Knights

Board

Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): Add the source-code for this project on opencode.net

19
8.5
Description:

Knights is a simple chess board for KDE 4. It is a rewrite of the KDE3 Knights.

Its home page with regular updates is at http://noughmad.com/knights.

You can play againts computer engines that support the XBoard protocol (like GnuChess), against anouther player at the same computer, or on the Free Internet Chess Server. It has automatic rule checking and some nice animations.

For compiling, you need KDE as well as libkdegames headers, which are usually found in libkdegames-dev or libkdegames-devel packages.

Packages can be downloaded form build.opensuse.com, however try to use your distribution's version when possible. In any case, please report any problems, bugs, and wishes to bugs.kde.org (product knights).

The source archive includes a README.themes file with info for creating and sharing new themes for Knights. They can be uploaded to kde-look.org, and downloaded directly from Knights.

Due to a recent break of compatibility in KDEGames, versions from 2.5 onward require KDE 4.9 or newer. User of older KDE version should use the 2.4 branch.
Last changelog:

9 years ago

Version 2.5.0: Port to new KDEGames library, compatible with KDE 4.9

Version 2.4.2: A handful of usability fixes

Version 2.4.1 introduces support for the UCI protocol, setting the difficulty level of chess engines, game history display, and loading and saving PGN files.

Version 2.4.0 brings voice support, possibility of external control by dbus, and a couple of bug fixes.

Version 2.3.2 is a bugfix release with several fixes, mostly by Dave Kaye. It fixes drag-coused freezes, dropping pieces outside of the board, and a theme appearing twice in the selection dialog.

Version 2.3.1 fixed exactly one bug; the peace captured by en-passant is now properly removed.

The changelog since the last stable release (2.2.0) includes:

- Watching two engines play
- Improved time control support for chess engines
- Better support for the XBoard protocol means Knights can play with more engines, including Crafty, Sloppy, Sjeng and Phalanx.
- Players can now make and receive offer for draw, pause, undo, adjourn and abort. All except Draw are only used when playing on the chess server.
- Players can now undo their moves.
Improved game dialog, with more game options.
- Improved server dialog, with a seek graph.
- Ability to interact with a chess server or a computer engine via a text console.
- Simple chat widget for talking to your remote opponent.
- Selecting and moving pieces by clicking, without dragging.

97 comments
 Comments

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

Thank you.

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friendly-demon

9 years ago

Is it possible for someone to create a RPM package perhaps?

I'm on openSUSE 11.2 and i have never compiled a program myself. Usually i run them from source, but that isn't an option here.

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basse

9 years ago

well, nice to see this game still around.. it's been ages. i'm not much of a chess player, but i did one theme for this .. and now, that i saw updated version coming out, thought I'd convert the theme also.. :)

so, here it is.. if anyone is interested.

http://pasila.lib.hel.fi/~basse/tmp/knights-tux-theme.tar.gz

i was thinking of doing full SVG version out of it to make it scale nicely, but for my surprise, scaling was very bad.. full of aliasing and wobblyness.. so, pixmaps looked nicer. shame..

.b

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

The theme is very nice, thank you, I included it. I just hope the naming scheme wasn't too hard to figure out.

Bad scaling might also mean I did something wrong. Could you send the pure svg version as well?

Also, at least on my computer, your tiles (which are vector, I believe) scale much nicer than the original pixmap-based ones. There are no visible edges between them.

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basse

9 years ago

ok, well here are some files.
i quickly made the white pawn as vectors.

maximized on my 1680x1050 monitor:
http://pasila.lib.hel.fi/~basse/tmp/tux1.png
looks nice.. no aliasing or other glitches, this is perfect i think.

http://pasila.lib.hel.fi/~basse/tmp/tux2.png
windowed window, maybe about 1000 pixels wide or so.. the character starts to wobble, and also the base it's standing isn't clear circle anymore..

http://pasila.lib.hel.fi/~basse/tmp/tux3.png
when i dragged the window to very big, so that it didn't fit to my monitor anymore, i started seeing this aliasing just like it would be normal bitmap.
(well, thats ridiculous size to play anyways but, just something i noticed)

and here's the svg.
http://pasila.lib.hel.fi/~basse/tmp/tux.svg


hope it helps.

.b

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

Thank you, it helped a lot. I found out I set the wrong cache mode (too strong caching), so they were rendered once and resized as pixmaps.

I changed that and they scale properly now. I will upload the new tarball soon.

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basse

9 years ago

great!
congrats on the release, i'll try the new version and make a proper full svg theme for you then..

if you like i could turn the default one into svg too.. regular chess pieces.

.b

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

Well, if it isn't a problem for you, I will gladly include it. A proper svn theme would be welcome, probably needed if it is to be included in kdegames. Any new theme would be welcome, actually.

The current graphics are included per request of Troy Corbin, but he didn't have a svg version.

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basse

9 years ago

yes, the tiles are svg. and they do scale nicely, but i tried doing one chess piece in svg and saw lot of jagged edges.
i try again and send you the file to see.

i don't have svg from the penguins theme yet, since they are actually made with blender.. which is a 3d software.
i was thinking of redoing them in svg.
unless, you are planning on making animated "alive" chess piece graphics possible, then i would animate the pieces in blender :)

.b

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reavertm

9 years ago

There's a bug in chess engine (when using two-seat game) - it wrongly detects checkmate in some occasions.

Consider this scenario (beginning of Scholar's mate):
1. e4 e5
2. Qh5 g6
3. Qxe5 (incorrectly marked as check-mate)

Keep it up :)

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

That was a bit of a brainfart on my part... The checkmate was triggered as soon as the king has no allowed moves.

I've fixed it already, I'll upload it when I get stalemate check to work.

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nqn1976

9 years ago

Hi,
The download link still points to kchess-beta3

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

Thank you, I uploaded the new version just now. I believe the app is stable now, so I will be dropping the beta tag soon.

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nqn1976

9 years ago

Great... do you have any plans to move this upstream? I think this is a must-have in kdegames...

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felmur

9 years ago

Kubuntu karmic, 9.10

/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:38:30: error: QPropertyAnimation: Nessun file o directory
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp: In member function ‘void KChess::Board::centerOnPos(QGraphicsItem*, KChess::Pos, bool)’:
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:290: error: ‘class QPointF’ has no member named ‘manhattanLength’
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:292: error: ‘QPropertyAnimation’ was not declared in this scope
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:292: error: ‘anim’ was not declared in this scope
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:292: error: expected type-specifier before ‘QPropertyAnimation’
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:292: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘QPropertyAnimation’
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:294: error: ‘QEasingCurve’ has not been declared
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:297: error: ‘QAbstractAnimation’ has not been declared
/home/felice/Scrivania/KChess/src/board.cpp:291: warning: unused variable ‘t_piece’
make[2]: *** [src/CMakeFiles/kchess.dir/board.o] Errore 1
make[1]: *** [src/CMakeFiles/kchess.dir/all] Errore 2
make: *** [all] Errore 2

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mnurolcay

9 years ago

Same error here with KDE4.3.5/Qt4.5.3

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felmur

9 years ago

I think that this game is strictly dependent by QT 4.6.

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

That is correct, I'm sorry I forget to mention it, thanks for pointing it out.

It requires Qt 4.6 for the animations, and since KDE 4.4 is strictly dependant on it, I believed this program should be also.

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C

Noughmad

9 years ago

Now it shold work, please report as I have no older installaions at hand.

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felmur

9 years ago

It works now on Kubuntu karmic.

If anyone is interesting in deb package, this is mine:

http://linuxboy.altervista.org/repository/dists/karmic/main/binary-i386/kchess_20100324-1_i386.deb

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nuovodna

9 years ago

Package available on my ppa for Kubuntu Lucid

https://launchpad.net/~nuovodna/+archive/nuovodna-stuff

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Rettich

9 years ago

I'm looking for a chess game for KDE4 for a long time now. I thought about writing one myself, but never found the time.

Report

9 years ago

Version 2.5.0: Port to new KDEGames library, compatible with KDE 4.9

Version 2.4.2: A handful of usability fixes

Version 2.4.1 introduces support for the UCI protocol, setting the difficulty level of chess engines, game history display, and loading and saving PGN files.

Version 2.4.0 brings voice support, possibility of external control by dbus, and a couple of bug fixes.

Version 2.3.2 is a bugfix release with several fixes, mostly by Dave Kaye. It fixes drag-coused freezes, dropping pieces outside of the board, and a theme appearing twice in the selection dialog.

Version 2.3.1 fixed exactly one bug; the peace captured by en-passant is now properly removed.

The changelog since the last stable release (2.2.0) includes:

- Watching two engines play
- Improved time control support for chess engines
- Better support for the XBoard protocol means Knights can play with more engines, including Crafty, Sloppy, Sjeng and Phalanx.
- Players can now make and receive offer for draw, pause, undo, adjourn and abort. All except Draw are only used when playing on the chess server.
- Players can now undo their moves.
Improved game dialog, with more game options.
- Improved server dialog, with a seek graph.
- Ability to interact with a chess server or a computer engine via a text console.
- Simple chat widget for talking to your remote opponent.
- Selecting and moving pieces by clicking, without dragging.

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updated Jan 24 2013
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