Re: [XBoard-devel] beta version

[h.g. muller]

At 06:45 14-7-2009 -0600, Eric Mullins wrote:

> I sort of agree the startup dialog is an abomination.  But it does make 
> the program more friendly too.  I just envision an extra script included 
> with the xboard package.  Say 'xboard-startup', which we could recommend 
> to people having trouble running xboard proper.  It would gather 
> information about how the user wants to run, and then invoke xboard with 
> the appropriate command line arguments to achieve this.  It could also add 
> features the xboard program doesn't have such as remembering board size 
> preferences, fonts, etc.  It could become quite elaborate, though that 
> wasn't my original vision.

That is one of my reservations. To not make it a half-hearted job that is 
of no use to people anyway might require a real effort. IMO it is a real 
problem that XBoad does not remember any of its settings, although proper 
use of .Xdefaults (which I have no idea how to do as a non-Linux user) does 
solve most of that. I can never run XBoard without giving a -boardSize 
argument. The start-up menu of WinBoard is only useful by virtue of the 
list of pre-installed engines accessible through the combo box, which 
usually do contain a number of WinBoard options that have to go with the 
engine as well (such as /fd). If you would have to type the engine name
and parameters every time you start, you might as well have started from 
the command line. The only thing the startup dialog generates automatically 
is /fcp= and /scp= to amd those are not such a big deal to type.

Btw, the Debian package does contain a file /usr/share/menu/xboard, which 
seems to define a number of menu entries for XBoard in the section 
Games/Board. Items to direcly logon to ICC, FICS, etc. When I install the 
package, however, I don't get to see any of this. I do have only a single 
menu entry, but it is directly in Games. It might b a remnant of my 4.2.7 
install. Does Ubuntu ignore the files in /usr/share/menu? Where does it 
generate its menus from?