scidb-users Mailing List for Scidb

- Synchronization

Steve's suggestion to use a file synchronization tool is a good idea
for now. Of course such a tool has limitations, it cannot resolve
conflicts, this means you will loose the file with older modification
time, even if this file has changed. With other words, you cannot do
changes on both file system, only on one. Only a specialized tool can
resolve the conflicts, hence to have such a tool would be a fine thing. Unfortunately the effort for developing such a tool is high, because
resolving conflicts cannot be done without user interactions -
an automatic resolving is impossible if a game has changed in both
databases - I guess the development time between four and six months
(I took also into account that an additional database file is required
for the change history). Such a tool is far future.

Gregor

> > This can be done by the operating system or a dedicated app (of which many already exist). Trying to incorporate it into a chess app is silly.
   
> Nice to hear that. Can you give me the name of a program that works (i use ubuntu)?
 
Sorry, but i don't use the feature.
But i do know this is not something you want done in a half
baked fashion.

Dropbox has a good reputation, or google 
linux file synchronisation 
 
S.

Steven wrote:
>> From: fb...@li... <fb...@li...>
>> Subject: [Scidb-users] Database format
>> To: sci...@li...
>> Received: Tuesday, 28 February, 2012, 7:06 AM
>>  Some ideas about a new database
>> format:
>> - Synchronization
>> Let's have the same database on a pc and a notebook.
>>     
>
> This can be done by the operating system or a dedicated 
> app (of which many already exist). Trying to incorporate it 
> into a chess app is silly.
>   
Nice to hear that. Can you give me the name of a program that works (i 
use ubuntu)?
When I tried both databases (files) was changed and a conflict was reported
>   
>> - Improve the speed of position searching
>> Scid use only 1-byte for non-queen moves, and it's very
>> clever, but very slow to decode.
>> Nowadays harddisk space is not a problem and a 2-byte for
>> move format will be more appropriate in my opinion.
>>     
>
> Hmmmmm - I kind-of agree with this. But file I/O *is* the slowest part of large DB transactions.
>   
Nope, scid use a very clever tree_search algorithm that read on average 
less than 5% of the sg4 database.
Simple speed test: caching the databases into RAM
$cat scid_database_name* > /dev/null
give only a slight performance improvement.

Bye,
Fulvio

> From: fb...@li... <fb...@li...>
> Subject: [Scidb-users] Database format
> To: sci...@li...
> Received: Tuesday, 28 February, 2012, 7:06 AM
>  Some ideas about a new database
> format:
> - Synchronization
> Let's have the same database on a pc and a notebook.

This can be done by the operating system or a dedicated 
app (of which many already exist). Trying to incorporate it 
into a chess app is silly.

> - Improve the speed of position searching
> Scid use only 1-byte for non-queen moves, and it's very
> clever, but very slow to decode.
> Nowadays harddisk space is not a problem and a 2-byte for
> move format will be more appropriate in my opinion.

Hmmmmm - I kind-of agree with this. But file I/O *is* the slowest part of large DB transactions.

Steve

 Some ideas about a new database format:
- Synchronization
Let's have the same database on a pc and a notebook.
Let's add some games to the database on the pc.
Let's change some games to the database on the notebook.
It would be nice to have the ability to connect the 2 computers on the same 
network and update the databases (add the missing games to the notebook and 
update the changed games to the pc)

- Improve the speed of position searching
Scid use only 1-byte for non-queen moves, and it's very clever, but very slow 
to decode.
Nowadays harddisk space is not a problem and a 2-byte for move format will be 
more appropriate in my opinion.
Decoding (and tree searching) will be very simple (and faster):

uint8_t board[66]; // 64: side to move; 65: castling rights
uint8_t searched_board[66];

while (num_of_pieces(board) >= num_of_pieces(searched_board)) {
  if (num_of_pieces(board) == num_of_pieces(searched_board) &&
       is_equal(board, searched_board) ) return match_found;  

  uint8_t from = bytestream_of_moves.getNextByte(); 
  if (from > 63) {
    // Special move: castle, promotion, en-passant, etc...
  } else {
    board[bytestream_of_moves.getNextByte()] = board[from];
    board[from] = EMPTY;
  }
  board[64] = ! side_to_move;
}

Another benefit will be the ability to store illegal moves (kid games).
Bye,
Fulvio

Thanks for your assessments, Fulvio.

> A couple of thoughts about the GUI layout:
> 1) imho important features should get more screen space.
> This:
> https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2Bzs9hgLILbTdYaXNOYndRdHVwRzRhLV9WdmR5Zw
> is a screenshot of my current scid layout: for me the board is the most 
> important part of a chess program.

Scidb is not yet finished, it is still beta, and probably I cannot
release the first alpha version before next year, there's a lot to do.
One of these tasks is a flexible tiled window layout. The screenshot
http://scidb.sourceforge.net/misc/twm-board.png gives a little
impression of the (planned) undockable and movable windows.

> Screens are mostly 16:9 and so you may consider to move the buttons to one
> side of the board:

Please have a look at the new help page "Usage of the toolbars":
http://scidb.sourceforge.net/help/en/Toolbar-Usage.html.
(Es gibt diese Seite auch in Deutsch:
http://scidb.sourceforge.net/help/de/Toolbar-Usage.html.)
Note: hiding toolbars is not activated in current version.

BTW: Proof-reading of the help pages is welcome! I'm not a native
English speaker.

> 2) Move settings to a dedicated window (and maybe remove the menu bar).
> imho Chrome is a masterpiece of gui design and usability.
> Settings are rarely changed and a dedicated window (such as the one in
> Chrome) 
> is much clearer than a menu bar with a multitude of values (i'm thinking
> about 
> the "options" menu in scid).

Yes, this is a good suggestion. These main menus are archaic, and I
think I will remove it in a future version. There's only one
problem: the Tk menus are a mess, although I'm still using
a debugged and enhanced version. I do not know if I can solve the
problems with these menus; especially that the Tk menus do not
popup to the left side (and the Tk team is always ignoring error
messages).

> The help window you made is a good example in my opinion for a good
> settings 
> window.
> And instead of making them separate windows they could be integrated into
> the 
> notebook with "database" and "board".

I don't think that this is a good idea. In this way it would be impossible
to see both the help page and the concerned window/pane. It is standard
that the help dialog is a separate window, and this is also reasonable.

Gregor

Hi,
i have downloaded scidb code and i think you did a great work!
In particular the icons are very beautiful.

A couple of thoughts about the GUI layout:
1) imho important features should get more screen space.
This:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2Bzs9hgLILbTdYaXNOYndRdHVwRzRhLV9WdmR5Zw 
is a screenshot of my current scid layout: for me the board is the most 
important part of a chess program.
Screens are mostly 16:9 and so you may consider to move the buttons to one 
side of the board:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2Bzs9hgLILb1lRNkVOZjFSeXFKcHo2ZEl2ZFdJUQ

2) Move settings to a dedicated window (and maybe remove the menu bar).
imho Chrome is a masterpiece of gui design and usability.
Settings are rarely changed and a dedicated window (such as the one in Chrome) 
is much clearer than a menu bar with a multitude of values (i'm thinking about 
the "options" menu in scid).
The help window you made is a good example in my opinion for a good settings 
window.
And instead of making them separate windows they could be integrated into the 
notebook with "database" and "board".


Keep on with the good work!
Bye,
Fulvio

The second public preview version, based on revision #250,
is released. Thanks to all who have participated with
translating and testing.

Download:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scidb/files/scidb-beta--2012-02-19--rev250.tar.gz

Scidb's homepage has a new design, and some changed content,
if you are curious visit scidb.sourceforge.net. Best look
with Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome. Do not forget to use
the "refresh" button if you do not see the new pages.
-- 
Gregor Cramer
email: <gc...@gm...>

Zoltán wrote:
> Could you give me some hints how to use the "Marks - palette..."? I
> could not figure out how can I mark anything with the palette :)

Please have a look at an older message: 
https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=28565715
-- 
Gregor Cramer
email: <gc...@gm...>

Hi Guys,

Could you give me some hints how to use the "Marks - palette..."? I
could not figure out how can I mark anything with the palette :)

Thanks,
Zoltán

Very soon a new public preview version will be released based on revision #238. Please check out the newest version for testing. Due to a change in the configure script it is recommended to run the whole process for the build of Scidb:

  > svn update
  > ./configure
  > make clean
  > make
  > sudo make install

It is recommended, but not required, to use option --first-time for the first start of scidb-beta after the installation:

  > scidb-beta --first-time

With this option two new themes will be installed, but all your settings will get lost; the latter shouldn't really matter.

Have a look into "Help"->"What's new" for information about new features.
-- 
Gregor Cramer
email: <gc...@gm...>