how to bring up previous hands while in chat room

[lcmdir]

Hi:   When in a Chat room my partner & I would like to bring up movies of hands just played for partnership discussion. I can get  the last hand played to show up but can't get to previous hands.  Is there a way to do this? Any suggestions you make will be appreciated!

 

Thanks very much for the great work you all have done, are doing, and I am sure will continue to do -- BBO is a wonderful site!!

 

Anna (lcmdir)

[inquiry]

Hi Anna

 

You can open any logged file of hands on your computer. But this is the inverse of looking at the last hand you played. When you open the logged file, it only allows you to paste the FIRST hand from the file into the chat.

 

However, here is a work around that will do what you want, but requires about 30 seconds of  your time and the use of windows commands and the program NOTEPAD that came with windows.

 

1: Go to windows explorer and change to the directory under where the hands are stored. It is probably something like C:/Bridge Base Online/hands/lcmdir

 

2: Make a copy of the file you are interest in discussing in the chat. (right click on the file name, choose "copy" then "paste"). The origianl file will be named something like 03-18-03-01. In this example, the new file will be named "Copy of 03-18-03-01".

 

3: Using Notepad, open the "copy" of the file you just made. To find the file, you will need to go to the right directory, and change the file type from *.txt to "all files"

 

Now the tricky part happens. Perhaps this file contains a lot of hands. You have two options. If you know which hand you want to show, you can find it and make some changes to the file so the hand you are interested in will show. But I will assume you want to at least look at each hand one at a time and decide rather or not to display it.  

 

4: Using the Movie button, open the file entitled "copy of ...." and if you want, paste the hand into the chat (with movie open, push the "you hold button" and then from movie press Send button.

 

5: When you are ready to move to the second hand, this is where you will use notepad. In the file you opened in notepad you will find a line that begins:

qx|01|.... (bunch of stuff, including  your name). Start highlight from the start of the qx until the last space on the line just before the next line that starts qx|02|. Then delete all the stuff you just highlighted.

 

6: In Notepad, choose "SAVE AS" (important, NOT SAVE, but SAVE AS) and in the save dialog box change the file type from "Text Document (*.txt) to "All Files". Then press "save". You will get a dialog box saying you are going to overright an existing file with the same name. Say yes. When you save the file, you have lost the first hand from the copy of the file you made (but since it was only a copy, no problem, you have the original file safely left alone).

 

7: Now in movie, you can open the "copy of .... " file, and since the first hand has been deleted, the second hand shows up. You can paste that hand. When you are ready for the third hand, you go back to notepad, delelete the original second hand (beginning at qx|02| and ending just before qx|03| and repeat the "SAVE AS" step.

 

This way, you can walk through all the hands you played. Hope that helps. If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message through the BBO.

[lcmdir]

Inquiry,  

 

Thanks for your suggestion.  It works like a charm.  I don't even mind going through the steps (it only takes me 2 or 3 times to get everything right   lol).  

 

Step 4:  After getting a hand to show up in Movie,

using the "you hold" button to "send" the hand right to the chat room (?floor?) is so amazing!

 

You are a bridge player & computer user all-in-one-expert plus a generous person.  Thank you for sending the directions; your help is very much appreciated!

 

Anna  

[eyhung]

Thanks to inquiry for answering the question so thoroughly and correctly, but I believe there is also a simpler solution.  With the "myhands" feature (at http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands) you can easily review all the hands and tricks played, not only from your session, but from other tables as well!  (However, boards do not show up until they are played 16 times.)

 

I agree that it is logical for the chat room to support handling of session log files so that all hands in the log file can be reviewed, instead of merely the first one.  In future versions of BBO, perhaps this feature will be supported?

 

Eugene

[inquiry]

You are welcome.

 

Easier way to do it

Actually, since Uday added the "save a hand feature" to the myhands site, you could go through any set of hands, and save the interesting ones one at a time. Then open the newly saved file in the movie format. So no copying and deleting, nothing. Straight forward, it is even easier to find the intresting hands.  You have two options. Save hands one at time, display it, then save a new one using the same file name each time, or run through the file, saving them with new file name (maybe bid01, bid02, etc).

 

Sorry I didn't think of this solution earlier. :-(  It was eyhung comment that got to to think about the myhand site.  In my defense, however, I was the person who requested that the save a hand feature be added to the myhand site in a post in the first days of this forum, which makes this easier option available.

 

The caveat is that all the hands you play don't necessarily show up in the myhand feature, and a few appear to never make it there. I wonder if the 16 times played accounts for that?

[uday]

Deals are added to the "myhands" database approximately 10 minutes after the deals have been played out (ie, played 16 times).

 

Lower number deals are played out faster than higher number deals. It takes about an hour for a board 1 to be played out 16 times.  Also, deals played at prime time (currently about 3-5PM, EST) are played out faster.

 

Deals not making it into the database are almost certainly a bug of some sort. If you think this is happening, please contact me - support@bridgebase.com - with anything that might help me track down the deal ( your hand, your partner, when you played it, thecontract, etc etc )

 

Fred & I have discussed improving the Movie window behaviour.  Maybe we'll do something once the next beta has been posted. Maybe not ;) . In any case, our next big software push will be for tournament support, which will also force modifications to the Movie window, and we'll try to do it then.

 

Uday

[inquiry]

Uday,

 

Next time I notice a hand not making it to the myhands site, I will let you know. I generally go over my log files. Often, the IMP scores for the first so many will not be in the normal log file. This of course happens whenever the scoring had been reset at the table during play (new player joining, my partner gets sick of our -200 imp score, etc). So I have been opening notepad, and take the imp scores from the myhand site and add them to the log so they are properly displayed. Twice now, I have noted a missing hand in the myhand site that was in the log file site. This is easy to find, since the contract doesn't line up and I have one more hand in log file from my hard drive than what shows up in the myhand site.

 

Ben

[lcmdir]

Thanks Ben, Uday, and Eyhung,

 

Yes, using the myhands site & saving a hand to open in a Chat Room for partner discussion/review is much easier!  Eureka!

 

Two things follow: (1) A tip for other novices (like me), and (2) A problem using "My Hands".

 

1.  Tip for other novices interested in this feature:

 

After you are looking at a picture of the hand you want (at the myhands site), scroll down and select  "click here to fetch movie in LIN format" and save it to your hard disk.  I recommend you save it as Ben suggested earlier

 

C:/BridgeBaseOnline/hands/your screen name

 

A handy title is  date, board number, and partner's screen name,  03-18-03-b12-lcmdir  (this is easy to find when you are in the Chat Room and want to open a Movie).

 

2. Problem with "My Hands"

 

When I tried to get my hands from March 18, 2003, to come up, all I saw was "the page cannot be displayed".  But, when I entered my partner's name instead of mine, the hands came right up (go figure!).

 

Thanks again!

Anna

[inquiry]

I too have experience the page will not display issue from time to time. Usually going back and searching your name a second time fixes it. For instance, I just pulled up your hands from the 18th. I see you played against two of my friends, David and Ben (at least he has a great name...  :;)

 

Try it again and see if you can't pull them up under your own name.

 

Ben