Tuesday, 20 November 2012
The next minor update of CPT will introduce some important new features. So far you could only have plain position comments. From the next version on you have almost all features for writing position comments as any professional word processing program offers.
This is an important milestone for CPT and part of the upcoming new tactic module (which won’t be named like this as it will be much more than just about tactics or end games…).
Ever wanted to use colors? Different fonts (e.g. Cyrillic)? Bulletin points, creating a table or even insert an image? Now you can do all that and much more. For example you could even link to a webpage (or within the text) to provide additional info. I’m sure, not only chess authors or teachers will love it!
Like I said, inserting images will be possible now. And of course, you can finally paste text etc. too. Additionally you can copy the current chessboard image to the clipboard and either insert it into the position comment or any other program.
The feature list is not yet complete, but for next release only these will be ‘unlocked’. It would be a pity to have such powerful word processing feature only for position comments and that’s why more features based on the new word processing functionality will be released in the near future.
There is a small downside though: the PGN format does not support rich text formatting. Therefore the program automatically converts rich text to plain text during the export. Obviously some content like images will get lost during the conversion / export (not in your database!), but the text will be available for other chess programs.
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Comments (21)
Hi Stefan,
great to hear and looking forward to it. When will it be released?
I asked before: I would love to have the possibility to watch the comment at the end of a trained line, before CPT presents me the next line. Is there a possibility, that this feature will be included in this next update?
Thanks again, Wulf
Hi Stefan
Looks like a nice feature. I have a number of short videos on the openings or on specific positions. With this new feature would it be possible to place links to those videos so that when using CPT you could play the appropriate video?
Regards
Dave
You wrote:
This is an important milestone for CPT and part of the upcoming new tactic module (which won’t be named like this as it will be much more than just about tactics or end games…).
Does that mean the next release will allow arbitrary starting positions or equivalent to enable endgame training? I've been waiting some time for this feature, and I'd be happy to finally buy the full version when it is supported. Any idea about the release date?
Thank you! I hopw you will improve CPT as planned. I think that even "beginners" or occasional players like myself will need the future version of CPT, expecially the "tactic module".
Just imagine someone trying to understand, say, the London System. "How can I plan to answer ..." then I have to write comments, positions ... the new versions will help me a lot.
Vielen Dank !
A new module for end game and tactic positions will be not released with this update, but the following one. This should happen around x-mas or January. The rich text formatting feature will play an important role then. The minor update I'm referring here will happen within the next two weeks.
@Wulf: I will try to implement this with the next version. At latest with the following version.
@Dave: I've tried this and it works. You can even link to a local file (besides web, e.g. YouTube). However, an absolute path is used. So, you can't easily move the video file to another location or another computer later. In that case the link will break.
Hi Stefan,
Long time no see. Everything al right?
Hi Göran,
thanks to care for me. Everything is fine. December turned out to be... pretty busy and I had a cold in the beginning of January. I have added a quite few more things and working on the next minor or not so minor update. I will update more often in the future again.
Best,
Stefan
Good to hear!
By the way, Happy New Year
Regards Göran
Happy new year too! :)
Rio de Janeiro, 17 de dezembro de 2012.
Olá Stefan Renzewitz!
This will be a very useful improvement of Chess Position Trainer. For instance, it will allow me to produce some basic and plain explained Repertories in Portuguese, aiding Brazilians beginners to improve their Chess.
If you want a beta-tester to the new version, I am available.
Aquele abraço!
Álvaro Frota
Hi Stefan
Could the video feature open within the CPT program so that you can watch the video and see the CPT chess board at the same time? This is so that can watch the video and make changes to your repertoire files without having to switch between two separate applications.
Regards
Dave
Hi Dave,
I fear the video would be too small, if it would be shown as one of the CPT windows (unless you have two screens or a really HUGE one).
Best,
Stefan
Hi Stefan
These new editing features look great-thanks.
They are though just 'eye candy'. Can you please try & add more speed to the program itself? In training mode when I make the wrong move (which is often!) I have to wait somewhile till it resets before trying again. This gets annoying.How about rewriting it in C for speed?
Anyway I look forward to the next version-thanks and keep up the good work improving it! Best wishes
Hi,
while some features can be considered to be just eye-candy others will play an important role in creating professional ebooks for CPT in the future.
Regarding the waiting time: I assume you don't mean the delay by design (when a visual hint is shown like a circle). I have good news for you: I have rewritten and optimized quite a few code lines. Memory management has been also much improved. That's one reason why the next "minor update" (which it is not anymore) takes so long. I found several places, where I could achieve a significant performance boost by optimizing the code.
Having said that I hope to release the next update finally in February.
Am I completely missing a way to print your repertoire? Even just in an ECO style table? That seems like a natural and easy to do option.
You can print the 'Position Explorer' (activate the window on the 'extra window' ribbon page). It is a very simple print though. I have to admit that at the moment it is not a high priority adding printing features, but this might change in the future.
" This should happen around x-mas or January. "
Which year?
Definately 2013 (and not x-mas). It will still take some time though.
Any time frame for the next update? Looking forward, Jeremy
I'm on vacation from this week on. End of July at latest. I really want to get it finally out. Hopefully earlier, but looking back I don't want to make any promises before that date. Thank you for your patience!
Stefan,
I am on pins and needles waiting for the next update. This program is already changing my life! When I am able to add colors and train set positions it will be a real bonus to an already amazing program.
I can imagine the future there even being audio and video comments.
Thank you!