Welcome to the home of ExaChess!
ExaChess is a powerful chess-database program for the
Macintosh with many features. You can use it to manage a
database of hundreds of thousands of master games, as a
chessboard to play through games, and as a tool to record
and annotate your own games, to play games against the
computer, or to play perfect endgames.
ExaChess comes in two forms: ExaChess Lite is a
free version of ExaChess that provides most of its features
in a version suitable for maintaining a personal games
collection. You can download
ExaChess Lite from this web site.
The full version, known as ExaChess Pro must be
purchased from Exant Software for A$125 (around US$92
depending on exchange rates). See Ordering
for more information.
What's New
ExaChess 3.1.3
and ExaChess Lite 3.1.3 are now available for
download. These releases fix the problems of
earlier releases when closing game windows under
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.
|
New
features in ExaChess 3
The major new features of ExaChess are as follows:
- Carbon and Classic versions that run native under
OS X and OS8/9. ExaChess 3.0 and ExaChess Lite 3 are
Carbon applications that run natively under OS X (10.1 or
later) as well as OS 8.6 or later. There is also a
Classic version of ExaChess 3.0, for OS 8 and 9 only,
which is a bit faster and more responsive under those
operating systems, and which can be provided on
request.
- New game parser. The new parser can parse game
text without parentheses for the main variations and
without braces for comments (with a few exceptions), so
displaying a game this way is now an option and makes the
game look for readable. Some stored chess games have
variations entered as comments. ExaChess will turn these
into variations you can play through.
- Export games as Web page and as Styled Text. A
chess game or selected games in a database can now be
exported as a web page (not ExaChess Lite). The web page
allows replay of the game on an included chessboard,
navigation to any position by clicking on a move etc. You
can also export single games as Styled Text.
- Merge paste. Pasting other games into a game
window inserts the games as variations to the original
game at the latest point of divergence, producing the
classic 'game within a game' style of annotation where
the pasted game's header becomes an end comment.
- Automatic play through main line. Click and
hold on Forward icon, or hold down the right arrow key,
and ExaChess will automatically repeat the Forward
command and play through the game without the need to
hold down any keys.
- Find Novelty search for similar games.
Position a game at the first position of interest and
Find Novelty will find all games in the database that
match that position or one of the next 19 positions,
sorted by how late the matched position occurs and making
it easy to spot where the game first deviates from
existing games.
- Mark Game / Unmark Game commands to remember
specified games in a database. You can mark (or
unmark) selected games in a game or database window.
Marked games are shown with blue text in the database
window.
- PGN databases don't need a TEXT file type or Mac
line endings. ExaChess will open/import Text and PGN
databases that use UNIX-style linefeeds or DOS-style
CR-LFs as line separators.
- Analysis by search engine while browsing games.
ExaChess can show the chess engine's thinking (i.e.
its evaluation of the position and suggested best move)
as you browse through any game.
- Remember open windows. ExaChess can remember
open windows across launches.
Ordering
- New users, see Ordering
for details.
- Existing users of ExaChess 2 can upgrade for free.
Contact Exant Software for a download URL.
- Existing users of ExaChess Lite 2 can download the
new version from the Downloads
page.
ExaChess
Features
Both ExaChess Lite and ExaChess Pro provide
the following features:
- Direct support (without conversion) of ChessBase
(CBF), NICBase, PGN and EPD databases, as well as
ExaChess's own binary and text database formats.
- Search across all databases or just a single database
file by player name, event, year, result, ECO code,
opening name, position, partial position, material,
special game features, or any combination of these.
- Shows ECO code and opening name for each game and
statistics for all matching games.
- Finds and allows easy removal of duplicate games from
any database.
- Resizable, customizable 2-D color board with smooth
animation.
- Move display shows game title and all notes and
variations, using colorized text and formatting to
distinguish the main line from annotations and
variations. Click on a move to go to that point in the
game; edit the move text to add annotations.
- Flexible game parser that handles free-form text
input, both algebraic and descriptive, including move and
position evaluations, variations and text comments.
- Records full tree of moves. Switch to variation or
return to main line.
- Shows opening tree (next moves for any opening
position) with stats from the database. Quickly find
matching games in database for any opening position.
- Supports play against the database or against
external 'chess engines' via Apple Events, including
ZZZZZZ (supplied), Crafty,
Sigma Chess, Vektor3,
Screamer, GnuChess,
and MacChess (available at
Mac and chess Internet archive sites).
- Supports automatic annotation of games using external
chess engines.
- Plays perfect 5-piece endgames using Ken Thompson's
endgame database CDs (included with the ExaChess CD and
also available from other sources).
- Detailed User's Guide included.
ExaChess Lite is restricted to showing only the first 256
games of larger databases (128 games for ChessBase,
NICBase), and limits searches across multiple databases to
at most 8 databases.
Features of ExaChess Pro (commercial version)
All the features of ExaChess Lite plus the following:
- Supplied on CD with 400,000 game database and more
than 300MB of Ken Thompson's endgame tables for perfect
5-piece endgames.
- Accelerated for Power Macintosh (runs native on
PowerPC).
- No 256/128 game limit on individual database files,
and no limit on the number of databases that are listed
in the Games menu or All Databases window and which can
be searched across in a single operation.
- Opens multiple games and databases at once, each in
its own window.
- Provides 'Change Headers' command for easy bulk
editing of database game headers.
- Prints games with figurines and diagrams and full
annotations.
- Exports formatted RTF text, including figurines and
diagrams and full annotations, for publication of
games.
Screen shots
Chess games
Chess games are presented in a Game window that looks
like this. The window is resizable (the one in the picture
is using small chess pieces (18 point) to fit on this page
-- you can choose any size from 12 to 48 points). You can
also use any built-in chess font in place of the built-in
piece set, and can set the color of the board and
pieces.
Databases
Databases are shown through a database window. The window
is resizable and the relative column widths can also be
adjusted. Searching for games is very easy and very fast:
Enter information into any of the Players, Event, Result,
Opening or No. field and ExaChess will filter the displayed
games to only those that match the entered information. In
addition you can do a wide range of positional searches
through a simple dialog.
Database list
ExaChess supports operations across all its databases.
The databases are simply placed in the ExaChess Games folder
and can then be accessed from the Games menu. To search for
games across a set of databases, simply select the databases
in the All Databases window and create a New View. You can
then search this view as if it were a single integrated
database. This displays a window just like the Database
window and shows matching games as though they all came from
the one database. The All Databases window lists all the
databases in the ExaChess Games folder.
What can I do with
ExaChess?
If you use a Mac and enjoy chess, you should check out
ExaChess! Whether you are a casual player wanting a bit of
fun, or a serious student of the game, ExaChess has
something to offer you.
ExaChess as a chess
database. If you haven't used a chess database
before, here's what you can do with ExaChess and a
reasonably sized game collection:
- Use it for entertainment. Pick a game at
random and play through it -- choose a game by one of the
leading grandmasters from a recent tournament, or a
classic win by a past champion, or a quick win in one of
your favourite openings, or a recent pawn and rook
ending. A chess database gives you instant replays at a
pace you control of thousands of entertaining games.
- Study openings. Assemble a collection of games
in one of your favorite openings, or defenses, or a new
line you are trying to learn. Find what other players
have played in the same positions, and with what success
ratios. Play against the database to check for holes in
your opening repertoire or to check your memory. Explore
deviations off the main line.
- Study middlegame themes and combinations. Look
for combinations and sacrifices. Find how the Masters
proceed as a particular opening line moves into the
middlegame.
- Study endgames. Find where a rook draws
against rook and pawn. When do bishops of opposite color
draw and when don't they?
- Prepare a database. Build a database of your
own games, or of games from a recent or historical event.
ExaChess has a powerful game parser to extract games with
annotations from a wide range of text sources. It allows
fast duplicate finding and removal, easy merging of games
with other databases, conversion of databases to other
file formats, and can use databases in other file formats
without conversion.
ExaChess as a
chessboard. It's easy to move the pieces, take
back moves, add annotations, keep a move tree of all the
lines you explore.
- Play through a game. It's quicker than setting
up a board. You can instantly wind the game back or
forward to any point. Move entry is easy: type the moves,
choose them from a menu, drag pieces with the mouse, or
use the move prediction feature to just click on the
destination square and have ExaChess play the most likely
piece to that square.
ExaChess as a chess
partner. Its built-in engine lets you play
against the database to test your opening repertoire. It
works with external chess engines, providing the user
interface while a chess playing program calculates the
moves, and can host a match between two chess playing
programs.
- Play speed chess against the computer. Or play
serious games. Practise banging out opening moves in your
favorite lines, or checkmating your opponent when you
have a large material edge but only seconds left on the
clock.
- Analyse your own games. Play through them
again. Ask a chess engine to find its best move in a
critical position, or to annotate the whole game. Play
against the computer in a side variation -- can you still
win?
ExaChess as a chess
publisher. It can directly print games with full
formatting, figurines and diagrams. It can export a single
game or a whole database of games with formatting,
figurines, and diagrams in RTF (Rich Text Format) format for
import into word processors or page layout programs.
- Annotate your own games and print the
analysis. Write your own book of best games.
- Publish a book on an opening you've studied
with example games from the database.
|