Re: [Bug-XBoard] Make non supported variant for engine non fatal

[H.G. Muller]

Joshua Pettus schreef op 9/25/2014 5:20 PM:
> Anyway we can make the non supported variant error for an engine, non fatal for 
> xboard?
What error exactly do you mean? You should not be able to switch to a 
variant the current first engine does not support. The second engine is 
only woken up when you hit Two Machines. But this gives me a non-fatal 
error popup, saying the second engine does not support the variant. 
(Minor bug: the Two Macines menu remains check-marked after this, in 
addition to Edit Game, which is the mode it leaves me in.)

When XBoard is set for 'normal', and I load HaChu (which does not play 
'normal') as first engine, it does not give me an error. (Just a 
rejection of my move by HaChu when I start playing, which probably also 
should be considered a bug.) I did not get anything fatal.

I guess it should have switched to a variant that HaChu does play (the 
first one of its variants-feature list) when it was loaded as first 
engine. XBoard already does that when you would load HaChu from the 
command line without explicit -variant specification:

xboard -fcp hachu

would start up in Chu Shogi (and the second engine would also be hachu!).

OTOH, when an engine does not support 'normal', it was sort of expected 
you would install it with a -variant option that would specify a variant 
it does play. It would then appear in the Load Engine listbox as "hachu 
(chu)" (say). In this case it would auomatically switch variant on 
loading it, and there would not be a problem.