Search

Two ways of searching, which work together:

• quick search, the field at the top right of the main window (Edit › Find, ⌘F): words that must all appear, in the players, the tournament, the site, the opening or the teams, and a player’s FIDE ID written in full;
• the search window, from Edit › Search games… (⌥⌘F) or from the button with the magnifying glass in the toolbar: a field for each piece of data, and the position. With a search in progress, the same button removes it.

Both search inside the list chosen in the sidebar: the first line of the window says so (“In All games”, “In Favourites”…). Choosing another list removes the search.

Quick search

Quick search is very handy for looking up one word (for example a surname, a city or a FIDE ID) while staying comfortably on the list of games. Its ability to search practically every piece of game data, though, makes it slower when you look for several words, or single very common words, since it will look for them everywhere and return every combination of games that contains them. Searching for “Leardini” will be immediate; searching for “San Marino”, on an archive with millions of games, will take a few seconds instead, and the games returned will also be all those in which there appear, for example, players called Marino with another field that starts with San. In these cases it is more useful to open the search window and search precisely in the fields you want.

The search window

Empty fields are not searched; every filled one must hold. Numbers are written as a range, from–to, and one of the two ends is enough.

Game — Result (none pressed means any), Year, Moves (the length of the game), Played over the board or online, Annotated (comments, variations, symbols or arrows written by hand, not by the engine), Engine analysis, Rate of play, Termination, Annotator, Site and its Country.

White and Black — Name (each word written is the start of a word of the name, in any order: “m rossi” finds Rossi Mario and Mario Rossi, not Rossi Giacomo; capitals, accents and commas do not count), FIDE ID, Title, Elo, Country (the federation), Team. This is me searches for your games with that colour, from your profile. The Opponent menu, beside it, chooses one of your opponent dossiers: the search finds their games with all the names and accounts of the dossier, and Name and FIDE ID turn off. The bar above the list gives the dossier’s current name, for example “Black: Heron”, even after renaming; if the dossier has been deleted, it says “Heron (dossier deleted)” and finds no games.

Both players — Ignore colours, on at first: the player written under White may have had Black, and vice versa. With only one card filled in it means “that player, with either colour”. Off, each card goes by its own colour. Then Average Elo and Elo difference, which concern only games in which both have an Elo.

Tournament — Name and Type.

Opening — ECO code from–to: a code on its own is a prefix, “B” finds all the Bs, “B1” B10 to B19. Then Opening or variation, by name.

The Team, the tournament’s Name, the Site and Opening or variation are searched like player names: each word the start of a word, in any order (“masters tata” finds the Tata Steel Masters, “sicilian naj” the Najdorf). The Annotator, instead, is found from a piece of the name too. All the cases, nicknames included, are in Player names.

Position — Set up… opens the board to put together: an exact position, a partial one, a pawn structure or the material (see Setting up a position). The position is searched for in every game by replaying its moves, as the explorer does; the other fields narrow it down. Remove removes it.

A position can also be searched for without the window: the magnifying glass under the board → Search this position, or the same in the Board menu, searches for the position on the screen, in the list and with the words you already have.

After the search

Search closes the window and the list shows the games found; a game found by position opens on the first move that reaches it. Above the list, a bar says how many there are and with which criteria, and offers:

• Add to collection — all the games found, into a collection that already exists or a new one;
• Save as smart collection… — the criteria, with a name, in the sidebar (see Smart collections). Only the window’s fields are saved: not the words of quick search, and not the list you searched in;
• Edit… — reopens the window with the criteria;
• ✕ — removes the search.

While the window is open the list can still be used. Search is off until there is at least one criterion. Clear all clears the fields; Cancel closes without changing the current search.

Speed

A new search, or one more letter in quick search, interrupts the one in progress: you do not wait for the old one to finish. If a search takes a while, Searching… appears in the toolbar.

After an interrupted import or compaction, the app redoes the position search blocks left halfway. Meanwhile a search with a position waits, and the bar says Preparing the position index…: the games appear as soon as the index is ready.

Free and Pro

All the fields are free, except the position, from Search this position too, and the Opponent menu: they belong to Pro, like smart collections.