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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) Chessbase v Chess Assistant (Read 36077 times)
GMTonyKosten
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #57 - 09/07/06 at 10:27:25
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Apparently 'there is an unwritten rule at the ChessBase company - never write in a forum. This isn't a very old rule, as it comes from bad experience.' Cry
However, I have some quotes from a source in the company, which I have edited: "the first CB9 was a disaster" [there is a major bug fix available since then that everyone should certainly download], "but still I was quick to use the new version for one reason: the 'Reference' function. I even bought a new computer with 2 GB RAM to exploit this function even quicker! I have never learned so many openings in such a short time." 
Well, I agree with that it is very useful ...
" working with database text nearly every day, for me CB9 is a must. 
My first recommendation to everybody: update your CB9. Still it is not stable enough, but my other recommendation: please send information about every crash to us (on our website and then to Support and to Contact and to Mail to support). 
The main problem is that CB9 is overloaded with functions, but to go back and kill functions is impossible! 
Of course, it is a pity that people use ChessBase light, as the new Reader (based of CB9) is much better. But it is not a free download."

Many thanks for that. Does anyone have the Reader? How does it compare with CB Light? Wink
  
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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #56 - 09/04/06 at 20:00:26
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Amarok wrote on 09/04/06 at 13:19:58:
What do you like about CB eBooks?

What I like about eBooks is that you have the text (as in any book) but where the book finishes by 'with an edge, Kramnik - Radjabov' etc. in the eBook you can actually click on the link to the game and play through it complete with analysis, and then use all the other ChessBase features like analysis engine, reference, etc.
I don't see why an eBook should be any less comprehensive than a normal book, I wrote an eBook for ChessBase some years ago and I am sure that if you tried to fit so much information into a book it would run to several thousand pages! Smiley
I must agree with you that eBooks can surely be greatly improved, though (have ChessBase changed anything in the many years since they introduced them?!), and will contact you about your plans.
  
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Amarok
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #55 - 09/04/06 at 13:19:58
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Hello Tony,

GMTonyKosten wrote on 08/30/06 at 13:02:10:
I think everyone agrees that the ChessBase eBooks are a great way to study the opening (or does everyone agree?! Undecided) but there are so many drawbacks.

What do you like about CB eBooks? I personal could never really get comfortable with them and went back to classic chess books even though I love the idea to use eBooks to study let's say a new opening. It certainly sounds very logical given the fact that I want to manage the essence of the books in an electronical way afterwards. However, so far the navigation through such eBooks is IMO not intuitive. I found them also not very comprehensive (in comparison to a book). Though this is not original related to the eBook format, but rather to the authors of them (or guidelines of the publisher?). Btw. I think the style of Convekta eBooks is better, but then again you can't create those eBooks easily yourself and it has some other drawbacks too.

GMTonyKosten wrote on 08/30/06 at 13:02:10:
Does anyone know if CPT can produce something resembling a CB eBook that would be useful for studying openings?


I original created CPT to have an efficient method for learning new openings. The result was the applied flash card concept to chess which by now can also be found in some other programs. 

Now that I'm satisfied with the training capabilities of CPT I'm intensevily working on CPT 4 which will focus on new areas to explore. In context of this thread I will give away two planned major improvements:
- support for virtual any (customer) database. If you are lucky to own any database like Oracle, mySQL, Firebird, MS SQL etc. you will be able to run CPT on it without programming a single line of code, It will ship with a professional, but free database system. This gives the user 100% transparency about the data. No dependency. Extensibility (for the user himself or 3rd party vendors). All the benefits of the usage of a true database system instead of self-made storage systems...
- Comprehensive eBook support. I strongly believe that the current standard on the market is just scratching what IMO a really good eBook authoring system should look like.

I wanted to approach some publishers once I'm getting closer to the next release, but reading this thread I couldn't resist to join. I would be happy to brainstorm some ideas about a perfect authoring system with you. If you are interested in just send me en email.

Regards,

Stefan (Author of CPT)

http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com
  

Author of Chess Position Trainer
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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #54 - 08/30/06 at 13:02:10
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tont wrote on 08/29/06 at 18:14:55:
To answer tonys question any file format chosen should be open so the files are not worthless when the owner dies / company goes bust.


Absolutely! This is why we stick with PGN and PDF (little risk of Adobe going bust!), and this is why it would be nice to find a format that anyone can use (esp. Mac and Linux users) without paying hundreds of dollars to ChessBase (or Bookup for that matter!) or being stuck with a pathetic last century program like ChessBase light! Smiley
I think everyone agrees that the ChessBase eBooks are a great way to study the opening (or does everyone agree?! Undecided) but there are so many drawbacks.
Does anyone know if CPT can produce something resembling a CB eBook that would be useful for studying openings?
I guess we could do something similar with HTML, using our PalView playable games in JS, but presumably this would have to be internet based? Or does anyone actually download these?
  
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Smyslov_Fan
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #53 - 08/29/06 at 21:27:34
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dom, 

It sounds as if BOOKUP understands the nature of the internet and takes advantage of links brilliantly.  While I will miss the odd paper cuts, BOOKUP's format alone has to be a major selling point!

Thanks for the information.
  
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dom
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #52 - 08/29/06 at 20:18:08
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I add Palview can produce HTML/JS like Chessbase...problem: no more developpement about it.
  

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”  - Groucho Marx
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dom
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #51 - 08/29/06 at 20:15:45
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(what follows is about Bookup 2000...I don't know the newest functions of Bookup)

For the question: CAN BOOKUP PRODUCE AN E-BOOK ? ... the answer is NO because Bookup "(e)books" are not Chesspublishing e-books (I looked at one free ebook from main page www.chesspublishing.com).

Chesspublishing e-books or Chessbase e-books are produced from one games list and each game is transformed (with variations) in HTML/JS script...and you have a "linear" text, to be read as a paper book (usually,..from the beginning to the end).

Bookup books looks like a map of positions. You navigate through the positions like wandering in a forest, and comments on position are like indicators signs.

The main point (and one drawback of Bookup) is Bookup doesn't keep track of serial of moves (the path used on the map) when importing PGN games. The only labelled position is the last one with the game header.

Then it's difficult to produce games from a book when one position is reached in two games with two different paths.

One idea is to export all book as PGN game, but there will be too many useless variations. 

It's possible but only with a book like a tree...thus only useful for games in the "updates". Export the book as PGN-many games and import it in CB to make the e-book. 

For book about one complete opening , some more work is needed: put '*' in Opening window for some positions (when the variations starting with the position is not needed ; to clear a transposition path) then import the book in another book.

Bookup users can try another way which is to have many books (and use "add book" to merge all books) but it's more interesting to have only one for transpositions and comments in common.

  

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”  - Groucho Marx
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tont
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #50 - 08/29/06 at 18:14:55
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Sorry for double posting but I should mention the fileformat in CPT is XML/FEN based and therefore open so you can use the files at a 
programatic level if you want. I don't know about bookup but chessbase is really poor in this area.

To answer tonys question any file format chosen should be open so the files are not worthless when the owner dies / company goes bust. 
  
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tont
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #49 - 08/29/06 at 18:08:28
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The ability to hide sections/all of the board during training really helps visualisation and (IMHO) is a seriously underated feature.
  
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Trevormkidd
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #48 - 08/29/06 at 02:08:33
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Markovich wrote on 08/29/06 at 01:15:44:
Trevormkidd wrote on 08/28/06 at 21:13:01:
tont wrote on 08/28/06 at 19:00:23:
Bookup is a blown away by http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/english/default.aspx i cannot recommend this app highy enough.
completly free an interoperable integrated with crafty, back solving great UI.

(No I am not a developer on it   Wink )


I use both Bookup and chess position trainer.  While I do agree that CPT is amazing software I still find it to be unstable.  I have never had Bookup crash on me in the several years I have used it, but having started to use CPT again a couple weeks ago, I have had it crash on me about 15 times and I find the engine works poorly with CPT.  Still that fact that I am continuing, and will continue to use it shows that I think that (with the exception of being unstable) CPT is superior to Bookup in many ways.


How it is better?



I think that there are some things that bookup does better:
Chess engine works better, you can use engines other than just Crafty, backsolving works better, more stable.  I think Bookup is excellent in these areas and CPT is very weak.

Things that I think CPT does better:
Training - way better - there are dozens of ways that you can train with CPT some of those ways are very ingenius, fun and hopefully more effective.  This was the thing that most impressed me when I downloaded CPT a couple weeks ago - I was actually blown away by the training.
Sub-repertoires is what CPT uses so you could have a sub-repertoire for say: Nimzo-Indian another for Queen's Indian etc.  Seperate sub-repertoires for white and black etc.  Whatever your heart desires.  All of the subrepertoires are right there so by hitting the tab for that button you immediately switch into it.  That is not a very good explanation - if you were to download the manual from the site it explains it a lot better.
Endgame and Middlegame positions - I never liked trying to do endgame and middlegame positions in bookup.  I find it easy and very effective in CPT, plus with all of the different ways of training, I think it very effective for that too.
Multiple Candidate moves - one of the things that always bugged me about bookup was that in the positions were I like to use two different moves I would have to manually put one move or the other at the top and could only train that move, then change the other move to the top and then train that move.  With CPT I can make more than one move the candidate move and when training I can play which ever one I feel like in that position.

So I will continue to use both, and I actually find that it is pretty easy to transfer my repertoire from one to the other.  I will use Bookup for working on my repertoire, updating it etc, looking for weak spots, but I will use CPT for training not just my openings but also endgame and middlegame positions.
  
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #47 - 08/29/06 at 01:15:44
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Trevormkidd wrote on 08/28/06 at 21:13:01:
tont wrote on 08/28/06 at 19:00:23:
Bookup is a blown away by http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/english/default.aspx i cannot recommend this app highy enough.
completly free an interoperable integrated with crafty, back solving great UI.

(No I am not a developer on it   Wink )


I use both Bookup and chess position trainer.  While I do agree that CPT is amazing software I still find it to be unstable.  I have never had Bookup crash on me in the several years I have used it, but having started to use CPT again a couple weeks ago, I have had it crash on me about 15 times and I find the engine works poorly with CPT.  Still that fact that I am continuing, and will continue to use it shows that I think that (with the exception of being unstable) CPT is superior to Bookup in many ways.


How it is better?
  

The Great Oz has spoken!
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Trevormkidd
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #46 - 08/28/06 at 21:13:01
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tont wrote on 08/28/06 at 19:00:23:
Bookup is a blown away by http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/english/default.aspx i cannot recommend this app highy enough.
completly free an interoperable integrated with crafty, back solving great UI.

(No I am not a developer on it   Wink )


I use both Bookup and chess position trainer.  While I do agree that CPT is amazing software I still find it to be unstable.  I have never had Bookup crash on me in the several years I have used it, but having started to use CPT again a couple weeks ago, I have had it crash on me about 15 times and I find the engine works poorly with CPT.  Still that fact that I am continuing, and will continue to use it shows that I think that (with the exception of being unstable) CPT is superior to Bookup in many ways.
  
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #45 - 08/28/06 at 19:15:05
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GMTonyKosten wrote on 08/28/06 at 18:02:02:
This discussion on pros and cons of different software is quite interesting, but what I really would like to know is: is there a comparable alternative to the ChessBase eBooks (i.e. text with links to the games) out there somewhere?
It seems to me that this is just about the ideal way of keeping track of all the Chess Publishing material, but leaves us reliant on ChessBase (who, amongst other defaults, seem to be averse to answering emails!) and their limited tools.
Could we do all the eBooks in Bookup form instead - Mike Leahy has often asked me to?! Undecided


I suggest you do a test case with Bookup and see what people say about it.   

Even so, although I've praised Bookup here, I'm not entirely sure that a Bookup file is a suitable substitute for a reference book; there is no table of contents, table of variations, or index.  At each ply, you have your list of candidates and a set of back-solved evaluations, plus a comment if one is given.  That's it.  Or perhaps there is some feature of Bookup that I am unaware of.  It is perhaps worth asking Mike Leahy if ther e is a way to get the sort of "grand" overview that a printed reference work offers.
  

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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #44 - 08/28/06 at 19:14:39
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Can you use it to make playable eBooks?
  
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Re: Chessbase v Chess Assistant
Reply #43 - 08/28/06 at 19:00:23
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Bookup is a blown away by http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/english/default.aspx i cannot recommend this app highy enough.
completly free an interoperable integrated with crafty, back solving great UI.

(No I am not a developer on it   Wink )
  
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