Author: William Penn
Date: 09:10:43 02/12/05
re GUI compatibilities - Classic Shredder vs CB Shredder After 5 days of intensive testing, I have concluded that the Classic Shredder GUI (that comes with Shredder 9 UCI from shredderchess.com) is good for analysis, maybe the best in that department. It also has some unique features not available elsewhere. I like it. So it's a keeper. But at the same time, clearly it lacks versatile database and opening book features. Therefore I will have to continue to use the CB Shredder/Fritz GUI for those purposes. I have the Shredder8 GUI from CB which works fine in that regard. That means I will be running both of those GUI's simultaneously, switching between them as necessary, both operating on the same game from the same database. It's easy enough to switch between them with the windows keyboard command alt-tab. But that raises the question of compatibility. Are there any problems running both of them at the same time? So far I haven't encountered compatibility problems, except that they can't both have the same file open simultaneously. But that's pretty basic because they will be operating on the same chess game simultaneously, which means they will both have to access the same database file! I have found that is workable if I'm careful to close the file in the CB GUI before attempting to modify it with the Classic GUI (such as by saving or replacing a game). The easiest way is just to "x-off" (close) the database window in the CB GUI before I attempt to modify the file with the Classic GUI. That's normally what I want to do, and I haven't tested the reverse situation enough to comment. They can both read the same file simultaneously if that's all I want to do, no special considerations there - unless I want to work on the file simultaneously with a 3rd program such as a text editor. In that case the text editor may believe that the file is 'read only' and refuse to modify it, but that situation doesn't arise very often and isn't a serious limitation. There are only two options for database file types for communication between these two GUIs, as limited by the Classic GUI: CBF and PGN. I won't use CBF because it cuts off my tournament names in unpredictable fashion. So that leaves PGN. In my experience the PGN files used by these two GUI's are compatible except they have somewhat different implimentations of PGN. The CB GUI uses more PGN headers, which are dropped if the Classic GUI operates on the file (saves or replaces a game). With that understanding, they seem compatible. If I operate on the PGN database with the CB GUI, it adds some extra PGN headers. Then if I operate on the file with the Classic GUI, it drops those extra headers. So it's a constant struggle between them in that regard, but otherwise the PGN files survive OK. Can both GUI's be calculating analysis at the same time? Yes, but it wouldn't make much sense in most cases, because they would be competing for processor time and neither would do very well. So I don't propose to use them in that way. WP
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