(no subject)
I just installed Fritz Chess 11 on Orac II, and by God I got a shock. After having been playing Chessmaster 11 for the last few months I found myself reeling a little at this utterly weird piece of software.
Good
My problem with the Fritz UI in 11 is mainly that it simply doesn't work. Suppose you want to practise your 2 Bishop Mate endgames as White with two bishops, black with just the king. You simply cannot do it without jumping through a bizarre trial-and-error process where the rules seem to change each time. The help and coaching functions are all over the place: we have a kibitzer, a coach, a spy, the computer opponent and the settings for each are scattered in the most obscure places. Half the time you won'te even know if you actually have an opponent or not.
Fritz 12 is out, and sports a new interface, with a streamlined menu system, and a ribbon, like in Word/Excel etc. whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen, but an interface that simply works would be a bloody improvement.
Good
- The 'chatter' is a genuinely rather funny option that gives Fritz real personality
- The expandability: it plays the Chessbase tutorial videos in a little window whilst moving the pieces around and illustrating the board with arrows and stuff. This is really useful.
- It plays a great game of chess. But...
- The interface. Really it is atrocious...
- ...I select the Training Mode, select Endgame Training, play through an endgame drill. I finish and that's it, no 'would you like to replay?' or anything. I click around looking for an option to practise again, the only option I can find is New Game. This sets up the board for a new game of chess, not an endgame drill. I go to select Endgame Training again, and get told I have just turned Endgame Training off. I try turning it on again, and I'm playing Black. I get no choice as to whether I play Black or White, it seems. There's a tick box near where you select the Endgame Training marked 'change sides', but that seems to have no relation to what I actually get to play. At one attempt I find myself inexplicably playing both sides, and unable to exit.
- I spend a few minutes rearranging the workspace, as I do in Photoshop, Visual Studio etc. I save the layout. the first time I reload it, the colours are all wrong. I go into the options, and the menus are textured for some reason. The clock is also resized to being a third of the screen. I sort that out, click 'Apply', and the window background turns beige.
- The notation window simply does not work. Unless of course it's supposed to write text over itself without any carriage returns.
- The bit that records which pieces have been taken does not work. I take a bishop, and the pawn disappears from the window.
- There have been updates, but Chessbase don't tell anyone about them, and hide them away on an obscure ftp server somewhere. You cannot tell which edition of Fritz you are using by clicking on Help or About either.
My problem with the Fritz UI in 11 is mainly that it simply doesn't work. Suppose you want to practise your 2 Bishop Mate endgames as White with two bishops, black with just the king. You simply cannot do it without jumping through a bizarre trial-and-error process where the rules seem to change each time. The help and coaching functions are all over the place: we have a kibitzer, a coach, a spy, the computer opponent and the settings for each are scattered in the most obscure places. Half the time you won'te even know if you actually have an opponent or not.
Fritz 12 is out, and sports a new interface, with a streamlined menu system, and a ribbon, like in Word/Excel etc. whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen, but an interface that simply works would be a bloody improvement.