#39 Automagical Install of UCI Engines

[bstp]

H.G. Muller submitted this request:

I have a feature request for SCID on Linux: It has always bothered me that after install of an engine package, a separate user intervention is needed to 'register' the engine in a GUI. The philosophy of the Linux packaging system is such that after apt-get install everything should work automatically. So engines should really appear 'automagically' in the engine list of all GUIs capable of using them. (Possibly controlled by a user option that can regulate this.) So I am trying to get a system off the ground similar to that used by desktop managers: when engines are installed, a file is dropped in the directory /usr[/local]/share/games/plugins/<PROTOCOL>/ where <PROTOCOL> is either uci or xboard. For example /usr/share/games/plugins/uci/fruit.eng . All UCI-capable GUIs could scan this directory to notice newly installed engines (i.e. since the last time the settings file for the current user was updated), and use the information in it to add the engine to their engine list. The needed engine startup command, and possibly the directory in which the engine should be launched are obtained from this file, and of course the communication protocol is already known from where the file was found, which should be enough for a simple 'no frills' registration of the engine. I was hoping that SCID too would be interested in adopting this system. Obviously getting this to work smoothly is strongly dependent on the number of GUIs as well as engines that adopt this method, and if we cannot achieve a 'critical mass' the endeavor is doomed to failure. The new XBoard (4.8.0) already implements it, and PyChess has pledged to do so. On the engine side GNU Chess 5 and Fairy-Max already support it and GNU Chess 6 is working on it. I hope many more will follow suite. H.G.Muller

[Fulvio]

Duplicate of ticket #40