OpenChess

Opinions? IMHO I think ChessOK Aquarium is the best. Why?
1. Great for analysis.
2. You can later download a database of 4.5 million games.
3. Can play online on ChessPlanet.
4. Many themes and really good-looking pieces and boards, and it's very easy making your own themes and pieces.
5. A handicap, which sets the engine playing strength.

What is your favorite Chess GUI and why?

CHESS GUI
simply the best

tano-urayoan wrote:CHESS GUI
simply the best

I never used it so I don't know. Do you know where I can get it?

http://w2410tmq9.homepage.t-online.de
http://biglion.110mb.com

ShredderClassic GUI

Bug free for me - extremely intuitive feel with all the features I need and the ability to work with all the engines I have.

I tried Aquarium - ghastly feel, difficult to use, some user interaction just felt clumsy - ChessOK were great though, they gave me my money back - not many companies would do that so applaud them for their service at least.

I could only echo Razor's comments about ShredderClassic GUI and Aquarium.

For interactive analysis with Infinite Analysis, there's nothing as fast as Shredder Classic, it's lightweight, setting up new engines and editing their settings/creating new personalities are done in a blaze. One can just concentrate in what matters, chess, so I'd say the GUI is "transparent". And it got a really nice Engine Match/Tournament system. I'd be tempted to ask for more features, but I think ShredderClassic GUI's strongest point is its simplicity.

The problem with Aquarium is that most of the developers and beta testers were happy with the interface, so its usability problems never were addressed (they'd think "If it's intuitive for me it must be intuitive for everyone else!") The lesson is, don't let developers design the GUI!

I was an Aquarium Beta tester for a long while, but in the last stages, after I didn't have any use for IDEA, what was difficult was to open the GUI to beta test, what I expected was to use it as my main program and then report problems I faced in using it, but I ended only using it to see CTG books, and that didn't have any problems, so I stopped giving output and was kicked out.

I don't know about Shredder, but yes I agree Aquarium was a bit hard for me at first, but then I got used to it.

However I think I will give Shredder and GhessGUI a try.

I agree with you Ovyron, but Aquarium's UI isn't THAT bad -IMHO-

The current exe file of ChessGUI is version 0.198d

http://www.hugedrive.com/published/WG/s ... =-0b2a2a2f

Shredder Classic GUI. Arena isn't bad though.

I haven't used ChessGUI much, but it's not too bad.

Peter

A few months ago I started playing chess using Scid. Since then, I have tried Aquarium, Fritz, Shredder (not classic), Arena and Winboard.

I find myself coming back to Scid every time. It just has all the features I need in my correspondence chess workflow.

I wish I had the time/energy/dedication to contribute with bugfixes and some additional features that I need in Scid. Or even better, to develop a GUI that focuses on correspondence chess, book making (not for engines), research and analysis.