Files to be included in the install. The dirctory "chess" sould
be made only if it is not pre-existing,
and the name should be user-selectable. (The idea is that the user
installs in the folder where he
normally keeps all his engine folders.) To get a better idea what we are
talking about, I listed the
sizes (and zipped sizes in parentheses) in KB with each component. (Note
I remembered the
size of Polyglot.exe wrong; it is in slightly larger than I remembered,
but still only 8% of WB.)
MENUs
Program Files -> WinBoard -> WB StartUp Dialog
Program Files -> WinBoard -> Game Viewer
Program Files -> WinBoard -> Chess Server - FICS
Program Files -> WinBoard -> Chess Server - ICC
Program Files -> WinBoard -> Help
Program Files -> WinBoard -> UnInstall
Rationalization:
The minimal install contains, next to winboard.exe and necessary
documentation, some empty folders (to guide people where to put things in
such a way that the supplied winboard.ini file makes WinBoard
automatically find them; takes no space anyway), and some components the
user might or might not need, but which are too small to justify driving
up the complexity of the installation procedure by making them optional
(timeseal, Polyglot, Fairy-Max, etc.). The main question mark is the
opening book here; the mentioned book drives up the download size by 50%,
and people that would never. I think the mentioned book is affordable; if
not, we could make a smaller one. But I would like to include at least
one book, no matter how small, so the book options of WinBoard will
work.
I think the board-texture bitmaps are affordable, now that I shrunk them
to 129x129 (the largest WB square size). This means that at this size all
squares would look the same, but with backTextureMode=2 this can be
partly disguised, and at smaller board sizes (which most people use)
there still is some variety in how the squaes are cut out of the bitmap.
Perhaps we should even supply a second theme, next to the wood (e.g.
marmoleum), and a second font as well.
Engine-testers get a separate profile because PSWBTM, (which would be
completely useless for those that do not want to run complex
engine-engine tourneys) is twice the size of WinBoard.
Chess engines in gneral are huge in comparison with anything else,
especially if we would ship them with their native books. Even a package
that contains only a single engine such as Crafty or GNU Chess is
dedicated for 80-90% size-wise to that engine. It thus woud have more the
character of a Crafty or a GNU Chess package, that includes WinBoard as
an afterthought and minor component, just in case someone wouldn't have
it, than of a WinBoard distribution. IMO this is a very good reason not
to include such engines. Let the engine suppliers take care of the
distribution of their engines, and let people interested in a particular
engine get it from its source. Definitely no reason to force them on,
say, ICS users, whuch will likely never use them. So they shoud be
optonal at best.
The Variantist profile is separate, not because the componets are so big,
but because they are very specialized, and virtualy no one would want
them.
The XiangQi profile is separate mainly because the bitmap for the XiangQi
board is rather large. This could be prevented by not using a
wood-texture board, but an even-colored board in stead. This would
compress to almost nothing. If we want to expand our market share in
Asia, we should definitely consider to make the XIANGQI font and such a
highly compressible board bitmap, plus MaxQi as engine and UCCI2WB as
adapter part of the minimal install. The number of Xiangqi players
work-wide is much larger than the number of Chess players!