On 5/9/2025 5:45 AM, Øystein Schønning-Johansen wrote:
Yes, I did! But I also read the GNU Backgammon source code. The dice input window is actually sized based on the screen> resolution of the computer - your code will therefore work on one computer screen resolution but not on another.
Not true. Dice window is proportional to the playing window. In XG and Bg-Blitz dice window is fixed size. In GnuBG I saw you could expand the dice window but not shrink it. I assumed 540x330 was the default size as in other bots. So, unless you can adjust the offset and spacing constants in the source and recompile it for your favorite size, it won't work unless you size your playing window so that the dice window will open at 540x330. I thought about making the constants percentages of the window size but decided that it wasn't worth it. GnuBG is a bucket of buggy spaghetti, obviously a product of amateur programmers, that is lacking in essentials but overly rich in unnecessary features gilding the "brown lily". Unlike other bots, GnuBG doesn't have a minimum playing window size. You can shrink it until you'll need a magnifying glass to see the pieces. Couple that with the opening roll window with differently sized and labeled icons, it would be nearly impossible to make a utility work with all sizes, which was not my goal anyway. Did you see how short and simple the codes is? It's less than 40 lines including the 4 that swap the dice to display the bigger number first just as in the "game record" window, which I added to track the rolls visually more easily, to see the skipped rolls due to dice window losing focus after being made active but before mouse click is sent to it. I didn't trace it but it may even be GnuBG's playing windows that's stealing the focus while refreshing it for some reason..?? Oh, so, once you get the dice window size working, you can change your screen resolution and it will still work.
I indeed find your solution very nice, since this method of mimicking mouse-clicks - it is general and can be applied to other backgammon applications. Very clever.
Yes but all other bots accept keyboard input which is easier and more reliable than mouse events. GnuBG is the only stupid bot that doesn't accept keyboard input for dice even though it used keyboard input for all kinds of other actions. Perhaps someone has an explanation for this idiocy...?
Well - GNU Backgammon is indeed an open source program and you are free to examine the source code and point out the lines of code that exploit the functionality of accessing future dice rolls.
How many times do I have to point out that this is a useless argument since you can't expect everyone to be a computer programmer, and with a special ability to decipher hieroglyphs at that.
The manual dice feature was added to be able to transcribe live games - back in the 90s players sometimes paid.....
I had never heard about this before but even if so, another use for it doesn't negate the fact that manual dice has always been the ultimate argument for proving to oneself that bots don't cheat.
..... Play a match twice - first with your tool for selecting dice rolls from a file - then with the build-in feature .....
Okay, well, do your realize that in saying this you are indeed acknowledging that you need use my tool or some other similar method to compare. MK
