Posts

Take Your Child to Work Day at Google

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A fun "Take Your Child to Work Day" at Google.

Polyglot for Android

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There was an interesting discussion on the TalkChess forum whether a chess GUI running on the Dalvik Virtual Machine could merely support a single protocol, and use an adapter, like Polyglot, to support other protocols. Even though Chess for Android already supports both UCI and XBoard/WinBoard, I was intrigued by the question, and decided to give it a try. First, I compiled the polyglot sources for ARM-based Android devices (I had to make a few source changes to make that work). Then I edited a polyglot.ini file pointing to my own UCI engine bikjump1.8 compiled for ARM: [Polyglot] EngineCommand=bikjump1.8 EngineName=BikJumpAsXBoard EngineDir=/data/local/tmp/ [Engine] And gave it a try directly from the command line: $ ./polyglot_for_android PolyGlot 1.4.67b by Fabien Letouzey. new st 1 post go 1 -1 0 1 h4 1 +0 0 3 h3 1 +2 0 6 g3 1 +12 0 20 Nh3 1 +17 0 22 Nf3 2 +0 0 46 Nf3 Nf6 3 +17 0 148 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 4 +0 1 772 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 5 +2 2 1691 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 g3 6 +

Temporary Chess Server

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As a follow-up on the previous posting and for users that want to experiment with a remote chess server without setting one up themselves, I have, very temporarily, set up a remote chess server with various engines at ports  2000  through  2005  on  aartbik.dyndns.org . Simply type this hostname and one of the ports in Chess for Android and let me know if you were able to connect!

Connecting Chess for Android to a Remote Server

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I have received several questions on how to connect Chess for Android running on an Android device (e.g. a phone) as client to a remote chess server (e.g. a powerful desktop), so I decided to write a small document with detailed instructions. What you will need: The server software from Bernhard Wallner's chess utilities , suited for your server's operating system (if, say, your desktop runs Windows, you will need to download the Windows version). You do not need to download the client software in this case. The network enabled version of Chess for Android . On the server, start the engine server software, and construct a new row for every engine you want to run remotely. Assign a name, port number, and select the full path to each engine binary (an executable that runs on the server). You can also supply command line options for starting the engine. Check the active checkboxes and click start when done. This yields something similar to the screenshots below. Here, I have s

Chess for Android 3.1.5

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I just released version 3.1.5 of Chess for Android, available either at the Android market or as direct download . New features include: Ability to filter PGN games (on player, event, ECO, ELO rating range, or result) Automatically re-import last UCI/Xboard engine on exit-re-entry of application Finger sweep left or right as alternative game navigation Minor improvements in setup position feature

Filtering on ELO

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I got a useful suggestion at the talkchess forum  for filtering the ELO rating of players. Rather than allowing individual ranges for white and black, I decided to provide a single range that applies to both the white and black player. In the example below, only games where both players have an ELO rating in the range " 1200-1700 " will be shown. Leaving the lower or upper field empty effectively makes that field unbounded (for " 1200- " means all ELO rating 1200 and above, while " -1700 " means all ELO ratings 1700 and below).

Filtering PGN Games

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I have extended the game storage features of Chess for Android with the ability to filter PGN games, which is a useful feature when dealing with larger files. To use this feature, long press the notation window and select Game Storage . From there, you see the usual game storage choices, now extended with Filter Game from SD . After a file has selected, a filter window pops up. Here, you can define a filter involving the white and/or back player, the event, an ECO code, and/or the result of the game. After the file has been loaded, a window prompts all games that match the filter. The user can subsequently decide what game should be loaded into Chess for Android. The new feature should be released very soon!