Interesting idea. A lot of folks have tried and their unanswered questions litter the Internet. It seem that the gnuchess -u flag doesn't work. I think this is probably how it is run when being used as an engine and explains why xboard has issues. It is unfortunate that there is no documentation. Perhaps the right way to do it is to get the source and read it and build it better or at least learn how to use it.
I might do that, but a less robust but perhaps functional solution could be obtained by using xdotools and piping the output to a file and tailing that. While gnuchess will sort of take input from a named pipe, it goes berserk if that pipe is empty, instead of blocking and waiting. I could also wrap it in Java or perhaps C and use the native interfaces, but I dont think that will actually work without a functioning -u flag on gnuchess.
But for now, I have a nice old chess board that I bought in Mexico when I was a kid. With that, and the gnuchess command line, I have a pretty nice experience. As long as I remember to enter my move. When you get into the game, its easy to forget LOL. And, it kicks my butt, the way it should be.
-Gary
On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:42:32AM -0700, Brian E. Lavender wrote:
On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 09:55:44PM -0700, Gary wrote:
At the risk of going into the weeds, GUchess is a text based command line program. It should really be used with a chess board so you can keep track of the positions. xboard is supposed to be a graphical front end for GNUchess.
I think it is time to "go into the weeds and do a front end for that GNU chess".
How about Java FX? https://openjfx.io/
It should keep you busy for at least a week!
Brian
Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture _______________________________________________ Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts@bigbrie.com To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave@bigbrie.com