new BBO program

[cmsjw5]

The chat manager interface behaves differently and I find it quite confusing. Having to click in the chat window below the active table to invoke the Chat Manager is OK, but selecting a preset message places the message in a separate popup dialogue box (instead of just below the default chat window) with its own chat channel selector and chat buttons. The chat channel selector seems to remember the value last used, and does not change in sync with the default chat selector, - so that messages can easily be sent to the wrong channel. Can we not have messages from the chat manager simply written to the default chat message box ?

[Cascade]

Is there a button for redeal? Or do we have to click to bring the menu and then click again to redeal?

 

It would be good if the table set up remembered your previous set up rather than having to reset each time.

 

It would also be good if there was a way to save a hand locally for use with other programs.

[barmar]

Is there a button for redeal? Or do we have to click to bring the menu and then click again to redeal?

It's only in the menu.

 

The only table action that has its own button is Claim, everything else is in the menu.

It would be good if the table set up remembered your previous set up rather than having to reset each time.

Everything that's in the Settings screen is saved. I assume you're talking about the size of the different sections of the window.

[Cascade]

It's only in the menu.

 

The only table action that has its own button is Claim, everything else is in the menu.

 

Everything that's in the Settings screen is saved. I assume you're talking about the size of the different sections of the window.

 

Redeal seems like an action that I should not have to click twice for.

 

No I mean settings like no kibitzers or invisible etc.

 

I do not know what the issues are with saving data locally but an alternative would be to have the hand record emailed to the user. That would be a good way to get a record of a practice or even a play session.

[LionHeart1]

The Chat Manager can be acivated by clicking on an empty point in the Chat Message area. But what to do if this area is full?

[barmar]

Redeal seems like an action that I should not have to click twice for.

I don't think we thought this was such a common operation that it needs its own button. But I can see how it would be needed in the "race" types of tourneys.

No I mean settings like no kibitzers or invisible etc.

I don't think these are saved in any version, but I can see how it could be useful.

[Cascade]

I don't think we thought this was such a common operation that it needs its own button. But I can see how it would be needed in the "race" types of tourneys.

 

I don't think these are saved in any version, but I can see how it could be useful.

 

At a bidding table the redeal button is very common. I use teaching tables in similar ways to practice defence or to bid hands with myself when testing out new system.

 

It seems a step backward to make redeal to get a new hand a two step process.

 

The settings I was annoyed about because I could not find how to turn sound off so I left a table to see if I could see settings somewhere else and when I came back to the table I had to set it up again. Usually it is not a problem as I only have to set up once per session but it would be nice to be able to save some default settings. I know occasionally I forget to make a table invisible when I am working on something by myself and then because of the way the undo button works I have to remove robots to undo and then someone comes and sits at the table. It would be nice if my default invisible was set and I then couldn't forget to do this.

 

The problem with undo when a robot is seated is that you undo to the robot and it immediately bids or plays again often so you can't get back to undo your action without removing the robot.

 

Being able to save practice hands at a teaching or bidding table is really a feature that would be very valuable. To me it is very desirable to be able to keep an easily accessible and manipulated - think put into a document - record of hands we have practiced.

[barmar]

At a bidding table the redeal button is very common. I use teaching tables in similar ways to practice defence or to bid hands with myself when testing out new system.

 

It seems a step backward to make redeal to get a new hand a two step process.

Remember that V3 is essentially the same as the mobile app. While we can make layout dependent on the screen size where necessary (e.g. the sidebar is only on desktops) we try to keep things mostly consistent. And small devices don't have room for lots of buttons.

The settings I was annoyed about because I could not find how to turn sound off so I left a table to see if I could see settings somewhere else and when I came back to the table I had to set it up again. Usually it is not a problem as I only have to set up once per session but it would be nice to be able to save some default settings. I know occasionally I forget to make a table invisible when I am working on something by myself and then because of the way the undo button works I have to remove robots to undo and then someone comes and sits at the table. It would be nice if my default invisible was set and I then couldn't forget to do this.

Understood. Of course, you don't need to leave the table to change your settings, just go to the Account tab.

The problem with undo when a robot is seated is that you undo to the robot and it immediately bids or plays again often so you can't get back to undo your action without removing the robot.

I don't understand this. When you undo against a robot it reverts back to your turn to bid or play.

Being able to save practice hands at a teaching or bidding table is really a feature that would be very valuable. To me it is very desirable to be able to keep an easily accessible and manipulated - think put into a document - record of hands we have practiced.

I just tried a bidding practice table, and the Export option is in the menu in the History tab.

[Cascade]

I don't understand this. When you undo against a robot it reverts back to your turn to bid or play.

 

I just tried a bidding practice table, and the Export option is in the menu in the History tab.

 

1. Not at a teaching table. When you undo in the old version it reverts to the robot who immediately bids.

 

I just tried that in the new version and it undid the robot bid and gave me a bidding box that I could bid and then I had the auction on my screen with north bid east blank south bid. So there was no call from east.

 

When I then tried to undo for west it undid the robot bid and immediate bid again.

 

2. Another annoyance with undo now being on a menu is that at the teaching table when I undo I now have to click the menu and click undo for each undo. That is a lot of clicks when you want to do several undos and reduces the functionality of the features of a teaching table where you might frequently want to take back several bids or plays.

 

When I add into that that I have to click twice to remove the robot and twice more to reseat the robot for every sequence of undos (doubled because my usual set up is I sit at two seats and have robots at the other two) the usability is diminished.

 

3. At a teaching or bidding table the most common actions besides actual bidding or playing and chatting are redealing and undoing. I think it is essential that these are easy to perform actions and not something you have to go to a pull down menu to effect.

 

4. Yes the export option is in the history menu but there is no export option that allows you to save a pbn or lin or text file to your computer. Even a text field that I could copy and paste from would be useful. Although it would be much better if that could be done in bulk for a whole session.

 

It would be good too if practice hands were automatically save to your recent hands history for future review.

[kvr_msk]

I tried the new interface yesterday and found it absolutely inconvenient for the bidding practice mode. The most frequently used buttons - GIB, Redeal and Rollback (or maybe Undo? - I'm not sure if my translation of the last word to English is correct because I can't even switch language from Russian to English, there is no such option) - are not on the desktop, but are available only from the menu. It's impossible to practice bidding under such conditions.

 

Upd: I've just noticed that my comment is almost exactly the same as the previous. So it's "Undo", not "Rollback". :)

[barmar]

Thanks for the comments. It sounds like we need to give some more consideration to the way the program is used when hosting a teaching table.

 

4. Yes the export option is in the history menu but there is no export option that allows you to save a pbn or lin or text file to your computer. Even a text field that I could copy and paste from would be useful. Although it would be much better if that could be done in bulk for a whole session.

You couldn't do that with the old version, either.

[pescetom]

Today playing with HTML5 client on PC I was looking for the version and couldn't find it under Help or elsewhere.

I also noticed that the Help still refers to "mobile" and "app".

[pescetom]

A frequent complaint here is that it is not intuitive how to view the results at other tables during a tournament.

I finally sussed that the fuzzy little button at the bottom flips between "My Table" and "Other Tables".

But at the top under "History" there is also a more legible and evident "My Table" which however does nothing unless you choose "Recent Hands" or "Recent Tournaments".

Why not let it flip to "Other Tables" if you are already viewing your own table ?

[Cascade]

Thanks for the comments. It sounds like we need to give some more consideration to the way the program is used when hosting a teaching table.

 

 

You couldn't do that with the old version, either.

 

I know. But it is in my view a major enhancement that could easily be implemented.

 

Recently I have been using correctcontract.com which allows constraints using dealer to be set and hands bid like in BBO.

 

It has some disadvantages in that you cannot have competitive auctions.

 

However it allows a text based record to be exported.

 

It also allows hand constraints to be saved which is a great feature.

 

It seems that it would be easy to allow a text file of the hands to be created even if in a window or textbox and that a user could at least copy and paste a record of their hands. It also seems it would be easy to put these hands into the BBO database temporarily so that they are not lost when a person loses connection etc. Emailing the hands even if only it was a user option would be an easy enhancement I would have thought.

[fred]

A frequent complaint here is that it is not intuitive how to view the results at other tables during a tournament.

I finally sussed that the fuzzy little button at the bottom flips between "My Table" and "Other Tables".

But at the top under "History" there is also a more legible and evident "My Table" which however does nothing unless you choose "Recent Hands" or "Recent Tournaments".

Why not let it flip to "Other Tables" if you are already viewing your own table ?

We will do that at some point likely before too long. Sorry about the inconvenience.

[Dwingo]

Mac. Safari. Multiple Tabs Open. New BBO running in one of the Tabs.

 

When I have some spare time between rounds in a Tournament, I browse content in other Tabs waiting to hear the Sound for Round change or "It's your turn to play". Suddenly I realize that I have been disconnected from BBO.

This has happened quite a few times. Does BBO need a separate Window for it to run?

 

I had seen this type of problem, in the older web BBO, not this frequently, though usually after prolonged use, say 30mins or so (when multiple tabs are open). Something to the effect of insufficient memory. I had surmised that these maybe because of known Flash issues in Mac.

So, I was looking forward to the non-Flash version. But the problem remains. Now see it more frequently.

 

Though I don't get the memory notification, I still get disconnected using the new BBO when I keep switching tabs. If I remain in the BBO Tab, I am never disconnected. I have a very stable 75MBps connection. There is no problem with content refreshing in other tabs. So my ISP is not a problem.

 

Hope this helps in finding the root cause, to fix this stability problem.

[onoway]

Wish-list for new BBO version

• Implement Kungsgeten's BML => Full disclosure. Full-disclosure was a great BBO idea but crude and complex. Kungsgeten's brilliant programs help to document systems and make disclosure easy. Such programs are the future of Bridge.
• Ensure that robots like GIB have a full-disclosure interface. It would then be possible for a GIB opponent to display the meaning of its bids; a GIB opponent to understand your bidding; and a GIB partner to play your system.

I have been driven out of BBO by the new program which I find extraordinarilly frustrating, far too stressful to be worth the effort it now takes to play..although hope springing eternal I keep trying every few months in the forlorn hope that someone somewhere MIGHT be listening to the ongoing laments. Just because Flash was disappearing should not have meant that everything that made the the site so successful so quickly should be tossed out too.

 

Anyway, because of that, I've been playing the endless hands on occassion and now they too have been messed up, the most important screwup being the GIBs explaining a bid as meaning something it cannot possibly mean, such as claiming to have aces you are holding in your own hand. It's literally like playing with three opponents on some hands and good training to bid as though you cannot trust your partner. At all.

 

One feature I DO like is the ability to access BridgeMaster, I have owned two copies of this and lost one in a move, the other was "borrowed" and never returned so that's something I was very pleasantly surprised by. However, even that is not immune to being frustrating now, there is now no way to claim, as there was in the cds, you have to slog through the entire hand to the end or at least until the bid is made, even though the outcome is obvious and unavoidable. This is borriiinnnggg and has made me quit the program more than once.

[onoway]

Something else ... why on earth are the cards for the endless hands now suddenly so monstrous? I feel as though I am being slapped in the eyes when I log in, as though I should be standing about 8 feet back from the computer ..they are far far FAR too big for the size of the screen, and the space is now obnoxious and next to useless. You might as well be playing an arcade game, it has no resemblance to a bridge table. It was very usable before but like almost everything else on BBO in the last few years, apparently that's not allowed so it's been changed too. Don't the programmers have enough to do trying to make BBO itself somewhat vaguely user friendly as it used to be without screwing up the one place still possible to play bridge without blood pressure spiking as soon as you try to log in? So sad.

[peho]

Why I can't rule my table? It says "Permission denied"?

[E Laurvick]

I was just forced by BBO to get the new version. So, I started a game with the robots to see how it works.

 

A few issues. The worst one is that once a trick is turned, it disappears. The first six tricks were played, I got distracted and now I don't remember if I lost one trick or two. Even in the most stringent bridge games, all players are always allowed to see how many tricks (and which ones) have been won be each side. Are we supposed to start noting each trick, which pair won or lost it?

[barmar]

I was just forced by BBO to get the new version. So, I started a game with the robots to see how it works.

We aren't forcing anyone yet. You can still use the Flash version until the browser makers stop supporting Flash sometime next year.

A few issues. The worst one is that once a trick is turned, it disappears. The first six tricks were played, I got distracted and now I don't remember if I lost one trick or two. Even in the most stringent bridge games, all players are always allowed to see how many tricks (and which ones) have been won be each side. Are we supposed to start noting each trick, which pair won or lost it?

There's a diagram of the tricks taken:

This shows that you took 1 trick and the opponents took 4 tricks.

 

You can also click on the quitted tricks there to see the last trick.

[Curls77]

After just couple of minutes at new version, because being unable load any other BBO client, my eyes are full of tears, only because of color choice of chat. PLEASE, pretty please, change that light blue and green used in chat.

I saw in other post that Barmar says flash update gives problems to some users, but for a month now I am rarely able log in to it, AND to old windows client, in specific hours of the day. I blamed my connection for that, but am unsure now if that's main cause.

[oops sry p]

After just couple of minutes at new version, because being unable load any other BBO client, my eyes are full of tears, only because of color choice of chat. PLEASE, pretty please, change that light blue and green used in chat.

Yes - I am having trouble reading the chat also. It seems that the old version uses a "bold" font so the colour is more concentrated. Maybe it is just needs a font change?

 

Thanks BBO!

[chairman]

I'm using the new system, which isn't quite as awful as it was when first I tried it months ago.

 

There are still some things I wish you would work on.

 

Appearance: The black bars on the sides of the playing field are jarring--why not make them the same green?

 

Colors in general. Don't you know any graphic designers? There are black, white, red (at least 1 shade), 3 or more shades of blue, yellow, and two shades of green, at least. And they don't go together. This is a nightmare of colors, which you could easily amend with a talented color person.

 

Functionality: I prefer to use the hand diagrams, but your current implementation is unusable. Nothing lines up, and I can never tell who is playing the card in the off-center area where played cards are displayed. I've been using hand diagrams for 14 years on the old system, surely you can make them work on the new.

 

Chat manager: Why can't I resize? It covers far too much of the field, with buttons "edit, delete" that I rarely/never need, and not the one button that I do need, "send". I used to be able to slip most of it off the screen and compress the rest; now I can do neither.

[pescetom]

Why not pin one official discussion about the HTML5 client?

Or create a specific sub-forum with specific threads for each issue?

The current anarchy makes it hard to follow progress on both sides.

 

That aside, tonight I noticed there was a new version. I'm not sure which, it doesn't show under 'Help', which also still talks about "BBO Mobile" and "App" when I am on a PC.

 

I noticed because it fixed my gripe about using the buttons at the top of History to flip between 'My Table' and 'Other Tables' - thanks :)

 

That said, the buttons are still almost unreadable, "History" now appears on the far right, the buttons at the top are enclosed between "<" and ">" which eat up yet more space and don't disappear even if I give the window almost half the screen width.

 

When I do flip to "Other Tables", the best result remains highlighted instead of my own - the two do not always coincide B-)

 

Scrolling up and down to find my own, I hit a situation where it was no longer possible to resize the playing area horizontally and the areas on both sides (including History) were black. Luckily it was still possible to play. I can send a screen shot if necessary.