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Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer
From: |
h.g. muller |
Subject: |
Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer |
Date: |
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:26:57 +0200 |
At 16:00 23-8-2009 -0600, Eric Mullins wrote:
h.g. muller wrote:
[...]
Lack of a smart bundling strategy is the prime cause of the decline of
WinBoard amongst Windows users. They move
to other GUIs that do provide all-in-one. People demand that nowadays.
I'm not sure I agree with that. What evidence is there?
I have been engaged in many discussions about merits of various GUIs on
several forums,
and this is almost always what people come up with when you mention
WinBoard. "It doesn't work".
"We don't know where to download XXX". "We don't know how to install YYY".
I know winboard has declined in popularity among players on chess
servers. In that demographic, the problem isn't bundling, but that the
opposition is more appealing, generally more intuitive, and more
cross-platform (babas works great in wine). That's not going to change
no matter what how we bundle winboard. Jin and BabasChess pretty much
dominate the free category, and there is Arena too.
I think that WinBoard can be at least as intuitive as the other mentioned
interfaces,
as long as you don't bother people with low-level installation tasks for
which they have
to edit ini files with an obscure syntax. Anyway, I see no reason to give
up without
a fight.
For running engines on a chess server, winboard is still very popular for
casual users. The only other reasonable choices for them are ChessPartner
and Arena. Those running winboard already may even decide there's too
much hassle to switch to 4.4.0 because it's set up so differently from the
way they currently run. I personally know a few people who have tried
4.4.0, and are back to running 4.2.7. I haven't asked them why-- I guess
I should. Again, a bundling strategy isn't going to change much here.
Yes, it would be important to ask them why. And I don't understand your remark.
How is WB 4.4.0 "set up differently"? It is fully upward compatible with 4.2.7,
and they only have to copy the 4.4.0 winboard.exe over their old winboard.exe
nd everything will work as they are used to. The first time they do this
they might
see a few auxliary windows they were not used to, which they simply close by
clicking them, and they will never see them again.
Some advanced engine operators may run winboard. But I think icsdrone and
xboard are a lot more popular for advanced 24/7 types. There are
several custom icsdrone versions out there, most of which you would never
know were icsdrone at all. Nobody in this category is going to change how
they operate.
I am not sure what you want to argue with this. We also suply an XBoard 4.4.0.
You think we should remove the ICSbot.ini, to save 800 byte on the
(unpacked) install,
because people using the install are unlikey to run a 24/7 bot? Well, I am
an engine
author, I harldy ever run Linux, but I do like my engines to participate in
the monthly
on-line blitz events and tourneys like CCT and WCRCC, and using WinBoard in
zippy
mode has always been a perfect solution for that.
Who else is there? Just people who play against engines. I don't have
the foggiest idea about this group, but I suspect almost nobody uses
winboard, nor have any desire to. They use chessmaster, chessbase,
shredder, doesn't rybka have a gui?
These are commercial GUIs, and many of the people I know have several of them.
There are also people that do not want to pay for software, and these have
to use
free GUIs and free engines. I don't think WB couldn't have a market share here.
It is completely free, so people that have bought a GUI with their
commercial engine
could easily try it next to the one they have. (Well, of course Rybka,
Shredded,
HIARCS, are all UCI, so they won't even get it running under WB...) If we
have no
market share there, it is because we are not competative. One (in itself
completely
lethal) reason is lack of (pre-installed) UCI support. The other was lack
of functionality
and customizability, making WB a clumsy interface with an unappealing look.
These points have been addressed in 4.4.0 too. Once WB is objectively the
better
interface, I have little doubt that we will expand our market share there.
And it is
my intenstion to make it competative.
Marketing is an important key to success, though. Hiding user-friendly installs
and in stead providing a package that only hackers can manage will not help.
Face it. Winboard is an advanced program for relatively advanced
users. You can try to make it easier for them by bundling, but I don't
think that's really the job of the winboard project. And I don't see it
having any significant impact on "winboard market share." I'm not sure
that's really a concern of the winboard project anyway.
Well, I am not officially part of this project anyway, so my objectives can
very well
differ from those of the WinBoard project. It is my intension to improve
WinBoard
to make it so competative that it gets the market share it deserves. There
are a few
niches where WinBoard has no competition, such as Chess variants, so it must be
easy to capture 100% market share there. In Chinese Chess competition is just
starting, and although they have a lead the market there is huge, so I
think it is
worthwhile to push that a little too, just to see what happens.
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, (continued)
- [XBoard-devel] File-association problem (partly) solved?, h.g. muller, 2009/08/26
- Re: [XBoard-devel] File-association problem (partly) solved?, h.g. muller, 2009/08/26
- Re: [XBoard-devel] File-association problem (partly) solved?, h.g. muller, 2009/08/26
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, h.g. muller, 2009/08/25
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Eric Mullins, 2009/08/23
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Arun Persaud, 2009/08/23
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Eric Mullins, 2009/08/24
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer,
h.g. muller <=
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Tim Mann, 2009/08/25
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Arun Persaud, 2009/08/23
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, h.g. muller, 2009/08/23
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, h.g. muller, 2009/08/23
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Arun Persaud, 2009/08/23
- Message not available
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, Eric Mullins, 2009/08/24
- Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer, h.g. muller, 2009/08/24