I am trying to understand what part of the xboard code is responsible for console output. Can someone enlighten me?
The actual sending is done by SendToPlayer. This is called from te routine read_from_ics (all in backend.c), which is a big recognizer of the various ICS messages, and then takes action depending on the identified message. Some messages are printed to the console, others (such as the boards, requested move lists) are processed without making them visible to the user as text in the console. A difference between 4.2.7 and later versions is thet the later versions process more messages, and then suppress them. In WinBoard it can send some of the tell, whisper and shout messages to separate Chat Boxes, for instance, and in that case they won't be sent to the console. XBoard does not have chat boxes, though. When -autoKibitz is on, opponent kibitzes are printed in the engine-ouput window, rather than the console. When the Seek Graph is on, all seek announcements are suppressed in the console. I am not sure what you mean by 'more predictable'. Can yo give an example?
