Shane's Chess Information Database is a powerful Chess Toolkit, with
which one can create huge chess databases, run engine analysis, or play
casual games against the computer or online with the Free Internet Chess
Server. It was originally written by Shane Hudson , and has received strong
contribution from Pascal Georges and others.
Scid vs. PC is a usability
and bug-fix fork of Scid with some new features. The project is authored by
Stevenaaus, and has been extensively tested.
See
changes for a comprehensive changelog, or the
gallery for some screenshots..
New and Improved features
Computer Tournaments.
Rewritten Gamelist widget, with the incorporated Database Switcher.
Improved Computer Game and FICs features.
Clickable Variation Arrows, and Paste Variation feature.
Improved Undo and Redo.
Tri-coloured Tree Bar-Graphs alongside statistics.
PGN can be shown as chess figures/fonts.
Ratings Graph can show multiple players.
Book tuning Remove Move feature.
Separate board sections are hideable via right-click.
A redone Button Bar with improved look and feel.
Restructured Analysis Engines. The function hotkeys can be set explicitly, Engine 1 can be docked into the Status Bar, and any number of engines may run at one time. Engine Annotation has also been rewritten, Engine Logs are viewable.
The Chessboard/Pieces options have been totally overhauled. There are some new colour and tile themes, and great piece sets available if the optional TkImg package is installed.
The Setup Start Board has many fixes and improvements.
The Help index is now meaningful to new users, with links to the game's main features.
Countless bug-fixes.
Missing Features
SCID's 4.4 had a powerful filter sorting capability, but it is not stable.
Some language translations need volunteers and updating.
Scid vs. PC requires
Tcl/Tk 8.5 or later.
Tcl/Tk 8.5.10 has nasty bugs and should be avoided.
Most Unices should have Tcl/Tk installed by default.
To verify this, look for a command named wish or wish8.5.
To enable support for extra chess pieces (such as Berlin), you may need to install
TkImg.
Then, installing from source:
tar -xzf scid_vs_pc-4.10.tgz
cd scid_vs_pc-4.10
./configure
make install
scid
It is also possible to install Scid vs. PC into /usr, instead of the normal /usr/local.
This allows for parallel installation with mainline Scid, and is done by: ./configure BINDIR=/usr/bin/ SHAREDIR=/usr/share/scid/
Scid's multi-language support can cause problems. Chinese (and other) users should use: ./configure LANGUAGES=""
Windows
Windows installation simply requires downloading the
executable, and following the prompts.
The configuration files, including the chess engine list, are stored
in the Scid-vs-PC\bin\config directory, and may be copied over from
old versions to make upgrading easier. If the app is installed in "Program Files" On Windows 7, the config files are mirrored in
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Scid vs PC
People with Visual Studio 11 should now be able to compile the project fairly easily (see Makefile.vc for more details).
Mac OS X
The
ScidvsMac-4.10 app should include everything you need. Simply drag and drop the App into /Applications (or similar).
Users upgrading may have to remove (or edit) $HOME/.scidvspc/config/engines.dat
to properly configure the chess engines.
OS X has a poor implementation of Tcl, and docked mode has bugs (some windows work better after being moved around, keyboard shortcuts are very hit and miss). These issues should be fixed with a point release sometime in the future.
To compile from source - once you have XCode installed - please read ScidvsMac-HowTo.rtfd in the source tarball.
OS X's Cocoa port of Wish is broken, with little chance of repair. Scid vs PC ships with a custom Carbon build of Wish.
Finally have a docked windows feature. It's a damn complicated thing, but i am fond of it.
Scid vs PC 4.9 is coming :)
March 2012
Big effort by Gregor to write Drag and Drop support for
Scidb and ScidvsPC. Thanks. FICS is looking great too.
September 29, 2011
Jiri Pavlovsky has made a windows installer. It's a nice piece of software :)
Big thank-you. And we now have undo and redo features.
July 8, 2011
Thanks to Gilles for the web page restructure and OSX testing. Gregor Cramer
http://scidb.sf.net has contributed a PGN figurine feature.
April 19, 2011
A belated thanks to Lee from Sourceforge for
this article.
December 10, 2010
Sicd vs. PC 4.2 includes support for Scid's si4 db format.
July 3, 2010
For the tenth release I've adopted verison number 4.0 . It includes a new Computer Tournament feature (thanks to some UCI snippets from Fulvio) and the Gamelist Widget is finally up-to-speed for large databases.
April 19, 2010
Release 3.6.26.9 includes a Fics accept/decline offers widget.
December 20, 2009
Thanks to Dorothy for making me a Mac DMG package with this release , 3.6.26.8.
August 16, 2009
With 3.6.26.6 I've fixed Phalanx's illegal castling. There is also changes to the Setup board and Toolbar configuration widgets.
July 17, 2009
3.6.26.5 - New Gamelist widget, and re-fashioned main buttons. Project's looking quite solid :->
June 23, 2009
The monkey on my back has really been having a good time. This release includes changes to the Gameinfo, Comment Editor, and Board Style widgets, some new chess pieces, colour schemes and tiles. Thanks to Michal and Alex for feedback.
June 4, 2009
Well, the html is up, and i've got a couple of
files in the downloads section. My project is fairly modest fork of Scid
... just rewriting Tk widgets when i get the urge.
The main Computer vs. Player feature is accessed from Play->Computer. Here
you'll find options to play against Phalanx (a flexible computer opponent whose
skill you can select), or any installed UCI engine.
Playing on the Internet
Playing on the Internet is done via the the
Play->Internet menu item. I recommend visiting the
Fics website to create a user
account, but it is also possible to play anonymously. To start a game,
press the Login as Guest button, then watch the available games as they are
announced in the console. Enter play [game number] to accept a
game challenge.
There is more information
about the Fics and Tactical Game features in the Scid Help menus.
Openseal is an open source version of FICS Timeseal. It needs some
rewriting to work with Scid, though it is a small program.
FICS could be adapted to work with the ICC. The work involves
analysing the differences in the strings used by the two programs.
(for example, for FICS we have this line to ackowledge successful log-in
if {string match "*Starting FICS session*" $line]} {
The two servers do have many similarities i think, and examining
xboard's "backend.c" (or some other client) for "FICS" particularities
Russian translation is broken afaics, and has been removed for the time being.
The month i've updated the translations a little. (Thanks to Peter
for totally overhauling the Dutch one). The checklangs.tcl script is
in much better shape, but of course there are still lots of
translation "todos"
The TCL sound package, Snack, needs a maintainer.
There was a lot of work done to implement Fischer Chess (Chess 960),
but they never fixed all the bugs, and the web site
http://www.wtfai.me.uk/scid960.html is now gone. The latest code is in
ScidvsPC's source patches/chess960.patch
The Tree code works reasonably well, but i have never found the time
to overhaul the Slow/Fast/Slow modes. These were (for a long
time) negelected when Fulvio wrote the interuptible tree code. Scid
now has the Modes removed, so doing this in ScidvsPC probably wouldnt
be terribly hard to do.
There are two engine types - UCI and XBoard. Pascal's UCI code is in
some ways inferior to Shane's Xboard code.
Though this is mostly mitigated by the speed of modern processors,
it'd be nice to make use of the UCI ponder feature in analysis mode
(Comp mode already does so).
I've never had a chance to verify/update the Novag Citrine drivers
and interface due to lack of hardware.
Our Windows port needs a little overhaul to properly use Users home
directory to store all the various data.
I will get around to doing it one day though.
A lot of people use chessbase books (.ctg). Scid can only read
polyglot opening books, but inlining this projects
work may not be too hard. https://github.com/sshivaji/ctgexporter
Tcl/Tk-8.5.10 is buggy. Tcl/Tk-8.6.0 also is immature, but mostly works.
OS X docked mode has multiple issues due to it's poor Tcl/Tk.
Chinese Language Support. Scid's multilanguage support is broken
for some countries. The work around involves compiling from source, using:
./configure LANGUAGES=""
Alternatively, remove all lines between "### deutsch.tcl" and "# end of serbian.tcl" in the scid.gui file.
Focus Issues. Kde users can allow Tcl apps to properly raise themselves by
configuring desktop > window behavior > advanced > focus stealing prevention
set to "none"
Importing huge PGN archives can
sometimes fail. The command line utility pgnscid is a more reliable way
to create large databases from pgn. Typing "pgnscid somefile.pgn" creates a new database
"somefile.si4".
Using the '+' operator and clicking on 'Find' in the gamelist widget can be very slow. The code needs to be moved from gamelist.tcl to tkscid.cpp.
Windows only:
Using "ALT+F"... etc key bindings to access the menus is badly broke. This is a Tcl/Tk issue.
Scid is a huge project, with an interesting history. Originally authored by
Shane Hudson from New Zealand, it combined the power of Tk's GUI and
the speed of C, to produce a free Chess Database application with
Opening Reports, Tree Analysis, and Tablebase support.
It gained quite some attention, as it was arguably the first project of it's
kind; but after writing over a hundred thousand lines of code, in 2004 development
stopped. Shane never contributed to Scid again. He was generally reported
to be seriously ill, and today has little if no contact with the current Scid community.
Two new versions of Scid appeared around 2006. The first was ChessDB
authored by Dr. David Kirby. With some good documentation and
the ability to automatically download games from
several web portals, it became popular. But at the same time Pascal Georges from France
was making strong technical improvements to Scid. Frustrated with Scid's dormancy,
and because of disagreements with ChessDB's author, Pascal released his own tree, Scid-pg, which
included UCI support and numerous Player versus Computer features.
But subtley, and with some controversy, he began to adopt the name Scid as his own. Some
people objected, especially Dr. Kirby, with whom a flame war began, but
Pascal's efforts to gain ownership of the Sourceforge Scid project eventually succeeded.
Under Pascal, and with the help of numerous contributors, Scid again strode
forward. Pascal wrote a Tree Mask feature, and in 2009
he upgraded the database format to si4, all the time making speed and technical improvements
to the neglect of the interface. Very recently, Pascal has contributed less
to the project, but it still thrives as a feature rich database application,
with a strong community headed by a core group of programmers.
But along the way, there exist other Scid projects. Chessx, by Michal Rudolf from
Germany, is a rewrite of Scid using the powerful libQT API, popularized by KDE-4.
Originally called Newscid, Chessx still grows, but with a much smaller feature set,
and lesser popularity than Scid.
Scid vs. PC (by Steven Atkinson from Australia) began around mid 2009. Forked from Scid-3.6.26, it began as an effort to tidy Shane's frenetic code base, improve the user interface , and add polish to Scid's rich feature set; but it is now probably the most mature fork. Unfortunately, the state of mainline SCID's git repository is not good. It has new features with many bugs, receives little or no updates, and a new release is not eminent.
Another project is reaching its initial public release. Scidb, by Gregor Cramer from Germany, is a total rewrite of Scid. It thoroughly utilizes C++ and a heavily customized Tk interface, and includes Chessbase database support and Chess960/other variants among it's features.
When sorting databases, don't reset filter and remember current game/gamestate.
Implement (and bugfix) SCID's more comprehensive NAG framework.
Change a couple of field orders in the gamelist, remember field widths, and remove the icon context menus from the switcher (middle click now toggles show/hide the database icons).
FICS: Allow use of alternative URLs (used during FICS outage) and other minor tweaks.
Window focus improvements (mainly for MS Windows and OS X).
Computer Tournament: add 'Engine Scores as comments' option, and make some minor global/:: var changes.
Add Book Tuning to dockable windows.
Automatically flip board (if applicable) in game browser and analysis miniboards.
When diffing twin games, ignore newlines in the comments, which make diffing impossible.
Add undo points for user generated addNag events.
Bookmarks: add a few key bindings (delete/up/down), and shuffle the gamelist bookmark button up one row.
Drag and drop hardening.
Windows 7 bugfix: PGN export and Progress bars weren't working in undocked mode.
Convert braces '{', '}' to '(',')' when exporting PGN comments (against PGN standard). Also tweak various PGN help topics.
Scid vs. PC 4.9.2
OS X changes, including docked mode fixes.
Scid vs. PC 4.9.1
Fix promotion bug in non-docked mode
Small pictures allign top/bottom in game info
Clickable crosstable columns
Make an undo point with Setup Board, and disable undo for Trial mode.
Add Tournament lookup to Player Info window
PGN import window was not getting mapped.
Scid vs. PC 4.9
Window Docking feature
- Different windows are docked/restored than Scid. Five layout slots with three custom layouts. Bug-fixes. F11 for fullscreen. Tcl-8.6.0 may have issues. Selectable Ttk themes (also for Gamelist).
General
Move search feature (eg 'h6 Bxh6')
UCI: replace 'position fen ...' with 'position startpos moves ...' for general analysis
Better Twin Games Checker - highlights missing comments and variations in duplicate games
Windows has a MSVC makefile (Makefile.vc) and includes Stockfish 2.31 (JA legacy build)
Fix windows stack problem (hopefully).
Text Find widgets in help, crosstable, engine logs
Game Save dialog remembers any custom tags you add to a game, making them easy to recall
Restore drawing arrows and marks from the main board (also used by FICS premove)
Arrow length/widths configurable via comment editor
PGN Figurines now display in bold, and a different font, if applicable (from Gregor)
Some new board textures (from Ed Collins)
Automatically save "bitmaps" directory when exporting to HTML
Player info window shows Photos in a scrollable canvas insead of stuck in top right corner
Delete key deletes moves in game/variation after the current move
Score Graphs are now bargraphs instead of lines
Bind statusbar->middle button to 'switch base'
FICS context menu, game offers now show more information, and premove
FICS: deiconify/raise window when game starts (nodock mode only)
FICS: stop clock when we make a move (even though we may not have acknowledgemnt from FICS about move)
FICS: 'upload' command for uploading local games to FICS examine mode
Allow the Name editor to glob '*' for Site, Event and Round fields (but not for 'All Games', too dangerous when used by mistake)
The material board can display *all* taken pieces
Gamelist button rows can be hidden by right-clicking the list, and it has a game save icon
Right click V+ button adds the second variation
Windows analysis engines no longer run at low priority
When annotating the score on blunders, show the main score first, var second (eg: +1.00 / +2.50)
Add programmers reference to the help contents/online doc
Bind space-bar to engine start/stop
Update twic2scid.py script
Remember if .board is flipped for each open base
Bugfixes
Make the database switcher icons/frames get smaller if they are cramped (so we can see them all)
Half fix UCI game (sergame.tcl) time issues
Corrospondence Chess now works
Tree Mask bugfix: Checks couldnt be added to mask
Fix Tree 'Fill cache with game/base' feature
Try to handle shortened FENs with Paste FEN
Crosstable: 'Set Filter' now includes deleted games if +deleted
Crosstable: handle games with a year-only date differently for crosstable purposes (Instead of +/-3 months, match any other games in the calender year
FICS: Stop clocks after a takeback request from opponent
FICS: Games with move lengths greater than 1:00:00 would break parse
Add missing FICSLogin translation.
New windows Phalanx build. It works better under win7, but has analysis polling issues
OS X: pad out flag buttons in Header search
base_open_failure was erroneously closing wrong base
Windows Preview HTML for Reports is fixed
Scid vs. PC 4.8
Drag and Drop file open(s) on Windows and Unix
Custom background images (jpegs, gifs and pngs)
Random sort pgn feature.
Crosstable now have +/-/= subtotals
(and Player Stats format changed from +/=/- to +/-/=).
General PGN search has ignore case option
Board Search gets it's combobox updated when DBs are opened and closed.
Save game before PGN Import
Save game: enable the use of 'prev game tags' for existing games. This allows easy addition of the same tags to consecutive existing games.
Remove the 'Scid: ' prefix from several window titles
Update some translations
Show Linux version/distro in the startup window.
Add a patch to make toolbar buttons raise only (instead of toggle open/shut)
Add a patch for Chess960 support (from Ben Hague). Unfinished
Analysis
UCI: properly handle UCI buttons. Previously they were invoked at every engine restart.
Right clicking 'Add Var' button adds Engine Score comment only.
Replace ponder on/off with hard/easy for xboard engines
Super quick engine infos can happen before Scid's PV is inited properly. So we have to default to PV = 1
Allow xboard engines to use lowercase 'b' for bishop promotion (eg a7b8b)
Don't send an erroneous 'isready' (with 'uci') to quiet analysis engines
Right clicking the widget allows to disable line wrapping
Don't add a line to analysis history if moves are null
Tree
Move ECO stats to the end of line.
Several Mask refinements - notably Searches are much more readable and previously clicking on searched lines didn't work
Fix up minor bugs about castling moves (OO, O-O, O-O-O)
Computer Tournament
Computer Tournament Book feature
Dont' kill tournament if engine crashes.
Only pack the first 10 engine combos (which allows for big tournaments)
Fix up Xboard time/move command order. Xboard engines should behave much better.
Various other tweaks
Gamelist
Show altered games in red.
Control-wheelmouse scrolls up/down one page.
Switcher now has text on two lines (if icons are shown).
FICS
Digital clocks now (optionally) on the main board
Better integration of FICS "examine" and "observe" features
FICS has it's own options menu
bind F9 to xtell instead of tell.
Change the move.wav sound from tick-tock to a short click.
OS X
Filter graph bugfix
Material Search properly shows the little buttons
Copy and Paste text from disabled OSX text widgets (engines, help, gameinfo)
Buttons 2 and 3 are swapped around
General Bugs
Work arounds for wish 8.5.12 and 8.5.8 issues
Analysis logs can badly break autoscroll, so use normal frames and scrollbars.
Handle PGN parsing of unspecified promotions (b8 becomes b8=Q , for eg).
Scid vs. PC 4.7
Tree: Add coloured bargraphs representing win/draw/loss (and remove the old tree graph)
Tablebases: Make best tablebase moves clickable.
Tablebases: tidy up config , main window and help items.
FICs: Can now play and watch (observe) multiple games at the same time.
FICS: Support loading old/interupted games for analysis (using 'smoves' command)
FICs: Add an Abort button. Other minor fixes.
Serious Game overhaul (though still has minor issues) Add pause, resume features and mate, game drawn dialogs.
Computer Tournament: Add 'first engine only' feature for testing a single engine against others.
Enable material difference display for game browser and fics observerd games
Analysis: View engine logs from within Scid, and can also disable logging.
Analysis no longer word wraps, and uses fixed font.
Analysis: add a xboard/uci protocol column to the engine list.
Include updates to SCID's spellchk.c, improving the ELO add-ratings feature.
Update spelling.ssp file to Jan 2012, and include with windows
Player info: clicking FIDE ID opens relevant url.
New feature: 'Search-Filter to Last Move'. All filter games will load at the last move (end of game).
Refine the Calculation of Variation (Stoyko Exercise) feature and Help.
Toolbar has a 'book window' icon.
Tweak PGN context menu: reorder the Strip/Delete move items.
Gamelist: replace the Negate button with a Select button.
Tree: Include a patch for embedding the Best Games into the Tree window.
Analysis: Revert Lock engine changes. Previously, lock engine would also start Trial Mode
Bugfixes
Importing PGN, check that Promotion Moves are long enough (otherwise can segfault).
Document CCRL pgn round name problem, and handle errors better when Name limits hit.
FICS: remove non-ascii chars from commands if using timeseal.
Gamelist: To display unusual characters, convert to unicode before displaying games.
Sync html bitmaps with SCID.
Book: Only do the second book move lookup if we have too. (slight performance boost)
EPD: Quick fix for epd analysis annotation bug..
Hungarian, Swedish and Potugese Spanish were broken if Piece translation enabled (which was default). Fixed.
Fix up Tacgame score-isn't-updated bug
Scid vs. PC 4.6
Undo and Redo features (partly from SCID)
Microsoft Windows has a proper installer
Always loads games at the correct game ply when using the tree and searches.
Ratings graph can show multiple players (and there's a minimum ELO feature)
Computer Tournament: Improvements for both Xboard and UCI engines, and implement the 50 move draw rule.
Auto-promote feature for FICs
Book tuning 'Remove move' feature
Autoraise button raises all windows
Annotation improvements, and it is now possible to score All moves while only annotating Blunders.
Known aliases Biographical data is shown in the player information window
The player info widget has buttons enabling quick player renames and look-up.
'Read-Only' context menu to the Database Switcher, and Read-Only bases are greyed out.
Fix bug in the opening/theory table
Remember game position when stripping comments and variations from PGN
Change analysis colors for MultiPV to black/grey instead of blue/black.
New 'Search in (other) Database' feature to the board search (from SCID)
Variation/Mainline arrows can have custom colours.
Crosstable can (optionally) show 3 points for a win
Fix sc_remote (which allows games to be opened in an already running Scid vs PC)
Phalanx tacgame bug-fixes (play brainy, and stop after the correct amount of time)
Tweak the best games widget (make fields line-up)
When handling Import PGN errors, show the game numbers as well as the line in file.
Catch a nasty wish8.5.10 bug with the gamelist (Wish-8.5.10 should be avoided)
Remove the broken integer field validation and replace it with something that allows backspace to work.
Bind Control-Tab to 'switch to next base', and Control-(quoteleft) to 'switch to clipbase'
Fix a couple of corner cases concerning dates and searches.
Analysis widget : small speed improvements , icon changes and bug-fixes
Add a help item for Maintenance 'Check Games' feature.
Swap around the 'Next Move' and 'Event' game-information lines.
New documentation about making Polyglot books.
Make the player Report config widget a bit easier to use.
Catch a nasty wish8.5.10 bug with the gamelist (Wish-8.5.10 should be avoided)
New OSX HowTo
Crosstable bugfix: the 'show white first' feature didn't work for two match rounds.
Update 'Tips'
Clarify Scid's maximum number of games
Update Spanish and Polish translations
Update FICs , PGN and Menu language translations
Scid vs. PC 4.5
PGN Window:
PGN chess font support (but font installation on Windows isn't great)
Computer Tournament:
Per-game time control
Clock widgets for remaining time.
Manual adjudication buttons, and a Restart button.
General:
Game List remembers it's view when switching between bases.
Game Browser has new buttons and functionality
Tournament Finder is more readable
Restore PGN scrollbar (pgn option)
Phalanx now reads enpassant and 50 move field from FEN (thanks Bernhard Prümmer)
FICs console fg and bg colours are now configurable
Name Editor tidy up and documentation review
Player Info: add a 'Refine Filter' result group
Typing 'OO' castles (previously only 'OK','OQ')
Mask Search widget fixes
Annotation: Dont add nags when annotating score. Don't repeat previous nag if annotating all moves.
Crosstable shows current game in green
Use translations for Game List column titles (if available).
Add a 'Game Delete' menu
Improve ./configure and Makefile, and CC FLAGS are propagated to all targets
Game Save autocomplete now uses mouse instead of clumsy keyboard bindings
Restrict Game List sort to valid columns, and add a 'confirm sort' widget for bases > 200000 games
MS Windows tweaks:
Windows Crosstable transparency glitch is fixed.
Fix wheelmouse support in a few places
Add a 'make-scidgui.bat' hack for assembling a new 'scid.gui' from subversion
Computer Tournament buttons padding fixed
OSX:
Make an OSX app with a working ;> version of Tcl (thanks Gilles)
Many OSX wheelmouse and graphical fixes.
Bug fixes:
Null move fixes including - analysis engines can append variations
Tree training feature fixes
Show Progressbar for loading bases with a dot (.) in their name
If Scid crashes, Game List could be left with zero size
PGN middle-click move preview feature fixed for variations
PGN text tabstops are now dynamic to allow for correct column allignment in column mode
Remember position of custom ecoFile if loaded
Change the second book slot to avoid conflict with Annotation feature
Catch unmatched braces in gamelist values
Fix 'Paste FEN' castling sanity check
Browser previously highlighted Next move instead of Current move
Fix scid.eco unicode bug
Remove 'newlines' from Mask Search results
When addAnalysisVariation fails due to bad moves, don't move back N moves
Theory table incorrectly started from start position.
Scid vs. PC 4.4.1
Fix nasty flicker bug when board is flipped
Fix fics bug that graph sometimes doesn't stop when new game starts
Add Burnett chess pieces
Scid vs. PC 4.4
Implement SCID's interruptable tree processing
Implement SCID's custom flags
Gamelist is much faster for big databases
Add widgets to the gamelist for manipulating flags and browsing first/last/next/previous games
Opening Book and Book Tuning overhaul - allow two books to be opened with side-by-side sorting, and various interface improvements
Overhaul Annotate widget - allow choice of scores/variation/both and remember annotation options
Crosstable sort by Country feature
Update Fics to allow for different Port/IP Address (using SCID code)
Graph changes - remember widget settings, change colours+dot size, fix up half-move bug and a title misallignment, add 2010 decade
Fix up the global grab for progressWindow (opening databases)
Add "Half moves" (moves since capture or pawn move) to setup board
ECO Browser changes - add "update" and "up" buttons, when clicking on "Start ECO" open browser at top level, make statistics more readable
Add the "Last Move Color" to the main board colours widget
Restructure "Tools" menu
Icons - remove the large gameinfo and togglemenu buttons, add a "comment editor" icon to the toolbar and tidy up various icons
Busy cursor when sorting database via Gamelist column click
For OSX (esp. single button mice) - bind to context menu for main window and pgn window
Make the 'paste variation' feature work a bit better at var/game end
Make variation popup remember it's location instead of being centered
Add "Read-only" button to maintenance window.
A nice PGN/htext performance tweak that smooths out large game edits
When using "-fast", perform fast database opens also. Otherwise, update the progressbar to show "Calculating name frequencies"(todo?)
Bug-fixes
Ubuntu 11 have put libX11.so somewhere stupid. Update configure script
Paste FEN bug involving fen validation.
Fix promotion bug involving busy CPU and missed grab
Fix off-screen window placement on windows
On Macs, dont place the window at top of screen, as it's then stuck under the main menubar
Make the game save dialog center and resize properly
Fix up file loading (and bookmarks) of DBs with dots (.) in their name
Statusbar shows correct value after Crosstable update
Scid vs. PC 4.3
Clickable Variation arrows
Paste Variation feature
Database Switcher has been moved to the Gamelist Widget (and has some new icons)
Gamelist can now perform logical ANDs in the search widget using "+", and include the date
Gamelist now has remove-above and remove-below buttons.
FICs improvements, including a ping feature to indicate network health (*nix only), and player communications are saved as PGN comments.
New Toolbar buttons: "Load First Game" , "Load Last Game"
Bookmark Widget has been overhauled
Analysis Engine's move history doesn't get spammed by "Mate in 1" (for eg) messages
An engine can now be run in the Statusbar
Allow engines to be reordered
Simplify the Bestgames Widget : Remove the PGN pane, nice-ify the widget, and enable graph and best widgets to remember size.
Several interface speed-ups from Fulvio
Other SCID C++ changes from Gerd and Fulvio, including "Don't decode games when copying games"
Some Tree Search optimisations from SCID
Sort by number of Variations and Comments from Gerd
Help Widget has a search entrybox
Help Widget font size (and Pgn Window) can be easily increased by control+wheelmouse
When pasting FEN directly, do a castling sanity check.
Bugfix: When user starts scidvspc for the first time, clipbase is left closed
Browser widget has a nicer button bar, and windows wheel-mouse bindings
Overhaul the Edit Menus
Numerous GUI fixes
Revert PlayerInfo to old format, but add a "Won Drawn Lost" header.
Tweak crosstable knock-out format
Scid vs. PC 4.2
New si4 database support
Include tree and mask improvements from Scid (excepting Fulvio's delayed tree code, which has issues)
Overhaul right-click menu and allow toolbar / menubar / statusbar to be hidden
Allow tournament games to start from current position
Easier 64 bit compilation
Include Scid's correspondence feature
Make analysis widget info properly hideable, and tweak buttons
Tweak game save forms
A couple of Mac fixes, including the broken gamelist widget (bad!)
Restructure game info widget - Player names are more prominent, Length field added, Colors made consistent
Reincluded Merida2 pieces
Remove Repertoire editor (same functionality via Tree Masks)
New Finder rename fucntion
PGN indentation fix (especially for comments)
Work around for batch annotation bug (still under dev by Joost)
Header search widget tidy
New icon
Scid vs. PC 4.1
Quite a few FICs tweaks, including new help pages and D.O.S. attack fixes
Numerous Gamelist improvements (see below)
Tree widget improvements: next move is highlighted, main filter is now independant of Tree filter, wheel mouse bindings.
Tactics feature fixed up: Renamed "Puzzle" , and Problem Solutions can now be browsed in-game
Analysis window "add variation" now *appends* variations if at var end
Comment Editor has undo and redo bindings
Main board grid colour can be changed
Setup board can rotate and flip the board
Clicking on moves in the gameinfo area shows Comment Editor
Better window raising/focusing
Kill analysis window after batch annotations
New marble tile theme and colour themes
Some menu re-ordering
Recent Files menu is basename only
Remove Control+V game paste binding .... too dangerous
Further refinements of Switcher widget and Icons
ttk comboboxes are no longer grey
Analysis widget scrolling will pause to allow backwards review
Splash widget changes, and remove pop-up for missing Bases and Book directories
Rewritten Help items
Gamelist improvements -
Field order rearranged
Columns now sort in both directions, with arrow depicting direction
Deleting items works better
Can be sorted by ELO
Draws sorted alongside no-result
Delete and Compact buttons disable better
Bugfixes -
Twinchecker PGN text diff-ing was sometimes broken
Phalanx observes tournament feature time control
Fix "Show Suggested Move" feature
Fix occasionaly issue with erroneously selecting squares, then being unable to reselect them
Ignore crafty's resignations which caused X-window flash events
No context menu if dragging a piece
RobboLito (and others ?) had uppercase piece promotion which occasionally broke
"Show Suggested Move" was broken
Gamelist sometimes left off the last or first item
Widget tidies -
Analysis engine config widget
Maintenance tweaks
Game save widget made better
Parent Date widget
Delete twins
Database Switcher changes, including new icons
Finder now has three columns (and other changes)
Player finder + Tournament Finder sub-widgets alligned
Statistics window restructured
Scid vs. PC 4.0
Computer Chess tournament feature
The Gamelist widget has been rewritten to work with huge databases. Other new features include a case insensitive search, deleted items are greyed out, and there's a "Compact" button to empty trash with.
Add a background colour option that applies to many text widgets, including gameinfo, pgn window and help window
Restructured the analysis widgets, putting toolbar on top, tiny board at bottom, tweaking toolbar icons and reparenting analysis died error dialog
Update the book and book-tuning windows (untested, from SCID)
Add a new logo, and some wm title tweaks
Board Screenshot feature (Control+F12)
Bind mouse wheel to move progression (and widget resize) for the little browser windows
All analysis windows can now use annotation, and autoplay feature
Bind F4 to start another analysis window
Various C fixes from SCID
Sync the tools::connect-hardware feature with SCID (untested)
When using the setup board widget, do a sanity check about the FEN's castling field
Some minor version fixes anticipating tcl8.6
Small bugfix: variation pop-up could previously throw errors if moving through movs fast
F1 *toggles* help window
Remove space-only lines from project - they mess up vim's paragraph traversal feature
Fics "withdraws offer" fix
Toolbar icons tweak
Allow databses to have "." in their name
Tactical Game stores game result
Set Game Info widget includes Site field
Small "update idletasks" in main.tcl improves main board responsiveness
Fix up the history limit of combobox-es (especially the setup board FEN combo)
UCI kludges for Prodeo and Rybka from SCID (untested)
Turn off craftys egtb (end game tablebook) for the analysis widget
Comment editor bugfix - unbind left/right from main board
Fix for matsig.cpp overflow (unapplied? , untested)
Key binding for first/last game is now Control+Home/End instead of Control+Shift+Up/Down
Perform a db refresh after importing PGN file(s)
Scid vs. PC 3.6.26.9
Added a random pawns feature to tacgame
Added magnetic chess pieces
_Some_ tcl speed optimisations to the main board and material board (and htext.tcl)
Move the crosstable menu item from "tools" to "windows"
Centralise procedures called when switching between DBs
Crosstable: make options persistant, tweak menus, fix html export blank fields
Crosstable: allow spelling.ssp to match initalized christian names, include a Font button, fix parenting
Change the toplevel "wm title" to show "White v. Black database]"
Fics: Make a new Received Offers dialog which allows for proper handling of multiple challenges
Fics: Tweak the Make Offer dialog
Fics: update help files, and add a Font button
Fics: some fixes from SCID
Move the side-to-move indicator to left of main board
Make font dialogs resizable, add a "default" feature, a new "fixed" default, and small overhaul (hard work!)
(Add a "Font" button to the help and crosstable widgets)
Fix focus issues with the Set Game Info widget
Reorganise Scid start-up (includes reading font info before drawing splash widget, removing unused old logo and start-up checks)
Remove quite a few "-background white" statements from all over (to allow for custom coloured backgrounds in future)
Fix up padding issues with the analysis widget's small text widget
Player Info got a fair bit of tweaking - nicer info display (spellchk.cpp, tkscid.cpp) with full country names, and tcl widget tweaked too
Upgrade to toga 131
Remove pocket and help directories
Changed a heap of menus (for example) PGN::File is now PGN::PGN, to avoid confusion with the Scid::File menu
Player Report configuration widget reniced.
Menu name and key-bindings changes for PGN and FEN import
Swapped key bindings for "Goto Move Number" (now ctrl+g) and "Goto Game Number" (now ctrl+u)
Include the highlight previous move feature from SCID (and add a context menu)
(Promise to) fix the Gamelist widget , and add a Comp vs. Comp feature for next release
Scid vs. PC 3.6.26.8
The Fics widgets have been redone, including buttons, the graph and labels, config windows, and console tweaks
Made a few friendly help menus, as well as adding a "Forward" button to the help interface
Fixed up the "Show Material" widget. It can now be flipped and resized, and draws pieces either side of halfway according to colour
The main board area has a modest new right click menu for configuring a few Game Info items
Configure Informant Values widget reniced
Tacgame now has a stalemate dialog
Fics now show a warning when game board is out of sync
A few fixes from Scid; not duplicating variations unnecessarily; Fics socket fixes; Uci responsiveness at game end
The analysis engines now support RobboLito, and an unlimited number of engines
The File::Open menus have had quite a bit of debugging
Some ne tile themes
The pause mechanism for tacgame has be restructured to allow for use with Fics too
Some optimisations to the oft used tcl in htext.tcl
The piece and size menus in the Options widget have been replaced by text buttons
Bugfixes:
A hack to fix wayward comments (Scid)
Don't let fischer chess (try to) castle
Don't raise all windows with double click... (Very bad for Fics blitz)
Minor PGN window/comment strip fix
Some widget reparenting
Scid vs. PC 3.6.26.7
Include a mac configuration patch
Back out broken Fics autoflag code
Fix sometime-issue with material widget outline
Small change to Tacgame about getMyPlayerName
Scid vs. PC 3.6.26.6
The Setup Board widget now shows tiles (when the main board uses tiles) and has improved functionality. It also properly inits the move number, enpassant + castling combos, and side to move radiobuttons.
Fixed phalanx's illegal castling, and sorted out issues with it's opening book and the analysis window
Replaced the hardly used side-to-move and coords buttons with toggle-menu, toggle-gameinfo buttons (Removing the redundant gameinfo right-click menu)
Fixed up the toolbar cofniguration widget, and re-did a few little images
Variation pop-ups now center over the main window, and enable KeyPress-1, KeyPress-2, etc bindings
Added a changelog (help) widget
Allow up to five analysis engines to run simultaneously
Fix the MyPlayerNames widget. (No autoscrollframe, no grab (interfered with Help))
Add MyPlayerName info to Tacgame
Tacgame show a modest checkmate widget when game is over (for the first time)
A few menu/hint fixes in menu.tcl, and a new tile theme
Help window maintenance, including proper positioning, and removing the awful yellow highlighting
Speed optimisations for updating main board
Bug fix for sometime issue with gamelist widget initialisation (thanks Alex)
De-stupidify Save Game dialog (::game::ConfirmDiscard2)
Fix up Paste Clipboard widget a little
Reorder the Options->Chessboard menus a little, giving MyPlayerNames its own entry
Several configuration windows appear centered over main window
Add Control-m binding for toggling the menubar
Scid vs. PC 3.6.26.5
Revamped the main button bar, making it a little larger too.
Fixed installation issues with tacgame/toga/phalanx on unix systems
Restructured workings of the Analysis widget, - the F2 and F3 key bindings can now be set explicitly.
More functionality added to the gamelist widget.
Re-sampled the Alpha bitmaps (thanks to Chessdb), and added support for 75 pixel bitmaps
Quick fixes for the repetitive nature of the "Draw" and "I Resign" messages from tacgame.
Other minor changes: Control-WheelMouse == Sizeup/Sizedown, Variation buttons swap position, Spellcheck installation fix.
Scid vs. PC 3.6.26.4
New Gamelist widget. It's much more powerful than the old one, but is not quite yet feature complete.
Many changes to the Gameinfo widget,
, including a new "Set Game Information" widget.
Stop game from crashing with languages other than English.
Window placement is now relative the main window, rather than absolute +x+y
The Options->Chessboard menu now also includes the pieces menus
The 3 line PGN header is now colour
Home directory is now $HOME/.scidvspc (instead of $HOME/.scid).
Pawn promotion dialog size now corresponds to board size, and overlays promoted pawn.
Stevenaaus
is a uni graduate in math and computer science,
who programs as a hobby in tcl/tk, bash and C. He lives and
works in rural australia, and spends some Saturday mornings
playing against an ancient guy from Iceland.
