CPT Community

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you have some relaxing days.

A final release is ready for downloading now. This version does not expire although some features will be deactivated after 30 days unless you register it. More about this in a later post.

You can download CPT 4 for free. If you decide to purchase a license for the full-feature version before the new web-site has been launched (which will happen around new year) you can use this coupon for a 20% discount:

xmas2011 (enter it on the order page in the coupon field)

Option 1:  Get Chess Position Trainer 4 via Share!it (does not accept free mail providers like gmail.com)

Option 2:  Get Chess Position Trainr 4 via FastSpring (accepts free mail providers like hotmail, google)

You all have been very patiently waiting for the final release. Your support and feedback over the past couple of years kept me motivated. I hope you like the final result. As a little "thank you" I decided to provide a link to the download page in this post (with a special discount) already before the official launch will be announced in about 2 weeks probably.

This release is still missing a few things, but I didn't want to let you wait any longer as they are not critical. All support material like manual or videos are missing. So, if you have never used CPT in the past you should probably wait till this support material is available. Then the chessboard and pieces are still using the same images. This will be probably updated before the end of this year.

Thanks and enjoy your holidays!

Stefan

The release candidate version is 99% feature complete. The biggest change is the new training module. A show stopper issue just before releasing this new version stopped me from including the last big new feature: new chess pieces. So, this will be saved for the final release.

I really hope the separation of the training functionality will make it more intuitive for all non-professional CPT users (I myself can't imagine anymore how CPT life was before :)). Furthermore I listened to the complains that the program pushes too much the recall mode. It is less pushing now. The clear separation of training modes to learn new positions or recall already learned positions should help too.

Left on the ToDo list are new move & capture sounds and documention.

Download CPT Release Candidate

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I have added a backup system. Once enabled the program will automatically take care that a daily, weekly and monthly copy of your repertoire database is created.

The just released new beta 1.7 is not only more stable, but the sound is back and it has been much improved since CPT 3.3.

If you liked how CPT uses sounds to keep you motivated you will be glad to read (or better hear) that the new beta has not only many new, better sounds, but also some extended "logic" behind the scenes. There are different sounds if you play a move incorrect for the first time or second time. There is even a different sound if you played a move correct after a mistake. Long runs will be rewarded by some nice new sounds.

During the edit mode you will notice many new sounds for moving and capturing pieces which are played randomly to add to the natural feeling (that means: not the same move sound is used for every move). If you move back they are played reversed. There is a page within the chessboard ribbon page which let you adjust the sound settings (if you prefer a more serious approach).

Let me know what you think about the new sounds (and version)!

Download beta 1.7

This happens very rarely, but sometimes you really have "luck" as a developer. Usually it goes like this: A user reports a bug. The developer  thinks: "Oh well, this is a small issue I can easily fix." and then it turns-out it takes hours and days to fix it.

The other day I was hunting a bug which prevented CPT from importing Vietnamese comments from CPT 3.3 into CPT 4. Then I located the issue I quickly realized that this is actually the same reasons for two other, seemingly not connected bugs.

I missed one code line where I was still using "Encoding.Default" instead of "Encoding.UTF8". Just changing this one line solves the import problem for Vietnamese characters, but also the infamous "deleting a move" and "jumping positions while browsing an opening" bugs. To explain why, is probably not so exciting for everyone, but the good news is: I will release a new beta after this weekend which will no longer have these 3 annoying and serious bugs. EPD should work then too and if I'm able to find some new sounds the program will finally have sounds again (anybody with a hint where to get / buy some simple FX sounds is welcome!).

About two weeks ago Rich told me that the program does not run properly with large repertoires. I was aware that it was not yet as fast as CPT 3.3, but at least CPT 4 was supposed to be much better scalable than the previous version and thus it should't get any worse.

Rich sent me his example file. Well, firstly I realized that the import already failed for me (Peter also provided me some very helpful example PGN files). I have no idea how Rich even passed this part. Anyway, after I fixed this issue I was granted to "enjoy" the program with a REALLY huge opening. Just one opening contained 70,000 (!!!) moves.

I quickly understood what Rich meant with poor performance. However, due to the provided extreme example file I quickly found out what is going wrong. After some experimenting I was able to reduce the time it took to calculate the position tree from 47 seconds to 0,1 seconds - with an opening of 70,000 moves.

Excited about these amazing result I started to update several other time consuming tasks in a similiar way. What can I say? Now the program behaves lightning fast even with openings of the size of 70,000 moves.

So, thanks Rich to provide me this great example file. It lead to a delay for the next beta release, but it will be worthwile and the next beta will be a really significant improvement in respect to performance. Stay tuned!

We are reaching a status where the software should be already very stable again. All reported issues have been fixed and many things polished. If you haven't tried the CPT 4 beta, now is a good moment to start!

There are two new things I would like to explain. I have added super tool tips to most commands in the ribbon. The following screenshot shows the difference between a common tooltip and a super tool tip which can be rather complex. This should further improve the user experience and reducing the neeed to look-up something in the manual.

More importantly I have added 4 different training modes. Well, they are not really new, but I realized it was not very intuitiv to understand the fundamental impact of some of the options as they were part of the ribbon like any other option:

The complete line mode is the one which most users usually use. The filter mode was there always too, but not so obviously. The super tooltip explains it in detail. Then we have the photo reading mode which was already a separate command in the past and finally the recall mode.

The recall mode is not to learn new moves, but to recall already learned moves. This mode is always checked before you can use any other training mode, because it is key to the whole training concept that you recall learned positions timely or you will lose the whole effect of the training methodology which is in place in the background.

You can download the new beta here.