1. GBR code support und GBR code search

This feature was announced last year, but I wasn't satisfied with the implementation, so I didn't include it in version 2025. The most noticeable change is the GBR search in the PGN file browser's search menu. I also took this opportunity to improve some minor aspects of the search menu and hope that the power of some features is now easier to understand.

2. New built-in chess fonts

Instead of two, the Chess Suite will now come with seven or nine built-in chess fonts. In addition and as before, you can also use all unicode fonts of your operating system that offer chess pieces.

The new fonts include Chess Berlin (not in the standard release), the old font of the Sportverlag, and Chess Leipzig, the font of the Deutsche Schachzeitung and of the DeGruyter chess books. More information can be found here.

PS: The font Chess Berlin brings back a wealth of wonderful memories of the books of my youth and the decades since. To achieve the perfect visual effect, the light squares would have to be white and the dark squares diagonally hatched. But such hatching creates flickering effects on computer screens, and so I removed that part of the software soon after writing it. A real shame!

3. Search the game text in the game browser

Previously, it was not possible to search for text or moves in the Game Browser (or in the Setalyser, resp.). Now there is a newly added menu item in the pop-up menu on the text area called "Search game text". This opens an extra dialog (for more space!) with the same game and convenient search options.

4. The game browser got an evaluation bar

Finally, I've added an evaluation bar next to the chessboard in the Game Browser. It can be hidden or added again in the settings menu. I'm sure more dialogs will receive this feature soon. (True: The Setalyser got an EvaluationBar, too.)

5. Restricted length comparison in the PGN Comparer

The PGN comparer and its result viewer are seldom changed. But I needed a new comparison mode which compares two games only up to the number of moves in the shorter game. In other words, additional moves in the longer game do not count as differences. This can now be configured in the Properties menu of the comparer under the option Restricted length comparison.

6. Warning: Old bulk results not readable with new version

Not every news is good news. Over the past few years, I've been able to keep the formats of all stored data unchanged. This will not be the case in the 2026 release, because I had to change the format of complex evaluations. As a result, stored bulk results generated by earlier versions of the ChessSuite will most likely not be readable with the new version, if they contain such complex evaluations.  But, if at least one person will complain before the code freeze in October, I will try to add some code that reads such old bulk results and ignores only the complex evaluations.

7. Add engine variations to the game

In the game browser and the setalyser you can now right-click into the text area with the engine's variations and get a small dialog for editing and adding the engine's lines to the game notation.  

8. Errors are shown in the game tooltip

9. Missing taskbar icon

When the Chess Suite is running, the typical icon with two chessboards appears in your taskbar. However, on Linux Mint, this icon is occasionally(!) replaced by an icon chosen by the system. This is not a primary problem with the Chess Suite. You can avoid this in several ways. E.g. start the Chess Suite in a terminal with "java -jar <jar-file>". Or you can replace your desktop manager by a different one. Or you can configure a .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications or /usr/share/applications. 

10. New layout of piece selection

The layout of all piece selection panels in dialogs with set-up functions (say, the game browser, the setalyser, or the winning zone dialog etc.) has been changed:

In the past there were two squares for king, queen, etc., one for the white piece and one for the black piece. If you selected, let's say,  the white king, you could place a white king on the board with a normal left-click and a black king with a right-click. Did you know that? From now on, you select the white-black piece, and a left-click places the white version on the board, and a right-click the black one. So everything is the same as before, except that you can no longer perform the slow multiple selection for white and black pieces separately.

11. Associate file extensions to the Chess Suite

The Chess Suite comes as a jar-file, which is a bit different from a normal app. Nevertheless, you can now associate three file extensions with the Chess Suite: pgn, ser (for comparison results) and blk (for bulk comparison results). Therefore you have to associate the Chess Suite with a command instead of a program or app. In Linux this is quite easy: For each file extension use the command "java -jar TheChessSuite.jar %f".

If you then double-click a file with the given extension, a Chess Suite is started and the file name is opened with the corresponding dialog (PGN file viewer, result viewer or bulk result viewer, resp.).

For your operating system please ask first an AI for help. In case of problems, please ask me. 

12. The Chess Suite runs only once

The new feature introduced in no. 11 above is not perfect, if double-clicking a file starts each time a new instance of the Chess Suite. Therefore there can now only be one running instance of the Chess Suite, and double-clicking files as described in no. 11 open this instance, if necessary, and then shows the content in a dialog of this instance. You surely know this behavior from your browser or your office software.