Quote from julkal on April 28, 2022, 7:12 am

This is a really good idea!

Chess dojo was new to me. I tried it, and it works wonderful. The combination with PGN master is very useful too...

Thanks' a lot for your efforts.

Quote from daniel-makeieff on August 12, 2023, 5:40 pm

Hi All,

I use a Certabo chessboard, the only app. which works very well with my Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2019 is Chess for Android from Aart Bik

I tried Certabodroid several times which at some point calculates too long and no longer accepts backtracking (impossible to connect on Lichess), White Pawn is not stable at all (I uninstalled it) and Chess Dojo detects the Certabo chessboard but I have to play on the screen first to get an lighted answer on the chessboard (?)

Chess.com app. do not support/detect Certabo chessboard proposing only bluetooth connection...

I admit to being quite disappointed even if (fortunately) I play regularly with Android from Aart Bik

If you have any advice, I'm all ears! 🙂

Sincerely

Daniel

 

Quote from Benjac on August 13, 2023, 2:12 pm

Hi
I feel with you and agree.

My initial euphoria regarding the really beautiful board fell when I tried out the software on different platforms (Windows, Android, Mac). Installation went with the support of Pietro. This was tricky, but the software is slow and not always stable. When I see the software section, e.g. Mac has been 'coming soon' for months. Nothing happens there. The software seems to be little maintained in all areas and it is also called 'patchworking'. The same applies to 'Tabutronics'. I've given up now. The board disappeared in a Box and I chose a supplier from Hong Kong.

Sorry Pietro, but that had to be said.

Best regards,

Bernd

 

Quote from julkal on August 16, 2023, 7:35 pm

Quote from Benjac on August 13, 2023, 2:12 pm

Hi
I feel with you and agree.

My initial euphoria regarding the really beautiful board fell when I tried out the software on different platforms (Windows, Android, Mac). Installation went with the support of Pietro. This was tricky, but the software is slow and not always stable. When I see the software section, e.g. Mac has been 'coming soon' for months. Nothing happens there. The software seems to be little maintained in all areas and it is also called 'patchworking'. The same applies to 'Tabutronics'. I've given up now. The board disappeared in a Box and I chose a supplier from Hong Kong.

Sorry Pietro, but that had to be said.

Best regards,

Bernd

 

Well, no matter what e board you use, software do have problems with all the e boards. With Certabo, Chess for Android, white pawn works verry well and all the PC Guis works fine with the board and the additional drivers, especially with USB. Bluetooth has some issues with my custom pieces.

I Like this board and I think that the software available (on PC and Android) makes the board much more than just usable.

And there is a big advantage with this board. Pietro always helps.....

Julian

Quote from daniel-makeieff on August 16, 2023, 9:48 pm

Hi Julian,
Really sorry, but I was never able to use Certabrodoid or White Pawn to play with my Certabo chessboard connected to my samsung Tab with USB. I had ordered the Certabo board, taking care to ask the question before if this chessboard worked well with this kind of tablet... The answer was : no problem..  So I ordered a chessboard and bought a tablet right away (which I use anyway now for several other uses) preferring not use my Apple macpro.
I spent long hours trying to use Certabrodoid and reporting its defects regularly and problems I found, there has not been an update for this software for more than 2 years (?)... I tried White Pawn several times, I installed it, uninstalled it, reinstalled it... but it doesn't work fine on my tablet (recent) or my smartphone (recent), I must not be very lucky (?). As said before fortunately I have the Chess for Android software from Aart Bik which works pretty well on my tablet.

Best regards
Daniel

Quote from Pietro on August 17, 2023, 12:08 am

Hello Daniel Bernd Julian

Thank you for your posts and for reporting your experiences in critical way and sorry if somehow disappointing, we try to use that to improve as we can. I just want to highlight some initail thoughs we had at very begining which now it's 5 years ago already. when we decided to leave the protocol as open as possible and give away the software it was because allow the best freedom to hook the board to anything. The number of platforms now as 5 years ago was quite large PC, Unix, Mac, Android, Ios now Chromebook, various Pi, third party Guis, Fritz Chessbase Arena and many more and they also keep evolving so being update to all of them honestly it has been quite hard job, especially for Mac and Mobile, but we knew that at very beginnig that why our choice was made. I think thanks to that philosophy we had help to cover as much as possible thanks to the help Aart. Graham, Lars, Gerhard, Khadim, Elia to just tell some names which will never thanks enough for covering many specific needs of users/players. Talking specifically about our GUI which was develped in python we invested and are investing quite a lot of  to give it open source because that was the only way to have long lasting device always updated else if probably not on all platforms 🙁  But again honestly oversee to all of those various platforms is really hard and apologise if some like Mac and Android remained bit behind. Specifically for Android Certabodroid was modified from Droidfish which was open source we did this choice 3 years ago to cover the request and it shall work like whitepawns on USB if you need more techinical help please mail us or Khadim he also recently added the support for Tabutronic if it works with chess for android it should work with other too but not sure eventually at startup if those two app requires more power than CFA they may have some problems and you need to use an additional power bank again it would be very strange but maybe it is worth a try. Anyhow the retrofitting of Droidfish was not best solution that's why we preferred to start  development of native app as we anticipated here some time ago. Basically we ported the same python version we have to Android (not easy job but for expansion probably best solutions) so you will find the familiar look of the PC interface and will have the same potentiality of the PC one else if to include all functions will take bit of time. But now the App is at good point it does support automatically Tabutronic and Certabo board now you can play offline against engine with most of functionality of PC version, by the end of August will shall have Lichess integration and in September we shall add the chess.com support, after that finally the BT support too in the same month. Anyhow we are focusing on online game mostly for this app. I will create a beta group test in next days and we'll be glad to add anybody of you for testing so just send me via pm the email of your google account so you can test in real time either you have a Certabo or Tabutronic (Daniel if the beta will not work it will be definitively problem of power i reckon).

For Mac instead we did create a proper package in May as anticipated Bernd i apologise i completely forgot to send the link which is anyhow here https://www.certabo.com/wp-content/uploads/SOFTWARE/Release/Mac/Chess2.dmg, this is the main version which support lichess via Api please unzip the package and drag into application as standard app (at 1920 resolution you can see the Tabutronic layout for lower resolution the classical Certabo), after that the first time you have to run right click and open it after that you just need to click as normal. The reason for that is than now Mac like android is becoming very stingent with authorisation of for the chess engine as they are executable file so they have to be embedded in the app and also approved (you cannot simply add as normal engines like in Unix and PC) and also in notarization most of them are not accepted.. I apologise again if some versions has remained behind but really is not wanted it is just sometime we need to focus on specific things and thank you for your support, i hope this can help bit more with that specific use you look for. Will also redraw the download page 🙂

All the best to everybody

Pietro

Quote from julkal on August 18, 2023, 9:02 am

Quote from daniel-makeieff on August 16, 2023, 9:48 pm

Hi Julian,
Really sorry, but I was never able to use Certabrodoid or White Pawn to play with my Certabo chessboard connected to my samsung Tab with USB.

Best regards
Daniel

I´m using a Samsung Tab S5e and a Huawai 20 pro with Chess for Android, White pawn and Certabodroid and all work fine within their limits. Honestly I like Certabodroid most (as I like Droidfish....), but without takeback it´s not fun, when playing against engines, so I changed to Chess for Android, when playing against engines. And playing against Maia 1900 is really nice as one is able to win.

Hopefully, when you change to China, you will get what you are looking for....

all the best

Julian