[bradd]

fred, on Aug 16 2007, 11:00 AM, said:

Settings for things like whether you use pictures of cards or hand diagrams are saved as soon as you set them.

Settings for things like size and position of components are saved when you log out.

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain this properly.

What I meant was, if BBOTV has changes made by you to its functionality, does the user need to reload the program afresh, or will those changes take effect automatically as soon as he logs in (assuming he does not close the browser window or tab meanwhile)?

[FrancesHinden]

I used the newer version on the same pc as the previous one without having to clear the cache. I have only kibbitzed.

Three comments:
i) When it uses pictures of cards, I can see what happened on any previous trick by clicking on the face down card at the bottom right of the table. But in hand diagram mode I only seem to be able to see the most recent trick. Is this true, or do I not understand the functionality?

ii) It would nice if the player names in the list could be resized; the font size is very big compared to everything else on the screen.

iii) In one case I was idly browsing profiles, and someone had a fairly long name (it was two people, of the form 'Timothy and Samantha Smithson"). Only the first 15 or so characters of the name was showing in the profile box, and I couldn't see a scroll bar or similar; I assume I'd need to resize the whole RHS of the screen to be able to see the full name. A bit of text wrapping would solve that.

[fred]

Thanks for clarifying.

If you log off and log in again without closing the browser window, you will NOT automatically pick up anything new that I uploaded during your original session.

If you close the browser window or click its Refresh button, you *should* then automatically get the latest (though it is not entirely clear this process always works - on some machines it could be necessary to clear your browser's cache).

I suspect Uday and I will eventually figure out a way to make sure the browser's cache cannot interfere with the distribution of new versions.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

FrancesHinden, on Aug 16 2007, 12:10 PM, said:

I used the newer version on the same pc as the previous one without having to clear the cache. I have only kibbitzed.

Three comments:
i) When it uses pictures of cards, I can see what happened on any previous trick by clicking on the face down card at the bottom right of the table. But in hand diagram mode I only seem to be able to see the most recent trick. Is this true, or do I not understand the functionality?

ii) It would nice if the player names in the list could be resized; the font size is very big compared to everything else on the screen.

iii) In one case I was idly browsing profiles, and someone had a fairly long name (it was two people, of the form 'Timothy and Samantha Smithson"). Only the first 15 or so characters of the name was showing in the profile box, and I couldn't see a scroll bar or similar; I assume I'd need to resize the whole RHS of the screen to be able to see the full name. A bit of text wrapping would solve that.

Answers:

i) True. It is the same with the existing Windows client. I am not sure if I am going to do anything or not about improving this in the Flash client.

ii) I already made them about 40% smaller than they were before (maybe you have not seen the most recent version?), but I will consider either making smaller again or giving the user control over the size.

iii) Not clear text-wrapping is a good solution here because the user's skill level would then be obscured. The whole profile thing still needs some cleaning up.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[kgr]

Didn't read all feedback here, so possibly this was already reported:
- Can connect with Netscape, but not with MS internet explorer v7 (tried to delete all history bu still it hangs on http://www.bbotv.com...mbed_kiosk.html , could be a setting in MS explorer).
- When kibitzing and EW is displayed vertically then their names are not shown.
- why http://www.bbotv.com/v2/ and not http://www.bbotv.com/ (http://www.bbotv.com gives and empty web site)
- My hands window can not be minimized. (would be better to display it in a new pop-up window?).
 
The biggest advantage will probably be that it is easier to change something to the software as you don't have to take into account compatibility with different client versions.
 
... a lot of positive feedback here in the forums, don't be surprised if the BBO members that don't use the forums will be less enthousiastic to change. I think it will be best to wait for all current functionality to announce this new version

[barmar]

fred, on Aug 16 2007, 08:44 AM, said:

If you close the browser window or click its Refresh button, you *should* then automatically get the latest (though it is not entirely clear this process always works - on some machines it could be necessary to clear your browser's cache).

I suspect Uday and I will eventually figure out a way to make sure the browser's cache cannot interfere with the distribution of new versions.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

It's probably dependent on how the user has their cache checking set. In IE I think you can set it to check whether there's a newer page on every access, every browser session, every day, or never. IMHO, anyone with a broadband connection should set it to check every time -- the other settings are only appropriate for slow dialups.

There should be a way for you to disable caching entirely, though. That might be a good idea while you're rolling out new versions every day or so. But once this goes public, dialup users might not appreciate having to download the flash every time.

[barmar]

When viewing My Hands in a VuGraph table, the boards in the Other Table section are in a random order.

Also, I couldn't see anywhere where it said what table I was at -- the name of the event, whether this was the open or closed room, etc.

[chicken]

i am still asking myself if it still will be possible to upload *.lin files (movies or hands for tuitional reasons).

[awm]

It seems to frequently be the case that BBOTV boots me from bridgebase, but I can immediately reconnect. Presumably this is a network problem (uday indicated as much) but the windows-based BBO client seems not to have this issue. Perhaps there is some threshold for lost/delayed packets which is set low on BBOTV? I've also noticed that on the windows-based client there are sometimes delays where card play freezes for a moment or two and then resumes (or where people get red-dotted but it goes away without them being booted from BBO) whereas this never seems to happen on BBOTV (perhaps it just boots me instead?)

[awm]

Also, please put in a way to turn off sounds. Some of us prefer not to have them.

[Patapon]

Many flags are still missing..

[Patapon]

Shuffle: What's that for? When could it be useful?

[bradd]

I had a game at BBOTV today and it was excellent. I noticed a couple of things:

As host, I could redeal but not reset the score (button not there yet I guess).

There seems to be a claim problem where previous tricks won are not counted. I'm not certain this happens every time, but here's an example:

Declarer was in 3NT, ducked the first trick then took the next eight. At that point, he let my partner in and partner then led my suit, so that I could cash the rest. I claimed the last three tricks, but declarer was given TEN, so Trick 1 and Trick 10 were not accredited to us.

I agree with awm that being able to turn off sounds would be useful.

Once or twice the chat "To" button switched from "Table" to someone's name. He wasn't even at the table, so what he thought of my comment is anyone's guess LOL.

*Edit* The same thing happened when I played a hand - I'd won four tricks, then claimed the last six, and it only gave me six. Pard was not impressed hehe.

This post has been edited by bradd: 2007-August-16, 23:54

[downagain]

Another bug: For some reason you can't log in with a username containing a space.

[keylime]

Adam,

Can you try something for me....

Since BBOTV interacts with the cache of the browser, can you set your settings to have it check the page each and every time? That should form a solid foundation.

Also, do you know offhand what your TCP receive stack is? I've found that if the ratio is too low, i.e. small stacks versus large bandwidth, the program will stall right out.

(in my case, I have a customized DNS setup in my wireless and router config, but I run a 5000 Kbps window and it works nearly flawlessly off of a 15Mbps Cox connection)

edit:

Since Adam is on a Mac like I, you may need to set your MTU to a different number besides the default 1500 is it's lagging via Terminal with this command for AirPort ONLY -> $ sudo ifconfig en1 mtu <value> where the <value> is the number, in 8's, is placed. If on DSL the maximum you can run is 1492, and I'd recommend a lower number than that (maybe as low as a 1450), and it does NOT retain after a reboot.

For Ethernet -> System Preferences, Network, Show, Built-in Ethernet, Configure, Manually (Advanced)...then you can set a number for that in factors of 8. These settings will retain themselves.

To test (any O/S now) -> there are tools that can test the fragmentation of packets. The highest ones that doesn't fragment is your MTU desired setting.

[fred]

awm, on Aug 16 2007, 08:21 PM, said:

It seems to frequently be the case that BBOTV boots me from bridgebase, but I can immediately reconnect. Presumably this is a network problem (uday indicated as much) but the windows-based BBO client seems not to have this issue. Perhaps there is some threshold for lost/delayed packets which is set low on BBOTV? I've also noticed that on the windows-based client there are sometimes delays where card play freezes for a moment or two and then resumes (or where people get red-dotted but it goes away without them being booted from BBO) whereas this never seems to happen on BBOTV (perhaps it just boots me instead?)

The BBO server has an "idle disconnect" mechanism.

The Windows client will present a message like "You seem to be away from your computer. Are you still there?" after a half hour or so of inactivity. If the user does not respond he will be disconnected.

The timer automatically resets itself when you do something that invovles interaction with the server (like joining a table, chatting, playing a card...).

BBOTV does not currently have a way of asking this question so this could be why you are getting disconnected - if you are just sitting there watching for long periods of time without clicking anything then this is almost certainly what is happening (assuming there is no problem with your Internet connection).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

I also get frequent disconnects as Adam, and I had not been idle for more than a minute before them.

[fred]

cherdano, on Aug 17 2007, 04:25 PM, said:

I also get frequent disconnects as Adam, and I had not been idle for more than a minute before them.

OK thanks. Sounds like my theory is wrong.

What is your best guess at how often "frequent" is?

Do you ever have long periods with no disconnects?

What message if any do you get when you disconnect?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

They are very irregular, sometimes 2 minutes after I relogin, sometimes hours with no disconnects. The login screen appears with a message "Connection lost".

P.S.: Of course this appears superficially like a network connection problem but I have no trouble with the windows client, and "ping bbo.bridgebase.com" (assuming that's the right server to test for) shows a very reliable and fast connection.

[scoob]

I wasn't able to try this out until just recently, but I'm experiencing the same issue as cherdano. in a span of about 30 minutes I was disconnected well over a dozen times, and was only able to witness about 1.5 full hands collectively in that time.

I have no issues connecting with the windows client from the same machine.