ChessBase Light 2007 - part 12

In the last column we discussed entering and saving games. But let's say that you want to open an existing game, add some comments, and then save it back into the database without having the game appear twice in that database. How do we do that?

It's pretty easy -- use "Replace game" instead of the normal "Save game" command. "Replace game" does exactly what the name implies: you open a game, make changes or edits to it, then replace the old version of the game with the newly altered game.

How do you add your own comments to a game? You're playing through a game and want to add a comment to a particular move. Just hit CTRL-A on your keyboard to open an annotation window -- a text box that allows you to type in your own commentary:

Note that the tabs at the top do NOT act as some sort of "translator" from language to language. They're merely a way to actually hide information. For example, if you were to type text after clicking the "Ita" tab, your commentary would be invisible to any user who doesn't have "Italian" selected as a chosen language under "Tools/Options/Language". When you open the annotation window, the language you've selected as your program's primary language will be selected as a default. If you wish your commentary to be visible to all users under all circumstances, click the "ALL" tab before inserting your text; otherwise just use your default language unless you have some reason for using a different tab.

Type your commentary in the box as though you were using any word processor or text editor:

After you've finished typing in your comment, click "OK" and you'll see it added to the gamescore:

Another annotation form you can use involves non-verbal annotations, e.g. Chess Informant-style symbolic commentary. Right-clicking on a move brings up a popup menu. You can select "!,?,..." to get a submenu of diacritical marks (exclamation marks, question marks, etc.) or "+-,=,..." to get a submenu of evaluation symbols.

There's another method of accessing and using these symbols: go to the View menu and select "Annotation palette". This will cause a moveable pane to appear on your screen:

This window contains buttons for the most commonly used annotation symbols. All you need do is highlight the move to which you want to attach a symbol and then click on the button for the proper symbol. Clicking the "None" button removes any symbols currently attached to the highlighted move.

There are quite a few other annotation forms available for your use (most of which can be reached by right-clicking on a move in the Notation pane), most of which have been described in past ChessBase Workshop columns.

To add a variation, highlight the move to which you'd like to attach a variation and hit the "T" key on your keyboard. For example, you'd like to add a variation at White's eighteenth move (something he might have played besides the actual 18.Bf3). Highlight 18.Bf3 and hit "T"; you'll see the cursor jump back to Black's seventeenth move. Now just make your alternate move (18.f3 for example). You'll see your move appear in the gamescore as a replayable variation line:

Then you can just enter moves manually to complete the variation line.

After you've finished editing a game, how do you save it? That depends -- do you want to overwrite the original game with the edits and changes you've made? If so, go to the File menu and select "Replace". This will do exactly as the word "replace" suggests: it will overwrite the original game in the database with the new version you've just created, which will include you changes and edits.

If you were to select "Save" instead (as discussed in last week's ChessBase Workshop), you'd be saving a second, new version of the game into the database; this new game would appear at the end of that database's game list. In this case you'd have two copies of the game in the database: the original version and the newly-edited version. So, unless you want duplicate games in your database, you'll usually want to use "Replace game" to save your edits, additions, and changes.

(By the way, you may recall that we discussed adding chess engine analysis to games in a previous column, and that trying to save this analysis was what prompted our upgrade to ChessBase Light 2007 Premium. Now you know how to save your engine's analysis).

While we're (again) on the topic of chess engines, we'll look next week at how to add more chess analysis engines to your ChessBase Light 2007. Until then, have fun!

You can e-mail me with your comments on ChessBase Workshop. All responses will be read, and sending an e-mail to this address grants us permission to use it in a future column. No tech support questions, please.

© 2007, Steven A. Lopez. All rights reserved.