[fred]

DaveG36, on Jun 19 2008, 07:16 PM, said:

One thing I didn't see addressed was the Other Bridge Activties option in BBOWin, specifcally Partnership Bidding tables. Will these be added back in future releases (or are they there now and I just missed it)?

Partnership Bidding (among other things) is missing and will be added to some future version. Sorry I don't know when this rates to happen. Please ask again in a month or so if you are still curious - I might have a better idea of likely timing of new features then.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

svs108, on Jun 19 2008, 01:43 PM, said:

I tried out the flash version. It is of course great for all the alternate OS people (I am also experimenting with Ubuntu) and seems the way to go. Also in one window, almost all the information has been arranged. Maybe a few colour corrections are required, but nothing major on that front, will just take a little getting used to.

My vote is for the mouse over.

I have just tried it out for not a very long time, but if anybody can clear up a few issues for me and my humble views on the new version:

1. It is slow. And I do have a decent PC. It is just slow as compared to the older version.

2. The clarity is also somewhat lacking, maybe it is the anti-aliasing in flash. I do not know how to explain it. Clear type is disabled on my LCD (I find it a bit blurry) and everything is very sharp. In the flash version, it looks like Nokia PC Suite - the text is all blurry.

3. I suggest rather than the tabbed version of the results, a horizontal split (like the old version) gives more information at a glance. One has to again click back and forth. Again I cannot get the leads for the other tables. Is there an option to show this?

4. Where is the option to enable keyboard entry? It really is much better for the old carpal tunnel syndrome.

5. Can you please improve on the 'host' icon? It really looks a bit wishy washy.

6. The options seem really limited. But then you have already felt that this is better.

7. Where is the option to fix South? The results and player placements then keep changing and becomes confusing.

I am not a very advanced player, so cannot comment on the tourneys and other stuff, but hope my feedback helps.

Sorry but none of the options you mention are currently available.

Your comment about blurry text is the first I have heard of this. You are correct that the font I use in most places is anti-aliased, but this is supposed to help make the text easier to read. For whatever its worth both me and the artists/designers I worked with like the way the text looks. Also, Flash is supposed to be good at stuff like this.

Likely it is just a matter of perception, but regardless there is almost certainly nothing I can do about it (sorry).

Flash does eat up a lot of memory and this could cause BBOFlash to run slowly (especially if your PC doesn't have a lot of memory to begin with or if you tend to run several memory-intensive applications at once).

If convenient it might be smart to not experiment with Ubuntu and BBOFlash at the same thing!

Sorry but none of the options you are looking for are currently available.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

Mr. Dodgy, on Jun 19 2008, 02:48 PM, said:

I just witnessed something odd. I'm not sure if it's bug, per se, but...

I like the 'substitute any' option

I was a sub in a TM just now, our table finished well ahead of the the other. While I was playing, the barometer seemed to be working fine. When we finished, I went to kibitz the other table, it seemed to completely stop updating.

i.e. it was a 38-board match. When my table finished, they were playing board 33 at the other table. the 'other table' contract, results, and scores were there for boards 1-32, but nothing for boards 33 onwards.

The following screenshots were taken moments apart, as the 'other table' was on the final board:

Thanks for noticing and reporting this.

Your report actually reveal several bugs (even mroe thanks!) that we hope to have fixed within the next few days.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[karaprens]

Hi ,

I don`t know if this is mentioned (i didnt read all 9 pages) is it possible to BBOFlash remembers my choices?(such as chat font, sound etc)
added part= i meant bbotv not bboflash.

[xcurt]

A small bug...

At some point while playing I alerted and explained my second call in an auction.

Later in the same bboflash session I played at another table. Various call would randomly show up as alerted with the explanation I had typed in at the previous table. Nobody else at the table noticed anything amiss so I think this is just something wrong in the rendering code.

I didn't take screenshots or count when this happens, so it may be difficult to reproduce, but there definitely is an issue in there somewhere.

[svs108]

fred, on Jun 19 2008, 07:24 PM, said:

svs108, on Jun 19 2008, 01:43 PM, said:

I tried out the flash version. It is of course great for all the alternate OS people (I am also experimenting with Ubuntu) and seems the way to go. Also in one window, almost all the information has been arranged. Maybe a few colour corrections are required, but nothing major on that front, will just take a little getting used to.

My vote is for the mouse over.

I have just tried it out for not a very long time, but if anybody can clear up a few issues for me and my humble views on the new version:

1. It is slow. And I do have a decent PC. It is just slow as compared to the older version.

2. The clarity is also somewhat lacking, maybe it is the anti-aliasing in flash. I do not know how to explain it. Clear type is disabled on my LCD (I find it a bit blurry) and everything is very sharp. In the flash version, it looks like Nokia PC Suite - the text is all blurry.

3. I suggest rather than the tabbed version of the results, a horizontal split (like the old version) gives more information at a glance. One has to again click back and forth. Again I cannot get the leads for the other tables. Is there an option to show this?

4. Where is the option to enable keyboard entry? It really is much better for the old carpal tunnel syndrome.

5. Can you please improve on the 'host' icon? It really looks a bit wishy washy.

6. The options seem really limited. But then you have already felt that this is better.

7. Where is the option to fix South? The results and player placements then keep changing and becomes confusing.

I am not a very advanced player, so cannot comment on the tourneys and other stuff, but hope my feedback helps.

Sorry but none of the options you mention are currently available.

Your comment about blurry text is the first I have heard of this. You are correct that the font I use in most places is anti-aliased, but this is supposed to help make the text easier to read. For whatever its worth both me and the artists/designers I worked with like the way the text looks. Also, Flash is supposed to be good at stuff like this.

Likely it is just a matter of perception, but regardless there is almost certainly nothing I can do about it (sorry).

Flash does eat up a lot of memory and this could cause BBOFlash to run slowly (especially if your PC doesn't have a lot of memory to begin with or if you tend to run several memory-intensive applications at once).

If convenient it might be smart to not experiment with Ubuntu and BBOFlash at the same thing!

Sorry but none of the options you are looking for are currently available.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

No, my experiments with Ubuntu are separate from BBOFlash. I just mentioned that since otherwise for BBO one would have to use Wine. So BBO now becomes independent of the OS (if the OS/browser supports flash), which is good.

Yes, I guess I just have to get used to these types of fonts. I have a PC with 1GB of RAM and text on my Dell 19" LCD (with digital connection) is actually sharper/clearer without clear type enabled, which is in effect what Flash does. On one or two other PCs with good LCDs, I find clear type is better.

And without lobby chat, how does one broadcast for opps/partners?

Is BBOWin going to co-exist with BBOFlash? I do hope so, then in that case as long as I use Windows (or dual boot) I would still prefer the mouse over/keyboard entry and other stuff and use the BBOWin app.

[Mr. Dodgy]

fred, on Jun 19 2008, 07:30 PM, said:

Thanks for noticing and reporting this.

Your report actually reveal several bugs (even mroe thanks!) that we hope to have fixed within the next few days.

it's $10/bug, right? I'm RICH!

j/k

[fred]

svs108, on Jun 20 2008, 06:41 AM, said:

And without lobby chat, how does one broadcast for opps/partners?

If you create a table and don't reserve the empty seats for anyone, you are in effect advertising that you want partners and opponents. If you set "permission to play" to "off" the empty seats rate to fill up almost immediately. If you set "permission to play" to "on", it will take longer for various reasons.

As I tried to explain in a previous post in this thread, Lobby Chat is not an effective mechanism for filling in empty seats. I am not suggesting that just creating a table and waiting is a great mechanism either - eventually we will come up with something better.

Besides being ineffective for the purposes you describe, Lobby Chat creates additional problems for our system, our staff, and our members.

Quote

Is BBOWin going to co-exist with BBOFlash? I do hope so, then in that case as long as I use Windows (or dual boot) I would still prefer the mouse over/keyboard entry and other stuff and use the BBOWin app.

Yes BBOWin will continue to exist in the foreseeable future. That being said, the rate at which we introduce next features and improvements to BBOWin rates to continue to be low (or zero) for the foreseeable future.

I cannot say with any certainty that "BBOFlash is the future", but I am fairly confident that "BBOWin is not the future".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

karaprens, on Jun 20 2008, 03:04 AM, said:

Hi ,

I don`t know if this is mentioned (i didnt read all 9 pages) is it possible to BBOFlash remembers my choices?(such as chat font, sound etc)
added part= i meant bbotv not bboflash.

This happens automatically, but when we release a new version you will sometimes lose your settings. Sorry about this. I expect we will find a way around it at some point, but our priority right now is to make sure that people pick up the most recent version (not as easy as it may sound).

Some settings (including the ones you list) are remembered as soon as you change them, but some (like the sizes and positions of various screen elements) are only remembered when you click the Logoff button. If you close your browser window without logging off these settings will not be remembered.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

Edit: I have found the source of this bug and fixed it so don't worry about answering the questions or trying to replicate this. The fix rates to be installed within the next day or 2.

xcurt, on Jun 20 2008, 04:10 AM, said:

A small bug...

At some point while playing I alerted and explained my second call in an auction.

Later in the same bboflash session I played at another table.  Various call would randomly show up as alerted with the explanation I had typed in at the previous table.  Nobody else at the table noticed anything amiss so I think this is just something wrong in the rendering code.

I didn't take screenshots or count when this happens, so it may be difficult to reproduce, but there definitely is an issue in there somewhere.

This is a bug I have not heard about in several months. I had been under the impression that it was fixed a long time ago.

If you see it again, please send a screenshot (fred@bridgebase.com)!

Questions:

1) Did the inappropriate explanations only appear for bids that you made?
2) Do you remember if you sat in the same seat at both tables?
3) Are you sure you are using a recent version of BBOFlash? One way to know is that, in recent versions, the Back, Home and Logoff buttons are all yellow buttons that reside just to the left of a BBO logo.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

I just noticed that I'm not using the latest beta. I was using the v12 link, which I thought I copied from the June 11 announcement, but I see that the current version is v15. I'll see if I still have a problem joining tourneys with the new link.

[barmar]

After upgrading to v15 things worked better in Safari.

[jillybean]

My apologies but this is more on lobby chat, I cant find the previous discussion.

As default I don’t have lobby chat turned on, I think it is awful but without it how will we find other players/pairs for a team game or find subs for teams and tournaments?

[Dwingo]

There is no way to Create Team Matches, without Chat to Lobby, unless you have the names of 8 people willing to play.

I understand the reason for not having Lobby Chat, but if we can have a way of the software sending an automatic chat to Lobby, that will help people organise TM using BBO Flash.

One option would be to have a button next to "CREATE" , say "INVITE" and after filling the few names, if you hit "INVITE", software send a Chat message to Lobby something like,

Dwingo <Automatic> 4 people needed for a 10 board TM Starting soon, Barometer ON, Reply Privately.

Since the user does not have any control over the Automated chat to Lobby, this should be OK, I suppose

[hallway]

I ♥LOVE♥ the new mail features - copy/paste - preview - cursor over - list form (can scroll down and reply to important mail without having to wade through all the ones that dont require an answer ) Oh it is a treat I could go on and on about it

Probably a work in progress - but needing to do some homework on BBOFlash in preparation for the onslaught ! - I went through the Help List, lots of it doesnt load

No team game help
No tournament help except for conventions
No Help for:
MB$
About Playing Here
Pick up game
Playing special partner
Set games
Mail messages
Private and Public Clubs
Masterpoints
Quick Search (page opens but the links on that page do not)
About Kibitzers
Vugraph

Question:
On the Private Club Descriptions
The Club URL looks like it is a link (has the underline and even has the hand ) but it takes one nowhere - do the Private Clubs need to send in the URL for the Hyperlink to be activated ?

[svs108]

fred, on Jun 20 2008, 07:22 AM, said:

svs108, on Jun 20 2008, 06:41 AM, said:

Is BBOWin going to co-exist with BBOFlash? I do hope so, then in that case as long as I use Windows (or dual boot) I would still prefer the mouse over/keyboard entry and other stuff and use the BBOWin app.

Yes BBOWin will continue to exist in the foreseeable future. That being said, the rate at which we introduce next features and improvements to BBOWin rates to continue to be low (or zero) for the foreseeable future.

I cannot say with any certainty that "BBOFlash is the future", but I am fairly confident that "BBOWin is not the future".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Hmmmm... With Mr. Bill Gates on board BBO? Are you sure he is aware of this?

On the serious side, BBOWin has matured and I think is reasonably adequate for I would guess 80% or more of its members and I personally have been very happy with the latest version. The only improvement required is maybe on the servers side to avoid frequent disconnections, but then I also may be having a poor ISP.

[david_c]

Oh, this must be a bug - I was watching vugraph and wondered what would happen if I clicked on the score at the bottom left of the screen. What happens is that the list of results goes completely blank (white), and won't come back. Surely that's not supposed to happen ...

[fred]

david_c, on Jun 21 2008, 10:55 AM, said:

Oh, this must be a bug - I was watching vugraph and wondered what would happen if I clicked on the score at the bottom left of the screen. What happens is that the list of results goes completely blank (white), and won't come back. Surely that's not supposed to happen ...

What is supposed to happen is that the result at the other table is displayed.

If the board is question has not been played at the other table then you might get something like this.

In retrospect I could have probably handled this better. I will add this to me list of things to do after our first official release.

Those of you who work in software development will likely understand that improving something like this now (now meaning a time in which we are trying to put a stable release candidate together) would not be smart.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way from one Uday Ivatury

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

svs108, on Jun 21 2008, 08:00 AM, said:

fred, on Jun 20 2008, 07:22 AM, said:

svs108, on Jun 20 2008, 06:41 AM, said:

Is BBOWin going to co-exist with BBOFlash? I do hope so, then in that case as long as I use Windows (or dual boot) I would still prefer the mouse over/keyboard entry and other stuff and use the BBOWin app.

Yes BBOWin will continue to exist in the foreseeable future. That being said, the rate at which we introduce next features and improvements to BBOWin rates to continue to be low (or zero) for the foreseeable future.

I cannot say with any certainty that "BBOFlash is the future", but I am fairly confident that "BBOWin is not the future".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Hmmmm... With Mr. Bill Gates on board BBO? Are you sure he is aware of this?

On the serious side, BBOWin has matured and I think is reasonably adequate for I would guess 80% or more of its members and I personally have been very happy with the latest version. The only improvement required is maybe on the servers side to avoid frequent disconnections, but then I also may be having a poor ISP.

I know you were not being serious, but I should probably clarify my remarks:

In particular, I was not trying to make any prediction about the future of Windows or any value judgment about that platform. In fact - I really like Windows (as well as every other Microsoft product that I have ever used extensively).

You are correct that BBOWin is a very successful program in the sense that there are many people who are satisfied with it. However, it suffers from some serious problems:

- Many (you might be surprised at how many) people are never really able to get started with BBOWin for a variety of reasons (most of which are my fault).
- Parts of the program are very old.
- (most!) parts of the program are not very well-written.
- As a result, it is almost always signficantly more difficult than it should be to fix problems or introduce new features.
- There is no good way to introduce new versions of BBOWin without creating problems for many 1000s of people.
- I am the only person who understands how BBOWin works and it would take a massive effort by an excellent programmer to get to the point that he/she could replace me as the BBOWin programmer. I am not planning on going away, but it is a bad state of affairs for any company when its most important product is completely dependent on a single person.

I was also responsible for doing the programming of the BBOFlash client (Uday does all of our server programming) and, in doing so, I have made an effort (for the first time in my programming career!) to address these sorts of problems.

Of course I also tried to build a better mousetrap at the same time (and I had a ton of design help from Uday, David Smith, and our artists in this regard not to mention plenty of excellent suggestions from Forums readers). It is hard for me to be objective about this, but I strongly believe we have been successful - BBOFlash really is better than BBOWin (IMO) even though BBOWin is likely to remain a more powerful program for a while.

BBOWin is also likely to remain a more popular program than BBOFlash for a while too. But I am guessing this will not be the case forever.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

jillybean2, on Jun 20 2008, 09:29 PM, said:

As default I don’t have lobby chat turned on, I think it is awful but without it how will we find other players/pairs for a team game or find subs for teams and tournaments?

Substitutes work differently in BBOFlash - there is no need for Lobby Chat for the purposes of advertising for subs.

As far as using lobby chat to organize team matches go, let's just say for now that Uday and I recognize that there is a problem in this area.

This problem will be addressed but not via lobby chat (and not immediately). Instead I expect we will develop an entirely new facility that makes it easier for people to form team matches.

Not sure when this will happen, but now that the issue regarding lobby chat and forming team matches has been brought to our attention (thanks!), I suspect that the priority for doing creating this hypothetical new facility will be bumped up.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com