Re: [Bug-XBoard] Please Help

[h.g. muller]

> ok... how about aiming for 4.4 to get all the changes from Allessandro
> and you in (in case we can get a hold of Allessandro) and then for 5.0
> to port everything to gtk and combine winboard and xboard.

I don't know what strategy the Savannah project was using before for
stepping up the numbers, but the diffrence to the merging of 4.3.15
and '4.2.7+' (the internationalized version is a so far unrealeased one,
correct? Perhaps we should refer to it as 4.2.8?) and the existing 4.3.15
will basically be only the internationalization. I.e., for the average
(=Anglophone) user, no difference at all. So stepping up the version number
for this seems like overdoing it. That would even hold if we would use
my current 4.3.16 alpha source as a basis for merging, as compared to
4.3.15 I have not really changed much (engine logos, but only in WinBoard,
and diverting the opponent's engine kibbitz to the engine-output window
in ICS mode, and some iprovement of the Xiangqi support the average
user would not care about at all).

But if you feel that it is better to step to 4.4 as a signal that the forks
are now unified again, I admit that would be a valid reason, even if the
actual code advance does not justify it and would suggest 4.3.16.

> Another question: Since I have to admit that I never really looked at
> winboard, how much does it differ from xboard? Are most of the files the
> same and only a few different and if they differ, do they differ just
> because you added/fixed things in winboard or are there big differences
> apart from the GUI code?

WinBoard and XBoard differ only in the GUI code, although for some
unfathomable reason the command-line-option definitions are considered
GUI code. Originally this was only winboard.c (I suppose), but patches
for GUI enhancement have put some of it in separate files, all starting
with 'w' in the name (whistory.c, wedittags.c, wengineo.c, woptions.c).
Especially Allessandro has been very active in the GUI area, and I
back-ported some of his changes to XBoard, making the corresponding
'x' files (xengineo.c, xoptions.c), while others (e.g. xhistory.c) already
existed in the Savannah version. In particuar the eval-graph auxiliary
window (wevalgraph.c) still has to be done, while there are some important
GUI enhancements in winboard.c as well. (The bitmap board textures and
the rendering of pieces with true-type fonts. And I am adding engine-logo
bitmaps to that, while I also added an option to save the current board display
as bitmap file for making diagrams.)

> cheers
>         ARUN