flattop

After a forgotten email to Fred, I had followed a year later with a post in this forum on march 13, 2005 titled "Rehash +" which also never got anywhere other than a nice comment from Uday that my suggestion was at least "intriguing". So I'll try again with a modified suggestion that may be more acceptable. Originally I had requested some "Alt+letter" combinations to acquire LHO, RHO, Partner and table Host usernames (Alt+L, R, P, H) that I had suggested could get the program to store these acronyms in the clipboard where they could be picked-up for use in a script (for my personal need) or wherever the user may want it (in a chat message for instance). I'll admit that this idea and mainly its suggested solution, while easy to implement, may have been a little farfetched and really too involved for the general community to use. So here's a much better solution that is kept in line with the current practice of using the exclamation point (!)* before a letter to display the card symbols in chat messages (!S, !H, !D, !C). An extension to these hotkeys (!L, !R, !P, !T) could be used to display usernames for LHO (relative to user's position at the table), RHO, Partner and Table host in the same fashion. I believe that this could be quite convenient for all users when they want to adress a specific player in their chat such as "Could you please reset the scores, !T" or "Very well done indeed, !R. That !H3 switch really killed my contract!". And selfishly, it could very well serve the lazy typist that I am when I also use this same convenience in my script (OKScript) to issue routine chat messages. Just awful, I know, I prefer hitting a button to typing "vwdp", while of course spending days developing the script to do it (programmers are all the same)! * By the way, is that choice of the ! questionnable? I guess you never got too many complaints. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think that in Spanish whenever the ! is called for as punctuation at the end of a sentence, an ! is also used at the beginning of that sentence (same for the ?). Such that any south americain player writing "!Halo!" to us may actually be sending "♥alo".

Good idea! Perhaps another color to immediately follow the yellows in the list. and no bubbles for the others logging in.

Hi Fred (and Sheri and Uday), Here are some items that I had referred to you in an email last march, while you were in Reno, and to which I only received an immediate acknowlegment of receipt but nothing since. The message must have fallen through the cracks, I guess. So I'll try again in this forum with an additional item, this time. Problem: - When typing text without first hitting the chat button, the first character, if it happens to be a french accented character, somehow gets lost in mid-air and the transmitted chat message starts with the second character. That first character does not trigger the appearance of the chat window. - Oops!... Maybe it was taken care of after all because it no longer happens. Maybe someone else reported it. Thanks for the fix in any case. Special need: - Could there be a way for the BBO program to supply us with the username of players present at the table where we are playing. My specific and current need is usernames of RHO, Partner, LHO and table Host, for automating chat messages to the table from a script (Hi!, Thanks, Well done, Please clear scores, all followed by their username) . - Perhaps the use of a keyboard shortcut such as Alt-L to obtain LHO's username, relative to the requester's position at the table, could get the BBO program to place LHO's username in the Clipboard, from which the user or his script (ie OKScript) could pick it up. - Similarly, Alt-R/P/H could be used to obtain RHO's/Partner's/Host's usernames and certainly more possibilities exist for any other program variable that may be useful to our members (dealer, declarer, whose turn to play or bid, private club name, ...?). - Any shift key (Ctrl, Alt or Shift), or any combination thereof, could be used along with a letter, and even Fkeys could be used, in combination with others or not, if available in sufficient number. - By the way, a list of all keyboard shortcuts used in the program could (should) be made available in the bridge library, with their function and place of availability, for everyone's benefit and your tranquility. Thanks for providing me with such a list last year, when I asked you. Actually, why not have such a list displayed with a right click, for instance? Convenience: - It would be nice if the text found in the chat box at the bottom (not the Chat window) could be highligthed and lifted by a user to copy and paste email, teacher material, free advice, etc... - The same holds true for the information found in the users' profiles, to copy someone's system or email when they are given in their profile. Browser: - Would it be possible, when calling on Internet sites such as the link for the current invitation to subscribe to The Bridge World in the news window, and anywhere else in BBO for that matter, to invoke the user's default browser as opposed to always IE. - I use, am more familiar with and prefer Netscape 7.2. I did subscribe to TBW, using Netscape and your link, and all worked fine. I know some sites are not optimized for Netscape, particularly when it comes to forms filling and submission, but they are relatively rare and are indeed at fault, in my opinion. - I know, I know, even your coachee's MSN Gaming Zone will not do it for us! I still believe it should remain a user's choice, however. - Note that the access to this BBO Forum actually did use my preferred browser. Thanks again for this beautiful online bridge site and for all the work and long hours you all keep putting in for us.