Download ThudBoard

Packages

ThudBoard is available in three forms: a Windows binary installer, a Mac OS X package and a Source package. If you run anything other than Windows or OS X, or if you are interested in how ThudBoard was made, you want the Source package. Otherwise, grap the package for your OS.

Note: ThudBoard is always under construction, so some bugs and irregularities may occur. If you find any of these bugs or irregularities, please email them to thudboard@million.nl, along with the ThudBoard version you are using, the OS (windows, version or otherwise), and a complete description of what happened, what was weird about it and what you expected would happen.
Another note: Feature requests (well described) can be mailed to the same address.

ThudBoard installer for Windows

Download the file, execute it and follow the friendly instructions. After this, you will be able to run ThudBoard and have some great Thud-battles.
You do not have to look at any of the following except if you are curious.

ThudBoard app for Mac OS X

Download the file, if you open it you'll find the ThudBoard.app inside. Simply drag it to your Applications folder and start it.

ThudBoard Source

To run the source version of ThudBoard you will need to do some additional work. That is, ThudBoard will only run when Python/Tkinter is installed on your machine. Instructions follow. If you can provide more details for these instructions so the whole 'run from source' procedure is simplified, don't hesitate to email me.

For FreeBSD users: Jan Stocker has kindly provided a ports-package that he claims you know what to do with :-). It has been accepted into the ports tree, so that's where you can find it.

ThudBoard Source Instructions

ThudBoard is developed in Python 2.3 on a Windows box, but it should run on Linux (tested), *BSD (Free- and Open- tested) and Mac (tested) too. The minimum required version of Python is 2.3 since ThudBoard 1.3. ThudBoard includes source code and is completely free, but it is copyrighted. Look at the about section for more info on all of this.

You need to install Python (get it at http://www.python.org, about 9Mb). The Windows download already includes the Tkinter graphics package, on the other platforms you may need to install that too (and the accompanying Tcl/Tk packages). Please get at least the 2.3 version of Python. If you have an earlier version you may run into trouble as I haven't tested that. This won't mean it won't work, it just means it may cost you a bit more time to get it to work.

Once you have installed the required packages, you can untar/unzip (don't worry, Winzip does recognize .tar.gz files) ThudBoard to some folder. On Windows you can probably double-click the 'thud.py' file to start it, on Linux you run ThudBoard from the command-line by typing 'python thud.py' (or possibly './thud.py', but this may need some tweaks to the environment and/or the executable flags).

I have tested it on my Linux box and it works about as well as it runs on my Windows-machine. I have tested it on Mac OS-X 10.3 and got it to work, but it required a bit of work. I've put up a short HOW-TO about that bit of work on the forums at www.thudgame.com. On OS X 10.4 it should be as easy as installing onder any *nix OS, as Python and Tkinter are preinstalled.

If you have any questions or remarks regarding ThudBoard (not Python or Tkinter please: ask questions about that on comp.lang.python) you can mail me.

History

Latest release: v-1.8

Actual bugs

• None, but that may be because they have not been reported yet. Any feedback is appreciated, but the most helpful feedback will probably come from people who try the source version of ThudBoard, as they can include tracebacks :-). Instructions on how to run the source-version is given above.
  

Open issues/todo list

• The .thudboard folder is hidden on most systems, that's not very useful if you need to locate a .thud file.

Change-log for v-1.8

• Dragging, then dragging again gave exceptions, that's fixed now.
  [reported by Tomas Severyn]

Change-log for v-1.7

• Capturing pieces no longer works with the right mouse button, but with the left one. This means that you can't end your move by picking up another piece to move, you have to click on an empty area somewhere to end the move so you can start a new one.
• A Dutch version now exists, see www.million.nl/thudboard-nl.
• There's a Mac OS X package.
• Empty lines in .thud files are ignored.
  [reported by Oograh Boike]
• You can now drop a .thud file on the application and it will be opened directly. In other words, a command-line argument is now accepted.

Change-log for v-1.6

• The board-grid now shows H8 as well, useful when you have a moveable Rock, as in the Koom Valley Thud variant.
  [reported by Mr Scrub]
• There is a Czech version of ThudBoard and the ThudBoard site.
  [done by churchyard]

Change-log for v-1.5

• Quick-fix for 1.4, loading old savefiles now show the Rock in the expected place again :).
  [reported by Oograh Boike]

Change-log for v-1.4

• The Rock is now moveable so you can play Koom Valley Thud rules.
  A savegame with the initial Koom Valley board-setup is also included. It is located in the koomvalley folder in the location where you installed ThudBoard.

Change-log for v-1.3

• Comments containing high-ascii or other weird characters now get saved correctly instead of crashing the program (exiting with an exception, but still, sort-of a crash).
  [reported by Erik Nilsen Haga]
• From this release onwards, Python 2.3 is required and earlier versions of Python won't work.

Change-log for v-1.2

• Added comments for each move (optional, can be enabled from the 'Options' menu).
  [suggested by Jan Stocker (implemented too, but I modified it a bit)]
• MRU (Most Recently Used) files list extended to hold 8 items.
• Clicking on the 'check' in the 'Options' submenu now works too.

Change-log for v-1.1

• Personal save-games/folders (for multi-user computer configurations) [suggested and implemented by Jan Stocker]
• Auto-load/save of the options from the Options menu.
  [suggested and implemented by Jan Stocker]
• MRU (Most Recently Used) files list in the Files menu.
  [suggested by Jan Stocker (implemented too, but I changed the implementation :-)]
• The installer no longer contains/creates a 'battles' folder, this will be created on startup if one is not found. This is necessary because the 'battles'- folder may now reside in your personal folder, and the application can be installed anywhere. This won't affect an upgrade-install, as that will find your current 'battles'-folder just fine (if you install in the same app-folder).
• Linux-version: sometimes the battleline moves back two moves without apparent reason - this was due to a hanging reference and solved by explicitly making a copy. [reported by Erik]

Change-log for v-1.0

• Added numbering to the moves-list (especially useful in Quickfire Thud, which is played over an agreed-upon number of moves).
  [suggested by Oograh Boike (as he is known on the forum)]

Change-log for v-0.9.9

• Choose a font for Windows that can actually use a pointsize smaller than 8 so the Large Fonts problem is now really solved :-).
  [reported by Jan Stocker]

Change-log for v-0.9.8

• Docs are xhtml1.1/css2.0 compliant
• Windows with Large Fonts setting now displays correctly. The same is true for any screens with an actual ppi (dpi) setting other than 96. [reported by Jan Stocker]
• Linux-version tested

Change-log for v-0.9.7

• Changed base-folder for source archive (thudboard/ instead of thud/)
• The Yes/No dialogs sometimes don't return the correct value for some installations of the Tcl/Tk libraries, so you can't quit without saving, for example. A workaround has been coded that works on all systems. [reported by Jan Stocker]
• Fixed a mini docs bug [reported by Jan Stocker]
• Fixed a save-snapshot messagebox bug [reported by Peter Blokland]
• Updated copyright notices in the source files (2004)

Change-log for v-0.9.6

• Fixed some minor details so it now also runs on FreeBSD
• Added error-message when trying to save to a read-only file or folder
• thud.ico under Python 2.2.x raises exception? (actually, the exceptions is now caught and the icon will not be used)

Change-log for v-0.9.5

• pieces can't capture their own species?
• help->about still points to index.html instead of to about.html
• Regex for reading moves from the clipboard could be more flexible
• Save as should continue play under the new name instead of the old one

Change-log for v-0.9.4

• 'locked move' displays twice on paste-click (not on ctrl-v)
• The Help-screens have been converted into html and will be shown in the users browser of choice.

Change-log for v-0.9.3

• Holding the mouse-button down on the scroll-arrows should do continuous scrolling
• copy&paste now accepts strings like A9-B10 (without the leading 'd' or 'T'), provided that A9 does actually contain a piece.
• added copy&paste icons to the battle-line (paste icon can indicate: no thudmove on clipboard, no pasteable thudmove (from current position) and pasteable thudmove)
• hover highlight for menus and submenus
• Upon loading a battle the moves-list will try to put the battle-line in the middle so some history is visible too

Change-log for v-0.9.2

• Added copy/paste (ctrl-c and ctrl-v) support for moves
• Display the battle-name in the titlebar
• Design-proposal for 0.9.2 (this has been altered a bit on implementation :-)
• Make sure it fits into an 800x600 desktop
• Lock-icon should only be on the first line of a move
• Auto-add the .thud extension if it isn't typed
• Rename the File-submenu Save into 'Save as' and the Save position into 'Save snapshot'
• Remove the annoying 'illegal move' msgbox
• Put a mini-howto in the scroll-list on startup explaining simple board-moves
• Keep score (either of captured pieces or of pieces left on the board), and find some place to display this nicely
• Find a better way to overlay the coordinates grid (perhaps with a different background image and turning on the highlighter in this mode)
• make http://www.thudgame.com clickable
• Submenu click-area's are a bit off
• Submenu doesn't close sometimes
• Prevent submenu clicks from falling through to activate underlying items (like 'save')
• highlighter should be off when the mouse is not on the canvas (it sticks when you move off the side...)

Change-log for v-0.9.1a

• ThudBoard shortcuts on Desktop and Start Menu should now work correctly
• Packaged thud.ico in the Windows installer and Thud.exe

Thanks to John Pagan for pointing out a lot of these things and to Peter Blokland for pointing out some of these things :-).
Also thanks to Jan Stocker for general testing and running it on FreeBSD.

Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Marc Boeren