HCE feature requests

anders · Post by **anders** » Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:01 pm

I would appreciate the possibility to use a "blind chess set" in HCE.
Personally, I find this very useful for visualization and analysis training.

anders · Post by **anders** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:20 am

anders wrote:I would appreciate the possibility to use a "blind chess set" in HCE.
Personally, I find this very useful for visualization and analysis training.

A little clarification: with a "blind chess set" I simply mean a chess set with invisible pieces.

Anders

Post by **Mark Uniacke** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 11:36 am

Thanks for clarification.

I have heard of variants where the player sees his own pieces and not the opponents and visa-versa and even just placeholders for pieces.

browniesbane · Post by **browniesbane** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 11:03 pm

A very good program and a big step forward for chess on the mac.

In terms of features, consider:

Engine to engine play

Blindfold (really like that idea)

Ability to customize starting point of games--i.e. allow players to add their own non-standard starting points to the one already in the opening section. On a related point, I have had trouble getting the computer to play a variety of moves in specific positions--for example, I can’t get it to play g3 lines against the Tarrasch QGD--it always plays the dc line, instead in both the dynamic and tournament mode. In the open lopez, it plays nd2 instead of c3, every time, in both the dynamic and tournament mode.

Ability to do a single search across multiple database

Post by **Mark Uniacke** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:22 am

An engine match feature and blindfold play are being considered for a future version.

HCE already supports non standard starting positions, simply have the position you want set up on the board, select play->new game
choose non-standard position then select current position.

It will then play a new game from the current position.

Please use the surprise book mode if you want Hiarcs to play moves the Hiarcs book considers not best.

Also if you are playing on set elo levels it will increase variety dramatically depending on elo level. What elo are you playing against?

On maximum strength it will naturally play a narrower selection of moves which have been successful at the very top level.

sockmonkey · Post by **sockmonkey** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:48 pm

After spending some time reading through annotated games in HCE, I am sorely missing some form of last-move indication (highlighted squares, arrow, something). It may well be my computer-weakened eyes or my chess-addled brain, but moving back and forth between the text and the board, I am struggling to "keep my place".

Also, when entering into variations, a nice ergonomic detail would be to allow the right arrow key to function as 'return' (in addition to 'return'), so that I don't have to keep switching my hands around (e.g. cmd-rightarrow, downarrow, enter would become cmd-rightarrow, downarrow, rightarrow and my wrists will love you).

Just a couple of suggestions, my 2c. Thanks for the great software.

jb

sockmonkey · Post by **sockmonkey** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:26 am

And one more: I already mentioned multiple selections for things like game auto-playback and analysis. Multiple selections for DB deletions would also be welcome. Thanks for considering it.

jb

sockmonkey · Post by **sockmonkey** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:29 am

Sorry for the flood, but it's a "good thing", as I'm enjoying using HCE.

I may have sent this to you via email, but I'm not sure. PGN files encoded in Windows-1252 aren't displayed properly. I can send an example if you need one.

jb

Post by **Mark Uniacke** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:30 am

It is a good suggestion but the last move played is highlighted already. Do you not see that on your computer?

sockmonkey · Post by **sockmonkey** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:32 am

Mark Uniacke wrote:It is a good suggestion but the last move played is highlight already. Do you not see that on your computer?

The move is highlighted in the move list. But not on the board when playing through a PGN (there's an option for engine play, but not for non-game situations). Sorry for the ambiguity.

jb

Post by **Mark Uniacke** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:40 am

I see, so you would like an option highlighting on the board the last move played when navigating the game. I will add it to the list for consideration.

sockmonkey · Post by **sockmonkey** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:40 am

Mark Uniacke wrote:I see, so you would like an option highlighting on the board the last move played when navigating the game. I will add it to the list for consideration.

Thanks! jb

Ton · Post by **Ton** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:24 pm

After reading through the manual, I can't find if i's possible to identifiy identical games from a database and decide which game to remove.

I'm collecting games from various sources, so sometimes games show up more than once.

Regards,
Ton

sockmonkey · Post by **sockmonkey** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:29 pm

Ton wrote:After reading through the manual, I can't find if i's possible to identifiy identical games from a database and decide which game to remove.

I'm collecting games from various sources, so sometimes games show up more than once.

Regards,
Ton

You can use the complex but powerful pgn-extract (http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/) for this, but I agree that a find/eliminate dupes would be a useful function for the UI.

jb

Ton · Post by **Ton** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:41 pm

Back to the command line

Thanks for pointing me to this tool.

Did you manage to run this in OSX Mountain Lion?

I'm going through my 'most used ChessBase features' to see if I can skip MS Windows .

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HCE feature requests

"blind chess set" in HCE

Re: "blind chess set" in HCE