Detailed description of Chess Assistant 8.1

Index

5.5. Packing and E-mailing a base

You may wish to send a base of games to someone, such as a tournament that's just been played, or some games you want to exchange.

Chess Assistant permits you to do this without resorting to an external program. After setting up your Internet account details, you can also choose the size of the blocks to be made (in .zip format) and sent, in case there is a limitation to the size of the files that can be sent or received. If e-mail account used is only for database exchanges, you may find it convenient to configure it as well to receiving e-mail, so that it'll automatically receive bases sent by other users.

5.6. Repairing

Nothing can be more nerve wracking than finding a base corrupted (i.e. unreadable) because of  system freeze or power failure. Chess Assistant's got a tool permitting one to attempt repair a base, or in a worst-case scenario, to recover all the undamaged games and place them into a new base.

5.7. Updating via Internet

In order to keep up with the latest chess theory and happenings, you can activate Update Wizard and either take advantage of Chess Assistant’s free weekly database update of about 1000 games, or if you are a subscriber to the special e-mail service, you can enter your code and download games directly from the program.

This updating function also allows you to upgrade the program if any new patches are available.

5.8. Converting

One of Chess Assistant advantages is flexibility in game sources you have. You can use not only its own CA WIN format. But it is also able to import and convert games from PGN, CBF, and CBH formats.

It'll import not only header info (names, dates, rating, etc.), but also all the text annotations and special comments such as arrows and highlighted squares.

5.9. Opening EPD Files Directly

The reference database for CA 8.1 has been brought up to date, and now contains 2,710,000 games. The direct tree for the database has been pre-built, and is also included.

While versions 6 and 7 of CA had extensive EPD processing capabilities, it did not allow transparent access to individual EPD positions in a file. With version 8, we have added the capability to open EPD files as databases, with all the normal functions, like drag and drop movement and copying of games, etc. This new functionality will make working with test sets and positions very easy.

Index