Making my own chess studies (like Lichess) with SCID vs PC

Question

I am learning how to use SCID vs PC on my Linux machine and I find the program very useful and well-written. I am reading through Lasker's book Manual of Chess and I would like to create my own "studies' (to use the Lichess termiology) based on what I've read from the book (various defenses, openings etc.)

While I am able to use SCID to log into FICS, play against Stockfish, view famous games (using PGN files downloaded from www.chessgames.com) the one thing I cannot seem to be able to do is create my own study.

To be specific: sure, when open SCID I can shuffle pieces on the board according to how Lasker tells me to, and add annotations, variations, colored arrows and then save the resulting set of moves in a pgn file.

But once I want to start studying a new or opening, I don't want to have to create a NEW pgn file: I'd like to have a single PGN file containing, say, "chapters" as is done in Lichess studies. Is this possible?

Or are the SCID database files the way to go here? They seem a tad complicated at first glance.

Answer 1

Use a separate database per opening, book, or any topic you study. You can export that database later as a single PGN if you want. Imagine what happens if you don't do that: You have to store these games somewhere, right? And you really don't want those in your main database with normal games.

You can also copy games between databases, which is useful if you want to annotate a game and move it back to the main DB later. Don't worry about performance: A database doesn't take any resources (besides disc space) if you don't have it open.

As a bonus, and something that lichess doesn't offer: you can have as many "chapters" (games) as you want, and you can sort them, search for specific positions or comments, whatever you need.