Can I specify somehow another base directory for all engines

[pstein]

Currently Winboard searches all the engines by stepping back to its parent and descend into the corresponding engines sub-folder.

However I have grouped all engines in a completely different directory.

Can I somehow specify this other base directory e.g. D:\test\chess\engines\ in an *.ini file so that I later have to define the engines
relative to this base directory e.g.

fmax /fd="\fm" /firstXbook

...which means search Fairy-Max engine in folder D:\test\chess\engines\fm\*

Or even similar: Can I specify the engines directly and absolut path in an*.ini file?

Peter

[H.G.Muller]

The idea was that you would have installed WinBoard in the same directory as where you have your engines (in your case D:\test\chess\engines\ ) when the installer asked you were to put it. (You would have to be a it careful when you uninstall, though, and not answer "yes" when it asks if it should forcefully delete everything, as it would deleate your engines then as well...)

[pstein]

Thank you for your reply although it is not satisfying.

The question was not what the idea was behind the default structure but if I can do it in another way.

If I e.g. want to keep alle engines separate from Winboard (because I want to use them in other chess GUIs as well)
then I am always forced to reference the Winboard base directory (which I don't want).

So is there really no flexibility to separate the base directory of engines outside of WinBoard?

Peter

[H.G.Muller]

I am not aware of such a possibility, although it might exist by specifying an environment variable CHESSDIR. I have no idea how environment variables workin Windows, though, and perhaps they only work in Linux.

I still don't see the problem with other GUIs, though. How would installing WinBoard in (say) D:test\chess\engines\WinBoard\winboard.exe interfere in any way with other GUIs using the engines? I suppose that all GUIs like to have all individual engine folders (say xxx]Crafty, xxx\Fruit, xxx\fm) together in some collection folder (xxx), and when WinBoard isinstalled in xxx\WinBoard it can use all these engines with directories ..\Fruit, etc., as they are now referred to in the installed winboard.ini file.

And even if you don't want that, as WinBoard only comes with at most three Chess engines, (Fruit, Fairy-Max and Pulsar), some you might already have if you have a pre-existing collection of engines, and others in which you might not be interested at all, it does not seem such a big deal to move these engines to where you want them, and change their directory in the engine list(s) to where you have moved them.