Chessbase 17 - November 23 Release Date

[Dariusz]

I speak of ChessBase products generally. Here's Fritz 16, which I foolishly bought thinking maybe the ChessBase developers finally got their act together and fixed the UI glitches. Nope. The GUI repaints window panels numerous times before stabilizing. It resizes the main GUI window without asking the user if they wish to transition to full screen. Just decides it's going to do that, user preference be damned. These issues have been present in ChessBase software for years.

Software users tolerated graphical glitches like this in the 90s, not because we liked it but because these defects were common. This is 2022. Why is a GUI behaving like this? I conclude for two reasons: 1) The ChessBase programmers lack the talent to solve the problem and / or the ambition to upgrade a large, aging code base. And 2) they're focused on adding features and don't care about the user experience. They don't view a pleasant user experience as a feature. Consequently, annoyances like this linger unresolved for years.

The mess in ChessBase, Fritz programs, imperfections, bugs, poor performance of the interface, overloading of functions, duplication of functions - unfortunately - it is so.
It is not good that subsequent releases do not correct this. The bugs remain. The user may feel like a beta tester who paid for a product that does not fully meet his expectations.
The pursuit of new features that aren't always useful, bugs that haven't been fixed for several releases - well, such treatment of customers isn't the best idea and looks more like "cutting coupons" rather than caring about the satisfaction of customers - people who pay relatively big money for ChessBase products.
I make no secret of the fact that in connection with running chessengeria.com I have received and am receiving correspondence from many people who are looking for alternatives to ChessBase and Fritz. Why? The answer above.

[Eduard]

I don't have this problem (Windows 10 and 11, 2x Desktop PC and 1x Laptop). I use Fritz 16, Fritz 18 and ChessBase 16.

Overall I am very satisfied with the programs.

Unfortunately the price for ChessBase 17 will be increased. ChessBase 16 costs 120 euros and ChessBase 17 will cost 150 euros.

ChessBase is currently selling CB 16 for 120 euros, see the homepage.

Anyone who buys CB 16 now will have to pay 120 euros for an update to CB 17 (this information can be found in a price list from an another shop).

Anyone who buys CB 16 now will be taken for a fool. Anyone who wants the new features, including a new database format, will be annoyed.

So far, an update from CB 15 to 16 has cost around 80 euros. Now 120. I'm not willing to pay that on principle. If I can't get an update from CB 16 to 17 for a maximum of 80 euros, then I won't buy it.

[Albert Silver]

I speak of ChessBase products generally. Here's Fritz 16, which I foolishly bought thinking maybe the ChessBase developers finally got their act together and fixed the UI glitches. Nope. The GUI repaints window panels numerous times before stabilizing. It resizes the main GUI window without asking the user if they wish to transition to full screen. Just decides it's going to do that, user preference be damned. These issues have been present in ChessBase software for years.

That's not what is happening, it is the opposite. Many users work with multiple boards and layouts, but there is no way for the program to know which one is the default one as opposed to a temporary one, so it 'remembers' the layout (and size) of your last one used and closed. If you close a board, unmaximized, and a different size, and reopen it, it should use that last setup. If you made a mess of it, you can use the Reset to Defaults function. Note that this behavior is standard in Windows to this day. Try opening multiple instances of Windows Notepad and set them to different sizes and places. Now close them all and reopen Notepad. It will use the size and placement of your last instance.

As to the API, Chessbase 16 was built on the very latest one by Microsoft when it came out two years ago.

As to Fritz 16, well, it is 5 years old. Fritz 18, which is one year old, is the latest version.

[jdart]

Another annoyance is PGN file handling. If you have games in a PGN file, copy to the clipboard and try to paste into another big PGN file, that is slooow and the screen flickers while it's doing it. All you're doing is appending to a file. That should be super-fast on a modern machine. I have actually wound up creating a ChessBase database, putting the games in there, copying from that DB, and then pasting into PGN. That is fast.

[Magnum]

I wonder why you wonder.
ChessBase is ChessBase.

ChessBase 17 without Fritz 18 features and without IDEA / ECA would be a no go.

BanksiaGUI is much better and will have (sooner or later) everything.
https://banksiagui.com/download/

[Modern Times]

BanksiaGUI is much better and will have (sooner or later) everything.
https://banksiagui.com/download/

Far more buggy than Chessbase. A couple of CCRL testers made really determined efforts with it but gave up due to the bugs. I'm sure they will be fixed though. It is in continuous development.

[Werewolf]

BanksiaGUI is much better and will have (sooner or later) everything.
https://banksiagui.com/download/

And it works on MacOS

[Dariusz]

BanksiaGUI is much better and will have (sooner or later) everything.
https://banksiagui.com/download/

And it works on MacOS

And it works on Linux

[Albert Silver]

Another annoyance is PGN file handling. If you have games in a PGN file, copy to the clipboard and try to paste into another big PGN file, that is slooow and the screen flickers while it's doing it. All you're doing is appending to a file. That should be super-fast on a modern machine. I have actually wound up creating a ChessBase database, putting the games in there, copying from that DB, and then pasting into PGN. That is fast.

I don't have any large PGN bases that I work with, but will ask why you are using a clipboard as an intermediary. Why not just drag and drop the games from one to the other?

That said if you are really just appending one file to the next you don't even need a tool for that, though PGN-extract can handle it. You can just do it from a CMD window:

type bigass.pgn >> biggerass.pgn in which Windows appends the first to the second.

[Joerg Oster]

Hmm, this just looks like a glitch with the display driver than anything else.
Just a guess, though.