The Chess Suite is written in Java and hence it basically runs on many operating system, including all the major ones (Windows, macOS, Linux/Unix). But the Java ecosystem has changed over the years, and so-called desktop applications like the Chess Suite are now out of fashion. There was a time some years ago when installing and especially updating Java was no longer easy. Thus I offered the Chess Suite as a Windows executable. But the free software used for this purpose does no longer exist. Fortunately, installing and updating Java has become easier again. That's why the Chess Suite is delivered as a JAR file for the fourth year in a row.

 

Running a JAR file

Make sure you have installed Java 22 or higher. Then the JAR file can be started by a double-click. If it does not start, then open a command-prompt and check the Java version by the command java -version.
 

First use

Once you can start the Chess Suite by a double-click the start dialog will be shown and you will be asked to complete the installation by performing a few simple steps.

  1. Set a home directory. The home directory is used for some special directories and files, e.g. a file autoSave.pgn, wherein all games and fragments you have used are stored.
  2. Install at least one UCI engine (say, Stockfish).
  3. (Optional) Set a file for the ECO codes. There is a menu item in the menu Properties. The Chess Suite uses SCID's format for ECO codes. So, you can use SCIDs file scid.eco, for example.

With regard to point 2, it should be noted that engines can only be configured in a window in which the engine is running, e.g. the game browser or the Setalyser.

 

Projects

 

The PGN comparer and the result viewer deal with projects, which correspond for example to a player or a tournament, say Alekhine or Hastings 1895. When you create a new project (see the corresponding item in the menus Project), you choose the name of the project, which is used as a name of a directory, say Alehkine or Hastings 1895 in the examples above. Then the directory is created together with the subdirectories PGN and Results. By default projects are stored in the home directory and it would be better not to change this. As soon as you use the PGN comparer, it is strongly recommended to use projects! Put copies of the PGN files you are going to compare in the PGN subdirectory of your project.

If you work with projects, then there will always be one current project. Switching projects is done by opening another project (see the correspondings items in the 'Project' menus).

 

 

PS: Once you have set a home directory, one of it special subdirectories will be log. Here the Chess Suite stores one file per day and files older than a week are deleted automatically. As the name of the directory suggests, these files contain some information on how the Chess Suite runs: Every start is noted as well as events or problems. One can modify the amount of logged information in the Chess Suite's start dialog (see the menu Info -> Experimental -> Log level), but there is no need to change the default. Should problems arise with your Chess Suite that I need to analyse, I might ask you to provide these log files to me. That's what they are meant for.

 

PPS: The Chess Suite does not use log4j for logging! And it is no server process anyway.