Search engine integration

I installed a couple of free engines to see what they were like.  However, I couldn't figure out how to get my computer to read either of them.  I assume it's necessary to have some sort of program in addition to the engine.  Can you please tell me what I need to know regarding this?

Gotcha!  Thanks!

Now, do you know if there are any free or trial versions of something like this out there?  I want to see if an engine is of use to me before I buy either it or the interface.  Would I search for "graphical user interface?"

There are a number of free options for Windows; Fewer options for other operating systems. Which OS are you using?

You can use WinBoard (Windows) or XBoard (Linux and Mac) as a graphical interface. They are available from WinBoard forum ( http://open-aurec.com/wbforum ) for free download, both in the 'development and bugfixing' section. WinBoard can be downloaded as an installer, and for the Mac there is an OS X App containing XBoard. Both packages contain some engines.

For Linux you can obtain XBoard from the standard repositories, although links are given on WB forum were you can get the XBoard sorce code, to compile it yourself. Free engines like Fruit, Toga II or Stockfish come in their own package, and you should not forget to install the Polyglot package to run these, as they are all UCI engines, and thus need Polyglot.

Thank you, everyone.  I'm using Windows.

HGMuller,

Polyglot???

I tried Stockfish; it couldn't be read.

Can I install WinBoard and an engine and it's set to run or do I need to install whatever Polyglot is?

If you use Windows you need WinBoard, and when you run the WinBoard installer it will also contain the Polyglot UCI adapter, as well as the engines Fruit and Fairy-Max. (Plus a some other engines for Chess variants such as Chinese Chess and Japanese Chess, which are optional, and which you probably would not be interested in.) Only for Linux all these things would have to be installed separately, as it is the Linux way to never bundle software, but keep everything separate. No reason for you to worry about that,

After install, everything should be immediately ready for running the included engines, either through the Windows Start-menu item, or by going to the folder where you have installed WinBoard, clicking the winboard.exe icon, and selecting the engine you want from the startup combobox.

If you want to use other engines besides the included ones, you would have to download and install (usually just unzip) these. After starting WinBoard you can then use the Load 1st Engine menu dialog to browse to the engine's .exe file. After 'OK' WinBoard will then use that engine for obtaining the moves and analysis for the rest of the session (or until you replace it by yet another one through the Load 1st Engine dialog). And next time you start WInBoard it will be available as a choice in the startup comboboxes, or from the recently-used engines in the Engine menu.

As HGMuller stated, Winboard is one option. Other options are:

Arena - http://www.playwitharena.com/

Scid vs. PC (mainly a database program, but you can also work with engines) - http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/index.html

Lucas Chess (UCI engines only) - https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/index.html

Thank you both very much!