Banksia GUI released

[AlexChess]

I think Pham made an error from the beginning: instead of developing Banksia GUI the way he thought it would make sense, he listened to endless and so often futile requests. Banksia is unusable for anything except -- just like the string of requests -- endless eng-eng tournaments. One cannot load a slightly more annotated pgn (annotations are not visible), and any operation has become over-complicated.

IMHO, he should stop listening to any of us and focus on what he thinks is worthy, or to the needs of his target group -- if it is a larger slice of users, chess players/amateurs, he is obviously on the wrong path. The same happened with Arena.

You are wrong! I'm sure that Pham appreciates our feedbacks, every betatester and supporter is absolutely focused on a specific area. It's a really complex GUI with millions on features and he quickly fixes all glitches (now the tournaments management IS PERFECT) and adds new incredible functions with every new build.
He's always kind and hears our suggestions. The graphic is superlative and absolutely customizable. I have asked the same to Arena author Martin Blume by email, thanking him for Arena, but asking to fix some big bugs and he haven't even answered me a single word. It's closed source, written in Delphi and so no one can correct or improve it anymore

...And now I do another PayPal donation to Pham!

[Eduard]

I think Pham made an error from the beginning: instead of developing Banksia GUI the way he thought it would make sense, he listened to endless and so often futile requests. Banksia is unusable for anything except -- just like the string of requests -- endless eng-eng tournaments. One cannot load a slightly more annotated pgn (annotations are not visible), and any operation has become over-complicated.

IMHO, he should stop listening to any of us and focus on what he thinks is worthy, or to the needs of his target group -- if it is a larger slice of users, chess players/amateurs, he is obviously on the wrong path. The same happened with Arena.

1. The most important things are the basics! No wishes from people are required for this. The basics include that you can work with both mouse buttons, that analyzes, FEN and PGN are easy to copy.

2. You should be able to work intuitively with a GUI. Here in the picture you can see two photos from the Fritz GUI:

Here all fundamentally important functions can be opened with just one click of the mouse.





I am used to working like this. Of course I would also like to be able to choose my own fonts, just as I like it !!



Unfortunately, there is no such thing at Banksia. Instead, a thousand new arrows and countless crazy graphics.

[Eduard]

I think Pham made an error from the beginning: instead of developing Banksia GUI the way he thought it would make sense, he listened to endless and so often futile requests. Banksia is unusable for anything except -- just like the string of requests -- endless eng-eng tournaments. One cannot load a slightly more annotated pgn (annotations are not visible), and any operation has become over-complicated.

IMHO, he should stop listening to any of us and focus on what he thinks is worthy, or to the needs of his target group -- if it is a larger slice of users, chess players/amateurs, he is obviously on the wrong path. The same happened with Arena.

You are wrong! I'm sure that Pham appreciates our feedbacks, every betatester and supporter is absolutely focused on a specific area. It's a really complex GUI with millions on features and he quickly fixes all glitches (now the tournaments management IS PERFECT) and adds new incredible functions with every new build.
He's always kind and hears our suggestions. The graphic is superlative and absolutely customizable. I have asked the same to Arena author Martin Blume by email, thanking him for Arena, but asking to fix some big bugs and he haven't even answered me a single word. It's closed source, written in Delphi and so no one can correct or improve it anymore

...And now I do another PayPal donation to Pham!

Millions of functions, but the basics are missing. By the way, I've already sent a donation for Banksia. I support several projects.

[Cornfed]

I think Pham made an error from the beginning: instead of developing Banksia GUI the way he thought it would make sense, he listened to endless and so often futile requests. Banksia is unusable for anything except -- just like the string of requests -- endless eng-eng tournaments. One cannot load a slightly more annotated pgn (annotations are not visible), and any operation has become over-complicated.

IMHO, he should stop listening to any of us and focus on what he thinks is worthy, or to the needs of his target group -- if it is a larger slice of users, chess players/amateurs, he is obviously on the wrong path. The same happened with Arena.

You are wrong! I'm sure that Pham appreciates our feedbacks, every betatester and supporter is absolutely focused on a specific area. It's a really complex GUI with millions on features and he quickly fixes all glitches (now the tournaments management IS PERFECT) and adds new incredible functions with every new build.
He's always kind and hears our suggestions. The graphic is superlative and absolutely customizable. I have asked the same to Arena author Martin Blume by email, thanking him for Arena, but asking to fix some big bugs and he haven't even answered me a single word. It's closed source, written in Delphi and so no one can correct or improve it anymore

...And now I do another PayPal donation to Pham!

Pham 'appreciating' feedback I am sure is true....and he's very responsive....but what matejst's and Eduard post can be true as well. Think about it.
It's really the reason I still only use the quick/easy/intuitive Fritz GUI. Banksia is a 'hot mess' in comparison....at least for my needs.

[shaoxinyu]

@Eduard

You may just use Chessbase. Chessbase is the best in annotating games and managing databases. I don't think we should expect a single developer to do something better than Chessbase: it is not a big issue to add new functions, but the optimization (e.g. loading a pgn containing thousands of games) and stability (no crash, and can load a pgn where some games are broken) are not easy tasks.

btw: the thinking arrow is useful for me: I don't want to use the pv board and I am not good enough to think the line in my brain.

@Cornfed @matejst

I agree it depends on the author to make decisions. For me, I would like to have a GUI for engine testing (maybe not well-optimized like cutechess) but containing more options for users. For learning and managing databases I would just use Chessbase.

[Eduard]

@Eduard

You may just use Chessbase. Chessbase is the best in annotating games and managing databases. I don't think we should expect a single developer to do something better than Chessbase: it is not a big issue to add new functions, but the optimization (e.g. loading a pgn containing thousands of games) and stability (no crash, and can load a pgn where some games are broken) are not easy tasks.

btw: the thinking arrow is useful for me: I don't want to use the pv board and I am not good enough to think the line in my brain.

@Cornfed @matejst

I agree it depends on the author to make decisions. For me, I would like to have a GUI for engine testing (maybe not well-optimized like cutechess) but containing more options for users. For learning and managing databases I would just use Chessbase.

If you can't even copy a simple analysis, that's very disappointing, sorry. Also the impossibility to change fonts. I will not use 0.51, I will probably delete this GUI. Have fun with the many new arrows.

[shaoxinyu]

@Eduard

You may just use Chessbase. Chessbase is the best in annotating games and managing databases. I don't think we should expect a single developer to do something better than Chessbase: it is not a big issue to add new functions, but the optimization (e.g. loading a pgn containing thousands of games) and stability (no crash, and can load a pgn where some games are broken) are not easy tasks.

btw: the thinking arrow is useful for me: I don't want to use the pv board and I am not good enough to think the line in my brain.

@Cornfed @matejst

I agree it depends on the author to make decisions. For me, I would like to have a GUI for engine testing (maybe not well-optimized like cutechess) but containing more options for users. For learning and managing databases I would just use Chessbase.

If you can't even copy a simple analysis, that's very disappointing, sorry. Also the impossibility to change fonts. I will not use 0.51, I will probably delete this GUI. Have fun with the many new arrows.

The engine info contains every information you need and I don't know what the ChessBase analysis can give you more.

It's your freedom to do anything but I don't think it polite to say something here. I am always fine with any idea you suggest but it seems you only concern your demands.

[AlexChess]

@Eduard

You may just use Chessbase. Chessbase is the best in annotating games and managing databases. I don't think we should expect a single developer to do something better than Chessbase: it is not a big issue to add new functions, but the optimization (e.g. loading a pgn containing thousands of games) and stability (no crash, and can load a pgn where some games are broken) are not easy tasks.

btw: the thinking arrow is useful for me: I don't want to use the pv board and I am not good enough to think the line in my brain.

@Cornfed @matejst

I agree it depends on the author to make decisions. For me, I would like to have a GUI for engine testing (maybe not well-optimized like cutechess) but containing more options for users. For learning and managing databases I would just use Chessbase.

+1

[Cornfed]

@Cornfed @matejst

I agree it depends on the author to make decisions. For me, I would like to have a GUI for engine testing (maybe not well-optimized like cutechess) but containing more options for users. For learning and managing databases I would just use Chessbase.

Hey, don't get me wrong, Banksia has all kinds of cute bells and whistles. That's fine. ALL I was saying was that for something like a simple engine match - like I did last weekend - it's just easier for me to to take a pgn file (Silver Suite was what I used) and run a match using Fritz (you can't do this with Chessbase of course so I don't know why you even say that). Being able to open the file sometimes within Chessbase for further research is a bonus of course.

[carldaman]

@Eduard

You may just use Chessbase. Chessbase is the best in annotating games and managing databases. I don't think we should expect a single developer to do something better than Chessbase: it is not a big issue to add new functions, but the optimization (e.g. loading a pgn containing thousands of games) and stability (no crash, and can load a pgn where some games are broken) are not easy tasks.

btw: the thinking arrow is useful for me: I don't want to use the pv board and I am not good enough to think the line in my brain.

@Cornfed @matejst

I agree it depends on the author to make decisions. For me, I would like to have a GUI for engine testing (maybe not well-optimized like cutechess) but containing more options for users. For learning and managing databases I would just use Chessbase.

If you can't even copy a simple analysis, that's very disappointing, sorry. Also the impossibility to change fonts. I will not use 0.51, I will probably delete this GUI. Have fun with the many new arrows.

The engine info contains every information you need and I don't know what the ChessBase analysis can give you more.

It's your freedom to do anything but I don't think it polite to say something here. I am always fine with any idea you suggest but it seems you only concern your demands.

Those concerns can be shared by many other users. That's actually the most useful kind of feedback.