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 4.4.3 of XBoard.
MAJOR MODES
XBoard always runs in one of four major modes. You select the major
mode from the command line when you start up XBoard.
xboard [options]
As an interface to GNU Chess or another chess engine running on
your machine, XBoard lets you play a game against the machine,
set up arbitrary positions, force variations, watch a game
between two chess engines, interactively analyze your stored
games or set up and analyze arbitrary positions. (Note: Not all
chess engines support analysis.)
xboard -ics -icshost hostname [options]
As Internet Chess Server (ICS) interface, XBoard lets you play
against other ICS users, observe games they are playing, or
review games that have recently finished. Most of the ICS
"wild" chess variants are supported, including bughouse.
xboard -ncp [options]
XBoard can also be used simply as an electronic chessboard to
play through games. It will read and write game files and allow
you to play through variations manually. You can use it to
browse games off the net or review games you have saved. These
features are also available in the other modes.
|pxboard
If you want to pipe games into XBoard, use the supplied shell
script ‘pxboard’. For example, from the news reader ‘xrn’, find
a message with one or more games in it, click the Save button,
and type ‘|pxboard’ as the file name.
cmail [options]
As an interface to electronic mail correspondence chess, XBoard
works with the cmail program. See CMail below for instructions.
MENUS, BUTTONS, AND KEYS
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 drop a new piece on a square (when applicable),
press the middle or the right mouse button over the square and select
from the pop-up menu. In cases where you can drop either a white or
black piece, use the middle button (or shift+right) for white and the
right button (or shift+middle) for black. When you are playing a
bughouse game on an Internet Chess Server, a list of the off-board
pieces that each player has available is shown in the window title
after the player’s name; in addition, the piece menus show the number
of pieces available of each type. From version 4.3.14 on, it is also
possible in crazyhouse, bughouse or shogi to dag and drop pieces to the
board from the holdings squares displayed next to the board.
All other XBoard commands are available from the menu bar. The most
frequently used commands also have shortcut keys or on-screen buttons.
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. See
Iconize in Keys below if you have problems getting this feature to
work.
File Menu
New Game
Resets XBoard and the chess engine to the beginning of a new
chess game. The ‘r’ 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). The selected opening position will persistently be
chosen on any following New Game command until you use this menu
to select another. Selecting position number -1 will produce a
newly randomized position on any new game. Using this menu item
in variants that normally do not shuffle their opening position
does cause these variants to become shuffle variants until you
use the ‘New Shuffle Game’ menu to explicitly switch the
randomization off, or select a new variant.
New Variant
Allows you to select a new chess variant in non-ICS mode. (In
ICS play, the ICS is responsible for deciding which variant will
be played, and XBoard adapts automatically.) If you play with an
engine, the engine must be able to play the selected variant, or
the command will be ignored. XBoard supports all major
variants, such as xiangqi, shogi, chess, chess960, Capablanca
Chess, shatranj, crazyhouse, bughouse. (But not every board
size has built-in bitmaps for un-orthodox pieces!)
Load Game
Plays a game from a record file. The ‘g’ 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)
are treated as comments; XBoard is not able to walk variation
trees. 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. 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 Next Game
Loads the next game from the last game record file you loaded.
The shifted ‘N’ key is a keyboard equivalent.
Load Previous Game
Loads the previous game from the last game record file you
loaded. The shifted ‘P’ key is a keyboard equivalent. 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.
Save Game
Appends a record of the current game to a file. 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.
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 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.
Paste Game
Interprets the current X selection as a game record and loads
it, as with Load Game.
Load Position
Sets up a position from a position file. A pop-up dialog
prompts you for the file name. 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.
Load Previous Position
Loads the previous position from the last position file you
loaded. Not available if the last position was loaded from a
pipe.
Reload Same Position
Reloads the last position you loaded. Not available if the last
position was loaded from a pipe.
Save Position
Appends a diagram of the current position to a file. 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.
Copy Position
Copies the current position to an internal clipboard in FEN
format and sets the X selection to the position text. 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.
Paste Position
Interprets the current X selection as a FEN position and loads
it, as with Load Position.
Mail Move
Reload CMail Message
See CMail.
Exit Exits from XBoard. The shifted ‘Q’ key is a keyboard equivalent.
Mode Menu
Machine White
Tells the chess engine to play White.
Machine Black
Tells the chess engine to play Black.
Two Machines
Plays a game between two chess engines.
Analysis Mode
XBoard tells the chess engine to start analyzing the current
game/position and shows you the analysis as you move pieces
around. Note: Some chess engines do not support Analysis mode.
To set up a position to analyze, you do the following:
1. Select Edit Position from the Mode Menu
2. Set up the position. Use the middle and right buttons to
bring up the white and black piece menus.
3. When you are finished, click on either the Black or White
clock to tell XBoard which side moves first.
4. Select Analysis Mode from the Mode Menu to start the
analysis.
The analysis function can also be used when observing games on
an ICS with an engine loaded (zippy mode); the engine then will
analyse the positions as they occur in the observed game.
Analyze File
This option lets you load a game from a file (PGN, XBoard
format, etc.) and analyze it. When you select this menu item, a
pop-up window appears and asks for a file name to load. If the
file contains multiple games, another pop up appears that lets
you select which game you wish to analyze. After a game is
loaded, use the XBoard arrow buttons to step forwards/backwards
through the game and watch the analysis. Note: Some chess
engines do not support Analysis mode.
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.
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.
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. Use mouse button 1
to drag pieces to new squares, or to delete a piece by dragging
it off the board or dragging an empty square on top of it. To
drop a new piece on a square, press mouse button 2 or 3 over the
square. This 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. You can set the side to play next
by clicking on the word White or Black at the top of the screen.
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.)
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.
Show Game List
Shows or hides the list of games generated by the last ‘Load
Game’ command.
Show Move History
Shows or hides a list of moves of the current game. This list
allows you to move the display to any earlier position in the
game by clicking on the corresponding move.
Show Engine Output
Shows or hides a window in which the thinking output of any
loaded engines is displayed.
Edit Tags
Lets you edit the PGN (portable game notation) tags for the
current game. After editing, the tags must still conform to the
PGN tag syntax:
<tag-section> ::= <tag-pair> <tag-section>
<empty>
<tag-pair> ::= [ <tag-name> <tag-value> ]
<tag-name> ::= <identifier>
<tag-value> ::= <string>
See the PGN Standard for full details. Here is an example:
[Event "Portoroz Interzonal"]
[Site "Portoroz, Yugoslavia"]
[Date "1958.08.16"]
[Round "8"]
[White "Robert J. Fischer"]
[Black "Bent Larsen"]
[Result "1-0"]
Any characters that do not match this syntax are silently
ignored. Note that the PGN standard requires all games to have
at least the seven tags shown above. Any that you omit will be
filled in by XBoard with ‘?’ (unknown value), or ‘-’
(inapplicable value).
Edit Comment
Adds or modifies a comment on the current position. Comments are
saved by ‘Save Game’ and are displayed by ‘Load Game’,
‘Forward’, and ‘Backward’.
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.
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 ‘p’ 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. 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.). 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. You can also call your
opponent’s flag by clicking on his clock or by pressing the
keyboard ‘t’ key.
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 ‘d’ 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.
Abort Asks your opponent to agree to aborting the current game, or
agrees to a pending abort offer from your opponent. An aborted
game ends immediately without affecting either player’s rating.
Resign Resigns the game to your opponent. The shifted ‘R’ 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.
Stop Examining
Ends your participation in examining a game, by issuing the ICS
unexamine command. ICS mode only.
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".
Step Menu
Backward
Steps backward through a series of remembered moves. The ‘[<]’
button and the ‘b’ key are equivalents, as is turning the mouse
wheel towards you. In addition, pressing the Control key steps
back one move, and releasing it steps forward again.
In most modes, ‘Backward’ only lets you look back at old
positions; it does not retract moves. This is the case if you
are playing against a chess engine, playing or observing a game
on an ICS, or loading a game. If you select ‘Backward’ in any
of these situations, you will not be allowed to make a different
move. Use ‘Retract Move’ or ‘Edit Game’ if you want to change
past moves.
If you are examining an ICS game, the behavior of ‘Backward’
depends on whether XBoard is in Pause mode. If Pause mode is
off, ‘Backward’ issues the ICS backward command, which backs up
everyone’s view of the game and allows you to make a different
move. If Pause mode is on, ‘Backward’ only backs up your local
view.
Forward
Steps forward through a series of remembered moves (undoing the
effect of ‘Backward’) or forward through a game file. The ‘[>]’
button and the ‘f’ 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 shifted ‘B’ 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 shifted ‘F’ 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.
Revert If you are examining an ICS game and Pause mode is off, issues
the ICS command ‘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.
Move Now
Forces the chess engine to move immediately. Chess engine mode
only.
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.
Options 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 ‘v’ key is a keyboard equivalent.
Adjudications
Pops up a sub-menu where you can enable or disable various
adjudications that XBoard can perform in engine-engine games.
You can instruct XBoard to detect and terminate the game on
checkmate or stalemate, even if the engines would not do so, to
verify engine result claims (forfeiting engines that make false
claims), rather than naively following the engine, to declare
draw on positions which can never be won for lack of mating
material, (e.g. KBK), or which are impossible to win unless the
opponent seeks its own demise (e.g. KBKN). For these
adjudications to work, ‘Test Legality’ should be switched on.
It is also possible to instruct XBoard to enforce a 50-move or
3-fold-repeat rule and automatically declare draw (after a user-
adjustable number of moves or repeats) even if the engines are
prepared to go on. It is also possible to have XBoard declare
draw on games that seem to drag on forever, or adjudicate a loss
if both engines agree (for 3 consecutive moves) that one of them
is behind more than a user-adjustable score threshold. For the
latter adjudication to work, XBoard should be able to properly
understand the engine’s scores. To facilitate the latter, you
can inform xboard here if the engines report scores from the
viewpoint of white, or from that of their own color.
Engine Settings
Pops up a sub-menu where you can set some engine parameters
common to most engines, such as hash-table size, tablebase cache
size, maximum number of processors that SMP engines can use, and
where to find the Polyglot adapter needed to run UCI engines
under XBoard. The feature that allows setting of these
parameters on engines is new since XBoard 4.3.15, so not many
XBoard/WinBoard engines respond to it yet, but UCI engines
should. It is also possible to specify a GUI opening book here,
i.e. an opening book that XBoard consults for any position a
playing engine gets in. It then forces the engine to play the
book move, rather than to think up its own, if that position is
found in the book. The book can switched on and off
independently for either engine.
Time Control
Pops up a sub-menu where you can set the time-control parameters
interactively. Allows you to select classical or incremental
time controls, set the moves per session, session duration, and
time increment. Also allows specification of time-odds factors
for one or both engines. If an engine is given a time-odds
factor N, all time quota it gets, be it at the beginning of a
session or through the time increment or fixed time per move,
will be divided by N.
Always Queen
If this option is off, XBoard brings up a dialog box whenever
you move a pawn to the last rank, asking what piece you want to
promote it to. If the option is true, your pawns are always
promoted to queens. Your opponent can still under-promote.
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.
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 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. In ICS mode, Auto Flag will only call your opponent’s
flag, not yours, and the ICS may award you a draw instead of a
win if you have insufficient mating material. In local chess
engine mode, XBoard may call either player’s flag and will not
take material into account.
Auto Flip View
If the Auto Flip View option is on when you start a game, the
board will be automatically oriented so that your pawns move
from the bottom of the window towards the top.
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.
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.
Flash Moves
If this option is on, whenever a move is completed, the moved
piece flashes. The number of times to flash is set by the
flashCount command-line option; it defaults to 3 if Flash Moves
is first turned on from the menu.
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.
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).
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.
Move Sound
If this option is on, XBoard alerts you by playing a sound after
each of your opponent’s moves (or after every move if you are
observing a game on the Internet Chess Server). The sound is
not played after moves you make or moves read from a saved game
file. By default, the sound is the terminal bell, but on some
systems you can change it to a sound file using the soundMove
option; see below.
If you turn on this option when using XBoard with the Internet
Chess Server, you will probably want to give the ‘set bell 0’
command to the ICS, since otherwise the ICS will ring the
terminal bell after every move (not just yours). (The ‘.icsrc’
file is a good place for this; see ICS options.)
ICS Alarm
When this option is on, an alarm sound is played when your clock
counts down to the icsAlarmTime (by default, 5 seconds) in an
ICS game. 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.
Old Save Style
If this option is off, XBoard saves games in PGN (portable game
notation) and positions in FEN (Forsythe-Edwards notation). If
the option is on, a save style that is compatible with older
versions of XBoard is used instead. The old position style is
more human-readable than FEN; the old game style has no
particular advantages.
Periodic Updates
If this option is off (or if you are using a chess engine that
does not support periodic updates), the analysis window will
only be updated when the analysis changes. If this option is on,
the Analysis Window will be updated every two seconds.
Ponder Next Move
If this option is off, the chess engine will think only when it
is on move. If the option is on, the engine will also think
while waiting for you to make your move.
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.
Premove
If this option is on while playing a game on an ICS, you can
register your next planned move before it is your turn. Move
the piece with the mouse in the ordinary way, and the starting
and ending squares will be highlighted with a special color (red
by default). When it is your turn, if your registered move is
legal, XBoard will send it to ICS immediately; if not, it will
be ignored and you can make a different move. If you change
your mind about your premove, either make a different move, or
double-click on any piece to cancel the move entirely.
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.
Show Coords
If this option is on, XBoard displays algebraic coordinates
along the board’s left and bottom edges.
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.
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. 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.)
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. 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.
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.
About XBoard
Shows the current XBoard version number.
Other Shortcut Keys
Iconize
Pressing the ‘i’ or ‘c’ key iconizes XBoard. The graphical icon
displays a white knight if it is White’s move, or a black knight
if it is Black’s move. If your X window manager displays only
text icons, not graphical ones, check its documentation; there
is probably a way to enable graphical icons. If you get black
and white reversed, we would like to hear about it; see Problems
below for instructions on how to report this problem.
You can add or remove shortcut keys using the X resources
‘form.translations’. Here is an example of what would go in your
‘.Xresources’ file:
XBoard*form.translations: \
Shift<Key>?: AboutGameProc() \n\
<Key>y: AcceptProc() \n\
<Key>n: DeclineProc() \n\
<Key>i: NothingProc()
Binding a key to ‘NothingProc’ makes it do nothing, thus removing it as
a shortcut key. The XBoard commands that can be bound to keys are:
AbortProc, AboutGameProc, AboutProc, AcceptProc, AdjournProc,
AlwaysQueenProc, AnalysisModeProc, AnalyzeFileProc,
AnimateDraggingProc, AnimateMovingProc, AutobsProc, AutoflagProc,
AutoflipProc, AutoraiseProc, AutosaveProc, BackwardProc,
BlindfoldProc, BookProc, CallFlagProc, CopyGameProc, CopyPositionProc,
DebugProc, DeclineProc, DrawProc, EditCommentProc, EditGameProc,
EditPositionProc, EditTagsProc, EnterKeyProc, FlashMovesProc,
FlipViewProc, ForwardProc, GetMoveListProc, HighlightLastMoveProc,
HintProc, Iconify, IcsAlarmProc, IcsClientProc, IcsInputBoxProc,
InfoProc, LoadGameProc, LoadNextGameProc, LoadNextPositionProc,
LoadPositionProc, LoadPrevGameProc, LoadPrevPositionProc,
LoadSelectedProc, MachineBlackProc, MachineWhiteProc, MailMoveProc,
ManProc, MoveNowProc, MoveSoundProc, NothingProc, OldSaveStyleProc,
PasteGameProc, PastePositionProc, PauseProc, PeriodicUpdatesProc,
PonderNextMoveProc, PopupExitMessageProc, PopupMoveErrorsProc,
PremoveProc, QuietPlayProc, QuitProc, ReloadCmailMsgProc,
ReloadGameProc, ReloadPositionProc, RematchProc, ResetProc,
ResignProc, RetractMoveProc, RevertProc, SaveGameProc,
SavePositionProc, ShowCoordsProc, ShowGameListProc, ShowThinkingProc,
StopExaminingProc, StopObservingProc, TestLegalityProc, ToEndProc,
ToStartProc, TrainingProc, TruncateGameProc, and TwoMachinesProc.
OPTIONS
This section documents the command-line options to XBoard. You can set
these options in two ways: by typing them on the shell command line you
use to start XBoard, or by setting them as X resources (typically in
your ‘.Xresources’ file). Many 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.
Each option corresponds to an X resource with the same name, so if you
like, you can set options in your ‘.Xresources’ file or in a file named
‘XBoard’ in your home directory. For options that have two names, the
longer one is the name of the corresponding X resource; the short name
is not recognized. To turn a boolean option on or off as an X
resource, give its long name followed by the value true or false
(‘XBoard*longOptionName: true’).
Chess Engine Options
-tc or -timeControl minutes[:seconds]
Each player begins with his clock set to the ‘timeControl’
period. Default: 5 minutes. The additional options
‘movesPerSession’ and ‘timeIncrement’ are mutually exclusive.
-mps or -movesPerSession moves
When both players have made ‘movesPerSession’ moves, a new
‘timeControl’ period is added to both clocks. Default: 40
moves.
-inc or -timeIncrement seconds
If this option is specified, ‘movesPerSession’ is ignored.
Instead, after each player’s move, ‘timeIncrement’ seconds are
added to his clock. Use ‘-inc 0’ if you want to require the
entire game to be played in one ‘timeControl’ period, with no
increment. Default: -1, which specifies ‘movesPerSession’ mode.
-clock/-xclock or -clockMode true/false
Determines whether or not to display the chess clocks. If
clockMode is false, the clocks are not shown, but the side that
is to play next is still highlighted. Also, unless ‘searchTime’
is set, the chess engine still keeps track of the clock time and
uses it to determine how fast to make its moves.
-st or -searchTime minutes[:seconds]
Tells the chess engine to spend at most the given amount of time
searching for each of its moves. Without this option, the chess
engine chooses its search time based on the number of moves and
amount of time remaining until the next time control. Setting
this option also sets clockMode to false.
-depth or -searchDepth number
Tells the chess engine to look ahead at most the given number of
moves when searching for a move to make. Without this option,
the chess engine chooses its search depth based on the number of
moves and amount of time remaining until the next time control.
With the option, the engine will cut off its search early if it
reaches the specified depth.
-firstNPS number
-secondNPS number
Tells the chess engine to use an internal time standard based on
its node count, rather then wall-clock time, to make its timing
decisions. The time in virtual seconds should be obtained by
dividing the node count through the given number, like the
number was a rate in nodes per second. Xboard will manage the
clocks in accordance with this, relying on the number of nodes
reported by the engine in its thinking output. If the given
number equals zero, it can obviously not be used to convert
nodes to seconds, and the time reported by the engine is used to
decrement the XBoard clock in stead. The engine is supposed to
report in CPU time it uses, rather than wall-clock time, in this
mode. This option can provide fairer conditions for engine-
engine matches on heavily loaded machines, or with very fast
games (where the wall clock is too inaccurate). ‘showThinking’
must be on for this option to work. Default: -1 (off). Not many
engines might support this yet!
-firstTimeOdds factor
-secondTimeOdds factor
Reduces the time given to the mentioned engine by the given
factor. If pondering is off, the effect is indistinguishable
from what would happen if the engine was running on an n-times
slower machine. Default: 1.
-timeOddsMode mode
This option determines how the case is handled where both
engines have a time-odds handicap. If mode=1, the engine that
gets the most time will always get the nominal time, as
specified by the time-control options, and its opponent’s time
is renormalized accordingly. If mode=0, both play with reduced
time. Default: 0.
-hideThinkingFromHuman true/false
Controls the Hide Thinking option. See Options Menu. Default:
true. (Replaces the Show-Thinking option of older xboard
versions.)
-thinking/-xthinking or -showThinking true/false
Forces the engine to send thinking output to xboard. Used to be
the only way to control if thinking output was displayed in
older xboard versions, but as the thinking output in xboard 4.3
is also used for several other purposes (adjudication, storing
in PGN file) the display of it is now controlled by the new
option Hide Thinking. See Options Menu. Default: false. (But if
xboard needs the thinking output for some purpose, it makes the
engine send it despite the setting of this option.)
-ponder/-xponder or -ponderNextMove true/false
Sets the Ponder Next Move menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: true.
-smpCores number
Specifies the maximum number of CPUs an SMP engine is allowed to
use. Only works for engines that support the XBoard/WinBoard-
protocol cores feature.
-mg or -matchGames n
Automatically runs an n-game match between two chess engines,
with alternating colors. If the ‘loadGameFile’ or
‘loadPositionFile’ option is set, XBoard starts each game with
the given opening moves or the given position; otherwise, the
games start with the standard initial chess position. If the
‘saveGameFile’ option is set, a move record for the match is
appended to the specified file. If the ‘savePositionFile’ option
is set, the final position reached in each game of the match is
appended to the specified file. When the match is over, XBoard
displays the match score and exits. Default: 0 (do not run a
match).
-mm/-xmm or -matchMode true/false
Setting ‘matchMode’ to true is equivalent to setting
‘matchGames’ to 1.
-sameColorGames n
Automatically runs an n-game match between two chess engines,
without alternating colors. Otherwise the same applies as for
the ‘-matchGames’ option, over which it takes precedence if both
are specified. (See there.) Default: 0 (do not run a match).
-fcp or -firstChessProgram program
Name of first chess engine. Default: ‘Fairy-Max’.
-scp or -secondChessProgram program
Name of second chess engine, if needed. A second chess engine
is started only in Two Machines (match) mode. Default: ‘Fairy-
Max’.
-fb/-xfb or -firstPlaysBlack true/false
In games between two chess engines, firstChessProgram normally
plays white. If this option is true, firstChessProgram plays
black. In a multi-game match, this option affects the colors
only for the first game; they still alternate in subsequent
games.
-fh or -firstHost host
-sh or -secondHost host
Hosts on which the chess engines are to run. The default for
each is ‘localhost’. If you specify another host, XBoard uses
‘rsh’ to run the chess engine there. (You can substitute a
different remote shell program for rsh using the ‘remoteShell’
option described below.)
-fd or -firstDirectory dir
-sd or -secondDirectory dir
Working directories in which the chess engines are to be run.
The default is "", which means to run the chess engine in the
same working directory as XBoard itself. (See the CHESSDIR
environment variable.) This option is effective only when the
chess engine is being run on the local host; it does not work if
the engine is run remotely using the -fh or -sh option.
-initString string
-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. It is easier to set the option from your
‘.Xresources’ file; in that case you can include the character
sequence ‘\n’ in the string, and it will be converted to a
newline.
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).
UCI + WB Engine Settings
-fUCI or -firstIsUCI true/false
-sUCI or -secondIsUCI true/false
Indicates if the mentioned engine executable file is an UCI
engine, and should be run with the aid of the Polyglot adapter
rather than directly. Xboard will then pass the other UCI
options and engine name to Polyglot through a .ini temporary
file created for the purpose.
-PolyglotDir filename
Gives the name of the directory in which the Polyglot adapter
for UCI engines expects its files. Default:
"/usr/local/share/polyglot".
-usePolyglotBook true/false
Specifies if the Polyglot book should be used.
-PolyglotBook filename
Gives the filename of the opening book that Polyglot should use.
From XBoard 4.3.15 on, native XBoard/WinBoard engines will also
use the opening book specified here, provided 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: false.
-defaultHashSize n
Sets the size of the hash table to n MegaBytes. Together with
the EGTB cache size this number is also used to calculate the
memory setting of XBoard/WinBoard engines, for those that
support the memory feature of the XBoard/WinBoard protocol.
Default: 64.
-defaultCacheSizeEGTB n
Sets the size of the EGTB cache to n MegaBytes. Together with
the hash-table size this number is also used to calculate the
memory setting of XBoard/WinBoard engines, for those that
support the memory feature of the XBoard/WinBoard protocol.
Default: 4.
-defaultPathEGTB filename
Gives the name of the directory where the end-game tablebases
are installed, for UCI engines. Default:
"/usr/local/share/egtb".
-egtFormats string
Specifies which end-game tables are installed on the computer,
and where. The argument is a comma-separated list of format
specifications, each specification consisting of a format name,
a colon, and a directory path name, e.g.
"nalimov:/usr/local/share/egtb". If the name part matches that
of a format that the engine requests through a feature command,
xboard will relay the path name for this format to the engine
through an egtpath command. One egtpath command for each
matching format will be sent. Popular formats are "nalimov" DTM
tablebases and "scorpio" bitbases. Default: "".
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.
-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.
-quiet/-xquiet or -quietPlay true/false
Sets the Quiet Play menu option. See Options Menu. Default:
false.
-colorizeMessages or -colorize
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.
-colorShout foreground,background,bold
-colorSShout 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.
Here is an example of how to set the colors in your
‘.Xresources’ file. The colors shown here are the default
values; you will get them if you turn ‘-colorize’ on without
specifying your own colors.
xboard*colorizeMessages: true
xboard*colorShout: green
xboard*colorSShout: green, black, 1
xboard*colorChannel1: cyan
xboard*colorChannel: cyan, black, 1
xboard*colorKibitz: magenta, black, 1
xboard*colorTell: yellow, black, 1
xboard*colorChallenge: red, black, 1
xboard*colorRequest: red
xboard*colorSeek: blue
xboard*colorNormal: default
-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.
-soundShout filename
-soundSShout filename
-soundChannel 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.
-soundMove filename
This sound is used by the Move Sound menu option. Default: "$".
-soundIcsAlarm filename
This sound is used by the ICS Alarm menu option. Default: "$".
-soundIcsWin filename
This sound is played when you win an ICS game. Default: "" (no
sound).
-soundIcsLoss filename
This sound is played when you lose an ICS game. Default: "" (no
sound).
-soundIcsDraw filename
This sound is played when you draw an ICS game. Default: "" (no
sound).
-soundIcsUnfinished filename
This sound is played when an ICS game that you are participating
in is aborted, adjourned, or otherwise ends inconclusively.
Default: "" (no sound).
Here is an example of how to set the sounds in your
‘.Xresources’ file:
xboard*soundShout: shout.wav
xboard*soundSShout: sshout.wav
xboard*soundChannel1: channel1.wav
xboard*soundChannel: channel.wav
xboard*soundKibitz: kibitz.wav
xboard*soundTell: tell.wav
xboard*soundChallenge: challenge.wav
xboard*soundRequest: request.wav
xboard*soundSeek: seek.wav
xboard*soundMove: move.wav
xboard*soundIcsWin: win.wav
xboard*soundIcsLoss: lose.wav
xboard*soundIcsDraw: draw.wav
xboard*soundIcsUnfinished: unfinished.wav
xboard*soundIcsAlarm: alarm.wav
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’. Fractional seconds
are allowed; try ‘-td 0.4’. A time delay value of -1 tells
XBoard not to step through game files automatically. Default: 1
second.
-sgf or -saveGameFile file
If this option is set, XBoard appends a record of every game
played to the specified file. The file name ‘-’ specifies the
standard output.
-autosave/-xautosave or -autoSaveGames true/false
Sets the Auto Save menu option. See Options Menu. Default:
false. Ignored if ‘saveGameFile’ is set.
-lpf or -loadPositionFile file
-lpi or -loadPositionIndex index
If the ‘loadPositionFile’ option is set, XBoard loads the
specified position file at startup. The file name ‘-’ specifies
the standard input. If the ‘loadPositionIndex’ option is set to
N, the Nth position found in the file is loaded; otherwise the
first position is loaded. If the loadPositionIndex specifies an
index -1, this triggers auto-increment of the index in
‘matchMode’, which means that after every game the index is
incremented by one, causing each game of the match to be played
from the next position in the file. Similarly, specifying an
index value of -2 causes the index to be incremented every two
games, so that each position in the file is used twice (with the
engines playing opposite colors). The ‘rewindIndex’ option
causes the index to be reset to the first position of the file
when it has reached a specified value.
-spf or -savePositionFile file
If this option is set, XBoard appends the final position reached
in every game played to the specified file. The file name ‘-’
specifies the standard output.
-pgnExtendedInfo true/false
If this option is set, XBoard saves depth, score and time used
for each move that the engine found as a comment in the PGN
file. Default: false.
-pgnEventHeader string
Sets the name used in the PGN event tag to string. Default:
"Computer Chess Game".
-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.
-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.
Default: "eprd"
User interface options
-display
-geometry
-iconic
These and most other standard Xt options are accepted.
-noGUI Suppresses all GUI functions of XBoard (to speed up automated
ultra-fast engine-engine games, which you dont 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.
-movesound/-xmovesound or -ringBellAfterMoves true/false
Sets the Move Sound menu option. See Options Menu. Default:
false. For compatibility with old XBoard versions, -bell/-xbell
are also accepted as abbreviations for this option.
-exit/-xexit or -popupExitMessage true/false
Sets the Popup Exit Message menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: true.
-popup/-xpopup or -popupMoveErrors true/false
Sets the Popup Move Errors menu option. See Options Menu.
Default: false.
-queen/-xqueen or -alwaysPromoteToQueen true/false
Sets the Always Queen menu option. See Options Menu. Default:
false.
-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. Pieces of all
these sizes are built into XBoard. Other sizes can be used if
you have them; see the pixmapDirectory and bitmapDirectory
options. 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 default font, ‘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.
-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.
-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.
-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.
-blind/-xblind or -blindfold true/false
Sets the Blindfold menu option. See Options Menu. Default:
false.
-clockFont font
The font used for the clocks. If the option value is a pattern
that does not specify the font size, XBoard tries to choose an
appropriate font for the board size being used. Default:
-*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
-coordFont font
The font used for rank and file coordinate labels if
‘showCoords’ is true. If the option value is a pattern that does
not specify the font size, XBoard tries to choose an appropriate
font for the board size being used. Default: -*-helvetica-bold-
r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
-font font
The font used for popup dialogs, menus, comments, etc. If the
option value is a pattern that does not specify the font size,
XBoard tries to choose an appropriate font for the board size
being used. Default: -*-helvetica-medium-r-
normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.
-fontSizeTolerance tol
In the font selection algorithm, a nonscalable font will be
preferred over a scalable font if the nonscalable font’s size
differs by ‘tol’ pixels or less from the desired size. A value
of -1 will force a scalable font to always be used if available;
a value of 0 will use a nonscalable font only if it is exactly
the right size; a large value (say 1000) will force a
nonscalable font to always be used if available. Default: 4.
-bm or -bitmapDirectory dir
-pixmap or -pixmapDirectory dir
These options control what piece images xboard uses. The XBoard
distribution includes one set of pixmap pieces in xpm format, in
the directory ‘pixmaps’, and one set of bitmap pieces in xbm
format, in the directory ‘bitmaps’. Pixmap pieces give a better
appearance on the screen: the white pieces have dark borders,
and the black pieces have opaque internal details. With
bitmaps, neither piece color has a border, and the internal
details are transparent; you see the square color or other
background color through them.
If XBoard is configured and compiled on a system that includes
libXpm, the X pixmap library, the xpm pixmap pieces are compiled
in as the default. A different xpm piece set can be selected at
runtime with the ‘pixmapDirectory’ option, or a bitmap piece set
can be selected with the ‘bitmapDirectory’ option.
If XBoard is configured and compiled on a system that does not
include libXpm (or the ‘--disable-xpm’ option is given to the
configure program), the bitmap pieces are compiled in as the
default. It is not possible to use xpm pieces in this case, but
pixmap pieces in another format called "xim" can be used by
giving the ‘pixmapDirectory’ option. Or again, a different
bitmap piece set can be selected with the ‘bitmapDirectory’
option.
Files in the ‘bitmapDirectory’ must be named as follows: The
first character of a piece bitmap name gives the piece it
represents (‘p’, ‘n’, ‘b’, ‘r’, ‘q’, or ‘k’), the next
characters give the size in pixels, the following character
indicates whether the piece is solid or outline (‘s’ or ‘o’),
and the extension is ‘.bm’. For example, a solid 80x80 knight
would be named ‘n80s.bm’. The outline bitmaps are used only in
monochrome mode. If bitmap pieces are compiled in and the
bitmapDirectory is missing some files, the compiled in pieces
are used instead.
If the bitmapDirectory option is given, it is also possible to
replace xboard’s icons and menu checkmark, by supplying files
named ‘icon_white.bm’, ‘icon_black.bm’, and ‘checkmark.bm’.
For more information about pixmap pieces and how to get
additional sets, see zic2xpm below.
-whitePieceColor color
-blackPieceColor color
-lightSquareColor color
-darkSquareColor color
-highlightSquareColor color
-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
-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.
Adjudication Options
-adjudicateLossThreshold n
If the given value is non-zero, XBoard adjudicates the game as a
loss if both engines agree for a duration of 6 consecutive ply
that the score is below the given score threshold for that
engine. Make sure the score is interpreted properly by XBoard,
using ‘-firstScoreAbs’ and ‘-secondScoreAbs’ if needed.
Default: 0 (no adjudication)
-adjudicateDrawMoves n
If the given value is non-zero, XBoard adjudicates the game as a
draw if after the given number of moves it was not yet decided.
Default: 0 (no adjudication)
-checkMates true/false
If this option is set, XBoard detects all checkmates and
stalemates, and ends the game as soon as they occur. Legality-
testing must be switched on for this option to work. Default:
true
-testClaims true/false
If this option is set, XBoard verifies all result claims made by
engines, and those who send false claims will forfeit the game
because of it. Legality-testing must be switched on for this
option to work. Default: true
-materialDraws true/false
If this option is set, XBoard adjudicates games as draws when
there is no sufficient material left to inflict a checkmate.
This applies to KBKB with like bishops (any number, actually),
and to KBK, KNK and KK. Legality-testing must be switched on
for this option to work. Default: true
-trivialDraws true/false
If this option is set, XBoard adjudicates games as draws that
cannot be usually won without opponent cooperation. This applies
to KBKB with unlike bishops, and to KBKN, KNKN, KNNK, KRKR and
KQKQ. The draw is called after 6 ply into these end-games, to
allow quick mates that can occur in some exceptional positions
to be found by the engines. KQKQ does not really belong in this
category, and might be taken out in the future. (When bitbase-
based adjudications are implemented.) Legality-testing must be
on for this option to work. Default: false
-ruleMoves n
If the given value is non-zero, XBoard adjudicates the game as a
draw after the given number of consecutive reversible moves.
Engine draw claims are always accepted after 50 moves,
irrespective of the given value of n.
-repeatsToDraw n
If the given value is non-zero, xboard adjudicates the game as a
draw if a position is repeated the given number of times.
Engines draw claims are always accepted after 3 repeats, (on the
3rd occurrence, actually), irrespective of the value of n.
Beware that positions that have different castling or en-passant
rights do not count as repeats, XBoard is fully e.p. and
castling aware!
Other options
-ncp/-xncp or -noChessProgram true/false
If this option is true, XBoard acts as a passive chessboard; it
does not start a chess engine at all. Turning on this option
also turns off clockMode. Default: false.
-mode or -initialMode modename
If this option is given, XBoard selects the given modename from
the Mode menu after starting and (if applicable) processing the
loadGameFile or loadPositionFile option. Default: "" (no
selection). Other supported values are MachineWhite,
MachineBlack, TwoMachines, Analysis, AnalyzeFile, EditGame,
EditPosition, and Training.
-variant varname
Activates preliminary, partial support for playing chess
variants against a local engine or editing variant games. This
flag is not needed in ICS mode. Recognized variant names are:
normal Normal chess
wildcastle Shuffle chess, king can castle from d file
nocastle Shuffle chess, no castling allowed
fischerandom Fischer Random shuffle chess
bughouse Bughouse, ICC/FICS rules
crazyhouse Crazyhouse, ICC/FICS rules
losers Lose all pieces or get mated (ICC wild 17)
suicide Lose all pieces including king (FICS)
giveaway Try to have no legal moves (ICC wild 26)
twokings Weird ICC wild 9
kriegspiel Opponent’s pieces are invisible
atomic Capturing piece explodes (ICC wild 27)
3check Win by giving check 3 times (ICC wild 25)
shatranj An ancient precursor of chess (ICC wild 28)
xiangqi Chinese Chess (on a 9x10 board)
shogi Japanese Chess (on a 9x9 board & piece drops)
capablanca Capablanca Chess (10x8 board, with Archbishop
and Chancellor pieces)
gothic similar, with a better initial position
caparandom An FRC-like version of Capablanca Chess (10x8)
janus A game with two Archbishops (10x8 board)
courier Medieval intermediate between shatranj and
modern Chess (on 12x8 board)
falcon Patented 10x8 variant with two Falcon pieces
berolina Pawns capture straight ahead, and move diagonal
cylinder Pieces wrap around the board edge
knightmate King moves as Knight, and vice versa
super Superchess (shuffle variant with 4 exo-pieces)
makruk Thai Chess (shatranj-like, P promotes on 6th rank)
fairy A catchall variant in which all piece types
known to XBoard can participate (8x8)
unknown Catchall for other unknown variants
NOT ALL BOARDSIZES PROVIDE A COMPLETE SET OF BUILT-IN BITMAPS
FOR ALL UN-ORTHODOX PIECES, though. Only in ‘boardSize’ middling
and bulky all 22 piece types are provided, while -boardSize
petite has most of them. Archbishop, Chancellor and Amazon are
supported in every size from petite to bulky. Kings or Amazons
are substituted for missing bitmaps. You can still play variants
needing un-orthodox pieces in other board sizes providing your
own bitmaps through the ‘bitmapDirectory’ or ‘pixmapDirectory’
options.
In the shuffle variants, XBoard now does shuffle the pieces,
although you can still do it by hand using Edit Position. Some
variants are supported only in ICS mode, including bughouse, and
kriegspiel. The winning/drawing conditions in crazyhouse (off-
board interposition on mate) are not fully understood, but
losers, suicide, giveaway, atomic, and 3check should be OK.
Berolina and cylinder chess can only be played with legality
testing off. In crazyhouse, XBoard now does keep track of off-
board pieces. In shatranj it does implement the baring rule
when mate detection is switched on.
-boardHeight N
Allows you to set a non-standard number of board ranks in any
variant. If the height is given as -1, the default height for
the variant is used. Default: -1
-boardWidth N
Allows you to set a non-standard number of board files in any
variant. If the width is given as -1, the default width for the
variant is used. With a non-standard width, the initial
position will always be an empty board, as the usual opening
array will not fit. Default: -1
-holdingsSize N
Allows you to set a non-standard size for the holdings in any
variant. If the size is given as -1, the default holdings size
for the variant is used. The first N piece types will go into
the holdings on capture, and you will be able to drop them on
the board in stead of making a normal move. If size equals 0,
there will be no holdings. Default: -1
-defaultFrcPosition N
Specifies the number of the opening position in shuffle games
like Chess960. A value of -1 means the position is randomly
generated by XBoard at the beginning of every game. Default: -1
-pieceToCharTable string
The characters that are used to represent the piece types XBoard
knows in FEN diagrams and SAN moves. The string argument has to
have an even length (or it will be ignored), as white and black
pieces have to be given separately (in that order). The last
letter for each color will be the King. The letters before that
will be PNBRQ and then a whole host of fairy pieces in an order
that has not fully crystallized yet (currently FEACWMOHIJGDVSLU,
F=Ferz, Elephant, A=Archbishop, C=Chancellor, W=Wazir,
M=Commoner, O=Cannon, H=Nightrider). You should list at least
all pieces that occur in the variant you are playing. If you
have less than 44 characters in the string, the pieces not
mentioned will get assigned a period, and you will not be able
to distinguish them in FENs. You can also explicitly assign
pieces a period, in which case they will not be counted in
deciding which captured pieces can go into the holdings. A
tilde ’~’ as a piece name does mean this piece is used to
represent a promoted Pawn in crazyhouse-like games, i.e. on
capture it turns back onto a Pawn. A ’+’ similarly indicates
the piece is a shogi-style promoted piece, that should revert to
its non-promoted version on capture (rather than to a Pawn).
Note that promoted pieces are represented by pieces 11 further
in the list. You should not have to use this option often: each
variant has its own default setting for the piece representation
in FEN, which should be sufficient in normal use. Default: ""
-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).
-engineDebugOutput number
Specifies how XBoard should handle unsolicited output from the
engine, with respect to saving it in the debug file. The output
is further (hopefully) ignored. If number=0, XBoard refrains
from writing such spurious output to the debug file. If
number=1, all engine output is written faithfully to the debug
file. If number=2, any protocol-violating line is prefixed with
a ’#’ character, as the engine itself should have done if it
wanted to submit info for inclusion in the debug file. This
option is provided for the benefit of applications that use the
debug file as a source of information, such as the broadcaster
of live games TLCV / TLCS. Such applications can be protected
from spurious engine output that might otherwise confuse them.
-rsh or -remoteShell shell-name
Name of the command used to run programs remotely. The default
is ‘rsh’ or ‘remsh’, determined when XBoard is configured and
compiled.
-ruser or -remoteUser user-name
User name on the remote system when running programs with the
‘remoteShell’. The default is your local user name.
-userName username
Name under which the Human player will be listed in the PGN
file. Default is the login name on your local computer.
-delayBeforeQuit number
-delayAfterQuit number
These options specify how long XBoard has to wait before sending
a termination signal to rogue engine processes, that do not want
to react to the ’quit’ command. The second one determines the
pause after killing the engine, to make sure it dies.
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 Step
Menu, Mode Menu, and Options 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
Or in your ‘.Xresources’ file:
XBoard*internetChessServerHost: firewall.example.com
XBoard*internetChessServerPort: 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
Or in your ‘.Xresources’ file:
XBoard*gateway: rsh.example.com
XBoard*internetChessServerHost: 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
Or in your ‘.Xresources’ file:
XBoard*useTelnet: true
XBoard*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, or add ‘XBoard*internetChessServerPort:’ to your ‘.Xresources’
file. 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 ""
Or in your ‘.Xresources’ file:
XBoard*useTelnet: true
XBoard*telnetProgram: ptelnet
XBoard*internetChessServerHost: foo.edu
XBoard*internetChessServerPort:
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. Edit Position mode does not
allow you to edit the crazyhouse holdings properly. You cannot drag
pieces to the holding, and using the popup menu to put pieces there
does not adapt the holding counts and leads to an inconsistent state.
Set up crazyhouse positions by loading / pasting a bFEN, from there you
can set 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>
-name <full name>
-oppname <full name>
The full name of White, Black, yourself or your opponent.
-wna <net address>
-bna <net address>
-na <net address>
-oppna <net address>
The email address of White, Black, yourself or your opponent.
-dir <directory>
The directory in which ‘cmail’ keeps its files. This defaults to
the environment variable ‘$CMAIL_DIR’ or failing that,
‘$CHESSDIR’, ‘$HOME/Chess’ or ‘~/Chess’. It will be created if
it does not exist.
-arcdir <directory>
The directory in which ‘cmail’ archives completed games.
Defaults to the environment variable ‘$CMAIL_ARCDIR’ or, in its
absence, the same directory as cmail keeps its working files
(above).
-mailprog <mail program>
The program used by cmail to send email messages. This defaults
to the environment variable ‘$CMAIL_MAILPROG’ or failing that
‘/usr/ucb/Mail’, ‘/usr/ucb/mail’ or ‘Mail’. You will need to set
this variable if none of the above paths fit your system.
-logFile <file>
A file in which to dump verbose debugging messages that are
invoked with the ‘-v’ option.
-event <event>
The PGN Event tag (default ‘Email correspondence game’).
-site <site>
The PGN Site tag (default ‘NET’).
-round <round>
The PGN Round tag (default ‘-’, not applicable).
-mode <mode>
The PGN Mode tag (default ‘EM’, Electronic Mail).
Other options
Any option flags not listed above are passed through to XBoard.
Invoking XBoard through CMail changes the default values of two
XBoard options: The default value for ‘-noChessProgram’ is
changed to true; that is, by default no chess engine is started.
The default value for ‘-timeDelay’ is changed to 0; that is, by
default XBoard immediately goes to the end of the game as played
so far, rather than stepping through the moves one by one. You
can still set these options to whatever values you prefer by
supplying them on CMail’s command line. See Options.
Starting a CMail Game
Type ‘cmail’ from a shell to start a game as white. After an opening
message, you will be prompted for a game name, which is optional -- if
you simply press <Enter>, the game name will take the form ‘you-VS-
opponent’. You will next be prompted for the short name of your
opponent. If you haven’t played this person before, you will also be
prompted for his/her email address. ‘cmail’ will then invoke XBoard in
the background. Make your first move and select ‘Mail Move’ from the
‘File’ menu. See File Menu. If all is well, ‘cmail’ will mail a copy of
the move to your opponent. If you select ‘Exit’ without having selected
‘Mail Move’ then no move will be made.
Answering a Move
When you receive a message from an opponent containing a move in one of
your games, simply pipe the message through ‘cmail’. In some mailers
this is as simple as typing ‘| cmail’ when viewing the message, while
in others you may have to save the message to a file and do ‘cmail <
file’ at the command line. In either case ‘cmail’ will display the game
using XBoard. If you didn’t exit XBoard when you made your first move
then ‘cmail’ will do its best to use the existing XBoard instead of
starting a new one. As before, simply make a move and select ‘Mail
Move’ from the ‘File’ menu. See File Menu. ‘cmail’ will try to use the
XBoard that was most recently used to display the current game. This
means that many games can be in progress simultaneously, each with its
own active XBoard.
If you want to look at the history or explore a variation, go ahead,
but you must return to the current position before XBoard will allow
you to mail a move. If you edit the game’s history you must select
‘Reload Same Game’ from the ‘File’ menu to get back to the original
position, then make the move you want and select ‘Mail Move’. As
before, if you decide you aren’t ready to make a move just yet you can
either select ‘Exit’ without sending a move or just leave XBoard
running until you are ready.
Multi-Game Messages
It is possible to have a ‘cmail’ message carry more than one game.
This feature was implemented to handle IECG (International Email Chess
Group) matches, where a match consists of one game as white and one as
black, with moves transmitted simultaneously. In case there are more
general uses, ‘cmail’ itself places no limit on the number of
black/white games contained in a message; however, XBoard does.
Completing a Game
Because XBoard can detect checkmate and stalemate, ‘cmail’ handles game
termination sensibly. As well as resignation, the ‘Action’ menu allows
draws to be offered and accepted for ‘cmail’ games.
For multi-game messages, only unfinished and just-finished games will
be included in email messages. When all the games are finished, they
are archived in the user’s archive directory, and similarly in the
opponent’s when he or she pipes the final message through ‘cmail’. The
archive file name includes the date the game was started.
Known CMail Problems
It’s possible that a strange conjunction of conditions may occasionally
mean that ‘cmail’ has trouble reactivating an existing XBoard. If this
should happen, simply trying it again should work. If not, remove the
file that stores the XBoard’s PID (‘game.pid’) or use the ‘-xreuse’
option to force ‘cmail’ to start a new XBoard.
Versions of ‘cmail’ after 2.16 no longer understand the old file format
that XBoard used to use and so cannot be used to correspond with anyone
using an older version.
Versions of ‘cmail’ older than 2.11 do not handle multi-game messages,
so multi-game correspondence is not possible with opponents using an
older version.
OTHER PROGRAMS YOU CAN USE WITH XBOARD
Here are some other programs you can use with XBoard
GNU Chess
The GNU Chess engine is available from:
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuchess/
You can use XBoard to play a game against GNU Chess, or to interface
GNU Chess to an ICS.
Fairy-Max
Fairy-Max is a derivative from the once World’s smallest Chess program
micro-Max, which measures only about 100 lines of source code. The
main difference with micro-Max is that Fairy-Max loads its move-
generator tables from a file, so that the rules for piece movement can
be easily configured to implement unorthodox pieces. Fairy-Max can
therefore play a large number of variants, normal Chess being one of
those. In addition it plays Knightmate, Capablanca and Gothic Chess,
Shatranj, Courier Chess, Cylinder chess, Berolina Chess, while the user
can easily define new variants. It can be obtained from:
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/dwnldpage.html
HoiChess
HoiChess is a not-so-very-strong Chess engine, which comes with a
derivative HoiXiangqi, able to play Chinese Chess. It can be obtained
from the standard Linux repositories through:
sudo apt-get install hoichess
Crafty
Crafty is a chess engine written by Bob Hyatt. You can use XBoard to
play a game against Crafty, hook Crafty up to an ICS, or use Crafty to
interactively analyze games and positions for you.
Crafty is a strong, rapidly evolving chess program. This rapid pace of
development is good, because it means Crafty is always getting better.
This can sometimes cause problems with backwards compatibility, but
usually the latest version of Crafty will work well with the latest
version of XBoard. Crafty can be obtained from its author’s FTP site:
ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/.
To use Crafty with XBoard, give the -fcp and -fd options as follows,
where <crafty’s directory> is the directory in which you installed
Crafty and placed its book and other support files.
zic2xpm
The ‘‘zic2xpm’’ program is used to import chess sets from the ZIICS(*)
program into XBoard. ‘‘zic2xpm’’ is part of the XBoard distribution.
ZIICS is available from:
ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/DOS/ziics131.exe
To import ZIICS pieces, do this:
1. Unzip ziics131.exe into a directory:
unzip -L ziics131.exe -d ~/ziics
2. Use zic2xpm to convert a set of pieces to XBoard format.
For example, let’s say you want to use the FRITZ4 set. These
files are named ‘‘fritz4.*’’ in the ZIICS distribution.
mkdir ~/fritz4
cd ~/fritz4
zic2xpm ~/ziics/fritz4.*
3. Give XBoard the ‘‘-pixmap’’ option when starting up, e.g.:
xboard -pixmap ~/fritz4
Alternatively, you can add this line to your ‘.Xresources’ file:
xboard*pixmapDirectory: ~/fritz4
(*) ZIICS is a separate copyrighted work of Andy McFarland. The
‘‘ZIICS pieces’’ are copyrighted works of their respective creators.
Files produced by ‘‘zic2xpm’’ are for PERSONAL USE ONLY and may NOT be
redistributed without explicit permission from the original creator(s)
of the pieces.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1991 Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard,
Massachusetts.
All Rights Reserved.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that the name of Digital not be used in
advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
without specific, written prior permission.
Digital disclaims all warranties with regard to this software,
including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no
event shall Digital be liable for any special, indirect or
consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of
use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or
other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or
performance of this software.
Enhancements copyright (C) 1992-2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,
2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Published by the Free Software Foundation
59 Temple Place - Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that
the section entitled ‘‘GNU General Public License,’’ is included
exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting
derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice
identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
versions, except that the section entitled ‘‘GNU General Public
License,’’ and this permission notice, may be included in translations
approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original
English.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ‘http://fsf.org/’
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.
The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software
and other kinds of works.
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed
to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast,
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to
share and change all versions of a program -- to make sure it remains
free software for all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use
the GNU General Public License for most of our software; it applies
also to any other work released this way by its authors. You can apply
it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.
Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the
freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if
you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it,
that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free
programs, and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you
these rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you
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