README - Fri Mar 17 13:57:53 MET 2000

xcheckers lets you play checkers in an X Window against others over the
internet and against the computer.

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To compile the sources, install binaries and run the application type

    xmkmf -a                  #     create makefiles
    make                      #     start compilation
    sh test.sh                #     test binaries
    su (yr. secret)           #     get root privileges
    make install              #     install binaries, defaults
    make install.man          #       \ and man pages
    exit                      #       \ for systemwide execution
    xcheckers                 #     run the application

and a checkerboard will be displayed, which is partly obscured by the
help window. Select "new game *" from the buttons and you better consider
your moves well.

In the terminal window you will see a lot of engine output. Xcheckers
does nothing to hide this, its as if you called the engine alone. Use
it to see whats going on.

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To customize the buttons edit your ~/.xcheckersrc. For each button there
is a label and a call resource. The manpage can tell you more about it.

To make connecting to icds the default add "xcheckers.icds: true" to your
~/.xcheckersrc. You may have to set icds to display the board as style 5.
From v1.3 on, xcheckers does this by itself, on encountering a board style 1.

Today there is no permanent ICDS on the internet. Contact Micheal Rohrer
if you want to setup your own. It isnt that hard.

To run the engine on a different computer choose -icds -host some.host.net
-port 23, log in to your shell account and start the engine; there may be
some additional echo.

To have the application called from a window manager menu or button, enter
"xterm -e xcheckers" as its command.

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Additional Makefile targets are
    make dist   : tar the sources to ../xcheckers-[version].tar.gz
    make bindist: tar the binaries to ../xcheckers-[vrsn].[pltfrm].tar.gz

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xcheckers is free software, for details see accompanying file COPYING.
xcheckers is partly based on xics-2.3 bye Shirish Chinchalkar, Urban
Koistinen, Nelson Minar and Patrick Surry. Courtesy of Martin Fierz, this
contains simplech, a strong search engine. Check out the icds homepage:
http://sonic.digital-web.net/~lionman/

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xcheckers homepage is at http://arton.cunst.net/xcheckers/
Send suggestions, bug reports and bug fixes to <pch(a)myzel.net>

