want freeware gui with separate analysis window(s)

[zug234zwang]

I just downloaded and started to run slic26v8.exe in Fedora 30, under wine. It looks like the installer was going to work. For those who want to directly see what I am referring to, if you can't get the installer to work, can you provide free cloud storage (or any other facility) for me to upload a zip file that looks like it will be less than 10mb?

If so, I can upload the zip, you can download-unzip it, then try it. Of particular note are the Alt-V command that will create an analysis window at any desired point in the mainline pgn, and the Alt-3 command which will append a scrollable pgn sub-window to the analysis window. This way, you can observe the pgn as you are trying different variations.

The idea is to discard (i.e. close) the Variations window when done, reverting back to the main window. Then you can traverse backwards or forwards to a different point in the pgn, and then (if desired) open a new variations window (via Alt-V again) at the new location.

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, Chessbd.exe doesn't allow any connection to a chess engine.

H.G. Muller may well be right.
I haven't experimented with software such as SCID, SCIDVSPC, or Pychess, so it may well be that using one of those freewares, you could keep a 2nd (i.e. variations) instance always open and functionally accomplish the same thing. It is preferable if someone knowledgeable in a wide range of modern linux-compatible chess gui-s experiments with Chessbd, to see if it adds anything worthwhile.

I am planning to experiment soon with one of (SCID, SCIDVSPC, or Pychess) soon anyway to try the investigation from the other end. Based on my stated typical use, I welcome a suggestion of which to try.

[hgm]

In XBoard you would create a variation by just playing its first move with the Shift key pressed. Before there is a move different from that of the main line there isn't any variation. If the variation was already in the PGN you would have seen it displayed (in PGN text format) in the Comment window when you displayed the game position from where it branched off, and right-clicking it would play the first move of it. In both cases there didn't seem any need to open a new window, as it doesn't seem useful to keep the position from the main line in view. So the variation is simply displayed in the only board window you have. If you had an analysis going on, it will now analyze the positions in the variation, as this always analyzes the position in the board window. You could step through the variation, or alter/extend it by playing moves, or even recursively make new variations on it, just like you could when browsing through or editing the main line. When you are done, you just hit 'Revert' to discard the variation and return to the game at the branching point, or hit 'Annotate' to add the variation to the PGN as a 'recursive variation', and return to the game at the branching point. So you get to see the original position again when it becomes relevant again, and then can continue from there to try other variations on the same move, or first move to some other game position.

[zug234zwang]

To H.G. Muller: Thanks for the detailed instructions.

Based on your description of XBoard and my experience with Chessbd, it seems as if you have nailed it; it seems as if the corresponding functionality is available in XBoard. It will take me a few days to experiment and then report back, in this specific query, my evaluation.

To your knowledge (or anyone's knowlege) do any of SCID, SCIDVSPC, or Pychess offer functionality similar to what you have described for XBoard? If so, I will try one of them instead of XBoard.

[zug234zwang]

In XBoard you would create a variation by just playing its first move with the Shift key pressed...When you are done, you just hit 'Revert' to discard the variation and return to the game at the branching point, or hit 'Annotate' to add the variation to the PGN as a 'recursive variation', and return to the game at the branching point. So you get to see the original position again when it becomes relevant again, and then can continue from there to try other variations on the same move, or first move to some other game position.

To H.G. Muller

I installed XBoard, followed your instructions and verified the XBoard capabilities that you referred to. If I was playing a correspondence game with no chess engine allowed I would still choose Chessbd rather than XBoard for two reasons:

• My chess strength is approximately that of a club player. I am good at logic but have very poor visualization skills. I definitely prefer simultaneously seeing both the mainline board position as well as the board position that represents a variation that I am stepping through. In fact, I might even want to have 3 or 4 board positions open so that I can visualize all of them at a glance and visually choose which path is best.

• I'm not sure how much of this next point is inexperience. Although I was able to save the mainline PGN and the Variation PGN into one file, I could only see them simultaneously if I kept the Comment Window open. Further, when I selected the Annotate menu option, the Comment Window automatically closed.

I would prefer that when the (functional equivalent of) Annotate is selected, the Variation-PGN is immediately added to the mainline-PGN and is immediately visible in the mainline-PGN-list window. Hopefully, when stepping through the altered mainline PGN-list, if I selected move-forward at a "variable point", the gui would ask me to choose whether to follow the mainline PGN or one of the variations. Hopefully, this would all occur before the altered PGN-list is saved to the hard disk.

Chessbd provides both of the above facilities. As previously stated, you can't connect an engine to Chessbd. Further, in Chessbd, if a PGN-list contains a variation that you want removed, the Chessbd gui provides no facility for such editing; the editing must be done outside of Chessbd, with the altered PGN-list then reloaded back into the Chessbd gui. If a chess gui is going to replicate the Chessbd functionality, adding the "remove Variation" functionality into the gui would also be nice.

Certainly this is asking a lot of a chess gui that connects to an engine; the simpler that the functionality is kept the easier it is to prevent programming bugs. Further, it is really asking a lot of a chess freeware gui.

[zug234zwang]

For those of you who want to try Chessbd under Windows 7

The Chessbd install file to download is slic26v8.exe. On another forum, I received the following response re executing slic26v8.exe in Windows 7:

slic26v8.exe is a 32-bit version. It can run under Windows 7, adjusting in properties -- compatibility -- Run this program in compatibility mode -- select Windows NT.