Re: [XBoard-devel] analysis mode is broken when xboard is upgraded from 4.6.2-1 to 4.7.3-1

[H.G. Muller]

kamaraju kusumanchi schreef op 9/20/2014 6:15 AM:
> In the new version 4.7.3-1, this behaviour is broken. After loading 
> the game
> and clicking on the "<<" button, if I press ctrl-A, nothing happens. 
> The Analysis
> Mode under Mode menu is greyed out and not clickable. In both the 
> cases above,

This is because you did not put an -lgf (-loadGameFile) option in front 
of the filename,
to specify that what follows is the name of the game file. I think the 
docs clearly
specify that you should.

That you got away with that in 4.6 was only due to an undocumented feature
that interpreted "xboard XXX" automatically as "xboard -lgf XXX". Which 
existed
because double-clicking a file XXX that is associated with XBoard would 
make the
window manager generate such a command, and we do want clicked PGN files
to be automatically opened by XBoard.

But in 4.7 we enhanced that feature to make "xboard XXX" mean "xboard 
-viewer -lgf XXX"
(if the XXX did not have any extension that made it recognizable as not 
a game file),
where the -viewer option is a pseudo-mode that 'expands' to the value of 
-viewerOptions.
Which can be set in the Load Game options dialog, and has as default
"-ncp -engineOutputUp false -saveSettingsOnExit false".

The -ncp there overrules the "-fcp crafty", because the bare filename 
triggering the
expansion of -viewerOptions appears on the command line after it, so 
that XBoard
in fact starts up in noChessProgram mode. I.e. Crafty is not loaded at 
all, and all
commands requiring an engine, including Analysis, are grayed out.

So another way to cure it, would be to remove the "-ncp" from your 
-viewerOptions
setting. Or better yet, if Crafty is your default analysis engine, 
replace it by "-fcp crafty".
Then you would only have to type "xboard XXX" to start crafty with game 
file XXX loaded.
And double-clicking XXX would be equivalent to that command, so you 
would in fact
never have to type anything, and could just double-click the PGN file.
You could even add an "-initialMode Analysis" in the -viewerOptions to 
make the
analysis start automatically.

In other words, there is no bug, just a change in default for so far 
undocumented
behaviour, which you can configure to restore the old behavior, or much 
more.