scidb-users Mailing List for Scidb

> I was wrong that Icofy.si4 is
> ISO-8859-1 encoded, indeed the correct
> encoding is CP-850 (DOS code page). That means opening the
> database
> with Scid will give some garbage (because the system
> ecoding is usually
> ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8). Try to open Icofy.si4 with encoding
> cp850 and
> look at game 275214, only with cp850 the name of the black
> player is correct.

Our icofy DBs seem out of sync, as i can't see any problem with #275214... but doesn't matter.

> It's quite annoying that the user has to guess the right
> encoding,
> but I do not know any way to auto-detect the encoding. 
> Does anyone know a solution?

Haha... does *anyone* know more about Tcl string encodings than you ?!

But I don't think you should grey the 'File encoding' entrybox. It indicates that this item is not changeable.

Ordinarily this widget should be a dropbox, but because of the size of the encoding selection widget, it is not and you probably need another widget for "Select encoding".

Or two other ideas: 
1. replace the "File encoding" label with a "Select encoding" *button*.
2. or make the entry box a "dummy" dropbox and
'bind dropbox <FocusIn> {create encoding toplevel dialog}'

Steve

I was wrong that Icofy.si4 is ISO-8859-1 encoded, indeed the correct
encoding is CP-850 (DOS code page). That means opening the database
with Scid will give some garbage (because the system ecoding is usually
ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8). Try to open Icofy.si4 with encoding cp850 and
look at game 275214, only with cp850 the name of the black player is
correct.

It's quite annoying that the user has to guess the right encoding,
but I do not know any way to auto-detect the encoding. Does anyone
know a solution?

Gregor

> 1. Opening my sa.si4 database reports a plain "Encoding utf-8 failed" dialog (no matter how opened)

It's a problem with repeated opening of the dialog. Will work with next revision.

> 2. Opening icofy from the new file open menu only fails

The problem occurs while opening a database with the wrong encoding. In this case invalid UTF-8 strings are read from the namebase, and my conversion function which forces valid UTF-8 strings failed. I've fixed this function, now Icofy.si4 will be opened properly. But the player/event/site names are garbage if opened with the wrong encoding.

Note that this encoding problem is a Scid related problem. The Scid database does not contain information about the character encoding, and it can by any encoding (but normally it is ISO-8859-1 on older Unix/Linux versions, and UTF-8 on newer Unix/Linux versions). If a message "Encoding <encoding-name> failed" occurs after opening a database, you may try to recode with a different encoding (use "Recode..." from the context menu).

> Both these DBs open fine in Scid.

Yes, but only if you're system has the same encoding used by Icofy.si4 (ISO-8859-1). If a chinese is opening this database - on his machine the system encoding may be Big-5 - some of the player/event/site names will be garbage if he opens the database with Scid. Try it out. Insert the command
  encoding system big5 ;# simulating a Big-5 system encoding
in file start.tcl, open Icofy.si4 and look at game 275241. Scidb provides the option to choose the right encoding, Scid does not.

> My main criticisms is still that the interfaces are very non-standard

I think you mean the main menu. I will re-implement the main menus at the latest with the alpha release. But consider that main menus are not state of the art. Modern applications do avoid main menus, look at the latest Firefox. The main issues with main menus are:
  - huge and confusing
  - missing context
I will keep the main menus relatively small.

> and huge context menus should be avoided imho.

You're right, I have to rebuild some of the context menus.

Gregor
-- 
Gregor Cramer
email: <gc...@gm...>

Hi Gregor

>   2. I've invented a new type of a comment, so called
> 'move
>      information'. Some examples:
>        - Players Clock (PGN
> notation: [%clk 1:05:23])
>        - Elapsed Move Time (PGN
> notation: [%emt 0:05:42])
>        - Evaluation Information
> (PGN notation: [%eval -6.05])
>        - Correspondence Chess Sent
> (PGN notation: [%ccsnt 2011.06.16])
>        - some more...
>      This comment type allows a compact
> storage, and a special
>      display/editing handling in the
> PGN/board pane (the latter
>      is not yet implemented).

Good idea.

>   3. Bug in position tree building fixed (which
> requires a change of
>      the database format).
> 
> - New file selection dialog. 

Si4 file opening seems to have a few bugs

1. Opening my sa.si4 database reports a plain "Encoding utf-8 failed" dialog (no matter how opened)
2. Opening icofy from the new file open menu only fails
(This does not happen when opening from the "Open Recent" db context menu).

Both these DBs open fine in Scid. Backtrace is below.

> - Speed improvement of Html window (used by the tournament
> table),

Yes, alot faster.

> - A game history, which overlays the PGN window if no game
> is loaded.

Nice feature
 
My main criticisms is still that the interfaces are very non-standard, and huge context menus should be avoided imho.

Steve



Icofy open fails with----------------------------------------------------------

(func) firstCharToUpper
(file) sys_utf8_codec.cpp:2100
(what) precondition violation: validateUtf8(name)
(type) mstl::precondition_violation_exception
.....
=== Backtrace ============================================
 sys::utf8::Codec::firstCharToUpper [sys_utf8_codec.cpp:2100]
 db::Player::normalize [db_player.cpp:687]
 db::Player::findPlayer [db_player.cpp:808]
 db::Namebase::insertPlayer [db_namebase.cpp:438]
 db::si3::Codec::readNamebase [si3/si3_codec.cpp:1698]
 db::si3::Codec::readNamebases [si3/si3_codec.cpp:1547]
.....

    while executing
"::util::catchIoError [list ::progress::start $parent $cmd $args $options]"
    (procedure "::application::database::openBase" line 52)
    invoked from within
"::application::database::openBase $parent {*}$result"
    (procedure "::menu::dbOpen" line 6)
    invoked from within
"::menu::dbOpen .application "

I'm planning a new public beta release based on revision #100.

The highlights of revision #100:

- Many, many bug-fixes.

- Change of the .sci database format (and automatic upgrade from
  old to new version).
  1. The old version wasn't platform independent (litte/big endian
     problem). The new version hopefully is platform independent.
     I cannot test this because I do not own a machine with a big
     endian architecture (like PowerPC).
  2. I've invented a new type of a comment, so called 'move
     information'. Some examples:
       - Players Clock (PGN notation: [%clk 1:05:23])
       - Elapsed Move Time (PGN notation: [%emt 0:05:42])
       - Evaluation Information (PGN notation: [%eval -6.05])
       - Correspondence Chess Sent (PGN notation: [%ccsnt 2011.06.16])
       - some more...
     This comment type allows a compact storage, and a special
     display/editing handling in the PGN/board pane (the latter
     is not yet implemented).
  3. Bug in position tree building fixed (which requires a change of
     the database format).

- New file selection dialog. I discarded the Tk dialog, because it
  is not state of the art, and the selection of the character
  encoding was missing. The new dialog has some nice features like
  renaming and deleting databases.

- Speed improvement of Html window (used by the tournament table),
  especially the missing double buffering (fast redraw) is now
  implemented.

- A game history, which overlays the PGN window if no game is loaded.

- Current game now will be highlighted if in trial mode.

- Speed up of save/replace dialog (popup time of repeated opening).

- Tournament table (cross-table) enhanced.

- Export to .si3/si4: Additional tab for selection of the exported
  tags. This is necessary to limit the database size, which affects
  the search time of the opening tree.

- Comment editor improved (and fixed).

- New function in PGN editor: copy/move comments from one
  language code to another language code.

For update to the newest revision, change to your installation
directory of Scidb and do the following:

  > svn update
  > make clean
  > make
  > sudo make install

If you like to see move information in the PGN window, download
<http://scidb.sourceforge.net/aquarium.pgn.gz>. This PGN collection
is an example for Rybka-Aquarium PGN support, too. Ignore the warnings
during the import, the quality of the PGN files provided from
Rybka is poor.

Comments and proposals are welcome.

Have a nice time,
Gregor


PS: Giovanni and Fernando, please do the translation of new messages,
which are tagged with "NEW". Thanks!