Aart's Blog

I just released version 2.8 of Chess for Android, available from the Android Market or as direct download . New features include: full PGN support (clipboard import/export, file load/save) improved layout for xlarge screen sizes (api 9 and up) bug fix in draw detection after FEN import To load a game from a file in PGN format, long press the notation window, select "Load Game from SD", and navigate to the file. This opens another window with the actual games in that file. Then select the desired game. Very large PGN files may take a while to download (or even run out of memory), but the idea is that future versions will be able to navigate quickly between successive games. I have tried to make the PGN parser reasonably robust (it accepts sloppy SAN for instance), but certain non-standard constructs are rejected. Please let me know if you encounter bugs though.

User PJ+ at the OpenChess forum implemented a nifty client utility that converts Chess for Android to a client for a remote chess server. To make this work (assuming you already have a remote chess server running at some hostname and port), simply do the following steps. Download the version of Chess for Android that grants network permission to its UCI clients (the default version at the market does not do this for obvious security reasons). Download PJ+'s client-android-cli utility. Construct a file, for example uci_client , that contains the single line ./client-android-cli <hostname > < port > for the hostname and port of the remote chess server. Copy 2. and 3. to SD card, then install these from SD just like the first-time install of UCI engines. Finally, the single line file uci_client can now be imported as any other UCI engine, and will connect to the remote chess server. I tried this method myself connecting Chess for Android as client to a remote c

Jan Brouwer ported his UCI engine Rotor  to Android. Below the results of a few matches against other engines on a Nexus One (1GHz Snapdragon), one second-per-move, 16MB hash, and Nalimov/Gaviota/Scorpio endgame tablebases on SD card. Rotor 0.6a - Stockfish 2.0           0.0 - 10.0    +0/-10/=0      0.00% Rotor 0.6a - Toga II 1.4.1SE         0.5 -  9.5    +0/-9/=1       5.00% Rotor 0.6a - gaviota v0.80.0.107     5.5 -  4.5    +5/-4/=1      55.00% Rotor 0.6a - GNU Chess 5.07.170.7b   7.0 -  3.0    +7/-3/=0      70.00% Rotor 0.6a - BikJump v2.1P          10.0 -  0.0    +10/-0/=0    100.00% Rotor 0.6a - ZCT-0.3.2500           10.0 -  0.0    +10/-0/=0    100.00%

I don't have a tablet myself yet, but Roel from Belgium kindly emailed me this picture of Chess for Android running on a 7 inch tablet. As you can see, he was running an engine-engine match between UCI engines at the time. Thanks Roel!

Because not all Android devices support the Android Market yet, I decided to made my Android applications available as direct downloads: Chess for Android Checkers for Android Reversi for Android After the download completes, simply click the apk to start the install (make sure to check "unknown sources" under settings=>applications).

I ran an engine-engine match between Michel Van den Bergh's two latest GNUChess engines in Chess for Android , playing 100 games (50 fixed book opening lines from both sides) on a Nexus One (1GHz Snapdragon), one second-per-move, Hash 16MB, TB cache 8MB, complete 3- and 4-piece Gaviota endgame tablebases on SD card (only  5.07.170.7b  supports Gaviota).              1   GNU Chess 5.07.153.3b-32        +42/-33/=25 54.50%   54.5/100 2   GNU Chess 5.07.170.7b-libgtb-3  +33/-42/=25 45.50%   45.5/100

Several folks who use Chess for Android to play against another human have requested a feature to auto rotate pieces towards the side to move, so that they can use the phone or tablet as a chess board without constantly having to pass the device around. I have added this feature and also made cautious steps towards some animation in the application. The following clip shows the results. Expect this feature in an update soon. Comments welcome. Auto Rotation Clip

Version 2.6 of Chess for Android adds some choices of board colors and piece sets. To change, press menu, then options, and select either board color or piece set. This brings up another dialog with the choices in colors or piece sets.

I got a couple of requests to improve the graphics in Chess for Android, especially now that tablets are becoming more widespread. I found a public domain chess piece set that looks nice and increased the resolution of the wood texture (really just a picture of my coffee table!). I also added a few more board colors. This is how it looks now (click for the full resolution picture). And this is how it may look soon (again click for the full resolution picture). Comments welcome, of course.

Version 2.5.5 of Chess for Android introduces the following new features. Ability to save games to SD card. Games are appended in PGN format to file  /sdcard/games.pgn  on the SD card, so that users can examine these later, for example, in a chess application on the desktop. Ability to define common UCI engine options in a pop-up window: hash table size ELO strength restriction  endgame tablebases formats (Nalimov, Gaviota, or Scorpio) and cache size The options are populated with the engine's defaults.