cutechess-cli

[H.G.Muller]

Anyway to have a graphical interface to configure and launch it on windows?

If you want a graphical interface to configure it, you might as well play use a GUI to start with, and play the games there... What would be the point in having a command-line tool then?

I always play my test gauntlets under WinBoard, exactly because I like to configure and launch them through a dialog, and now and then open the window to have a peek if everything is going well.

[ChessDrone]

Anyway to have a graphical interface to configure and launch it on windows?

If you want a graphical interface to configure it, you might as well play use a GUI to start with, and play the games there... What would be the point in having a command-line tool then?

I always play my test gauntlets under WinBoard, exactly because I like to configure and launch them through a dialog, and now and then open the window to have a peek if everything is going well.

It seemed me that the main interest of cutechess is it allowed to make several matches parallelized according the number of cores available ... but maybe I'm wrong... and I have to be different from others that they immerse themselves in the line commands just for fun keyboard.

[H.G.Muller]

Oh, WinBoard can do that too, of course. You can run as many games concurrently as you want, and increase or decrease that number during the tourney at will (if other activities on the same computer require it).

[ChessDrone]

Thanks for the reply H.G
to when the support of ctg book in winboard :p ?

Aside from that, the interest of cutechess is that it works in the background and that no chessboard and therefore little risk of blue screens of death.

It may very well combine a command line tool with a GUI as pgn-extract + pgn-interface.

http://www.chess2u.com/t7294-pgn-extract#44024

[H.G.Muller]

ctg is a propriatary ChessBase format, that is considered company secret, and for which the probing algorithm is unknown. So it is not possible for other software to support it. I know that some GUIs claim to have such support (including one WinBoard fork), but in practice playing from a ctg book under such software makes quite different moves from using the same book under ChessBase, so that in fact it is not the same book. Better stay away from such stuff. WinBoard supports Polyglot book format, which is an open format, so that you won't have any surprises.

Of course the 'risk' to see a blue screen because of running WinBoard is much lower than the risk that your display will suddenly start to spew out 1000-dollar bills. Please worry only about things that can happen in this Universe...

Every window you minimize works in the backround. When you minimize it, the chess board disappears. It is not updated anyway in -noGUI mode. The difference is that you can call it back to the foreground at any time you want, and have full control. That is why I like it.

Of course it is possible to combine a GUI with a command-line tool. That is in fact what all Chess GUIs do, as engines are command-line tools. My point was more, why bother? At best you would get a crippled version of things that already exist and were designed to run from a GUI from the outset, rather than something stuck onto it as an afterthought.

[ChessDrone]

ctg is a propriatary ChessBase format, that is considered company secret, and for which the probing algorithm is unknown. So it is not possible for other software to support it. I know that some GUIs claim to have such support (including one WinBoard fork), but in practice playing from a ctg book under such software makes quite different moves from using the same book under ChessBase, so that in fact it is not the same book. Better stay away from such stuff. WinBoard supports Polyglot book format, which is an open format, so that you won't have any surprises.

One could compare it to pdf files, flash, rar, etc... yet it is not open to what I know.
For good or bad reasons, it is not my fault that this format is very common ...

Of course the 'risk' to see a blue screen because of running WinBoard is much lower than the risk that your display will suddenly start to spew out 1000-dollar bills. Please worry only about things that can happen in this Universe...

Do not be condescending. I do not question WinBoard itself but overburdening the already unstable system, by the fact of bad graphics drivers, insufficient ram or what do I know... Like exceed a number of tab page in the Internet browser will accordingly harmful behavior for the system

Every window you minimize works in the backround. When you minimize it, the chess board disappears. It is not updated anyway in -noGUI mode. The difference is that you can call it back to the foreground at any time you want, and have full control. That is why I like it.

Sincerely thank you for the information.

Of course it is possible to combine a GUI with a command-line tool. That is in fact what all Chess GUIs do, as engines are command-line tools. My point was more, why bother? At best you would get a crippled version of things that already exist and were designed to run from a GUI from the outset, rather than something stuck onto it as an afterthought.]

The difficulty is to simply add the uci engines. The winboard.ini file has strange behavior, sometimes older versions back...

Winboard is a good software however

[H.G.Muller]

For good or bad reasons, it is not my fault that this format is very common ...

It is common because many people use ChesssBase. And if you want to use them, that is the only way.

Do not be condescending. I do not question WinBoard itself but overburdening the already unstable system, by the fact of bad graphics drivers, insufficient ram or what do I know... Like exceed a number of tab page in the Internet browser will accordingly harmful behavior for the system

I have never seen this to happen, and no one has ever complained that it did happen. It is just not a realistic worry. Even if it could happen in theory, it should just be as likely to happen withthe GUI you had in mind to launch the command-line tool. As I said, WinBoard does not update the chess board when it plays in -noGUI mode, so there is no load on the grapics drivers or vido memory.

The difficulty is to simply add the uci engines. The winboard.ini file has strange behavior, sometimes older versions back...

You simply tick the UCI checkbox. Doesn't sound like a difficulty to me...

[ChessDrone]

(...)

The difficulty is to simply add the uci engines. The winboard.ini file has strange behavior, sometimes older versions back...

You simply tick the UCI checkbox. Doesn't sound like a difficulty to me...

I give you my point of view that a neophyte or casual user, not that of a developer who built and used for many years and for whom everything seems obvious.

Added to "Edit engine list" and "select engine from list", the title of the dialog box has put me in confusion. I will prefer to read "Load/add New engine .." or in separate dialog boxes. But now that I know that, it will be fine for me.

It works like a charm, great work, I wish you well for this great application. Thanks a lot H.G.

[H.G.Muller]

Thanks for the feedback.

The screenshot I posted was actually for an old version (I did not have a screenshot of the newer version on-line yet, for WinBoard, at least); since then I have changed the selection to occur from a listbox, rather than a pull-down menu. This might make the dialog a bit more obvious, because you can immediately see the list to choose from. Would it make it more clear if I would change the text to 'Add this engine to the list on the left'?

Perhaps I should indeed change the name of the menu items to "Load/Install new 1st(2nd) engine". Do you think that would make it sufficiently clear? I prefer to have the load and install in one dialog, as when you have many engines, you are not always sure what you have installed already. So you can go to the unified dialog with the intension to just click it on the list, and when it turns out not to be there, immediately browse for the .exe to install it.

This also makes it easier for those who use hierarchical grouping in the engine list (making it similar to a tree widget), to have the new engine added directly to the group in which it belongs: they can open that group in the listbox, and then select the .exe and click OK (leaving the 'Add to list' at its defaut ticked setting).

WinBoard 4.7 'Load First Engine' dialog:


And the XBoard equivalent:

[ChessDrone]

(...)
Perhaps I should indeed change the name of the menu items to "Load/Install new 1st(2nd) engine". Do you think that would make it sufficiently clear?
(...)

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, sure it is very clear.
(1) On additionally I will like when you highlight a chess engine list, the field is filled automatically, that we can see and change a name or something else also dynamically or duplicate an engine just by changine the name.
So with that, I'll see a button "add / create"(Without this closes the dialog), "Load (close dialog box)" and "cancel (close dialog box)". I forgot "Delete (selected)"

(2) I will wish the same as (1) for the dialog on graphics themes excepting that instead of "load" with "apply".

I have issues regarding this to create a theme. I accidentally delete some themes from the list, but are still in winboard.ini. I do not know how to go back.

Optional Questions:
Can we change engine group?
Is it possible to disable some engines from the list without deleting the settings? ( i.e. like in frits)

Regards