UCI GUI for Mac

[Thomas]

Hello,
as I am a newcomer I quickly introduce myself. Although I am a very bad chess player I like this game. What I am searching for is a computer chess application that runs on mac os X and that is better than the chess app bundled with the system or the old fidelity chess challenger my grand-father gave me some years ago.
After some search I understand that a full chess app is made of two parts: the engine and the GUI, both exchanging information with UCI protocol through standard input.
I am trying all that I found (Shredder, Hiarcs, sjeng...). My feeling is that all engines are playing far better than me (except the buggy apple chess app with a strange sjeng behavior), So it is more a matter of level tuning and how the engine is actually playing let say...average than a matter of pure strength.
Hiarcs 11.2 seems able to play bad enough without doing a very stupid move followed by strong ones. I think I will buy the MP version soon but there are some aspects that act like a break in my opinion. For example I agree to buy the full application in spare parts (engine + GUI) but I would have the choice of the GUI.
If I buy Hiarcs I want to use all its features, including the ability to set the ELO level. Now I cannot find a standalone GUI other than Sigma (like Arena win) and I don't know if I will be allowed to set ELO rating without buying Sigma too. I do not blame Sigma because it is the only standalone GUI for mac os X that I found, it is rich featured and works fine but I would like some other way to use Hiarcs. Sigma is very rich of features, allows engine vs engine game, import games and so on but I would like something more ergonomic, well disigned and give a full control on the engine although maybe with less features. I think about an application first intended for human vs. comp play, it means:
-big 2D board that allows to enter our moves "from far" (wireless mouse near the real board).
-big clocks.
-computer moves showed with arrows like Shredder does (with alarm beep)
-fork a game in other variant when take back function is used or when we want to ty two moves
-load/save any PGN game

Other features that sound essential in my opinion are:
-full control over engine options with simple and efficient preference panel
-full control over the engine with CLI

-DGT electronic board support would be interesting (the last ones have USB interface I believe, note that macs no longer support serial for years without the addition of a USB<->RS232 interface.

Does such an application exist ? Is the Hiarcs team planning something in that way ? Are there many people interested in ?

I am thinking about a document based cocoa application, something native in respect with apple standards, not a java or X11 frontend like eboard. Such an application is not hard to write but it would take a while if I start from scratch with complete rewrite of things that Sigma does flawlessly (UCI command parsing, FEN, position and so on).
So I read the UCI description on the Shredder site and I have some questions.
I believed that the job of the GUI was to do nothing except to interface the engine with the human player but it sounds that the GUI is actually playing the opening book moves. However the engine provides option to use its own book (in my opinion it is the engines's job to move but it is just a design point of view, not a performance one). In this later case, it is unclear to me how to know with UCI if a move is a book one or not and what are the potential next engines's book moves.

Thank you for reading and sorry for my english. Happy new year to all.

Thomas

[Harvey Williamson]

Hi Thomas,

Welcome to the Hiarcs Forum. Hiarcs is indeed the strongest program for the Mac. It is a UCI engine which should run in any Mac GUI.

It is supplied with Sigma Chess lite - which for a small fee can be upgraded to the full pro version.

I am not an experienced mac user so maybe others can help you with alternative GUIs - I know there is a Shredder GUI for mac.

Best Wishes,

Harvey

[martinus]

Salut Thomas,
be Wellcome!

I use macintosh chess software since 1993. At present your best deal considering features and stability is the couple Hiarcs + Sigma. Sigma has been developed and adding features in a consistent way. Hiarcs is excellent for analysis and to play down rated, it is well set for elo rating and have a quasi-human style of play even in low ratings.
Sigma have a small fee that open many features like chess databases, configurable opening book and so.

If you have programing skills you could start a new project or you could join the ChessX open source project, they are doing a Mac version of a Chess GUI with database functions. Take a look here: http://chessx.sourceforge.net/

[Beryllo]

Hello Thomas,

I can second all Martinus said. Sigma+Hitarcs works fine and is not too expensive. I would also like to use a DGT board with my Mac, but as far as I understood this is by now not possible.

Regards,

Frank

[Jack Clark]

Hi, Thomas-

I, too, find the Sigma GUI best for most purposes.

I do also own a copy of ExaChess, which is better for annotating full games because you can enter (and even play out) sideline variations from a chess book of annotated games, for example. Also, move entry is easier with ExaChess because you don't have to click and drag as with Sigma; you can just click and hold on the square you want to move to and it will show you which piece it intends to move there. If it's not the piece you want, you just (while still holding the click) move the cursor even very slightly toward the piece you want to move there, and ExaChess will switch to that one. (You have to set this up in ExaChess preferences first.)

You can't exactly do detailed game annotations, with playable side lines, in Sigma, but you can enter sidelines in a Sigma Library, which is very useful for learning openings, especially--with very limited annotations. You can even do a bulk entry of hundreds (thousands?) of games from a database/collection into a single Library dedicated to a particular opening. Trying to use ExaChess's sideline ability for learning openings variations very soon results in a confusing-appearing quagmire that's hard to follow. (Also, ExaChess still does not work with HIARCS' engine, last I checked.) ExaChess also has a large number of variations in sorting and filtering databases of games.

So, I like Sigma's GUI best for:
(1) entering and learning openings with its Library feature;
(2) analyzing games and/or positions with HIARCS.

And I like ExaChess better for:
(1) entering and playing back fully-annotated games with playable sidelines.
(2) sorting and/or filtering databases.

I've been using them both like this for several years now. I know nothing about Chessbase because I'm a Mac guy. Let me know when Chessbase goes Mac, will you please?

[igor79]

Jose is an excellent GUI (and DB of course), with UCI/XBoard support:
http://jose-chess.sourceforge.net/

[Krazyken]

At this point there is no GUI for Mac that satisfies every need. Sigma chess will do most of what you want though.

You can get the big board, You can show computer moves, although it highlights the squares, instead of arrows. You can Branch a game from the Game Menu.

PGN Loading is finicky about the file and character encoding, but bad files can be cleaned up with a good text editor and then loaded no problem.

The shredder GUI is rather nice, and can be tried for free, and will run the HIARCS engine just fine.

Glaurung has a UCI GUI that is free. Definitely worth trying out http://www.glaurungchess.com/ You'll find it as part of the 1.2.1 download.

If you're OK with the X11 side of things, I find myself using Xboard and Scid quite a bit.