteria have to be satisfied in order to count as a match.
Search mode
find position
XBoard can select games for display in the `Game List' based on whether (in
addition to the conditions on the PGN tags) they contain a position that matches
the position currently displayed on the board, by pressing the `find position' or
`narrow' buttons in the `Game List' window. The `Search mode' setting determines
what counts as match. 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 minimally 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, i.e. equal for white and black.
narrow The `narrow' button is similar in function to the `find position' button, but only
searches in the already selected games, rather than the complete game file, and can
thus be used to refine a search based on multiple criteria.
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 whether XBoard should automatically save files of
games when they finish, and where and how to do that.
Auto-Save Games
When set XBoard will automatically save games on a file as they finish. (Not when
you abort them by pressing `New Game', though!) It will either prompt you for a
filename, or use the file specified by the `saveGameFile' option.
Own Games Only
Setting this option will exclude games by others observed on an Internet Chess
Server from automatic saving.
Save Games on File
Name of the file on which games should be saved automatically. Games are always
appended to the file, and will never overwrite anything.
Save Final Position on File
When a name is defined, the final position of each game is appended to the
mentioned file.
PGN Event Header
Specifies the name of the event used in the PGN event tag of new games that you
create.
Old Save Style
Saves games in an obsolete and now long forgotten format, rather than as PGN. Never
use this for orthodox Chess!
Include Number Tag in tourney PGN
When on this option will cause the non-standard 'Number' tag to be written in any
game saved in PGN format. It will contain the unique number of the game in the
tourney. (As opposed to the 'Round' tag, which can be shared by many games.)
Save Score/Depth Info in PGN
When on this option will cause the score and depth at which it was calculated by an
engine, and (when available) thinking time to be saved with the move as a comment
to the move, in the format {score/depth time}. Here 'score'is in pawn units from
the point of view of the player that made the move, with two digits behind the
decimal Pawn.
Save Out-of-Book Info in PGN
When on this option causes the score of the first move the engine made after coming
out of book in an 'Annotator' PGN tag.
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 in 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.
Sound Program
Specifies the command XBoard should invoke to play sounds. The specified text will
be suffixed by the name of the sound file, and then run as a command.
Sounds Directory
Specifies the directory where XBoard will look for files with the names of the
standard sounds.
User WAV File
When we type a filename here, it can be assigned to the events by selecting `Above
WAV File' from the drop downs.
Try-Out Sound
Play The 'event' triggering the Try-Out sound is pressing of the `Play' button behind
it. This allows you to judge the sounds.
Save Settings Now
Selecting this menu item causes the current XBoard settings to be written to the settings
file, (.xboardrc in your home directory), 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, 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 this ~/.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.
Help Menu
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.
In the Xaw build of XBoard you can add or remove shortcut keys using the X resources
`paneA.translations'. Here is an example of what could go into your `.Xdefaults' file:
XBoard*paneA.translations: \
Shift<Key>?: MenuItem(Help.About) \n\
Ctrl<Key>y: MenuItem(Action.Accept) \n\
Ctrl<Key>n: MenuItem(Action.Decline) \n\
Ctrl<Key>i: MenuItem(Nothing)
So the key should always be bound to the action 'MenuItem', with the (hierarchical) name
of the menu item as argument. There are a few actions available for which no menu item
exists: Binding a key to `Nothing' makes it do nothing, thus removing it as a shortcut
key. Other such functions that can be bound to keys are:
AboutGame, DebugProc (switches the -debug option on or off),
LoadNextGame, LoadPrevGame, ReloadGame, ReloadPosition.
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.
-shoMoveTime true/false
When this option is set the time that has been thought about the current move will
be displayed behind the remaining time in parentheses (in seconds). Default:
false.
-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).
-epd This option puts XBoard in a special mode for solving EPD test-suites, for the
entire duration of the session. In this mode games are aborted after a single
move, and that move will be compared with the best-move or avoid-move from the EPD
position description from which the 'game' was started. Playing a best move counts
as a win, playing an avoid move as a loss, and playing any other move counts as a
draw. This option should be used in combination with match mode, and an EPD file
of starting positions with an auto-incrementing index. Color assignment will be
such that the first engine plays all moves, and the second engine will be never
involved. The results for individual positions, as well as the time used for
solving them, will be reported in the lower pane of the Engine Output window.
-fcp or -firstChessProgram program
-scp or -secondChessProgram program
Name of first and second chess engine, respectively. A second chess engine is
started only in Two Machines (match) mode, or in Analyze mode with two engines.
The second engine is by default the same as the first. Default for the first
engine: `fairymax'.
-fe or -firstEngine nickname
-se or -secondEngine nickname
This is an alternative to the `fcp' and `scp' options for specifying the first and
second engine, for engines that were already registered (using the `Load Engine'
dialog) in XBoard's settings file. It will not only retrieve the real name of the
engine, but also all options configured with it. (E.g. if it is UCI, whether it
should use book.)
-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.
-fischerCastling
Specifies Fischer castling (as in Chess960) should be enabled in variants that
normally would not have it. 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 a 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 a UCCI or USI adapter, as the need arises.
-adapterCommand string
The string contains 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
-mcBookMode
When this volatile option is specified, the probing algorithm of the GUI book is
altered to always select the move that is most under-represented based on its
performance. When all moves are played in approximately the right proportion, a
book miss will be reported, to give the engine opportunity to explore a new move.
In addition score of the moves will be kept track of during the session in a book
buffer. By playing an match in this mode, a book will be built from scratch. The
only output are the saved games, which can be converted to an actual book later,
with the `Save Games as Book' command. The latter command can also be used to pre-
fill the book buffer before adding new games based on the probing algorithm.
-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 versions 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" and "gaviota" DTM
tablebases, syzygy DTZ tablebases and "scorpio" bitbases. Default: "".
-firstChessProgramNames={names}
This option lets you customize the listbox with chess-engine names that appears in
the `Load Engine' and `Tournament 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 number 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 in other ways,
(e.g. deleting engines), use the menu item `Edit Engine List' in the `Engine' menu.
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 tourney.
Games currently playing are listed as *, while a space indicates a game that is not
yet played. 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, or after the 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 instead 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 played when a player other than yourself makes a move. Default: "$".
-soundRoar filename
This sound is played when a Lion makes a hit-and-run or double capture/ Default: ""
(no sound).
-soundIcsAlarm filename
This sound is used by the ICS Alarm menu option. Default: "$".
-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.
-onlyOwnGames true/false
Suppresses auto-saving of ICS observed games. Default: false.
-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.
-positionDir directory
Specifies the directory where file browsing should start when using the `Load
Position' menu item.
-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.
-pgnTimeLeft true/false
If this option is set, XBoard will save the remaining clock time for the player
that has just moved as part of the `pgnExtendedInfo', rather than the time that
player thought about his latest move. Default: false.
-pgnEventHeader string
Default: false. 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 succesful -settingsFile / -ini command, if any, and in
/etc/xboard/xboard.conf otherwise. Usualy the latter is only accessible for the
system administrator, though, and will be used to contain system-wide default
settings, 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
-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.
-logoSize N
This option controls the drawing of player logos next to the clocks. The integer N
specifies the width of the logo in pixels; the logo height will always be half the
width. When N = 0, no logos will be diplayed. Default: 0.
-firstLogo imagefile
-secondLogo imagefile
Specify the images to be used as player logos when `logoSize' is non-zero, next to
the white and black clocks, respectively.
-autoLogo true/false
-logoDir filename
When `autoLogo' is set, XBoard will search for a PNG image file with the name of
the engine or ICS in the directory specified by `logoDir'. For a human player it
will look for a file <username>.png in this directory, but only when ~/.logo.png
does not provide one.
-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.
-monoMouse true/false
When set button 1 clicks on empty squares in Edit Position mode will be interpreted
as button 3 clicks, so they place a piece. 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.
-analysisBell N
When N is non-zero, the Move Sound will be played whenever a new PV arrives in
analysis mode after more than N seconds of analysis. Default: 0.
-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. Xboard installs with a set of scalable (svg) piece images, which it
scales to any of the requested sizes. The square size can further be continuously
scaled by sizing the board window, but this only adapts the size of the pieces, and
has no effect on the width of the grid lines or the font choice (both of which
would depend on he selected boardSize). 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 Xaw: -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
Default GTK: Sans Bold %d.
-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 Xaw:
-*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*. Default GTK: Sans Bold %d.
-messageFont font
The font used for popup dialogs, menus, 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 Xaw: -*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
Default GTK: Sans Bold %d
-tagsFont font
The font used in the Edit Tags dialog. If the option value contains %d, XBoard
will replace it by an appropriate font for the board size being used. (Only used
in GTK build.) Default: Sans Normal %d.
-commentFont font
The font used in the Edit Comment dialog. If the option value contains %d, XBoard
will replace it by an appropriate font for the board size being used. (Only used
in GTK build.) Default: Sans Normal %d.
-icsFont font
The font used to display ICS output in the ICS Chat window. As ICS output often
contains tables aligned by spaces, a mono-space font is recommended here. If the
option value contains %d, XBoard will replace it by an appropriate font for the
board size being used. (Only used in GTK build.) Default: Monospace Normal %d.
-moveHistoryFont font
The font used in Move History and Engine Output windows. As these windows display
mainly moves, one could use a figurine font here. If the option value contains %d,
XBoard will replace it by an appropriate font for the board size being used. (Only
used in GTK build.) Default: Sans Normal %d.
-gameListFont font
The font used in the listbox of the Game List window. If the option value contains
%d, XBoard will replace it by an appropriate font for the board size being used.
(Only used in GTK build.) Default: Sans Bold %d.
-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.
-pid or -pieceImageDirectory dir
This options control what piece images xboard uses. XBoard will look in the
specified directory for an image in png or svg format for every piece type, with
names like BlackQueen.svg, WhiteKnight.svg etc. When neither of these is found (or
no valid directory is specified) XBoard will first ty to use an image
White/BlackTile.svg in that same directory, and if that is not present either use
the svg piece that was installed with it (from the source-tree directory `svg').
Both svg and png images will be scaled by XBoard to the required size, but the png
pieces lose much in quality when scaled too much. Default: "".
-inscriptions utf8string
The positions in the utf8string correspond to XBoard's piece types, and for each
type a glyph can be defined. This glyph will then be rendered on top of the image
for the piece. This is useful in combination with the White/BlackTile.svg images,
which could be the image of a blank Shogi tile, for writing the kanji piece name on
top of it on the fly. Default: "".
-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
The PieceColor options only work properly if the image files defining the pieces
were pure black & white (possibly anti-aliased to produce gray scales and semi-
transparancy), like the pieces images that come with the install. Their effect on
colored pieces is undefined. The SquareColor option only have an effect when no
board textures are used.
-trueColors true/false
When set, this option suppresses the effect of the PieceColor options mentioned
above. This is recommended for images that are already colored.
-useBoardTexture true/false
-liteBackTextureFile filename
-darkBackTextureFile filename
Indicate the png image 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. If the filename ends in
"-NxM.png", with integer N and M, it is assumed to contain a bitmap of a complete
board of N files and M ranks, and XBoard will scale it to exactly match the current
square size. If N=M=0 it scales the entire bitmap to the size of the board,
irrespective of the number of files and ranks of the latter. Without any -NxM
suffix textures are only blown up by an integer factor when they are smaller than
the square size, or, when the name starts with "xq", too small to cover the
complete Xiangqi board. 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.
-appendPV true|false
When this option is on, a button 3 click left of a PV in the Engine Output window
will play the first move of that PV in Analyze mode, or as many moves as you walk
through it by moving the mouse. 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.
-memoHeaders true|false
When true, column headers will be displayed in the Engine Output window for the
depth, score, time and nodes data. A button 3 click on these headers will hide or
show the corresponding data. (Not intended for dynamic use, as already printed
data of the current search will not be affected!) Defaul: 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!
Install options
--show-config parameter
When called with this option, XBoard will close immediately after printing the
value of the indicated configuration parameter, or, when no parameter was given,
after printing a list of all such parameters. Currently the only valid values for
parameter are Datadir and Sysconfdir. This option can be used by install scripts
for board themes to figure out where the currently active XBoard stores its data.
-date timestamp
-saveDate timestamp
These options specify an epoch as an integer number. The `saveDate' option is
written by XBoard in the settings file every time the settings are saved, with the
current time, so that later runs of XBoard can know this. The `date' option can be
included in settings files to indicate when lines following it were added to those
files. Some options will be ignored if the epoch specified by the latest `date'
option predates the -saveDate setting (implying they must have been seen before).
-autoInstall list
When the list is set to a non-empty string, XBoard will scan the operating system's
plugin directory for engines supporting UCI and XBoard protocol at startup. When
it finds an engine that was installed after it last saved its settings, a line to
launch that engine (as per specs in the plugin file) is appended to the
-firstChessProgramNames list of installed engines. In the future it will be
possible to use the autoInstall list to limit this automatic adding of engines
based on the chess variant they play.
-addMasterOption string
Adds the mentioned string as an additional line of XBoard's master settings file,
after adding a line with a `date' option to timestamp it. Intended to add options
of the 'install' type (see below) to the master file, which will then be processed
by any XBoard that has not seen them since it last saved its settings.
-autoClose
The presence of this option cause XBoard to close immediately after processing all
its options (from settings file and command line). Typically used from install
scripts together with options that change XBoard's settings files, so that XBoard
can be run in batch mode rather than interactively.
-installEngine string
Adds the given string as an additional line to the value of the
`firstChessProgramNames' option when the -saveDate setting preceeds the -date
setting. Intended for adding to the master settings file with the aid of
-addMasterOption in the install script of engines, as a method for broadcasting the
presence of a new engine to all users, which would then see it automatically
registered with XBoard. Made obsolete by the advent of the plugin standard (see
the `autoInstall' option), which broadcasts such presence in a non-XBoard-specific
way by dropping *.eng files in a certain system directory.
-installTheme string
Adds the given string as an additional line to the value of the -themeNames option
when the -saveDate setting preceeds the -date setting. Intended for adding to the
master settings file with the aid of -addMasterOption in the install script of
board graphics themes, as a method for broadcasting the availability of a new theme
to all users, who would then see the theme appear automatically in the listbox in
the View Board menu dialog next time they run XBoard.
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.
-viewer
-viewerOptions string
Presence of the volatile option `viewer' on the command line will cause the value
of the persistent option `viewerOptions' as stored in the settings file to be
appended to the command line. The `view' option will be used by desktop
associations with game or position file types, so that `viewerOptions' can be used
to configure the exact mode XBoard will start in when it should act on such a file
(e.g. in -ncp mode, or analyzing with your favorite engine). The options are also
automatically appended when Board is invoked with a single argument not being an
option name, which is then assumed to be the name of a `loadGameFile' or (when the
name ends in .fen) a `loadPositionFile'. Default: "-ncp -engineOutputUp false
-saveSettingsOnExit false".
-tourneyOptions string
When XBoard is invoked with a single argument that is a file with .trn extension,
it will assume this argument to be the value of a `tourneyFile' option, and append
the value of the persistent option `tourneyOptions' as stored in the settings file
to the command line. Thus the value of `tourneyOptions' can be used to configure
XBoard to automatically start running a tournament when it should act on such a
file. Default: "-ncp -mm -saveSettingsOnExit 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 (sometimes 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 diagonally
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)
asean ASEAN Chess (a modernized version of Makruk)
spartan Spartan Chess (black has unorthodox pieces)
great Great Shatranj, a 10x8 variant without sliders
grand Grand Chess, on 10x10 with Capablanca pieces
lion Mighty-Lion Chess, with a multi-capturing Lion
elven Eleven Chess, with Lion and crowned sliders on 10x10
chu Chu Shogi, historic 12x12 variant with 2x46 pieces
fairy A catchall variant in which all piece types
known to XBoard can participate (8x8)
unknown Catchall for other unknown variants
In the shuffle variants, XBoard 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. Berolina and cylinder chess are only partially
supported, and can only be played with legality testing off.
Apart from these standard variants, engines can define variants of arbitrary names,
briefing XBoard transparently on the rules for piece movement, board size and
initial setup, so that they work nearly as well as fully-supported standard
variants. (But obviously only while using that engine.) The user might have to
alter the adjudication settings for some variants, however. E.g. it makes no sense
to adjudicate a draw after 50 reversible moves in variants that have a 64-move
rule, or no similar rule at all.
Default: "normal". Except when the first engine gave an explicit list of variants
it supports, and 'normal' is not amongst those. In that case the first variant the
engine mentioned it did play will be chosen.
-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. 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. The string argument has to specify an even number of
pieces (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 FEACWMOHIJGDVLSU, 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 fewer characters in the string than XBoard has pieces, the pieces not
mentioned will get assigned a period, and will not be usable in the variant. 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 to 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). By default the second 11 pieces known
to XBoard are the promoted forms of the first 11. A piece specified by the
character combination ^ plus letter will be assumed to be the promoted form of the
piece indicated by that letter, and get a '+' assigned. To get around the
limitation of the alphabet, piece IDs can also be 'dressed letters', i.e. a single
letter (upper case for white, lower case for black) followed by a single quote or
an exclamation point. Default: "" (meaning the default for the variant is used).
-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 order pauses before and after sending the "quit" command to an engine
that must be terminated. The pause between quit and the previous command is
specified in milliseconds. The pause after quit is used to schedule a kill signal
to be sent to the engine process after the number of specified seconds plus one.
This signal is a different one as the terminiation signal described in the protocol
specs which engines can suppress or ignore, and which is sent directly after the
"quit" command. Setting `delayAfterQuit' to -1 will suppress sending of the kill
signal. Default: 0
-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.
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