BBOTV - feedback

[uday]

Feedback about Fred's new Flash toy welcome here.

[TimG]

When I read that there was a BBOTV, I immediately thought that there was going to be some sort of television program/network. Sort of like FoodTV is a network for food programming.

[helene_t]

Just installed Mozilla flash on my Ubuntu Dapper Drake LTS 6.06 and tried BBOTV from Firefox 1.5.0.8.

 

I cannot specify login and password (the text fields are disabled). I can click on anonymous login, though.

 

First attempt: after a few seconds it said "connection lost".

Second attempt: after it had said "transfering data from ..." (don't remember the servername) for some minutes I gave up and closed the window.

[fred]

Just installed Mozilla flash on my Ubuntu Dapper Drake LTS 6.06 and tried BBOTV from Firefox 1.5.0.8.

 

I cannot specify login and password (the text fields are disabled). I can click on anonymous login, though.

 

First attempt: after a few seconds it said "connection lost".

Second attempt: after it had said "transfering data from ..." (don't remember the servername) for some minutes I gave up and closed the window.

At this point in time we are only allowing anonymous logins. Named logins will likely be enabled within the next couple of weeks.

 

I am sorry, but I am not in a position to help as far as the connection issues are concerned. It sounds like Flash is working OK but that a firewall may be interfering with your ability to connect. Hopefully someone with more knowledge about such things will be able to offer a suggestion.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[uday]

perhaps the port in question (3336) is an issue for some PCs. Maybe I'll try moving the port and see if that helps, but i'll wait just a little bit first.

[paulg]

Initial thoughts:

• Like the graphics, especially when I make the window fill the screen
  
• For vugraph the cards are a lot easier to see in Hand Diagram mode. Until I can play (and so just see my hand and dummy), I'll reserve judgement on the 'pictures of cards' view that I normally use. I'm on an 1024x768 screen.
  
• Few will use the Logoff button ... we just close tabs/windows to do that in a browser
  
• I cannot find out who is at the table or details of people commentating - this may be a function of anonymous login?
  
• Preferences used in the main window (such as Hand Diagram mode) are not retained in the My Hands (aka movie) screen.
  

[chicken]

ok it was easy login and smooth performance. i liked it. curious how things will develop.... @ the moment i would prefer a 1-1 transfer from the actual software to the flashthing.

again: what will happen to the fd-files function? it would be a pitty if the zillions of hours bbo-members spent on it would be wasted.

[keylime]

I tried it on this machine and it went very smoothly through into the phases shown; I am behind a hardware firewall and it did not have any trouble getting to the content.

 

I'm eager to try this on my Mac at home to see what happens.

 

I do know that there are some 3rd party software that block Flash animations (Spyware Blaster is the first that comes to mind). Obviously you'd want to install that if you are admin level to do so (like I am - our other accounts are mostly power users but can not install Flash or Shockwave without admins knowing about it).

 

Fred, my question is regards to signoff - will it leave a cookie(s) on the computer so that if you close a tab in IE7/Safari/Firefox/Opera, and then reopen it, will it be of the per session nature where you'll need authenication or will it retain the login?

[fred]

Fred, my question is regards to signoff - will it leave a cookie(s) on the computer so that if you close a tab in IE7/Safari/Firefox/Opera, and then reopen it, will it be of the per session nature where you'll need authenication or will it retain the login?

If you close the tab or browser in which BBOTV is running or if you refresh the page, your session will be terminated and you will have to log in again.

 

In theory you should have no trouble running BBOTV on your Mac at home.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

ok it was easy login and smooth performance. i liked it. curious how things will develop.... @ the moment i would prefer a 1-1 transfer from the actual software to the flashthing.

again: what will happen to the fd-files function? it would be a pitty if the zillions of hours bbo-members spent on it would be wasted.

We don't have a clear plan for convention cards yet, but it will almost certainly be necessary for BBOTV to understand both the "old style convention cards" and FD files. Similarly the existing BBO client will have to understand BBOTV convention cards (whatever they end up being).

 

It doesn't sound like much fun...

 

Sorry but the 1-1 transfer is not going to happen though I expect that most of the functionality that exists in the Windows client will eventually be available in some form on another in BBOTV.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[TylerE]

Interesting start. Visually a bit cluttered... too any colors. Hate the red border on the cards. Also, background should be all blue or all green. Performance seems fine. Will go into more depth when not on my lunch break.

[fred]

Initial thoughts:

• Like the graphics, especially when I make the window fill the screen
  
• For vugraph the cards are a lot easier to see in Hand Diagram mode. Until I can play (and so just see my hand and dummy), I'll reserve judgement on the 'pictures of cards' view that I normally use. I'm on an 1024x768 screen.
  
• Few will use the Logoff button ... we just close tabs/windows to do that in a browser
  
• I cannot find out who is at the table or details of people commentating - this may be a function of anonymous login?
  
• Preferences used in the main window (such as Hand Diagram mode) are not retained in the My Hands (aka movie) screen.
  

The pictures of cards look really nice at high screen resolutions, but they definitely need some work in terms of making them easier to see at, for example, 1024x768. I agree with the other posted who doesn't like the red borders of the red cards.

 

There are several other areas in which the graphics need work and input from an artist/designer type. This will happen - what you see now is only a demo.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Ant590]

Very nice! Will take a bit of getting used to but so did the new colour scheme before.

 

A couple of things that have frustrated me so far:

 

1) Agree with the others' comments about the border of the cards and the blue border of the main window

 

2) There is a strange object that follows the tip of my mouse- it looks like a scroll wheel or something

 

3) When watching vugraph commentary the format

 

"NAME -> table" takes up too much space. Perhaps if the chat is to the table it shouldn't say, but if personally to you it should?

 

4) I'm not keen on the placement of the other room score, it's not obvious what it is unless you know (i.e. could be par or something)

Ant.

[david_c]

Doesn't work for me - I'm getting a similar problem to Helene. (But I'm using Windows XP and Internet Explorer.) My computer can see there is something going on with port "3336", and the firewall claims not to be blocking it, but the number of "bytes received" in that connection is always zero.

[mike777]

Seemed to work fine for me as far as I could tell. Very fast and clear.

 

As a nontech player I am not sure what this is all for. :)

I did not see any benefits as a user at this point.

Perhaps this is all so bbo can be played on devices other than a basic PC?

[julie5607]

Well I for one like it - it allows me to make the BBO screen much smaller on my high resolution monitor so that i can keep an eye on BBO vugraph while multi-tasking, one of my favorite occupations. Additionally, running this along with the regular BBO client allows me to watch both tables of a vugaph simultaneously - which begs the question, is this always going to be the case? And if so, how will you handle the inevitable players who will want to kib their own tables?

 

 

Julie

[cherdano]

It's really nice to have BBO in vectorgraphics!

[jillybean]

Works for me, looking forward to more developments

[helene_t]

Now running firefox 2.0.0.6 under Ubuntu feisty fawn 7.0.4. This works fine. Could also be a network issue, though, since I'm not behind a firewall this time.. telnet bridgebase06.bridgebase.com 3336 does not get rejected but freezes when I'm behind the firewall.

 

This is really cool. Arranging deals without requiring an upload will be great for teachers (and for goulash TDs of course).

[fred]

Well I for one like it - it allows me to make the BBO screen much smaller on my high resolution monitor so that i can keep an eye on BBO vugraph while multi-tasking, one of my favorite occupations. Additionally, running this along with the regular BBO client allows me to watch both tables of a vugaph simultaneously - which begs the question, is this always going to be the case? And if so, how will you handle the inevitable players who will want to kib their own tables?

 

 

Julie

Good questions.

 

We can prevent 2 BBOTV sessions from being run on the same computer, but so far we have not been doing this.

 

Preventing someone logging in twice from the same computer, once with each client, is a little more complicated.

 

Not clear what our long term policies in this area will be. Perhaps we will allow more than one anonymous login, but greatly restrict the tables that anons can kibitz at.

 

Very likely we will continue to have some kind of mechanism for allowing people to watch more than one vugraph table at a time.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Finch]

It didn't work for me, but I tried it from work behind a firewall that also won't let me log on to BBO the normal way. I shall try from home at some point.

 

As a nontech player I am not sure what this is all for. :)

I did not see any benefits as a user at this point.

Perhaps this is all so bbo can be played on devices other than a basic PC?

 

Techie arguments aside, one big benefit is to let you use BBO without downloading and installing software. That's a techie point you say? Well, only yesterday I was thinking about how good something like this would be, without knowing this thread existed.

 

We were visiting my mother who is currently in hospital and going crazy from boredom. She cannot use her own laptop with its wireless connection as no wireless connection is available (they don't like them in hospitals, along with mobile phones) but has available an "entertainment centre" which for £2.90 a day gives radio, TV and internet access. She can't 'download' BBO because it's only a terminal, but if it has internet access, I imagine it can use BBOTV.

 

More generally, internet cafes and similar generally don't let you download and install software.

[rona_]

I love the colours. Would prefer the red cards a little brighter.

 

Off to try it on vista now.

 

Rona

[DrTodd13]

After reading this thread again, I guess I saw the hostname and port number that bbotv is using. The firewall solution at least for me involves modifying bbover.ini to set the server name and address to my local machine and then I have a tunnel from my local machine to the bbo server. Unless I can modify the target server and port, I don't think I'll be able to setup a tunnel with bbotv. This is a huge negative for me.

[fred]

After reading this thread again, I guess I saw the hostname and port number that bbotv is using. The firewall solution at least for me involves modifying bbover.ini to set the server name and address to my local machine and then I have a tunnel from my local machine to the bbo server. Unless I can modify the target server and port, I don't think I'll be able to setup a tunnel with bbotv. This is a huge negative for me.

For now host is bridgebase02.bridgebase.com (69.93.3.164) and port # is 3336.

 

This could change at any time (not that I have any reason to believe it will change soon).

 

Before you actually try to connect to BBO using BBOTV, you first have to be able to get to www.bbotv.com where some files will download automatically through port 80.

 

I don't really understand the hows or whys of your firewall (no need for you to try to explain). Assuming your configuration does not fall into the category of "highly unusual" we will likely to try provide a solution for people with such configurations at some point in the future.

 

But that might not happen until we get closer to the official release (which is still months aways). Sorry but for now we have other priorities.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Trumpace]

Not sure if someone mentioned this before, but I do hope you will have a "text" version of the cards (like the current BBO client), instead of just the pictures of the cards.