I'm Switching From Lichess To Chessbase

I think people trying either of SCID should know that the OK button in the preference or option for the 4 or 5 types of font size that come too small and pale, and poor font choice as default does nothing. It only close the font dialog window in both software.

The solution, should be blasted on the splash tips. DOUBLE CLICK any font aspect choice. This is the only way.
This makes the "ugly" interface impression only a small initial configuration job. for both SCIDs.

ChessX has a good visual and toolbar buttong ergonomics that I thought had been lost foreever since the Ribboons and then the big Tile in ones face came up and destroy the idea of users customizing their working environment.

ChessX allows vertical toolbars.. I am not sure if one can customize each toolbard. but already their chunking of toolbard categories tells of a concern for feature categorizations.

@brianch said in #21:
> As it was mentioned here, I think the SCID projects can supply most of the use cases, the interface is pretty ugly indeed, but the functionality is really good.
>
> I think it's also worth mentioning this project that was started recently, I haven't tried it yet, but seems to go in the direction of addressing the issue of being able to work offline: lichess.org/@/frankwillow/blog/en-croissant-the-ultimate-chess-toolkit/GwYz71GJ

I looked at en croissant. I might have mixed the browsing of softwares, but it was not clear to me that it was about user input database. But maybe its target to have the same user experience as lichess on local OS, could incorporate the remaining virtues that local OS offer to user control over own folder hierarchies, in ways, that might be difficult to implement and maintain across the web. Being a local OS software, it might not have all the opaque layers of intended security and separation of the local os (and user) from the web incoming browser space new content. Idk. guessing from crumbs.

There is famous games databases that are useful and home computer GUI catering to individual study of chess, might say they also handle databases, but do they all allow the same operations on user input PGN database (or other formats, maybe binary) of any kind? It might be my general chess culture ignorance talking right now. Learning the software issues from both ends, is kind of hard.

Maybe making abstract features one knows exist out there, about database types, user control levels, maintenance of databaes, operation of database, game vs position databaase, book disgetstion versus fixed book features, file and folder management, and organization. and all possibnle searchability among those catergories. might be a better comparison strategy than going one software at a time, when there seems to be more than one doing often a overlapping set of similar jobs. But then the seem, might lead to rabbit holes before finding it was only a seem, because it was not clear. I might be a double newcomer to this. So I would prefer such a map of possible desirable features. from more than one person and one strate of chess walks of life. not dissmissing any. though.

@CheckRaiseMate
> "While I love Lichess studies, they’re difficult to organize, and almost impossible to search. My opening files are mixed in with game reviews, thematic lessons, and a bunch of random studies it would take too long to delete. If I want to check my notes on a position or variation but can’t remember where they are, there’s no way to search all my studies for it."

One advantage of Chess Openings Wizard is that you simply play any move order that reaches the desired position and you instantly see all of your analysis there. There is no way to fool it with move order because COW is based on positions. Mirrored, color reversal, doesn't matter.

I have consulted with grandmasters over the past 40 years and this is often what they end up doing. Recently I was speaking with a top ten GM who had his repertoire stored in various annotated games in ChessBase. He was quite capable of remembering which corner of his ChessBase files contained each opening study.

I was not able to talk him into switching to Chess Openings Wizard because that involves a bit of work - and after all his method got him into the world's top ten. The GMs who have started out with COW have largely been grateful though.

chessbase probably is so useful just for its opening files and master games database. Just for those 2 reasons its better than every other platform

It may be that the coaching might have plans of coaching and needs of organization that are not based on per visited position instances. But I am glad to hear that such relations can be made salient as previous post of COW is relating.

Most available resources in chess on the web are through names of openings. Having a direct from position linkage to all possibly linked object within some input database, is a good idea. Like lichess opening explorer, with variable input database of sort.

Actually with all the other non commercial software that is also my question, what if your own trajectory to the podium is not the only purpose for using such databases?

I think the mixed in things are not to be dismissed in the quote. It is about discerning among many categories of objects, yet same computer format. Isn't it. I retained from the blog, that having the local OS folder management allowed for such flexibility of categorization, upon user control and choice. But yes, the full position tying all to many other angles of retrieval, themes or names of opening, is something.

Lichess opening explorer could be re-tasked maybe for less than the huge lichess database. user end idea, of course. Maybe not that effective when downscaled. And not necessarily annotation aware. I was just making things connect. no pretention of feasibility.. I mean, someone has to be not bound by full knowledge of all obstacles. sometimes there may be global optima hidden behind the burdening current inescapable truth.

I use
- chess.com to play correspondence (as it has a tournament feature)
- Lichess for non-correspondence games
- Lichess studies to record my standard games for analysis and share with others for comments
- Lichess studies for following through the games in any books I read
- Chess tempo for tactics ( more configurable than Lichess and you can setup spaced repetition on sets where you choose the level)
- Chess tempo to record my openings and play through on spaced repetition (more powerful and feature rich than chessable. User interface takes a bit of getting used to. It also has a cloud engine to analyse the positions and a database to prompt you on the best games played un the database)
- SCiDvsPC for maintaining my own curated database that I use for offbeat openings where Chesstempo database has few high quality games. I add to it by running some engine tournaments from a specific opening position (using Arena) and then update the database

So I find I can do 99% of what I need in the cloud. If I need to use a program I now use ScidvsPC and Arena

I do think ScidvsPC is not the prettiest (although it's fine) and I have experimented with Chessbase and HIARCS Chess Explorer. Chessbase is actually slower at updating the databases and searches than scidvspc so I gave up on chessbase. HCE is nice but had problems importing with some opening databases with lots of lines so I junked that (I emailed the author who said he'd look into it when he got a chance (I said there was no rush) but he never did)

There is a learning curve for SCIDvsPC but I think it is powerful