[Kde-games-devel] KBoard alpha 0.9 released

[Paolo Capriotti]

We're proud to annouce the first alpha release of KBoard, the generic
board game application, not to be confused with the lightweight canvas
which has recently attracted a lot of attention in this mailing list.

At the moment, KBoard does not use kdelibs, but we will start to port
as soon as possible, now that we have powerful enough computers to
compile it :)

Homepage: http://kboard.sourceforge.net
Download: http://kboard.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download
Screenshots: http://kboard.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Screenshots

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| Release Notes |
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Introduction
===============
KBoard is a platform independent generic game application, written
using the QT library.
It can be used as a replacement for chess applications like XBoard and
Winboard, both for playing in internet servers and for local editing
of games.
Support for chess engines is scheduled, but not yet ready.

KBoard alpha release
=======================
This alpha 0.9 release is a sneak peek at some of the most innovative
features that KBoard introduces with respect to its most direct
alternatives, such as XBoard (for Linux) and BabasChess (for Windows).
Most of the functionality is there, with some important exceptions and
some usability issues that will be gradually addressed in future
releases.

Feature list
===============
* Local editing of games:
  Games of chess and a number of variants (see below) can be edited
and played locally.
  A user friendly and graphically appealing move list control provides
a mean to visualize complicated subvariant nesting.
  Games can be loaded and copy / pasted through the clipboard.
* FICS / ICC compatible server support:
  KBoard can manage a connection to a FICS-like server, with which the
user can interact using a detachable console.
  Games of any chess variant can be played, examined and observed.
* Generic game support:
  Many board games can be easily implemented using the extensible
KBoard infrastructure. So far, the following board games are
implemented:
    - Chess
    - Crazyhouse
    - Atomic
    - Monster Chess (King and four pawns)
    - Progressive Chess
    - Reversi
    - Connect Four
    - Chain Reaction
* Graphics:
  KBoard features an advanced animation engine which can be easily
extended on a per-variant basis.
  It includes a powerful theme loader based on lua scripts that allows
to dynamically create effects like drop down shadows.