Detailed description of Chess Assistant 8.1
Index
When you first open a game for viewing in Chess Assistant, you'll see the board with
the video buttons below it, followed by the headers, and to the right there is a notation
window with the tree/engine window below. The appearance of the board can be modified
according to your taste and you can use not only one of the piece sets or standard board
patterns (wood, marble, etc.) provided, but also customize it by designing your own pieces
(or importing other ones) or modifying the board’s appearance with colors or images of
your choice.
As for Chess Assistant game format novelties, it's a possibility to see and include
multimedia comments such as images (.jpg, .gif, and .bmp), audio files from either
external sources (.wav and .mp3) or those you can record directly from a microphone, and
video files (.avi and .mpg formats). Naturally, if you are importing .cbh files, they can
preserve multimedia commentary as well.
Besides, the number and quality of direct comments on the board's been greatly
increased compared/in comparison with the old ‘highlight a square’ or ‘stick an
arrow on the board’. These options keep on existing but with a great deal of new options
and alternatives so that you may comment much more precisely and creatively, and now you
can even include text directly on the board.
However, Chess Assistant offers a number of tools in order to enhance your viewing
experience with as much information as you could ask for. To start with, just below the
board there is a button. On pressing it in a matter of a few seconds (from 0-5 seconds
depending on the hardware) you'll get a list of all the games in the Hugebase containing
the position on the board. You can also set it to use another base as a source instead.
Furthermore, the tree window'll show you all the statistical information on a position
such as all the known moves from a position, evaluation of Chess Openings 2005
encyclopedia, a number of games with the known move, percentage of success, and CAP
information. This information is provided automatically on a move per move basis. If
you're bringing moves from a tournament into a brand new base, it can call upon this
information using the tree of your choice, even from another base.
You can also activate one of the engines (such as the included Chess Tiger 2004, etc.)
to analyze automatically by clicking button or just hitting <spacebar> on your
keyboard. You can then go from one engine to the next by selecting engine's name in a
drop-down list.
Finally, if you just want to fly through the moves, passing from one game to another,
you'd better do this by closing the tree (accessing the tree for every move obviously
slows things down), and then use arrow keys for the moves and F7 and F8 keys (keyboard
shortcuts for and buttons) for the games.
Styles
Keystroke combination: Shift-s, also context menu on game score
The addition of move styles allows the user to change the appearance of many types game
notation. Available options include changing the move font, weight, and
background/foreground colors. This feature allows quick navigation to important positions
in the game, with easy fine-tuning of game appearance as well.
As an example, look at the screen shot below. Here, the default style for engine analysis
has been modified to have a yellow background, for easier visibility. Move 28 has been
highlighted in green, and is book marked for future reference.
In the figure above you can see example illustrating styles.
Easy Construction of Game Fragments
CA 8.1 has a two shortcut keys that can be used to quickly form game fragments. This
capability is very useful for constructing test positions. Typing the "[" key
will truncate all previous moves from the current position, which typing "]"
will truncate the remaining moves.
Index
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