A Tribute to SCID vs. PC

Having toolbar icons are great and it's a nice bonus to allow the user the option of which icons he/she wants to see. (OPTIONS - TOOLBAR) But let's face it... these icons are just a bit too small! Ideally, give the user the option to see an icon that is about twice as big as the existing icons. I'd prefer them to be about the same size as the board VCR icons.

(They don't have to be as large as these... maybe 75% of this size.)

When an engine is analyzing, I think displaying a STOP icon, to indicate how to STOP the engine, would be more ideal than the current icon. Likewise, when an engine has been stopped, the icon would display a green GO icon (or something similar.)

I haven't decided if I like the analog clocks or not... I can't make up my mind! But I know I would like the clocks much larger (they're just too small) an option for a digital only clock, with a font at least as large as shown in the example shown above and on the right. (Maybe larger.)

Update: This "wish" has been granted!

SCID vs. PC should be more forgiving when it comes to invalid FENs. For example, take the following FEN position:

rnbq1b1r/p1pp1p1p/4k3/1p1NP1p1/2QP1p2/5N2/PP1B1KPP/n6R/ w

The FEN happens to appear on this webpage. When I copy that FEN into memory, and attempt to paste it into SCID vs. PC, I get the above error message.

Yes, technically it's an invalid FEN... the castling availability is not listed, nor is the en passant target square. (Or the half-move clock tag or the full-move number, for that matter.)

But in this particular position, you can see that castling is impossible... both kings are no longer on their original squares. By the placement of the pawns, you can also see that no en passant capture is possible. The program should be "smart enough" to see this, and paste in the position as it is, without giving an error message. Computers are supposed to be smart and forgiving for us error-prone humans.

And even if one of the kings and rooks were on their original squares, the program should still paste in the position anyway, and by default assume that castling is permitted. Likewise with the en passant status. If nothing is listed in the FEN, the by default assume no en passant capture is possible.

All that should be needed to paste in a position should be the location of the pieces and the side to move. A lot of forums and websites list FEN positions, without also the castling status or en passant square.

Finally, a user should be able to paste in a FEN position, that contains "FEN:" as the first four characters, like so

FEN: 8/p3q1kp/1p2Pnp1/3pQ3/2pP4/1nP3N1/1B4PP/6K1 w - - 0 1

and the program should strip the "FEN:" from the string, and paste the position in anyway. As it is now, the invalid message appears again. It's not smart enough to know to strip "FEN:" if it sees it.

After annotating an EPD file, and then clicking FILE - SAVE, the EPD file is overwritten, without warning. (Then engine's annotations are written to the end of each position.) I'm not sure if this is ideal. What I think might be ideal is if another file was created, which included the engine annotation for each position. Also, a report/score should be generated and saved, indicating the number of best moves found.	click to see the full-size image

When I select an engine, the engine starts analyzing automatically.

That's not always ideal. For example, at times I might want to use the annotate feature. When I do, I find myself immediately stopping the engine.

I think it might be best to have this window appear without the engine starting up. I would have to click the Start Engine icon when I wanted the engine to start.

Update: This "wish" has been granted!

Right-click the Start button, instead of the normal left-click, to simply load the engine, without it beginning its analysis.