** Announcing the release of XBoard and WinBoard, version 4.2.0beta ** A new release of both XBoard and WinBoard is now available. Version 4.2.0beta supports an improved (but compatible) protocol for communicating with chess engines such as GNU Chess and Crafty. Engine authors are asked to read the draft spec, included in the file engine-intf.html, and consider taking advantage of the new features. This release also adds a few user-visible features and fixes many bugs. You can get both programs from my Chess page on the World Wide Web. In addition, they should soon be available from GNU FTP sites. - http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html - ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/ - ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/winboard/ 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 32-bit Microsoft Windows. It includes all the major features of XBoard except email correspondence chess. This release is marked "beta" because it has not received much testing. Please try it and report any apparent new bugs to me. Some known bugs and deficiencies in previous versions have not been addressed. It is not necessary to report your favorite bug again if you have reported it before, unless the ChangeLog erroneously says it has been fixed. Most known bugs, deficiencies, and suggestions received are now listed in the ToDo file. --Tim Mann == Selected items from the ChangeLog == * Many protocol additions. * Added move list window for xboard. (Not WinBoard; sorry.) * Preliminary, partial support for playing several chess variants against a local engine or editing variant games. * Added a command line option to select an initial minor mode from the Mode menu. * Added -firstComputerString and -secondComputerString, allowing you to suppress or change the command that is sent to a chess engine when its opponent is another computer. * Changed back the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V key bindings in WinBoard; they once again copy and paste text. * Fixed WinBoard bug where on Windows 2000 (and maybe Windows 98) the ICS Interaction window would scroll back to the top whenever it filled to capacity and WinBoard trimmed some text off the top. * Fixed a bug in loading games with a comment before the first move. * Fixed a bug in handling LoadGame (or -lgf) with -td 0. * Fixed a problem where some things in WinBoard's General Options dialog box were grayed out at the wrong time. * Fixed the WinBoard bug that sometimes made the console input box white-on-white even when not in password-entry mode. * The version of the Xaw Form widget released in XFree86 4.0.1 (X11R6.4.3) has a bug that causes xboard to display the button bar on top of the message widget. I've reported the bug and have installed a workaround into xboard.