Version 16 ---------- - There's a manpage for the GUI program "babychess" - The dialogs are laid out better - There is now an opening book. The names of chess openings are displayed. There is an option to show also the subvariation names. - The engine plays move from the opening book. The probability of playing a move is proportional to the number of subvariations in the opening book. - The chess notation can be set to the following languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian and Turkish - Figurine notation is supported via the chess glyphs in Unicode. However, the few fonts that were found to contains these glyphs were all false: They display the chess pieces in the same height as a lowercase letter, although they should have the same height as an uppercase letter. - Descriptive notation is partially supportted. - All GUI programs were merged into one executable called "babychess". - The other programs have changed names, e.g. "baby_chess_evaluator" is now "babychess-evaluator" - The game archive editor can sort the games by all seven tags - In the game editor, captures can be played in reverse, i.e. by dragging the captured piece to the capturing piece. - Games against can now be played using "match mode", started with "babychess --match" - Board: When dragging a piece, the pointer position is slowly adjusted to be centered on the piece. - Board: Instead of dragging and dropping the pieces, two other methods can be used to play moves: clicking on the two piece and on the destination square, and keyboard navigation. - XBoard engines such as "gnuchess" and "phalanx" are supported. - A temporary file is use when saved, which is then renamed. This avoids losing data when the program should crash just after having opened the output file. - In the game editor, the list of legal moves now also displays the opening names played by moves. - More Unicode symbols are used: the multiplication sign for captures, long dashes were appropriate, figurines in the notation, and special math symbols to display some annotation glyphs. - In the gamme editor, one can go forward and backward through the game using the mouse wheel. - The "./configure" script supports the options "--disable-gui" if the GUI program "babychess" should not be compiled. You don't need any of Glib, GTK+ or GNOME in this mode. Version 15 (release date) ---------- Game Editor: - The game editor now has a "paner" between the side bar and the board. - Alternate moves can be played directly. Example: In the starting position, play e2-e3. Then drag Pe3 to e4, this has the effect of taking back 1.e3 and playing 1.e4. Engine: - The engine can be set to always start running. - The "depth factor" is displayed. (That's the average increase of knots form one depth to another.) Board: - The dragging of chess pieces can be aborted with the Escape key. - Last move highlighting on the board can be turned off. - The board settings can be saved and come with a few sample settings in different colors. - While dragging a piece, the from-square is highlighted in blue. - New option: riffled dark squares. This looks like what is used in books. Notation: - In addition to the standard algegraic notation (SAN), french, german and dutch notations are supported. - Notations can be saved - The bpard has a tutor mode which displays the possible destination squares of the dragged piece. Tutor is disabled by default. Other Changes: - The user is now asked before overwriting files. - When clicking "Cancel" in any settings windows, the old values are restored. - Translations are available in german and french. - The toolbars now have images. - In the position editor, the position can be inverted and mirrored. Internal Changes: - Port to GTK+ 2.0. Doesn't compile with GTK+ 1.2. - The GNOME libraries are used. - Compliance with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines - The number of knots is now 64 bit on 32 bit machines. (using intmax_t) - Now using GNOME's dialogs instead of own-made. Version 14 ---------- PGN Support: - PGN comments are supported. They are read from input files, can be viewed and edited in the game editor, and are stored in PGN format. - Support for recursive variations: They can be read from PGN files, written to PGN files, viewed and edited. The Game Editor: - If a promotion is possible, radio buttons are shown to choose the promotion piece. The Position Editor: - The FEN string of the current position can be shown in an edit box. This feature is disabled by default and can be activated in the "View|Fen notation" menu. Any FEN string can be pasted into that box and will be used by clicking "Set". - When an en passant move is possible, the last move can be chosen among all possible double pawn moves. - If kings and rooks are on their starting squares, possible castlings can be chosen. The Chess Board: - Anti-aliasing can be turned off in the board settings. - There is now a frame around the chess board, which displays the file names and rank numbers. The frame is shown by default and can be hidden in the board settings. Other New Features: - The notation and the board settings are now saved across sessions. Version 13 ---------- - GUI ported to GTK+ version 1.2. - Load the board faster by saving the scaled versions. - When opening a PGN file that contains one chess game, also open the game editor window. - Added questions when closing windows: "Do you want to save..." - Don't show the evaluator widget when the game editor window is opened, only make it visible when the evaluator is started. - Make notation configurable. - The board colors can be changed for: light squares, dark squares and last move. - Add "Reset" button to board settings editor. - In the game editor, The "Stop" button is now the "Pause" button, and will resume the evaluator when pressed while it is paused. - Added the game info editor. The name of the players, the date, etc. are saved in the PGN file. Game info is also displayed when opening files that contain such info. - List of legal moves in the game editor. This list is hidden by default. It can be made visible in the "View" menu. - Evaluator settings: New option to run the evaluator with a low priority. Enabled by default. - Improved the evaluator in various ways. - The XBoard engine was rewritten. Version 12.3 ------------ General ....... - Memory leak in image handling fixed. - Installation is now faster using Cook. - Faster drag movement of chess pieces by buffering "mouse move" events. - In addition to the Make file, there is now a `Howto.cook' file that can be used with the Cook program. - Drop support for Make. - Partial update of the Cygwin port. Chess ..... - Design changes in the "Edit position" window make it easier to use. - Introduced the "Chess evaluator," which replaces the chess engine. - The chess program now runs in another process, rather than in another thread. - New ICS client program. - New PGN file editor for game collections. - Added a "busy indicator" to the chess game editor that blinks when the evaluator is running, similar to what's in most web-browsers upper right corner. - Game Editor: Moves can be taken back by taking them back on the board. - Game Editor: Read and write PGN files with one game in them. - Game Editor: Display the move list. You can go to the position after a move by clicking on the move. - Game Editor: Display the piece balance. - The XBoard engine has been dropped in favor of the new "chess evaluator." GUI ... - The chess pieces are now stored in one 8 kB PNG indexed image with tRNS transparency, instead of the old 547 kB X bitmap .xbm file. - Fixed bug in the "GNU GPL" window where characters would be drawn over the scroll bars. - New, thinner caret. - Most windows are now "editors." The "Chess program" window is now the "Chess game editor." - Objects such as chess games and chess positions can now be edited separately. Version 12.2 ------------ - Bugfixes GUI ... - Added anti-aliased fonts using Xft - Scroll bars BabyFractal ........... - News colors dialog - Added undo information and back/forward commands Version 12.1 ------------ - Name changed from BabyChess to Baby. Fractal ....... - New program that displays the Mandelbrot set. Chess ..... - Added "Flip board" option - Added "Show square name on each square" option - Floating text in the "About window" - Radio buttons - New "Edit position" dialog - Proportional font used with XLib - "Copy" and "Paste" button in "Edit position" window; the FEN description of the position can be copied and pasted. - Radio buttons with chess pieces in the "Edit position" window. - "Copy position" and "Paste position" in the "Game" menu of the "Game window". - New load/save file window. - "Load" and "Save" in the "Position" menu of the "Edit position" window. - Focus follows mouse; buttons and other widgets get activated when mouse is over. - Keyboard input with the X Window System. - Chess board drawn faster when changing size. - Anti-aliased chess pieces XBoard Engine ............. - Think 10 s instead of 5 s. version 12 ---------- Chess ..... - New GUI. Xboard engine ............. - The program is renamed from `bbch' to `babychess-xboard-engine'. version 11.1 ------------ Xboard engine ............. - The "move now" command works. - The chess Engine can play with white. - "Post mode" works. The engine outputs information about its thinking. - Instead of always calculating a fixed number of knots, the engine calculates during a fixed time. - The engine sends information when the position is checkmate or stalemate. - The engine understands the protocol version 2, but it still runs with older Xboard versions. - The "undo" command works