The name of the opening move is displayed. A new
"match window" was added to facilitate playing
against engines. Compilation and installation was
made much easier.
Alternate moves can be played, e.g.: after 1.e4, dragging
e4 to e3 has the same effect as taking back 1.e4 and
playing 1.e3. There is a new "analyze mode". While
dragging a piece, the source square is highlighted in blue.
Board settings can be saved, and come with a few sample
themes. The board has optional riffled dark squares. In
addition to the standard algebraic notation (SAN), French,
Dutch, and German notations are supported. New
notations can be created and saved. The board has a
tutor mode that displays all possible destination squares.
The UI is available in French and German.
The PGN standard is fully supported, except for numerical annotations, which cannot be viewed or edited. However, they are preserved and normalized to the export format. The following aspects of a chess position can be edited: the last move for en-passant purposes, the possible castlings, the halfmove clock, and the fullmove number. Promotions can be chosen using radio buttons. A frame around the chess board now displays the file names and rank numbers. Anti-aliasing can be turned off, and the notation and board settings are saved across sessions.
BabyChess was ported to GTK+ 1.2 (from plain XLib). The chess move notation is now configurable. The board colors (light/dark squares, last move) are also configurable. The game info editor was added. The list of legal moves is displayed in the game editor. The chess engine is now started at a low priority by default. The XBoard engine was rewritten. The built-in evaluator now plays better.
