Collections¶
A collection is a named, coloured group of games: a league season, the club's over-the-board games, the losses you mean to go back to. A game can be in several at once, and being in one hides it from nothing. A collection's games count in Games, on the dashboard, in Statistics and in the explorer like every other game; the collection is one more way to cut them, and Stats and the explorer can be narrowed to it. A saved filter is a question asked again every time you open it. A collection is a set of games that stays as you made it, and it is kept in the database, so it is the same on every device and your assistant can read it.
Collections in the rail, right under Games, opens this screen, and ⌘6 gets there
from anywhere. Under it the rail pins the collections you ticked Show in the rail, under
Collections for (see Make a collection), in this screen's order,
each with its colour square and its count. Clicking a pinned collection opens its games: the
title bar reads Collections › its name and the pinned row is lit, so the rail and the
title say the same place.
The cards¶
Each collection is a card, side by side as the window allows and one under the other on a phone. Every card has the same parts in the same places, so cards next to each other line up. A card shows:
- its colour and name, and how many games it holds;
- one line of description, blank if it has none;
- four figures over your games in it, from your side of the board: Your score (points out of games), Results (wins, draws and losses), Avg opponent (the average rating of your opponents) and Blunders / game. They count only games you have a side in, so a reference game in the collection, or one of yours whose side is not known yet (a PGN under a name that is no account), counts in the number of games but not in the score; pointing at the score says how many it left out. A figure with nothing behind it yet — no rated opponent, nothing analysed — shows a dash;
- the rule as small grey tags with adds new imports beside them, or No rule · added by hand;
- when the last game in it was played.
The switch over the cards turns them into a Table: one row per collection with the same figures in columns, for when there are enough collections to compare them down a column. The rule, the average opponent and blunders per game join the table on a wide window. A row opens and edits its collection the way a card does. The switch is remembered in this browser.
With no collection yet, the screen says what one is and offers New collection… there, in place of the one in the title bar.
Open a collection's games¶
Clicking a card, or the collection pinned in the rail, opens Games with the Collection filter set to it and Whose games on All, so the list holds every game the card counted, a reference game you put in by hand included. The title bar reads Collections › its name. It is the ordinary library from there: the other filters, the search, sorting and the selection work as ever, Mine narrows it to your own games, and Clear drops the collection with everything else.
Stats at the foot of a card (the chart icon at the end of a table row) opens Statistics narrowed to the collection.
A game in a collection is named in the Collections column of the games list. On a phone, on the game's card, and in the bar over a game you open, it carries a chip in that collection's colour instead; a long name is shortened to fit. Clicking a chip opens the same list as the card.
Edit and delete¶
Edit at the foot of a card (the pencil at the end of a table row) opens the collection dialog for it: the name, the colour, the description, whether the rail shows it and the rule, as in Make a collection. Under Edit the dialog counts only the matching games not in the collection yet, which includes any you took out by hand. Delete… is in the dialog too, and asks first; deleting a collection leaves its games in the library.
Make a collection¶
There are three ways in:
- New collection… in the title bar of this screen, with nothing in it yet.
- Make a collection… in the games list, beside Save filter…. It appears once a filter
a rule can hold is set: source, time control, speed, rated, colour, opponent or opening,
and opens the dialog with the rule already filled in from those filters. The usual way to
make one is to filter the list until it shows what the collection is, then press it. A
league played at 45+45 on Lichess is Source Lichess, Time control
2700+45(Lichess writes the clock in seconds) and rated, which keeps a casual 45+45 with a friend out. Saving shows the new collection's games in the list. - New collection from these N games… in Add to, with games ticked in the list; see Add games by hand.
The dialog asks for a name, a colour (one of the swatches in a row) and, if you like, a
description. Show in the rail, under Collections pins it in the rail, one click from
anywhere; pin as many as you like, and past a few the rail scrolls. The Add new games that match switch turns the rule on, with Source, Time control (the exact clock, such as
2700+45), Speed, Rated (either, rated or casual), Colour, Opponent and
Opening (ECO). Of the filters you had open, those a rule can hold come along; the date,
the result, the analysis filter and the search box do not, because a rule says what kind of
game belongs, not when it was played or how it went. Under the fields the dialog counts the
games you already have that match the rule, and the box beside the count adds them now.
Opened from Make a collection… that box is already ticked. The count can be larger than
the list you were looking at, when that list was also narrowed by a date or a result.
Add games by hand¶
In Games, tick rows and press Add to in the footer. It is a checklist rather than a choice of one, because a game can be in several collections: a ticked box means every selected game is in that collection, a box with a dash that only some are. Clicking an empty box or one with a dash puts the whole selection in, and clicking a ticked one takes the whole selection out. New collection from these N games… makes a collection that starts with exactly those games. On a game's own page the same checklist is behind the ⋯; see Analysing a game.
When a rule runs¶
A rule looks at every game as it is stored — a sync, an automatic sync, the Lichess live stream, an uploaded PGN, a game entered by hand — and puts it in every collection whose rule it matches. It takes only your own games, so a model game you add to the library joins a collection only by hand. A game whose side is not known when it arrives, such as a PGN under a name that is no account yet, is asked again by the rules that name a colour once you add that account and the side is known — but only by the rules that were already in place, as they are now, when the game arrived. A rule you make or change after that takes such a game only when you add the matching games from the dialog. A rule never goes back over the library on its own. Changing one touches none of the games already in the collection; the games already stored join only when you tick the box that adds them now.
Take games out¶
With the Collection filter set in the games list, ticked rows get Remove from collection in the footer. That, or unticking the box in Add to, takes games out, and they stay out: the next sync does not bring them back, because the rule only looked at them once, when they arrived. Only adding the matching games again, from the dialog, would. Deleting a game takes it out of every collection it was in.