HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN DATABASE IN CHESSMASTER 9000 (File CMinstr2.txt, 30Oct04)

1. After logging in, click on "Database" (or click on "Rooms" in upper menu bar, then on "Database" in pull-down menu).

2. Click on "File" in upper menu bar, then on "New Database" in the pull-down menu. "Create File" window comes up.

3. Leave "Database" as name for folder, unless you are a computer whiz and want to store the game files elsewhere. Empty the "File name" box by deleting with the backspace key and type in your choice of a name for the new database. Try to keep it to no more than 8 characters long. Let's try "Samples1."

4. Go down to next box and accept "Database Files (*.TBG) by clicking on that name as it shows up in the scroll-down box.

5. Click on "Create" button. When CM9000 comes up with a small window saying that "Samples1.tbg" has beeen created. Click "OK."

6. Now you have a space on your hard disk for your own special database files. CM9000 manual says that you can also bring *.pgn files into it. The full path to the folder may look like:
C:\My Documents\Chessmaster9000\Database\Samples1.tbg

HOW TO RECORD ANY NEW GAME AND STORE IT ON YOUR HARD DISK

1. Go to "Game Room."

2. Click on "Game" and on "New Game" in the pull-down menu.

3. In "Set Up Game Details" window that comes up next, make sure that for both the Top and Bottom players the big buttons showing human faces are depressed (click on them if the buttons with the picture of the computer are depressed).

4. Click on the "Time Controls" and set "Same time controls" for, let's say 30 minutes per game, or long enough to allow you to enter all moves for your game. Click on "Colors" and see that they agree with the way you want to play the game (usually White at the bottom).

5. Move the mouse pointer to the end of the name of one player, click, then delete the name with the backspace key and type in the name of the appropriate player of the game you wish to record.

Repeat for the other player. Click "OK." The game board appears. You can add the "Game Status" window next to it by clicking on "Game Status" on the pull-down menu you get from clicking on "Windows" in the top menu bar.

6. Enter the moves for both sides in turn with the mouse pointer. (If you wish, you could play a game against another player here, takin turns to enter the moves.)

7. Click on "Save"in the "File" pull-down menu. "File Save" window shows. In the top box in this window accept the name of the folder (which probably is the same name as you logged in with) in the "Save in" box (or scroll to your own choice). In "File name" box below accept the long file name and date, or type in your own choice of a short file name. In the "Save as type" box at the bottom, scroll down and select (click on) "PGN Game Files (*.PGN)." Click on "Save" button.

8. If an "Annotation Type" window pops up next, accept "None" and click "OK."

9. Your game has been saved on the hard disk in the folder you indicated in step 7, above. If you wish to print it, click on "File" in top menu bar, then on "Move list" that shows to the right of "Print" in the pull down menu, after you have turned on the printer. In the "Annotation Type" window, if it shows up next, accept "None" and click "OK." The game prints in square-to-square notation.

HOW TO ADD THE GAME TO A DATABASE OF YOUR CHOICE

1. If you have created you own database per the previous instructions, you probably will want to add the recorded game to it. By now you know how to get to the "Database Room." Do it!

2. Click on "File" in the upper menu bar, then on "Open Database" in its pull-down menu. Click on the name of your database in the big box of the "File Open" window that comes up next. Check and accept the other entries (including the *.TBG type of files) by clicking on the "Load" button. Now the name of the database folder should show up in the lower right corner of bottom bar on the screen.

3. Go back to "File" on the top menu bar. Click, then click on "Import Games" in the pull-down menu. An "Import Game" window shows up. In this window, the "Look in" box should show the same folder name that you accepted in step 7. in the Game recording instructions above. Look for the name of the game you want to add to your database (you may need to scroll to find it), click on it, check that the lower three boxes show the correct File name, the "*.PGN" type of file and "Open as Auto," respectively

4. Click on the "Import" button. Click "OK" in the following information window. Your game should now appear at the bottom of the game list in the database that you have opened (which is indicated in the far right on the bottom bar on the screen).

HOW TO SEND A GAME TO ANYONE BY E-MAIL

1. It is all very simple if we know enough about plain (ASCII) text files in computers. The chess games in Chessmaster are saved in Chessmaster's own format, which allows for enhancements (such as annotations, illustrated voice analyses, etc.) on top of the plain score of the game. We can strip these files of such enhancements by converting them to *.pgn (Portable Game Notation), or files that are readable by conventional word processors and also by most chess game database programs. (If your word processor, such as Notepad, Wordpad, or MSWord won't read them, just rename the files to have a suffix "*.txt" instead of the ".pgn." Of course, a file in a computer is nothing more than a big chunk of code. Once it is stored in the computer's memory, we can push it around any way we wish.

2. We have learned from prior instructions how to make a database, how to record the moves of a game, and how to store the game (which is a small file) in a database. If we have followed the instructions carefully, the game is stored in the *.pgn format. Now we just have to go to the Database Room in Chessmaster, find the game (or more games at the same time), put them into a bigger file and export that file to the desired destination. OK, let's go step by step on how to do it.

3. We log in, of course, and find our way to the Database Room.

4. By clicking on "File" in the upper menu bar, we get a pull- down menu, on which we can click "Open Database." We do that and a window called "File Open" appears on the screen. In the "Look in" box in this window we see the name of a folder (perhaps "Database?") whose contents are listed in the bigger box below. If the database that contains the game that we want is listed in the bigger box, fine, we select it by clicking on its name (otherwise we may have to scroll from the upper box and look for it).

5. Now we click on the "Load" button. A new screen shows the chess board and three dark areas. The one to the right of the chessboard will show the moves of the game we are interested in. The middle one has a list of the games in the database and we may have to scroll to see them all. The bottom one will follow through the key moves of the opening, as we replay the game. At the very bottom of the screen in the lower bar we'll see the name of the database that is open. (For this sample, we have opened the main data base of over a half a million games that comes with Chessmaster 9000.)

6. We search for a game between Kobalija and Vijayalakshmi by using the "Data Query" button in the database menu. We find it, click on it and get its moves. It is an interesting game in which an International Women's master from India, rated 2275, beats an Elo 2495 rated Russian Grandmaster in 22 moves, but now we are off our main subject... With the game high-lighted, we click on "File" in the upper menu bar, then on "Export Selected Games" in the pull-down menu.

7. In the "Export Game" window, we scroll in the "Save in " box to zero in on the desired destination for our chosen file. Let's say, we pick a: for our computer's floppy drive (if we have it), in which we have placed a blank floppy 1.4MB floppy disk. The large middle box of the "Export Game" window will remain blank, and we check the two smaller boxes at the bottom to see that the first one has automatically picked a folder name like "Loginame.PGN" where "Loginame" stands for our name with which we log into Chessmaster at the beginning. The bottom box should show "PGN Game Files (*.PGN). (If it doesn't, we may have to scroll down to select such.) Incidentally, note that "Loginame" is also the name of the folder on your hard disk in which Chessmaster automatically saves your own rated games.

8. If you wanted to export more than just one game from the same database, you could have selected the others by holding down the Ctrl key as you click on them or, if all of the games came in a continuous sequence, you could have just clicked on the first one and then used the Shift key while clicking on the last one. (To de-select the files,just click anywhere in a blank area.) The total number of files that you have selected will be saved in the folder you picked in step 7 above. If later on you wish to export more files to it, it will be emptied and filled with the new files, provided that you accept in the Chessmaster 9000 warning window the replacement of files by clicking on the "Yes" button.

9. Click on "Export" button in the "Export Game" window. Chessmaster will flash a window telling you that the game(s) is being exported and another window that notes the finishing of the job. Click "OK" in the latter.

10. Now you have the game(s) in the "Loginame.pgn" folder on your floppy disk. You can send the whole folder as an attachment to your e-mail or, if you wish to make it easier for the recipient, you can open the folder in the simplest word-word processor that your machine has (maybe Notepad?), edit (clean up) the files, select the text that you actually wish to transmit by highlighting it, copying it into your Windows' buffer by pressing Ctl C, and then pasting it at the cursor mark in your e-mail letter by pressing Ctrl V. This is a long story, but the process is not difficult, once you get the hang of it.

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