A portable FICS program?

[smaragdus]

Hello,

I have used two programs for playing chess at Free Internet Chess Server (FICS)- Jin and Thief but both are not portable and beside that both seem to have been abandoned years ago. Does anyone know a portable Windows program that can connect to FICS?

[I am Baas]

iNemesis Internet Chess @ http://www.ideabuilders.com/public/ (uniextract)

Other alternatives (not tested):

https://github.com/raptor-fics-interface/raptor

[smaragdus]

@I am Baas
You are very helpful as usual, many many thanks!
I will soon check the programs you suggested- both seem very interesting and I added them to my test list. Once again, thank you very much for your great finds.

[joby_toss]

Raptor should work with JPortable, so I think it's portable.

[shnbwmn]

@smaragdus some more options:

Arena via Extras > Internet Chess Server. Not tested, but comes in ZIP + setup packages. This is probably the best free chess program I've used for its feature-richness.



WinBoard. PAF, so definitely portable. I find WB's interface a bit more pleasing/simple than the overcrowded Arena.

[I am Baas]

@shnbwmn

I see you figured out it is a Wise Installer Package. You need to move the Borlndmm.dll file from SYS32 folder to the application folder (MAINDIR).

[I am Baas]

BTW, Arena has its own thread at http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/ ... =4&t=21898

[shnbwmn]

@shnbwmn

I see you figured out it is a Wise Installer Package. You need to move the Borlndmm.dll file from SYS32 folder to the application folder (MAINDIR).

The problem was that uniextraction failed, so no sys32 folder. Downloading a random Borlndmm.dll solved the issue.

[smaragdus]

@I am Baas
I tested both iNemesis and Raptor:

About iNemesis- I managed to uni-extract (WUN Unpacker)- 2 sub-folders- MAINDIR and SYS32. iNemesisOnlineChess.exe failed to start- it complained it needed Borlndmm.dll. I copied Borlndmm.dll from SYS32 to MAINDIR, then iNemesis started and appeared in the task-bar, but only this- the window failed to show up (Windows 8 x64 here). I haven't checked whether the installed version would work.

About Raptor - Raptor is not portable- it writes to C:\Users\UserName\.raptor.

@shnbwmn
Thanks for the reminder about Arena- I have it and it is portable. These days I hope I will test it with FICS.

[joby_toss]

Raptor is not portable- it writes to C:\Users\UserName\.raptor.

Tried using the "Duser" parameter? It should work like on most Java apps (e.g. "java -Duser.home=<new_location> <your_program>"; java 8 is needed, as prior versions have a Duser parameter bug; you could use "." for <new_location> to save settings in its own folder). The downside for Raptor is that it's huge (app+java).

[smaragdus]

@joby_toss
Thank you very much for the tip, I wasn't aware of the Duser parameter you mentioned. Here I often come across serendipitous bits of knowledge and that's why I like this site so much- I was searching for portable FICS programs and in the process I happened to learn something new (Duser).

By the way I wasn't very impressed by Raptor. One more thing- it is only 64-bit.

[I am Baas]

About iNemesis- I managed to uni-extract (WUN Unpacker)- 2 sub-folders- MAINDIR and SYS32. iNemesisOnlineChess.exe failed to start- it complained it needed Borlndmm.dll. I copied Borlndmm.dll from SYS32 to MAINDIR.

Yup, that is the correct procedure

iNemesis started and appeared in the task-bar, but only this- the window failed to show up (Windows 8 x64 here).

It works fine on Win 7.64.