Re: [XBoard-devel] Future plans

[h.g. muller]

> Specifying an engine name  would be equivalent to specifying a save file 
> in your proposal.
> I preferred specifying an engine name since it is completely generic. It 
> has a meaning for all types
> of engines and people are familiar with the concept.
>
> But if you want to specify a (polyglot specific) save file on the command 
> line then fine.

I am not sure I understand what you mean here. Are you referring to the 
Polyglot command line
or the WinBoard command line?

> In any the case it seems to me the template should then contain a 
> provision to include the name of the
> savefile, e.g. -sf <SaveFile>  (instead of -en <EngineName>)
>
> I assume you do not want to force the user to start WB and go to some 
> dialog to select a new
> SaveFile each time. Specifying it on the command line is faster and less 
> confusing.

What I had in mind was that people could start a UCI engine by specifying 
the executable
in the normal way with -fcp and -fd, only adding the -fUCI flag to tell WB 
an adapter should be invoked.
This can obviously only work if there is only one version of that engine, 
because it would use
the default settings file for that engine. This could contain customized 
settings or not. In the latter
case it would not even have to pre-exist.

In the (less usual) case that people want to experiment with multiple 
settings, they cannot use this
simple -fUCI mechanism, they would somehow have to identify which settings 
file is to be used.
In the pre-4.4 era, people did this by running with -fcp "polyglot 
mypolyglot.ini".
That seems simple enough, and is actually hard to beat. So why change it?