[fred]

IMPORTANT!!! You must exit the BBO program COMPLETELY before you begin the update process!

You can upgrade your BBO to the latest version:

BBO Update

or download everything (including the latest files) from scratch:

BBO Setup

I suggest you use the first method, but however you do this, please make sure that you exit BBO COMPLETELY before you start the download.

Version 3.9.2 is mostly about performance. In particular, we think we have greatly improved the log in experience. Here are some differences:

1) The main BBO window appears as soon as the connection to our server is made
2) The wait for the BBO window to become usable has been greatly reduced (we think by about 50%, but we are not certain)
3) When a lot of people are booted at once, the process of logging in again will be less painful (we hope - this was hard to test)

Dialup users in particular should see big improvements when it comes to logging in with version 3.9.2.

The other big change in 3.9.2 is that it is now possible for small Internet Explorer windows to reside in various places in the BBO program. You will see one example of this when you log in with the new version: the Lobby News is an .html file. You will see additional examples in the upcoming weeks.

The default colors have changed in 3.9.2 due to the poorly chosen color for the "Closed Room Result" (during vugraph) in 3.9.0. Various other small cosmetic changes have been made and various bugs have been fixed.

Please let us know if you find any problems in 3.9.2. We would also appreciate getting some feedback about just how much faster logging is for you in the new version.

You can either post here or send your comments to me by e-mail: fred@bridgebase.com

Thanks in advance for those of you willing to help us test the new version. We hope to get lots of testers this time because we think that 3.9.2 will significantly improve the BBO experience for a lot of our members.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[uday]

The upgrade reinstalls your bbover.ini file. if you care, save it somewhere and restore it after the upgrade

[inquiry]

uday, on Nov 12 2004, 04:06 PM, said:

The upgrade reinstalls your bbover.ini file. if you care, save it somewhere and restore it after the upgrade

What does the bbover.ini file do, and why would we care if we get a new one or keep the old one?

[hrothgar]

Hi Fred

I just fired up a copy of Etheral (nice open source packet sniffer) and logged in to BBO.
(There are approximately 3750 people in the loby)

Total time from connection initiation until the lobby opened was approximately 4.5 seconds. The total length of the application layer data stream was 133376 bytes - As I'm sure you are aware, this data stream is substantially shorter than that required for earlier versions.

However, data is still being downloaded after I enter the lobby. I am assuming that this is state information about the different end users currently present. (The application seems to be populating player information over time)

>The other big change in 3.9.2 is that it is now possible for small
>Internet Explorer windows to reside in various places in the BBO
>program. You will see one example of this when you log in with the
>new version: the Lobby News is an .html file. You will see additional
>examples in the upcoming weeks.

Cool... I hope I know one place where this will eventually lead.

Quick question: Are you specifically using IE, or the default web browser installed on the local machine?

One thing that I already noticed: There now seems to be a toggle for displaying lobby news. If players close the lobby news window, it won't automatically open the next time you log in. Not sure whether this was deliberate or not...

[Deanrover]

Dial up. Time to log in

80 seconds
75 seconds

Install new version

24 seconds
26 seconds

Nice!

[mycroft]

Is that "small [browser] windows", or "small IE windows"? I (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) have some serious security worries about IE, and I would be much happier if I could use browser-of-choice.

Thanks, again, Fred, Uday and all, for all your work, and your minimum intrusion policy towards the ugly but important money stuff.

Michael.

[sceptic]

much faster, I have not timed it, but it is much quicker to open BBO another smart move.

and that is noticable on 1.1 broadband

[uday]

Mycroft:

For now, it is small IE window. We invoke and embed the Microsoft IE Browser control.

I have the same security concerns so we will try to avoid pointing at any non-bbo sites. For me the primary value is that the server will be able to offer new functionality that is integrated into the client without needing client modifications. The sky is the limit on this one (not sure FG wants to hear any of this:))

I couldnt find a quick/simple way to embed the Mozilla browser control. The gecko active-x or whatever it is called would have been ideal.

In theory, though, the client can embed any control that we can identify. If someone knows how to identify the Mozilla control, we can probably prevail upon FG to make this an option


Hrothgar:

yes, the profiles ( over 50% of the initial "blast" are sent in batches after login ).
We are specifically embedding the IE browser control.
What specific use did you see for the browser?
The lobby news in theory will pop up when the URL has been changed. If closed down, it wont popup again until that happens.


Inquiry:
If you havent edited the ini file in the past, dont worry about it. Some people edit it to make their bbo use a different port.

[hrothgar]

uday, on Nov 12 2004, 11:46 PM, said:

We are specifically embedding the IE browser control.
What specific use did you see for the browser?

In an ideal world, I'd very much like to see web browsers used to render convention cards.

Most players would have the option of using any one of a variety of convention card editors to produce graphical convention cards using .jpeg formats.

System geeks playing complex systems that required suggested defenses would have the option of creating "true" hypertext files in which suggested defenses could be appended to different conventional opening bids...

As an example, players using a multi-2♦ opening could link into an approved defense to multi-2♦ openings...

[uday]

If the use of IE turns out to be beneficial, i can see a lot of similar uses.
Agree, convention cards, also: bbo$ account balance in a nicer format, maybe friends/enemies , private club management, tourney edits -- all those places where we'd like to provide a richer client experience w/o going through the pain of building it from scratch.

I am not sure how long it will take us to integrate IE properly and fully. I think we are on the right track, and any client changes towards more integration rate to be simple.

[ack_hh]

Log in is significantly faster (DSL). Well done!

Regarding the news window: A first/previous/next/last link would be nice.

[Deanrover]

Unable to log in for the past 10 minutes Could be related?

[luke warm]

most excellent, great job... bout 1 sec on dsl... i use mozilla and ie btw, but prefer mozilla

[square]

Great, much faster.

I have wondered about pointing this out before and decided that it is of no real importance but if you are looking for changes before this version goes public I will mention it here. The drop down list of countries has Great Britain between Germany and Georgia.

[lipi]

The login time changed from 30 seconds to 15 (DSL,counting the downloading table list as well). But even after being logged on for 5 minutes I still get the "downloading profile" message for a positive percentage of players.

Is the reason that previously a profile was only loaded when I pointed at a player, and now all profiles are loaded at the beginning? If yes, then I'd suggest to combine the two methods... When I move over a player, give priority to getting his profile.

Gabor

[uday]

In long run, client will have to cache profiles and fetch updates. I dont see why it should take 5 mins for the profile updates, tho. was this during a period of very low usage?

[Brandal]

Excellent!!

Takes a second from pressing Log In till I'm in lobby

Also like the new default colors better

good job guys

[mrdct]

A bug that I've observed is that it doesn't remember my lobby view preferences, which I now need to reinstate each time I log in.

[Brandal]

mrdct, on Nov 14 2004, 04:42 AM, said:

A bug that I've observed is that it doesn't remember my lobby view preferences, which I now need to reinstate each time I log in.

Maybe "Remember filter settings" in your profile(clicking name in lobby) is unchecked?

It works for me anyway

[didier17]

Ok for faster logging but, with cedega (winex) on linux, we can't see the news ...