Sophie: scid-3.6.1-6mdv2008.1 x86

scid-3.6.1-6mdv2008.1.x86_64.rpm

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Scid Help: 
Database maintenance
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<h1>Database maintenance</h1>
<p>
Scid provides a number of tools for maintaining databases,
available from the Scid <a href="Menus.html\#File">File</a> menu. The
database <a href="Compact.html">compaction</a> and <a href="Sorting.html">sorting</a>
functions are explained in separate help pages.
</p>

<h3>Maintenance window</h3>
<p>
Most Scid database maintenance can be done from the Maintenance
window, which can be opened from the <b><font color="#007000">[File: Maintenance]</font></b>
or <b><font color="#007000">[Windows]</font></b> menus or the shortcut key <b>Ctrl+M</b>.
</p>
<p>
You can use this window to maintain <a href="Flags.html">game flags</a>,
spellcheck names, <a href="Compact.html">compact</a> or <a href="Sorting.html">sort</a>
a database. Note that any operations that are not available
for the current database (for example, because it may be read-only
or a PGN file) will be grayed out.
</p>

<h3><a name="Twins">Deleting twin games</a></h3>
<p>
The <b><font color="#007000">[File: Maintenance]</font></b> menu has a command
<b><font color="#007000">[Delete twin games...]</font></b> for detecting extra copies
(twins) of games in the database.
This command finds all pairs of games that are twins and, for each pair,
flags the shorter game deleted leaving the longer game undeleted.
Two games are considered to be twins if their players
(and any other tags that you can optionally specify) match exactly.
</p>
<p>
If you specify the "same moves" option, each pair of games must have the
same actual moves up to the length of the shorter game (or up to move 60,
whichever comes first) to be twins.
</p>
<p>
When you have deleted twins, it is a good idea to check that each
game deleted really is a copy of another game.
You can do this easily if you selected the
"<b>Set filter to all deleted games</b>" option in the
delete twins dialog box. The filter will now contain all deleted games.
You can browse through them (using the <b>p</b> and <b>n</b> keys) with
the <b><i><font color="#990000">twins checker</font></i></b> window (available from the maintenance
menu, or the shortcut key <b>Ctrl+Shift+T</b>) to verify that each game is
deleted because it actually is a twin of another game.
</p>

<h3><a name="Editing">Editing player, event, site and round names</a></h3>
<p>
You may find mis-spelt names in your databases and want to correct them.
You can do this in Scid with the <b><i><font color="#990000">Name editor</font></i></b> window
(shortcut key: <b>Control+Shift+N</b>),
available from the <b><font color="#007000">[File: Maintenance]</font></b> submenu.
</p>
<p>
Each unique name is only stored once in the name file, so changing a name
actually changes all occurrences of it.
</p>

<h3><a name="Spellcheck">Spellchecking names</a></h3>
<p>
Scid comes with a <b><i><font color="#990000">spellcheck</font></i></b> file named <b>spelling.ssp</b>,
for correction of player, event, site and round names.
Scid will try to load the spellcheck file whenever it starts up; if it
does not load, you can load it from the <b><font color="#007000">[Options]</font></b> menu.
</p>
<p>
Once the spellcheck file is loaded, you can use it on a
a Scid database using the spellcheck commands in the
<b><font color="#007000">[File: Maintenance]</font></b> menu, or from the maintenance window.
</p>
<p>
When you spellcheck a database, Scid produces a list of corrections that you
can edit before actually making any corrections, so you can remove any
corrections you do not want to make.
</p>
<p>
Spellchecking is especially useful for standardizing a database so all
instances of a particular player are spelt the same way.
For example, with the standard spellcheck file, the names "Kramnik,V.",
"Vladimir Kramnik", and "V. Kramnik" would all be corrected
to "Kramnik, Vladimir".
</p>
<p>
The spellcheck file has one
additional use: when it is loaded, its player data is
used to enhance the <a href="PInfo.html">player information</a> window and the
<a href="Crosstable.html">crosstable</a> window:
you will see FIDE master title
(<b>gm</b> = International Grandmaster, <b>im</b> = International Master, etc)
and country information for any player that is
listed in the spellcheck file. Over 6500 strong players of the past and
present are listed in the <b>spelling.ssp</b> file that comes with Scid.
</p>

<h3><a name="Ratings">Adding Elo ratings to games</a></h3>
<p>
The "Add Elo ratings..." button in the Maintenance window causes Scid
to search the current database for games where a player does not have
a rating, but the spellcheck file has an Elo rating listed for that
player at the date of the game. Scid will add all such ratings
automatically. This is very useful for a database of master-level games
which has few ratings.
</p>
<p>
The spellcheck file "spelling.ssp" that comes with Scid does not contain
the Elo rating information needed for this function, but a larger version
of it called "ratings.ssp" is available from the <a href="Author.html">Scid website</a>.
</p>

<h3><a name="Cleaner">The Cleaner</a></h3>
<p>
The Scid <b><i><font color="#990000">Cleaner</font></i></b> (available from the Maintenance window) is
a tool for doing a number of maintenance tasks on a database in one
action. You can choose which tasks you want to do, and Scid will
perform them on the current database without requiring user interaction.
This is especially useful for maintenance of large databases.
</p>

<h3>Setting the database autoload game</h3>
<p>
The <b><i><font color="#990000">autoload</font></i></b> game of a database is the game automatically
loaded whenever that database is opened. To change the autoload game of
a database, use the "Autoload game number..." button. If you always want
the last game of a database to be opened (regardless of the actual number
of games in the database), just set it to a very high number such as
9999999.
</p>

<p><center><font size=-1>(Updated: Scid 3.1, December 2001)</font></center></p>

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