BBO Web-client Thread 8

[fred]

If I understand you correctly (far from clear), none of the issues you raise are real issues. Here are some suggestions (2 of which are repeated from my previous post):

 

1) Use the yellow "play bridge now" link on www.bridgebase.com to access the web-client. This will cause the web-client to appear in a popup window without all the browser controls at at the top of the window that you see.

 

2) By default, the area on the right side of the screen (under "Who's online") will go away when you join a table. If you have managed to change the default, once you get to a table click the "Results" button below the table to change it back.

 

3) I have no idea why you think it is a good idea to make the Windows taskbar at the bottom of your screen so high in the vertical direction. This looks to me to a big waste of screen real estate. In my experience yours is a very unusual configuration and, given that you apparently prefer to work with a low screen resolution, this is going to impair your experiences with a lot of applications. I think you should consider changing this back to the normal height (which is 1/3 of the height you are using).

 

4) Try hitting F11, especially if you are unwilling to follow my advice in 3).

 

5) If your eyes can handle it, increase your screen resolution. This will improve your experiences with many programs.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[csdenmark]

If I understand you correctly (far from clear), none of the issues you raise are real issues. Here are some suggestions (2 of which are repeated from my previous post):

 

1) Use the yellow "play bridge now" link on www.bridgebase.com to access the web-client. This will cause the web-client to appear in a popup window without all the browser controls at at the top of the window that you see.

 

2) By default, the area on the right side of the screen (under "Who's online") will go away when you join a table. If you have managed to change the default, once you get to a table click the "Results" button below the table to change it back.

 

3) I have no idea why you think it is a good idea to make the Windows taskbar at the bottom of your screen so high in the vertical direction. This looks to me to a big waste of screen real estate. In my experience yours is a very unusual configuration and, given that you apparently prefer to work with a low screen resolution, this is going to impair your experiences with a lot of applications. I think you should consider changing this back to the normal height (which is 1/3 of the height you are using).

 

4) Try hitting F11, especially if you are unwilling to follow my advice in 3).

 

5) If your eyes can handle it, increase your screen resolution. This will improve your experiences with many programs.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

1) Use the yellow "play bridge now" link on www.bridgebase.com to access the web-client. This will cause the web-client to appear in a popup window without all the browser controls at at the top of the window that you see.

 

No Fred my IE is set to open all in a new TAB. I use that setting for RSS-info. My own web-sites which aut. ought to open in a new and frameless window also opens in this way. Annoying but nobody but myself know of that.

 

3) I have no idea why you think it is a good idea to make the Windows taskbar

 

My taskbar is my control center. To have a high one is very much better than to accept windows collapses which is the only real alternative.

 

4) Try hitting F11, especially if you are unwilling to follow my advice in 3).

 

Didnt know anything of that but it works exactly as I want it to do. I think you should provide that info on the site - then you would have solved the problems you addressed and which was the reason for me to post.

 

5) If your eyes can handle it, increase your screen resolution.

 

I run standard 1024/768 as I remember. I have no intension to change that. That is standard for PC but the flash version must be for something else than PC. As I mentioned tablet PC(7""), mobile phones(2"") and TV(16:9)

[fred]

I run standard 1024/768 as I remember. I have no intension to change that. That is standard for PC but the flash version must be for something else than PC. As I mentioned tablet PC(7""), mobile phones(2"") and TV(16:9)

I have given up on the concept of you listening to my suggestions, but in case anyone else out there is tempted to believe your nonsense...

 

1) There is no such thing as "standard for PC" in terms of screen resolution. If there is any "standard" for a given PC that is typically the native resolution of the monitor that happens to be attached to that PC. Nowdays something like 35% of BBO members use 1024x768. This number has steadily decreased over the years and this trend will certainly continue.

 

2) The BBO web-client does not care what your screen resolution is (provided that it is at least 800x600 or thereabouts).

 

3) For most modern applications (including web browsers, word processors, video players, and most games), the higher your screen resolution, the better the user experience.

 

4) If you sometimes run more than one application at a time, the higher your screen resolution, the better the user experience.

 

5) If you like to have things like your self-described "control panel" on your screen at all times, the higher your screen resolution, the less this will interfere with the normal operation of the applications that you run.

 

6) I can think of several major advantages and no disadvantages to setting your screen resolution as high as your computer and your eyes can handle. This has nothing to do with the BBO web-client. It has everything to do with increasing your producivity and increasing the enjoyment you get from doing whatever it is you do on your computer.

 

7) The last sentence you write suggests that you do not understand that screen resolution, physical monitor size, and aspect ratio are 3 different things. You are mixing apples, oranges, and bananas.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

Since your taskbar uses up so much room, have you considered the auto-hide taskbar option? The taskbar will disappear most of the time, but when you move the mouse to the bottom of the window it will reappear automatically. I like this option even with the normal size taskbar, since 99% of the time I don't need to use the "control center" when I'm in other apps.

 

You might also consider moving your task bar from the bottom to the side, since you have more horizontal than vertical space available in your 1024x768 configuration.

[csdenmark]

Since your taskbar uses up so much room, have you considered the auto-hide taskbar option? The taskbar will disappear most of the time, but when you move the mouse to the bottom of the window it will reappear automatically. I like this option even with the normal size taskbar, since 99% of the time I don't need to use the "control center" when I'm in other apps.

 

You might also consider moving your task bar from the bottom to the side, since you have more horizontal than vertical space available in your 1024x768 configuration.

No I have not considered that. I hide the taskbar only when I have some problems and only temporarly.

 

Fred informed of my solution, F11 button which gives exactly what I think is needed, full screen.

 

I will make no more comments in this thread - looks like it will be appreciated.

[HeavyDluxe]

I don't think there is a way to see the vugraph announcements on the web client... Am I right about that? On the windows client, there would be a 'shout' whenever the broadcasts were about to start back up. IIRC, they even came through when you had lobby chat silenced.

 

If something analogous is hard to implement, might there be some other workaround? Perhaps the 'BBO Now' could glow when vugraph is open?

 

Given the last couple posts, I'd like to emphasize how much I appreciate the web client and all the work that's gone into it. I definitely prefer it to the old program now.

 

(Oh, one other ultra-minor pet peeve... I love the new card color schemes and graphics. But what's up with the ♣Q and ♦J? Those 'two tones' just seem out of place. Yes. I'm OC.)

[barmar]

I'm pretty sure I've seen announcements of Vugraph in the web client. They show up in the chat area as broadcast messages.

[babalu1997]

hello

 

this is just another request to adjust the substitution function.

 

when i sign as a sub i land in those team matches and then the hosts remove me

 

happens over an over and it is quite annoying. to this day only one td was polite enough to approach me after the game and apologize because the original player returned

 

when i sub in a tournament that is much less likely to happen because they mostly accept from the genral ppol of players whereas in the team matches there are often playing freinds involved.

 

thanks

[mink]

In the windows client, you can get yourself a sub while your partner is red. This seems to be not possible in the web client.

 

Karl

[paulg]

Using the web client I wanted to leave a message for a friend who was offline. Rather than go to the mailbox and compose a mail message, I just put their name into the 'Find member' box (planning to chat a message that would be delivered as mail).

 

When the profile popped up, I was surprised to see that my friend was actually online kibbing at a team match.

 

Feature or bug?

[babalu1997]

when i play on the web version, sometimes my bid box disappears after i chat to table.

 

i cannot figure out when, but i dont know here to get the bid box back

 

the hosts or tds end up removing me, i guess they do not believe the bid box disappeared

[suokko]

I just noticed login problem with flash version.

 

Problem is that flash client is sending DNS request for v2proxy01.bridgebase.com.pp.htv.fi (when trying to login)

 

Extra part in domain name is the domain name of my ISP network. This may not be bbo bug but I haven't seen any other program or website having similar problems.

 

From same report I noticed that also bbo adds are sometimes sending DNS request appended with .pp.htv.fi. I suspect this bug might have existed for long time because I remember that I randomly don't see bbo advertisements when playing with flash version.

 

So this problem seems to happen randomly while same time I can login with windows version without problems.

 

My system is:

Ubuntu 9.10 (32bit)

Firefox 3.5.5

Flash 10.0.32.18

local DNS query caching is done by dnsmasq 2.50

[barmar]

I suspect the problem is with the configuration of the resolver. It's probably ading your local domain suffix automatically, then trying the original name if that name doesn't find anything. Or maybe Flash does this automatically. I doubt that Fred or Uday would have put something to add the local domain in their code, it makes no sense.

 

The problem is that your domain apparently has a wildcard record in it, so the lookup doesn't fail.

[suokko]

Yes. It is unlikely to be in website code. I did do some more debugging and I found possible source of problem.

 

I had dnsmasq also caching addresses that failed to resolve. So if I get one time filure to resolve one of bbo subdomains for some reason my cache server would remember the failed query for a few hours. I guess I hve to change that caching timeout a bit shorter.

 

So my guess is that some dns server is failing to resolve bbo domain names for short moments (which would explain why I see the problem only randomly). And I'm unlucky enough sometimes poison my local cache with a failed query.

[EddyHaskel]

Using the web client I wanted to leave a message for a friend who was offline. Rather than go to the mailbox and compose a mail message, I just put their name into the 'Find member' box (planning to chat a message that would be delivered as mail).

 

When the profile popped up, I was surprised to see that my friend was actually online kibbing at a team match.

 

Feature or bug?

Cardsharp,

I've had similar experiences. I think the web client "Find Member" function finds invisible users. The Windows client did not report invisible users. I kind of like it (like being able to see The Invisible Man). :)

[paulg]

Using the web client I wanted to leave a message for a friend who was offline. Rather than go to the mailbox and compose a mail message, I just put their name into the 'Find member' box (planning to chat a message that would be delivered as mail).

 

When the profile popped up, I was surprised to see that my friend was actually online kibbing at a team match.

 

Feature or bug?

Cardsharp,

I've had similar experiences. I think the web client "Find Member" function finds invisible users. The Windows client did not report invisible users. I kind of like it (like being able to see The Invisible Man). :)

A quick test showed that the invisible person has to be somewhere, playing or kibbing. Just being online (or in the Lobby) keeps their privacy.

[suokko]

A few notes from Reisinger:

 

BAM totals are NaN. That means half points are not understood by code.

 

Playing records from open room boards 25 and 27 and closed room 27 is not available. Results are recorded but when trying to click them to show the result bbo fails to get playing record silently.

[Ant590]

A quick test showed that the invisible person has to be somewhere, playing or kibbing. Just being online (or in the Lobby) keeps their privacy.

Presumably this is similar to seeing the invisible players in the win client if you are at the same table as them.

[paulg]

A quick test showed that the invisible person has to be somewhere, playing or kibbing. Just being online (or in the Lobby) keeps their privacy.

Presumably this is similar to seeing the invisible players in the win client if you are at the same table as them.

Presumably, but now I don't need to know where they are :(

[fred]

Using the web client I wanted to leave a message for a friend who was offline. Rather than go to the mailbox and compose a mail message, I just put their name into the 'Find member' box (planning to chat a message that would be delivered as mail).

 

When the profile popped up, I was surprised to see that my friend was actually online kibbing at a team match.

 

Feature or bug?

I guess this should be called a "feature" since this is how it was meant to work.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

I don't think there is a way to see the vugraph announcements on the web client... Am I right about that? On the windows client, there would be a 'shout' whenever the broadcasts were about to start back up. IIRC, they even came through when you had lobby chat silenced.

 

If something analogous is hard to implement, might there be some other workaround? Perhaps the 'BBO Now' could glow when vugraph is open?

 

Given the last couple posts, I'd like to emphasize how much I appreciate the web client and all the work that's gone into it. I definitely prefer it to the old program now.

 

(Oh, one other ultra-minor pet peeve... I love the new card color schemes and graphics. But what's up with the ♣Q and ♦J? Those 'two tones' just seem out of place. Yes. I'm OC.)

There are no vugraph announcements in the web client. There is a brief glow effect on the BBO Now button already when a vugraph broadcast starts. Maybe I should do something less subtle...

 

I am not sure what you mean about the Queen of clubs and Jack of diamonds. Mine look fine. Can you please send a screenshot to fred@bridgebase.com?

 

Thanks,

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[tacheon]

I have both web Client and downloaded version, on two separate computers.

Web Client under Linux ( which I would never use as I do not like it at all) and the other computer using windows XP which I use all the time. If I had to use Web Client as a TD ,I would give it away. Even the download version has problems for TDs ( every TD I know complains about the pop-up calls for a director which cause everything to stop until each one is clicked off and then can you finish typing , if another one does not stop you.

I would love to be able to use the smilies at the side of this page when playing ,or more so when TD in BBO.

This is possibly the finest Social site on the internet, and I hope, Fred, you can go forward not backwards. We want more people not less and all I have heard from most people is NO to webclient - keep our download version.

Best wishes to all for the coming season,whatever your religion may be

Tacheon

[onoway]

I tried the Web Client again tonight and perhaps it is the unfamiliarity of the set up but I found the cards, though apparently much larger, to be sort of fuzzy..the table seemed to have a mistiness which was most disconcerting. I was intending to explore but got invited to play..is there any way to go to a table by right clicking on the name of the host as there is in the windows version? It wouldn't work for me. I had to message and ask him where he was and then explain that right clicking didn't work and then wander down the list of tables to find him...very inconvenient.

 

Also, I really dislike the chat setup. It seemed cramped, harder to read and very distracting, all at the same time. I'm not sure how it managed that and will look at it again to see if I can figure it out.

 

Anyway, I got through one hand but still felt disoriented with the cards, so logged off and back on with the old version with a sigh of relief. Sorry. The whole thing still seems so much less user friendly to me. I will try it again and spend a bit more time looking around as the time tonight was hardly a fair test. At the moment though, I still think you got it pretty much right in the first place, at least for the basic functions that I use/want.

[Ant590]

The problem with getting to other player's tables is annoying. It is possible, but you must first click on their name, wait a few seconds whilst the server communicates, then right click and the web client will have loaded the fact they're playing at a table.

 

In the win version the server continually tells each user where every other user is, which means far more bandwith is needed for the BBO servers, and it resulted on the 10k user cap they used to have. The flash version only loads stuff when it's needed, but the mechanism seems really slow (2-5 seconds for me), which is why you don't see the join table on the right-click menu.

 

P.s. I'm not connected with BBO; the above is what I *think* is the case...

[barmar]

Right click on the player name in chat, and select "Show Profile". The profile window has a "Join" button that will take you to their table.