Collections and smart collections

A collection is a list of games chosen by you. In the archive each game is there only once, and it can be in as many collections as you like: taking it out of a collection does not delete it. A smart collection, instead, is a search saved with a name: it holds the games that meet its search criteria at the moment you look at it.

Creating a collection

The New collection row at the bottom of the collections, or File › New collection… (⇧⌘N): an empty collection.
With some games selected, right click → Collections → New collection…, or the Game menu → Add to collection → New collection…: the collection is born with those games in it.
After a search, Add to collection in the bar above the list: all the games found, into a collection that already exists or a new one.
In the import window, Import into → New collection….

You choose the name and one of the sixteen icons. The name is changed on the row itself: ↩, or right click → Rename; Esc keeps the one before. Edit… changes name and icon together.

Collections, smart ones included, stay in the order you choose: drag the row up or down.

Putting games in and taking them out

The selected games can be dragged onto a collection, or you use right click → Collections: a ✓ next to the collections that have them all, a dash – next to those that have only some. A click adds them, or removes them if they are all there already. Above 500 selected games the marks are no longer there: each collection has its own submenu with Add to collection and Remove from collection.

While you look at a collection, the right click also has Remove from “…” and Move to collection, which takes the games out of this one and puts them in another. Here ⌫ removes from the collection without asking; everything can be undone with ⌘Z.

Deleting a collection

Right click on the collection, or ⌫ with the collection selected in the sidebar:

Delete collection — the collection goes, the games stay in the archive.
Delete collection and games — the games are deleted from the archive, from the other collections they are in too. The question beforehand recommends a backup of the archive (see Archive health). It can be stopped from Background work, at the bottom of the sidebar: the collection stays, with the games not yet deleted.

A right click on a collection also has Export…, which writes all its games to a PGN file, and Print…, which makes a booklet of them (Printing and PDF).

Smart collections

They are born from a search. New smart collection… (⌥⌘N, or the row in the sidebar) opens the empty search window: you write the criteria, then Create… and the name. Or, after a search, Save as smart collection… in the bar above the list.

Among the criteria there can be an Opponent, one of your opponent dossiers: the collection finds their games with all their names and accounts, including those you add to the dossier later. While a smart collection uses it, the dossier cannot be deleted: the app says which collections use it, and it must first be taken out of their criteria.

What is saved are the criteria of the search window, and they always search the whole archive: not the words of the quick search, and not the list you had searched in.

A smart collection is not filled by hand, so:

it does not take dragged games and does not appear in the Collections menu;
⌫ on its games deletes them from the archive, after you confirm, as in All games;
the quick search narrows its games down, without changing its criteria.

Edit criteria… (right click, or Edit… in the bar above the list) reopens the search window with its criteria. Deleting it does not touch the games it showed.

If an update of the app can no longer read a smart collection’s criteria, the collection stays in the sidebar but does not open: Edit criteria… gives it new criteria.

Free and Pro

The free version creates three collections, including those born from an import or a search; with Pro without limits, and the extra ones stay even if Pro ends.

Smart collections belong entirely to Pro: creating them, changing their criteria and opening them. Without Pro their row carries the PRO mark: a click leaves the list as it was and opens the Terza Torre Pro window, and the right click keeps only Delete smart collection. Their criteria stay, and come back with Pro.