1. Operations with databases and datasets
1.4. Subtracting and intersecting datasets
1.5. Packing and E-mailing a base
1.9. Opening EPD files directly
6.2. New automatic Engine Analysis Options
7.2 Improved Winboard/UCI Support
7.4 Improvements to Test Suite Mode
9.2.3. Main Console and Message Window
9.2.10. Engines and Advanced chess
An important aspect when working with a lot of information is not only to be able to find what you want as fast as possible, as through searches or other tools, but to be also able to organize your work. For this purpose you've got two basic systems: a series of classes, which are categories (i.e. Historic game, Kingside attack, prophylaxis, etc.) in which you can classify games for easy referral, and a powerful and flexible new system known as Classifiers.
Chess Assistant 6 now comes with 31 standard classes that can be edited by name and/or color at any moment. They can be found in the List window, or by means of a search. Furthermore, you can easily gather games of a certain class and separate them into a dataset or create a new base of them. Special attention was paid to creating easy-to-use shortcuts so that to make working with classes as simple as possible.
Next come Classifiers. Basically, Classifiers is a tree-like organizational system, similar to Windows Explorer, in which you create folders with links to certain games in a base. The following example will help make that clearer.
Suppose you've got a base with every Sicilian game you could find, so that you could prepare a long detailed teaching program. You have etched the following outline:
NB: This modest study program should only take you about 20 years
If you are limited to keeping all this in a list, it would be almost impossible to find your way around, and you would be forced to create a number of smaller bases, no doubt one for each and every one of the items above. This would also mean repeating a number of games since one of your model games for example could also be useful for the thematic pawn structures, and not to mention for the theory itself. Normally, you’d have several copies with one for each of those bases, but with the Chess Assistant 6 classifiers and folders this is completely unnecessary.
What you have to do is open a classifier for the base, and call it “Sicilian or bust!” for example. You can attach a text description (with complete layout and font control), a board position, an image, a video, you name it. Then enter the name of the main folders such as Theory, Typical pawn structures, etc. as in the screenshot below.
You’ll notice that each folder has a number of games attached to it. These are merely links to the games in the base, so that you can instantly access the games linked to that folder. You can also attach a specific Search function to each folder so that it could scan the base for specific games, and if you receive new games (ex: from the CA subscription service) you can make it scan them to see if any of them fit the criteria of your folder. As you can see, this also makes Classifiers an ideal tool for building and maintaining a repertoire.
However, Classifiers can also be used as a tool to create electronic chess publications (magazines or books), so that each Folder would in fact be a chapter or a page. Note that each mode has an unlimited text space, which can accept all types of multimedia items, as well as hyperlinks.
Below there is an example taken from Mark Crowther’s excellent Internet publication The Week In Chess, and adapted to a Classifier to show how it might look.
Classifiers can now Contain Multiple Search Criteria
Classifier context menu: Add to current criteria
You can now add additional search criteria to classifiers. This allows more flexible
classifier specification.
Other Minor Database Enhancements
One of the usability enhancements we have made in CA 7 is the incorporation of tooltips that show which classes and folders a particular game belongs to. Just hold your mouse over the "classes box" that appears before each game in a dataset.
Figure 6, this game has been called out for its importance for opening study, and for the use of the f-pawn spike.
15. Calculating a rating and Norms