** Announcing the release of XBoard and WinBoard, version 4.0.0 ** A new release of both XBoard and WinBoard is now available. Version 4.0.0 is meant to be a stable version, incorporating the changes that were being tested in versions 3.6.3beta through 3.6.12beta. You can get both programs from my Chess page on the World Wide Web or from the Internet Chess Library FTP site. In addition, XBoard should soon be available from GNU FTP sites. - http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/Tim_Mann/chess.html - ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/X/xboard-4.0.0.tar.gz - ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/Win3/winboard-4_0_0.exe (zip format) - ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/xboard-4.0.0.tar.gz XBoard is a graphical chessboard for the X Window System that can serve as a user interface for GNU Chess, Crafty, and other chess engines, for the Internet Chess Servers, and for electronic mail correspondence chess. XBoard can also be used by itself. It can read and write game files in PGN (portable game notation). WinBoard is a similar program for Microsoft Windows 95/98 and Windows NT. It includes all the major features of XBoard except email correspondence chess. Warning: WinBoard does not work on Windows 3.1 or 3.11, not even with Win32s. Report bugs in XBoard and WinBoard to . --Tim Mann === Some change highlights === * Added animated piece movement. xboard version coded by Hugh Fisher, WinBoard version by Henrik Gram. Many thanks to them both. (Hint: Turn off AnimateMoving on the Options menu if you are playing extremely fast blitz.) * There are now 13 choices for board size instead of 4. WinBoard lets you resize the board by dragging the edges with the mouse. When you release the mouse button, the board snaps to the largest available size that fits in the area you outlined. * Added click-click moving to WinBoard. Redesigned click-click moving for both xboard and WinBoard to be always available instead of a menu option. If you click on a piece, it highlights and a further click on another square will move it; or if you press down on a piece and start to drag, you can drag it to a new square. * Illegal moves are now reported in the message line by default instead of in a popup dialog. * Added GUI to change sounds in WinBoard. * Added a new xboard/WinBoard color and WinBoard sound for "requests": abort, adjourn, draw, pause, and takeback. The same color and sound are used for all of these. * Summary of new menu options and commands that are in both xboard and WinBoard: PonderNextMove, LoadPreviousPosition, LoadNextPosition, ReloadSamePosition, PopupMoveErrors, AnimateDragging, AnimateMoving, HighlightLastMove. * Summary of new menu options and commands that are only in WinBoard: HighlightDragging, AlwaysOnTop, SaveSettingsOnExit. * Summary of new menu options and commands that are only in xboard: FlashMoves. * Improved WinBoard startup dialog. There are now boxes for both engines, and both the engine boxes and the ICS box are drop-down lists that can be customized by editing WinBoard.ini with a text editor. * WinBoard now lets you customize the right-button context menu in the output area of the ICS Interaction window by editing WinBoard.ini with a text editor. * Major reorganization to engine-intf.txt, the document that explains how to make a chess engine compatible with xboard/WinBoard. Some new features added, many existing features clarified and hints for engine programmers added. Support for new features added to program. * Added -firstDirectory and -secondDirectory so that chess engines can be started in a different directory from xboard/WinBoard itself. * Added -matchGames to allow more than one game in match mode. The games are played with colors alternating between the two chess engines. * Autoflag is now implemented in MachineWhite, MachineBlack, and TwoMachines modes. If it is on and either a chess program or the user oversteps his time, xboard will automatically call the flag and end the game. * Many bug fixes and other small improvements. See ChangeLog in the distribution for details.