r/Chessplayers45

I'm a chess coach and I've been building a native macOS app — a ChessBase-style database and training suite, but Apple-native (SwiftUI) and built around how I actually teach. It runs fully offline.

Here's what's working so far:

\-Database & games

SQLite-backed game databases (fast import of large PGN collections)

Multiple databases, merge/copy/move games between them

Lazy loading so big databases stay responsive

Drag-and-drop PGN import

\-Analysis board

Tabbed analysis (multiple games/positions open at once, ChessBase-style)

Full variation tree with annotations

Move list with figurine notation

Adjustable piece size, board themes, coordinate toggle, and a Zen mode that hides the side panel

\-Search

Position search (find a specific position across a database, jumps to the matching move)

Pattern search (partial/subset matching — e.g. find all games where a certain structure appears)

Maneuver search (search consecutive move patterns with wildcards, like "Qe?+ then any knight move")

\-Diagram recognition

Capture any 2D chess diagram from your screen (a PDF, a book scan, a website) and it reads the position into the board automatically

Runs a custom-trained CoreML model fully offline — no API, no internet, no per-use cost

You select the board region, recognizes each piece, builds the FEN, and lets you correct anything before loading

Trained on real book diagrams across many fonts; in my testing it matches or beats some commercial online recognizers on the diagrams I use

\-Clipboard bridge

Copy Position (FEN) / Copy Game (PGN), and paste either back in — so you can move positions to/from Lichess, ChessBase, etc. in one click

\-Other

Export board snapshots as images

Puzzle compiler (build custom puzzle sets from a Lichess puzzle database by rating/theme)

\-On the roadmap:

Stockfish engine integration

Freehand drawing + draggable "ghost" pieces for teaching

A broadcaster/streaming mode with a big clean board

So my question: if you used a tool like this — for study, coaching, or content creation — what features would make it genuinely useful to you? What's missing from the tools you currently use? Anything you've always wished ChessBase/Lichess/etc. did but doesn't?

Thanks — happy to answer anything about how it works