Re: [Chessdb-users] [Scid-users] ChessDB -3.6.15 released.

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

Bradley Small wrote:

> I just went through the TWIC download process. Let me say that I really 
> like it. 

It seems to be a feature requested a lot. It is one of the features 
requested on the Scid site.

> However, the first time I tried it, I had only CLIPBASE open. 
> Once I got it downloaded, I decided that was not really a good idea. So 
> I created a new database called TWIC, then opened the SWITCHER figuring 
> I could drag and drop clipbase to it, or something to that effect. 
> However, it just sort of hung at that point, and I was unable to regain 
> control without killing the process from the task manager.

I've just tried to reproduce that and can't here, but I will look at it. 
  I must admit, I do not do as much testing under Windows as I should.

> The second time, I started off right by creating a TWIC database and 
> selecting it, then everything worked alright. I still haven't opened the 
> switcher again.

Interesting. How many issues did you try to download? How much RAM do 
you have? I have recently increased the number of games that can go into 
the clipbase a lot (from 50,000 to 2,000,000). A lot of TWIC issues 
would mean a lot of games, which might be an issue if you were low on RAM.

> Here's either a question or a suggestion depending on how things already 
> work. Let's say I want to do a study on an opening, for example the 
> London. As white I am going to do d4, Nf3, Bf4 pretty much regardless of 
> what black does, I am sure I could come up with some black defenses that 
> work similarly. However, in order to do this I want to search out all 
> the games that have those 3 moves or that pawn piece position for white 
> regardless of what black's responses are. Is there a way to do that, or 
> am I suggesting that such a search should exist :)
> 
> -- Bradley

I'm not aware of a way to do it. I just had a look at some documentation 
  which Shane wrote:

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/programmers-reference.php

I think it would need changes to the C++ database code, which is not 
very well documented (I'm also not much of a C++ programmer - I'm much 
happier with C).

The bit needed would be sc_board:

http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/programmers-reference.php#search

but there does not look an obvious way to me, without changing that. And 
how to change it is not obvious either.

If you, or anyone else, can see how to change the code, I could easily 
add a couple of radio buttons to search for a specific black position, 
but ignore the white one.

Dave