XBoard is a graphical user interface chessboard for chess engines under the X Window System.
It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:
- Chess engines that will run on your machine and play a game against you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess, Crafty, or many others.
- Chess servers on the Internet, where you can connect to play chess with people from all over the world, watch other users play, or just hang out and chat.
- Correspondence chess played by electronic mail. The CMail program automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you’ve chosen it.
XBoard is free and open source software.
Features include:
- Fully support engines that play chess variants, such as Fairy-Max. This means the GUI is able to display a wide range of variants such as xiangqi (Chinese chess), shogi (Japanese chess), makruk (Thai chess), Crazyhouse, Capablanca Chess and many other Western variants on boards of various sizes.
- Supports Universal Chess Interface (UCI), an open communication protocol that enables chess engines to communicate with user interfaces.
- Supports internet chess services including ICC and FICS.
Website: www.gnu.org/software/xboard
Support: User Guide
Developer: GNU project; Most of the program’s development is by Tim Mann
License: GNU General Public License; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version
XBoard is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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