Between two databases
Continuing along the series of real-world testing comparisons between CA and CB, I created a set of test positions for my students. Neither db did the job as well as I could have expected, nor even as well as they should.
In order to print out the list of diagrams for me to give to my students, CB either insisted I go through the db one position at a time and collect the starting positions into a “position list”, or go through the entire db one position at a time and enter a “training annotation” before every first move. Can you spell tedious, my child? Why they couldn’t just let me print the opening positions, or select a batch of games and move all their opening positions into a diagram list is beyond me.
CA was closer to letting me do that. In fact, it appears that only an implementation bug prevented me from doing it. CA has a “print x moves” (where x is one of those numeric spinners) option for printing games, which allows you to choose how many moves of each will be printed. So I could have a list view of the diagrams I want to print, set “print x moves” to 0, then print. Except the field’s lower limit is set to 1. CA tech support says a fix is on the way.
As for setting up the positions in the first place, the procedure for both is about the same (tell it you want to define a position, empty the board and select pieces from a palette to place on the board. CA has an additional tool, which allows you to to reposition pieces on the board (with CB you have to select the piece from the palette, click the old square and then click the new square). But the CA palette and board is small, and it’s easier to use the larger CB pieces. (That’s part of Fitts’s Law: the larger the target, the easier it is to click on it.)
In fixing errors after creating the position, though, CA knocks CB all hollow. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a way to edit a position in place. I always had to delete the old position and save a new one (and if the order in the db was important, drag the new one to the old one’s place and fix the sort order). With CA you can edit the position (but if you change the starting location of a piece, it obviously wipes out the moves/annotations). Also, I’d entered 40 positions without giving a result, so CB had the “Line” bit in the results. Since the positions were mates in 1 for white, I thought “1-0″ would be a more appropriate result, so I wanted to change that. I couldn’t find a way in CB to make that change in multiple games other than to make it in each game singly, 40 changes in all. In CA, I could select the games, group them in a list view, and “fill down” that particular field. 40 or 40,000 changes in one operation.
Executive Summary
CB is better than CA for creating test positions, but if you make a mistake in the entry, or if you want to revise the position, and especially if you repeat that mistake many times before first catching it, you’re definitely going to want to be using CA.
CA needs: to fix the “0 move” printing bug, and increase the size of the piece pallete for defining positions.
CB needs: to more readily allow edits of positions. If they keep their current approach, a keyboard macro editor would be terrific. I typed the the sequence “right arrow/control-alt-m/control-v/alt-o/control-r/return/F10″ way too many times to be happy with it. A better approach would be to let me select a batch of games and be able to change any field(s) for all the selected games in one operation, but either fix would be a tremendous improvement on what’s there. CB appears to make the assumption that the user knows what they’re doing, always a dangerous assumption.