Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Gravitino

Pages: [1] 2 3
1
Many thanks, John. With 17 handsets at the club, I'm not sure I can face doing a Factory Reset on all of them, then going through the APK procedure to get the Play Store app etc.

I installed Google's Android System Webview on all of them before I saw your reply. I think I'll leave it at that until after the next session. Last night the members didn't get the hand layouts on their handsets because I reinstalled Windows after uploading the hands to the server; hopefully I've fixed that, so they should see an improvement even if the keystroke response is still slow.

We're still the only club in the area (apart from the odd Brian user) which can display the layouts after each hand is played, so we can feel good about that. Thanks. There's one club in Surbiton which pays the Brian owner some ?5 a session just to do the scoring; they don't have a duplimator, so they can't display the hands; and I suspect that on top of that charge, each time the players enter the scores via their mobile, they incur a small transaction charge which goes to Brian.

It's great to have a free system. It's just a little depressing to discover that the practice of keeping up to date with the updates may not be the right thing to do.

2
We've run BridgePal for a number of years, and a typical session sees about ten tables. The PC could well be six years old, as is the router and most of the Amazon Fire handsets.

Recently some members have complained about the handsets being slow to respond. Focussing first on the PC, I made sure it had the most up-to-date version of Windows 10 -- it's not big enough for Windows 11, apparently -- and achieving even that was tiresome, due to the need for a plug-in USB memory stick and the upgrade process being trapped in an Undo cycle that, despite it being a known Microsoft bug, I could only resolve by effectively wiping the disk and re-installing Windows 10 and BridgePal software etc.

However I digress. I watched the response times closely at last night's session, and I believe that response times started off OK but gradually deteriorated as the evening progressed. Is this possible? Could our PC be overwhelmed by the accumulation of more and more score data??

I see there is advice elsewhere on this forum about slowdown and poor response times for the keys. One append says: Scroll down the list and tap on "Android System Webview", and then on Uninstall. The problem with the Amazon Fire handsets we use is that they don't appear to have this app, so the option is to install rather than uninstall.

Another append says: To install it, go to the Play Store and search for "webview dev" (including the quotes). Tap on "Install". When I search for  this on the Play store on the Amazon Fire, it doesn't come up with the right app. But if I search for it on the Play store on my Windows PC, it is there, waiting to be installed.

What should I do?

Many thanks for all your help over the years.

Gavin

3
Support / Problem with Howell movements and half-tables
« on: January 11, 2022, 17:53:50 »
As the numbers attending decline (for COVID reasons), our need to run Howell events, rather than our familiar Mitchells, has grown. The problem I am raising here is an ease-of-use issue when there is a half-table.  With Mitchells, it is perfectly clear which pair number is missing, because it is the same as the table number where just two people are sitting.  With Howells, it is by no means obvious.

Last night we had six tables, and I selected a 3/4 Howell movement from the menu. The half-table was table #2, so I made a guess and hoped that the missing pair number would be pair #3. It turned out that pair #3 was on table 6, according to the software. But we only discovered that after all the players had entered their numbers. So table #6, where there were four players, was told it had a sit-out right away. I tried to edit the player configuration from the PC, which seemed successful. But then at the start of round 2, the system was telling us that one particular pair was due to play at two tables!

I tried fiddling with things from the PC, but eventually the software locked up, and we had to close the entire scoring system down, and revert to a Mitchell, all scored by hand, with all the hands reshuffled. So we restarted about 45 minutes late.

I do not have any book of Howell movements, or any movement cards which I trust. So I would like to know how I can get the BridgePal software to tell me, in a Howell movement with a half-table, what the missing pair number will be if they are supposed to be at table X as either NS or EW. A more long-term request would be to get the software at the start simply to ask the scorer which table is the half-table and whether it is NS or EW.

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I am under a lot of pressure from our committee to understand the software better, quickly, so that we do not repeat last night's disaster. We have just started a new year for annual subscriptions, so the club needs to be as attractive as possible in terms of streamlined processes.


4
General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« on: July 03, 2020, 22:47:45 »
John

Many thanks for the reply. There are many who would argue that BBO isn?t proper bridge, as defined by the laws, because that software will not allow you, for example, to revoke or make an insufficient bid. I believe further that BBO implements the US version of the rules, not the EBU?s. There is a case to be made for having an English bridge engine, and I don?t see why that engine need involve the Internet, just as BridgePal scoring doesn?t use the Internet.

Best wishes

Gavin

5
General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« on: June 17, 2020, 06:37:56 »
I am slightly disappointed that no-one has replied on the viability of this idea.

A couple of months has elapsed since I proposed it, and face-to-face bridge looks as far away in the distant future as ever. Bridge holiday companies, for example, face the difficult conundrum of whether (and how) to run holidays booked for September/October of this year in continental Europe. Most likely, the Foreign Office will have by then allowed beach holidays to resume, but there will be no way that face-to-face bridge, a standard component in the afternoons and evenings of these bridge holidays, to be safely run.

A pairs bridge-plaing app would remove any need for playing cards, it could observe the two-metre rule, and yet keep everyone in the same ballroom/conference room, thereby minimising the risk of cheating which is so widely suspected oN online venues such as BBO.

6
General Discussion / Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« on: May 13, 2020, 18:31:43 »
For some weeks I have thought that there will be no more face-to-face bridge until there is a vaccine. This week, Vallance said there may never be a vaccine. Bernard Magee said this morning that he believed club bridge is probably a year away.  We face a near-term future in which duplicate bridge with physical playing cards is impossible.

I was thinking: how about a bridge-playing app to supplement the BridgePal scoring program, in which all players have a tablet, rather than a hand of cards.  They would conduct the auction and play through that tablet, which would be linked to a server in the same room. So long as all the players are in the same room, within WiFi contact distance, they needn't be very close to the opponents or their partners.

Is such an app feasible?

7
We had a number of connection problems over the summer, between ageing Acer Iconia tablets and a WiFi modem that was configured to switch channels.  Our club has now standardised on Fire handsets and a new ?40 WiFi router configured to stick on Channel 3.

One glitch concerns me about the Fire handset: can I stop it installing an update at the most inconvenient time?

A couple of weeks ago, I started up the Fires at the club, and six of them immediately insisted on an Internet connection to enable them to install an Android update.  We don't have an Internet connection where we play, so I had to rush them back home to allow them to complete the update process via our WiFi broadband router.

Our workaround now is to boot the handsets up at home, just before they are needed at the club, just in case Amazon has decided on another update since we last recharged them.  But there must be a better way.  Is there a parameter we can set to stop the Fires looking for updates?

8
General Discussion / Re: EBU endorsement?
« on: September 18, 2019, 09:51:44 »
Wherever I get the opportunity, I try to nudge bridge writers (such as David Stevenson) that there are other systems available besides Bridgemates.  Bridgemate shouldn't be regarded as the standard scoring system, particularly when it seems to be so far behind tablet-based solutions which display far more information. The only advantage I see Bridgemate having is a much lower rate of handset failure during sessions, but of course that is based purely on my own experience, and it doesn't in any way justify a price tag that is three times as much.

EBU adoption would be worth a lot, as it has done with EBUscore, but I guess it has taken over the maintenance effort too. You probably wouldn't want that at this stage.  But I think more marketing and promotion for BridgePal would help.  (When we were considering the system, it looked as though all the adoption was slowly spreading across Kent/Essex. The nature of committee decisions is naturally conservative, and they want to talk to users and visit clubs using it.  I suppose I did a bit of a Boris Johnson in that, after discussing scoring systems for many years in committee, I just went out and bought a couple of tablets to test it out for my own understanding and satisfaction, but at my own financial risk. I think you need an individualto take the risk if you want a quick roll-out, but on the other hand you need at least one other technical person who feels involved with these early decisions, because you'll need a back-up and you'll want to go on holidays.)

Sorry, ignore that deviation. My main point is that I think an article or two promoting BridgePal should be written.

Best wishes

Gavin

9
John

OK, sounds technical, but I'll have a go after our next session, if it goes badly.  Many thanks for the offer. I intend to change the channel our router uses.

Best wishes

Gavin

10
Last night we introduced a new, more expensive router. (£44 from Amazon).  We also had a number of new handsets -- all Amazon Fires, bought for £35 each in the recent Bank Holiday offer -- waiting in the wings.

The first third of the evening was terrible, with the scorer being called every minute, literally, to cope with handsets that had lost connection. Even on my own handset I noticed that it was taking a long time to fill the display with content.  But then halfway through, we noticed everything had improved massively, without any grand intervention from the scorer.

We have a practice of activating all our handsets, so that if one needs replacing, we can switch it quickly with a reserve handset. So last night we had 11 handsets working on 11 tables, with a further 20 waiting in the wings.  (Yes, we really do have 31 handsets, which reflects our disillusionment with the Acer Iconias we orginally bought.)  So my first question is this: does the router/computer poll all activated handsets running the BridgePal app, whether or not they are in use at a table?  Could thiitys slow down the performance of the router?

We also have a policy of switching off any failing handset, and putting it on charge, face-down to indicate it is out of use.  So as handsets failed, the total number of activated machines in the room fell.

My other line of enquiry is into channel-hopping by the router, about which I know very little.  This new router is capable of automatically hopping from one channel to another. It seems to default to channel 10, but this morning I tried it when our old router was already switched on to channel 10, and the new router then appeared on channel 2.

I have been back this morning to the Community Centre where we ran the session, and there the council WiFi broadcasts simultaneously on channels 1, 6 and 11. Could it be that initially our router started on one of these council-used channels, and then decided of its own accord after 30 minutes to hop to a less busy channel?

11
General Discussion / EBU endorsement?
« on: September 17, 2019, 14:34:34 »
I seem to recall reading recently that the EBU has now endorsed an Android-based scoring system coming out of Bedford Bridge Club.  Does anyone know why?  It seems a kick in the teeth for BridgePal, which is free and, I presume, with a much wider user base than the Bedford system.  The last thing we need is scarce development resources split between two free systems.

12
We continue to get handsets dropping out of contact mid-session with the router.  We keep a reserve of ready-to-go handsets on charge, and swapping them out is our current remedy. 

There isn't time, mid-session, to gather evidence from the user as to what happened, particularly when the scorer is often also director.

However my belief is that user error could often be the cause.  Sometimes they don't get an instant response when they depress the 'OK' key, and then some of those who think they know what they are doing start wandering into the Android system, and trying things.

Many users just aren't accustomed to a variable response time -- often sub-second, but sometimes up to 10 seconds -- so they lose patience or confidence and start pressing the 'OK' key again and again or, somewhat worse, wander off into Android apps.  I have to say that some of our users have such cold fingers, or such long fingernails, that I myself wonder whether the tablet recognises that they have pressed 'OK'.

It would be really use if the local BridgePal software running on the tablet could tell the user that they have successfully depressed the 'OK' button (and possibly that a response is now awaited from the server).

Such a message would really help in the diagnosis of user problems, and it would enable me to make a very clear announcement to all our users that, once they've depressed 'OK' and got the brief 'success' message, they should sit back and wait for say 10 seconds, and not play around with Android apps, before calling the Scorer.

13
There is some debate at the moment about whether declarer-dummy are permitted to have an agreement that dummy will always put the suit led on the right-hand side (or wherever), if it isn't trumps.  It would seem to be that declarer is not permitted this aide-memoire. So it would seem wrong for North (if he is the scorer) to have knowledge of the card led throughout the play if he records the opening lead on BridgePal right away.

How do other clubs tackle this nuance?

14
For entertainment purposes, it would be nice to have a movement for eight people over seven three-board rounds, in which everyone partners everyone else.

Does such a movement exist in BridgeScore?

15
We have tracked the problem over the past weeks and come to a clearer picture:

  • Each session, some 4 or 5 handsets lose their connection to our router.  When you use the drop-down to see which router they are attached to, they typically say "WiFi", and all attempts to reconnect to our router fail. At this point, we switch off the offending handset, and put it on charge in a pile with the other failures, so that its serial number can be noted after the session.
  • It tends to be, by and large, much the same handsets that disconnect each session.
  • This did not happen this time last year, when the handsets had been in use for a couple of months.
  • The disconnects tend to happen from the middle of the evening onwards.

My conclusion, to put it in the simplest terms that I can understand, is that some of the handsets get tired.

We are getting round this problem by investing in more handsets. So during the session, we have one of our six-way chargers in the background, with up to six handsets waiting to be used where needed. They are kept switched on and with the app activated.

Our offending handsets are all Acer Iconia 7-inchers.  We are now buying Lenovo 7-inchers when they are £50 or less, and we will probably buy some more Amazon Fires when they come down to £30-35. The only disadvantages of the Lenovos is that they reflect the fluorescent lighting from the ceiling and the charging light doesn't change colour when full. The disadvantage of the Amazon Fires is that I haven't yet worked out how to hide all the other apps on the device; they are a bit heavier, but they feel more rugged.

I should add that we have found it to be good to activate the app on every handset before the wireless connection within the BridgeScore session is itself started.  This means that when we do get the session going, we know each table already has a working BridgePal app, so we never have to replace a faulty handset right at the start of the session.

Pages: [1] 2 3