README

ZGUI 1.0

ZGUI is a desktop GUI for chess and international draughts, with both games available side by side. It builds on GWDGUI 3.4 and preserves its shared game, analysis, tournament and database infrastructure.

Features

• Chess on an 8×8 board and international draughts on a 10×10 board, with legal moves, FEN position setup, board flipping and configurable appearance.
• PGN for chess and PDN for draughts, including comments and nested variations.
• UCI chess engines and Hub/DXP draughts engines, configurable through the existing engine editor. Engine INI-file editing remains available.
• Human and engine games with clocks, increments, engine analysis, PV browsing, hints, evaluation bars, score history and Auto Play.
• UCI and Hub pondering, with per-engine compatibility flags. Optional dxp-pv collects Hub-format analysis from a local DXP engine's stdout during matches; DXP remains a game protocol, not an annotator protocol.
• Tabbed round-robin and Swiss tournaments, concurrent games, shared engine reservations and oldest-waiting-first allocation across tournaments.
• SQLite game databases, import and duplicate detection, player/event filters, position searches and move-based navigation.
• Separate chess/draughts preferences where appropriate, a global engine-use status bar and an offline searchable manual under Help → Manual.

See the manual for supported rules, protocol settings, file locations, result/reason handling and operational limits. See CHANGELOG.md for implementation history and commit IDs.

Download and run

Download a portable archive from ZGUI releases. Extract it into a writable directory. On Windows, run zgui.exe; on Linux:

chmod +x zgui
./zgui

The Linux x86_64 build requires GTK2 and SQLite3 runtime libraries. No external piece font is required: both boards draw their pieces directly. Engines and engine data files are not bundled; install engines separately. Human-versus-human play and game browsing do not require an engine.

The release includes SHA1SUMS and SHA256SUMS for the executables and portable archives. Compare the downloaded files with these before use. For example, on Linux run sha1sum -c SHA1SUMS for the files you downloaded, or on Windows:

certutil -hashfile zgui.exe SHA1

First steps

1. Use Engines... to register an executable. Choose UCI for chess or Hub/DXP for draughts, launch to test/discover settings, and save.
2. Choose New game..., select players and a time control, then play by clicking a piece and destination or selecting a legal move.
3. Use Game History to switch between games and boards. Both games can remain open, with tournaments running concurrently when engine instances are available.
4. Right-click the analysis area to open an annotator. Use Tournament... for competitions and the Database menu for collections and position searches.
5. Press F1 for the manual. Ctrl+O opens games, Ctrl+S saves the displayed game, and Ctrl+, opens preferences.

Settings and portability

Keep the application directory writable: engines.json and prefs.json are stored beside the executable. Per-engine .params.json files are stored beside the engine. Save games, databases and named tournaments wherever you prefer. Unsaved tournament recovery files use the operating system's per-user configuration directory.

Engine paths are machine-specific. Re-register or edit engine entries when moving between Linux and Windows. Give simultaneous DXP connections separate ports. Never overwrite your settings or engine installations when upgrading.

Build from source

Use Lazarus/LCL 3.0 or later, its bundled SynEdit package and Free Pascal 3.2.2 or later. The release's Linux build uses GTK2.

On Linux, install the Lazarus/GTK2 development environment and Python 3, then run:

bash build.sh
./zgui

On Windows, install Lazarus and Git for Windows, make git available on PATH, and run:

build.bat

You can supply a Lazarus location with build.bat "C:\lazarus\lazbuild.exe". Alternatively, open zgui.lpi, select the Windows build mode, and build. The Windows build mode embeds help and Git identity without Python. The Linux script embeds them too. The Lazarus Default mode instead reads MANUAL.md beside the executable and reports build identity as unavailable.

Build scripts replace the installed executable only after successful compilation. Modified tracked files are identified in About when build identity is embedded. The repository ignores generated binaries, local settings, engines, databases and temporary output; source files and test fixtures remain versioned.

Checks

bash tests/run_regression_checks.sh
bash tests/run_dxp_checks.sh
bash tests/run_gui_checks.sh
bash tests/run_tournament_checks.sh

GUI checks need Lazarus/GTK2 and a display. To keep them off the main desktop, use python3 tests/run_hidden_gui.py bash tests/run_gui_checks.sh (requires Xephyr and an existing parent X display). See tests/README.md for individual checks and Windows validation.

Origins and license

ZGUI is maintained by Gijsbert Wiesenekker and developed with assistance from Claude and Codex. It derives from GWDGUI 3.4, upstream commit 61c6cef894e18544d18e7e761143de47ef492226. Both games use the shared GWDGUI infrastructure through game-specific adapters. Chess pieces are original scalable Canvas artwork in uChessBoardControl.pas.

ZGUI is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3; see LICENSE. Separately installed engines have their own licenses.