BBO Discussion Forums: some android 3.70 observations - BBO Discussion Forums

1) Rotating hands in robot tourneys where human declares when dummy

Excluding from the population of irritations those features that are in the Flash interface which have yet to migrate over to the Android interface, I think that this has to rank for me as the most irritating feature of the Android interface.
After a contested auction I have to put a lot of effort into remembering which opponent bid what, after the hands get rotated between the auction and play so as to place declarer at the bottom of the screen.

I accept that this is a matter of personal preference, and perhaps some players prefer its current behaviour. But if the Android method is so superior, why then does the Flash interface not fall in line and do the same thing? Don't take that as a request, by the way, I much prefer the way that the Flash interface treats it.

But if the population is largely split down the middle as regards their preference, this would seem to be just the sort of feature that cries out for being a user-configurable option. I KNOW you are trying to cut down on user configurable options, but if ever there was a justified exception I reckon that this must be it.

2) User configurable settings in Android generally.

I dislike that the available settings that you can configure depends on the context of where you happen to be in the site:

When you first enter the site there are only four settings that you can configure:
... Enable/disable Sound
... Enable/disable lobby chat
... Notify when friends log in
... Notify when vugraph starts.

Then when you are kibitzing a table and you access settings you get the above four options plus a whole lot more, some of which are greyed out.

To enable the greyed out options (such as autoplay singletons) you have to be actually sitting at a table and so be in a position when you might need to play such a card.

Leaving aside the undesirable inconsistent treatment when a setting cannot be changed (sometimes showing the option as greyed out, other times hiding the option altogether), I would have thought it simpler to have a single options/settings screen that allowed you to set all of these things in the same way regardless of where you are in the site, and none of which would ever be greyed out. If that does not conveniently fit into a screen the size of a mobile phone, then you can always have a "more" or "advanced settings" button on the main settings page. As it is, until you are familiar with the system, it is mightily frustrating to see what looks like it should be a configurable option only to find that it is greyed out and you cannot figure out why.

3) Chat area

A feature that I like about the Flash interface is the ability to drag the border between the playing table and chat area so that the user can decide what proportion of the total available screen area should be assigned to each. I think that would be a useful addition to the Android interface. Not much use to those using mobile phones, but good for those of us on tablet-sized android machines. This would overcome the objections to a "floating" chat area obscuring the playing area (and yes I know about the one-tap reset feature, but that is only half a solution)

1eyedjack, on 2014-January-23, 14:41, said:

When human-declares-when-dummy was first introduced, the Flash interface worked the same way that the mobile (Android and iOS) interface currently does. A few months later we changed the Flash interface to what it is now.

Development of the mobile app had basically ground to a halt during this time period. When it started again (a few months ago), we had to decide what new features and changes to include in our next release. Changing the interface for human-declares-when-dummy did not make the list (sorry).

Most likely this will make the list for some upcoming release, perhaps even the next release, but it is far from clear when that rates to happen.

You are right that this is a matter of personal preference. For whatever it's worth, most (or maybe all) of the people on our staff agree with your preference.

So as far as we are concerned it is the mobile interface, not the Flash interface, that hasn't fallen into line in this area (yet).

Thanks for your feedback.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebsae.com

OK.I realize this is just about format but why the change to huge fonts? and a font that can't be changed. Very distracting and hard to manipulate. You should at least give the players a choice.