Tag: chess book study

Categories
android followchess

Live chess on the web has a new address!

Last week was amazingly busy. We released updates to several Apps:


♞ Analyze This iOS got improved support for annotated games and several bug fixes. ♞ Analyze This Android got critical bug/crash fixes related to game saving.

♞ Follow Chess iOS had a bug related to multi board refresh which went unseen for a while. We fixed that too!
♞ Chess Book Study iOS got support for loading your own PGN files! (finally!) So now its easy to study Chess books and magazines.
♞ Your Move app which is currently on Android, will also be coming to iOS (its with Apple for approval…sshh)!

But the most exciting and well received, was the news about Follow Chess (Beta) on ANY browser!
Just type live.followchess.com in your browser and enjoy live games from top tournaments in a mobile/tablet friendly manner.

Currently its a “lite” version and does not have all the bells and whistles of the Android & iOS Apps. But its a big step for us as well, since its our first product to be publicly available via a Browser!
Any hey, like all our products, its just a matter of time and even this “lite” will get new features and updates!

titbit: This project was conceived as part of our “Tech Tuesday”, where we work on some different challenging ideas every Tuesdays!

I am personally very happy to see a side-project become something more. But what excites me more is the potential it has to further improve how we all experience Chess.

Categories
android chessbookstudy

Whats New in Chess Book Study v2.5! [Android]

v2.5 of Chess Book Study Android app was released today! [FREE / PRO]

Chess Book Study Store!
Chessdom Chess Insider PDFs/PGNs are now available for purchase from inside the App!
Read GM Analysis and reports of the historic Candidates 2014, European Individual Chp or the Gashimov Memorial. More coming soon…
You can even copy the PDF/PGN and view them on your Computer!*
(Please upgrade Ebookdroid (Chess) app to see the extra Menu option. Else use the Quick Action menu > Store)

Annotation Editor
You can effortlessly add annotations and comments to multiples moves from a single screen!

Settings

  • Board Colors – You can choose different Board colors. What more, the board/app background changes according to the chosen color!
  • Sound – Enable/disable sound

Promote Variation
In the Notation view, tap an already selected move or touch and hold to see more options, including the Promote Variation option.

Bug fixes and Misc changes
This release also includes some bug fixes and PGN library changes.

Play Store Links
[FREE / PRO]

* The files are stored on your sdcard. (/sdcard/Android/data/com.pereira.booknboard{.paid}/files/)

Categories
chessbookstudy

Chess Book Study Tips n Tricks

Chess Book Study v2.5 was released today (May 27th, 2014).
These are some handy tips and tricks.

Swipe to load next/prev game
Once you load a game from the Games browser, you can simply swipe the board left/right to load the next/previous game!

Already in v2.1…

Swipe to flip board
Just like the Analyze This app, you can now swipe your finger down on the board to quickly turn/flip the board!
Double tap book to show/hide board
Many of you requested for a quick way to show/hide the board. Now, just tap your finger twice (doube tap) on the book to show or hide the board (and notation)
Free Chess ebooks
You can download some free (copyright free) ebooks right from within the app.
Click Menu > Open eBook > Opds browser (folder icon with a globe) > Free Chess ebooks
Once the book is downloaded, press the Back key and you should see it in the Library, or you can manually locate it in the Downloads folder.
Categories
android chessbookstudy

Read Google Books using Chess Book Study Android app

Chess Book Study v2.0.1 now has a full built-in browser based on Zirco, the open-source browser.
With this the good news is that you can use the browser to read Google Books!
Here is how you can do it:
Step 1: Click “Open Web” and type http://books.google.com in the URL bar as shown below.

Once the page is loaded, click “My Library“. If you are on a Phone or other small screen device, you may need to scroll to the bottom of the page to see “My Library”

Step 2: Once you click “My Library”, Google will ask you to enter your username and password to sign-in. Enter your details and click “Sign in”. You can choose the “Remember password” option if you like. Once you are logged in, you can select your book from the “My Books on Google Play” list.

 Step 3: Once you choose a book above, it would load the book details. Now click on the Book Icon (highlighted below). In some cases, you would see a “Read Now” option to the left. If not, simply click the book image.

Step 4: The book will be loaded and you can move through the book.

In the coming months, I shall improve the experience of reading books online.

(Edit Apr 28) Note 0: The app may crash on some devices while trying this method. I am working on it!
Note 1: Google Books are proprietary and closed source. Hence it is not easy for the app to read the books offline.
Note 2: Unfortunately, Amazon Kindle books are not supported since Amazon currently only supports a limited set of browsers.

Anand, Amazon and Abetment to suicide!

Yesterday was a good day, a very good day. Anand won a surprise game against Kramnik in the last round of Zurich Chess AND Chess Book Study and ebookdroid apps started to function properly in the  Amazon app store after more than 4 months ordeal!

Anand
No doubt Anand’s loss to Caruana was disappointing. Yesterday Anand was playing Kramnik in the last round and I logged in around the half way stage to find that the position was dead equal.
After Dinner, I suddenly remembered about the game and what a surprise awaited me!
This was my first reaction!!


Anand – Kramnik, R6, Zurich Classic – position after Kramnik’s 21…Qb8
Anand played 22. Rxa6! and after 22… Rxa6 23. Qxd3 Qxb2 24. Rb1 Rd6 25. Qxe2

 Qa2 26. Qb5 c6 27. Qb2 1-0 Kramnik resigned!
Guess, this mistake more than compensates for Anand’s incredible blunder against Kramnik in the Zurich Blitz.

    Anand – Kramnik, Zurich Blitz – position after Kramnik’s 44…axb3
Here Anand played 45. Rxb3 and immediately resigned!

Caruana had a dream outing, winning both the Blitz and Classic sections. Congrats to the future champ!

Amazon
After many weeks and months of frustration, the Chess Book Study and ebookdroid apps were finally made live again in the Amazon app store yesterday.

After some release in October, Chess Book Study app in the Amazon app store started to crash. Previously they worked just fine. It was difficult to understand, since the Play Store versions worked perfectly fine too. Versions which worked fine in my testing on the Kindle Fire emulator would simply crash during Amazon’s testing.
Amazon’s testing process is appalling and at times dumb. Chess Book Study and ebookdroid need to coexist. At one point, they approved Chess Book Study app and rejected the ebookdroid and Chess Book Study (Free) versions! huh!? What will a user do simply with the Chess Book Study app if they cannot install the ebookdroid app?
I just told Amazon that they are killing me (with this stupid process) and that they should simply allow me to jump off the Amazon building!! *sigh*

I figured that after uploading the humble app to the Amazon store, Amazon’s process somehow messes up the application. The upload process, which should be as simple as a one-step upload of the application binary, has now become a 5 step process which includes opening up the guts of the file modified by Amazon and undoing the damage that Amazon does to it and uploading it again to Amazon!

However, I am glad that the apps are finally live, although the damage (bad reviews) will be difficult to fix.

Life of a developer is never easy!