Delfibs

[delfibs]

Delfibs is a new fibs client.

You can play by cliking on the checkers or you can drag them.

Played and watched games can be exported to .mat format.

You can browse thrue the games.

You can chat with yours friends.

You can display your rating curve.

The players list shows the players with saved games, friends and villains in differents colors.

You can look to your saved matches.

Complete RepBot integration.

and much more...

download link : Download

homepage: Delfibs



I need feedback and bugs report.

Boards are from Michael Darooge. i ask him the  permission to use his boards on his web site but i didn't get any answer. If someone knows his email address i would like to ask him again.

[Tomawaky]

Have just played one match
Really great.
Still error message box little bug, but nothing which is crashing the client.

Improve a little and it could be one of the most famous interface.

I like
- the availibility to change my board even if the only 2 present look good
- friend with different color in shout
- button with command associated
- Much better statistics

Some idea for you to work on  

I don't see where can I save my played match but not search long !

[delfibs]

-ability to change board : everythink is planed for it, i only need boards designers to allow me to use their boards. When i have time i write a 'how to build your board'.
-different color for friend's shout : easy to do if others need that.
-buttons: what commands do you need? can be added.
-Statistics: what type of statistics do you need?
-saved matches can be found in installdirectory/saved

[burper]

If there was some way to make use of board formats other clients use, you have several right away. You wouldn't need permission to use them, as you are not shipping your product with them.
If it is not directly possible to do that, maybe an import function could be created, or a separate translator.
Make everything as standardized as possible, e.g. import/export match formats widely used.
Where possible, import profile/config info from other clients. Do you support the profile field that javafibs uses for country/gender etc...?
You might also want to update the name of the webpage

No license? Is this program in the public domain? Am I free to redistribute it myself for fun and profit? Am I able to reverse engineer it?

Your web page doesn't make it immediately clear that this is a windows only client. Which versions of windows will it run on? Would it run using wine on linux? What about that Mac thingie that allows those nerds to run windows apps?

Any chance of the code being made open source? The one thing that fibs lacks is a first rate open source client. I doubt you would make money with this thing anyway, not because of any lack of quality, but there are already a sufficient number of options for fibs freeloaders.

BTW, what promise do I get that this thing does not install any malware on my windows box?

What about proxy support? That might be a feature that would set you apart. Most clients are not socksified.

Screenshots look great. I'm just trying to give you lots to think about for 1.0.
Nice work and good luck!

[Kari_Grandi]

I really liked this client right away.
IMO the best features of both 3dfibs and javafibs.

I chatted with the author about few bugs that I found
and he promised to repair those right away.

Definately my new client when those couple of things are fixed!
Good work    

[Tomawaky]

When I import the saved match in GNU there was some "warnig about invalid move"
I think also about multiple chat windows

Edditing button would be perfect, then we chose ones we want to create
statistics about match played like in javafibs : Win loss global / per lentgh / per user

[delfibs]

burper:  support of javafibs profile: will be done for the next version

Tomawaki : colors in friend shouts: done
                 programmable buttons: working on
                 better stats : planed but not for the next release
                 Problem with exported match : was your game resumed? in this case it is 'normal' the first part of you match is lost. I have chosen to save it anyway because you can analyse the following games. It's the same thing with watched games, if you miss the start of the match. It's a choise that can be change, if people think it is unusfull to have only parts of matches.

Kari_Grandi: problem with friends is corrected. You told me about slow chekkers animation in second game, i can't reproduce the problem. Can you tell me how you did?

i hope i can release a new version soon.

[Tomawaky]

Tomawaki : colors in friend shouts: done
                 programmable buttons: working on
                 better stats : planed but not for the next release
                 Problem with exported match : was your game resumed? in this case it is 'normal' the first part of you match is lost. I have chosen to save it anyway because you can analyse the following games. It's the same thing with watched games, if you miss the start of the match. It's a choise that can be change, if people think it is unusfull to have only parts of matches.

No I have played now 2 matchs and for the 2 there was no resume.
And for the two I have some play that can't be inmported !!!
I don't know why. I am using javafibs for long and never encounter this trouble.

First exemple
7) 51: 20/15 7/6                42: 24/22 13/9
42: 15/11 6/4                41: 6/5 9/5
9) 44: 11/7 13/9 13/9 5/1         Doubles => 2
                                54: 13/8 8/4
11) 66: 7/1 7/1 7/1 7/1          65: 22/17 17/11

Maybe because of the double there is a shift !

Second example
Game 1
You : 0                         Haribo : 0
                                51: 13/8 24/23
2) 61: 13/12 12/10 13/7 8/7     54: 24/20 20/15
3) 52: 13/8 24/22               55: 8/3 8/3 6/1 6/1
4) 41: 25/21                    11: 6/5 5/4 8/7 8/7

=> Strange second line !  

[delfibs]

tomawaky : can you send me your saved files please, i had try and for me the export function works.

[Tomawaky]

I need your email.

[diane]

I need your email.

Doesn't the email in his profile work?

[Tomawaky]

NOP  
Email link do not work anymore at fibsboard for me !

[diane]

NOP  
Email link do not work anymore at fibsboard for me !

Hmmm, the rules are still missing too - I wonder if we lost some of the functionality in one of the recent downtimes.  

[delfibs]

Tomawaky : look in your PM box. thanks

[Tomawaky]

send it to you

[webrunner]

This looks great.    
Tell me when you need a seperate forum on fibsboard for this client (like javafibs has)  

[delfibs]

A new version is available :
0.9 beta 6

-color for friends in shout list
-custom buttons
-new list view for players
-Support of javafibs's profile field.

-bugs correction

-add of new bugs?

same download link.

[Tomawaky]

Downloaded.
I will test

[Tomawaky]

saved matches are still not correct and this is the most important feature for me after the Board.

[delfibs]

I haven't received your wrong saved matches. If you want you can copy and paste the text of the files. You can open them with any text editor.
Are the moves correct in the game tab when you play? i got the moves from there to export them
Do you play under the name of Tomawaky or another one?
With witch program do you try to import saved games?
it's strange, for me saved matches work so it is difficult for me to correct.
Does anybody have the same problem?

[Tomawaky]

I haven't received your wrong saved matches.

Have you now ?
If not. I will make them available on http

[delfibs]

Thanks, i just received them. I m looking.

[delfibs]

A new version is released delfibs 0.9 beta 7
-bugs correction
-complete stats for played matches
same download link

[delfibs]

some new screen shots :

Players list : Name, opponent, rating with color square, status, exp, gender, country, email, scrore for saved matches.
Friend are green, villains are red, you are blue, player with saved matches with you are grey.


Preferences : Board choise : choose your board and checkers.


Preferences :Personal buttons


MessageBox View your received and sent messages.


Saved GamesList of your saved games. You can choose one and watch the position

[delfibs]

Some more...
Rating  statistics: Show your rating curve. With zoom and move. Rigth click to move. Selection to zoom


Matches Stat : Show your win and lost by length, opponent, last played matches


Matches Stat : Detail of your wins and lost

[Tomawaky]

:ohmaster: I like this man.
BIG APPLAUSE

[diane]

OK - you tempted me -I got it   I love the message box above all things - they are so transient in other clients - and some dont see them at all!
It will take some getting used to though - it is quite a different layout.
Thanks for the effort though - it must have taken some time - and that shows    

[delfibs]

New version delFibs 0.9 beta 8
I hope it resolve the issue with saved games
Other bugs corrections

[delfibs]

New version 0.9 beta 10
Bugs correction
Slider to select  animation speed (i hope it helps you kari_grandi) You can find it in preferences->board
If someone chats with you, his name will be added to the combobox. (thx to Kari_grandi for the idea)
I'll be on holidays for 3 weeks.
I hope i'll find feadback when i'm back.

[DeAnimator]

Just come across this client (beta 10) and I really like it so far. Very nice. (I have been using 3DFibs and RealFibs in the past).

Some future improvements/ideas are below, but no doubt lots of people have their own ideas/must-haves :


On your move, add hints when rolling over your checkers to show which open slots are available. Also, it would be handy not just to show the value for each dice separately, but also the combined move, if that's valid. (GNUbg does this very well).

Checker animation is great (sorely missed in RealFibs) but can it be made even slower? My PC is a 3Mhz Pentium 4 and even at the slowest speed I rarely see what happened! Maybe it needs to move at a contant speed regardless of the distance travelled?

Something RealFibs does very well is to allow any combination of windows (shouts, chat, player list, system) to be viewed at a time. An option to hide the right-hand tabbed section would be handy when concentrating on the game. It's a shame to lose the chat window though.

To be honest I don't use the shout window when playing, only the chat window. Could that be moved to new tab, or made optionally visible when viewing the Chat tab?

On the player list, the 'First Name' tab is misspelled.

Don't always start with the System Tab selected - use the last one looked at?

The Match menu and the toolbar icons don't stay in sync.

Is there any sound? The preferences menu suggests there is? Would be good to pick up sound from external sound files (like GNUbg does) so it's easy to swap in new ones.

I found the layout of the current score, the match length and the pip values confusing. Perhaps I'm used to other systems where the names are both at the bottom - one on the left (with pip value and score) and the other on the right. The match length is in the centre. Not sure what other people prefer.

I love the look of the bitmap boards (but that also means it cannot be resized - or does it?) Could there be a reduced sized option (half-size to make it easier on bitmap manipulation?).

I don't know how to save a match? I've probably missed something.

[socksey]

New version 0.9 beta 10

Where to download this for a try?  I tried homepage link and found only older version.

socksey




"Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person." - Anonymous

[diane]

So far I had only looked at this - I attempted to play a match on it today - and rapidly gave up.  Why is it soooooo slow - is it my machine, am I doing something stupid?  I didnt like that at all - watching the checkers move in slow motion was entertaining for about 2 minutes!! I will wait for a reply before giving up completely...

Also - with one board the client is too small for my screen - and with the titanium board it doesnt fit on my screen - and it isnt resizable  

[DeAnimator]

I downloaded it from the DelFilbs Download page

Although it says it's Beta 4, it's actually the latest version.

[DeAnimator]

So far I had only looked at this - I attempted to play a match on it today - and rapidly gave up.  Why is it soooooo slow - is it my machine, am I doing something stupid?  I didnt like that at all - watching the checkers move in slow motion was entertaining for about 2 minutes!! I will wait for a reply before giving up completely...

Also - with one board the client is too small for my screen - and with the titanium board it doesnt fit on my screen - and it isnt resizable 

Go to File | Prefs | Board There is a slider to change the animation speed. I found that even the slowest speed was still too fast sometimes.

I think each move takes the same time (move 1 point - takes 1 second, move 6 points, takes 1 second) rather than completing the journey in a time proportional to the distance (move 1 takes 1 second, move 6 takes 6 seconds).

The non-resizable board is a drawback of using bitmaps. They look great but don't resize well. But actually Windows can do a reasonable job these days - at the very least one could have two versions of each board - one at full size and one at half size. My screen is 1280x1024 and the titanium only just fits. Looks great though.

I have no affiliation with the author by the way, I only came across it myself a few days ago. I was toying with the idea of writing a client, but really there's no need - too many already out there that are good enough (or very good) already.

[Feklhr]

I am assuming this is a product for PC. I could find no system requirements on this board or the website. That might help folks like me with a mac and let diane know if it is a good match for her machine.

[DeAnimator]

On your move, add hints when rolling over your checkers to show which open slots are available. Also, it would be handy not just to show the value for each dice separately, but also the combined move, if that's valid. (GNUbg does this very well).

To answer my own question, I see than if you click and hold a piece then the possible positions appear. Neat (but nicer on roll-over perhaps?)

[DeAnimator]

Ooh, and another handy thing - the window showing the saved matches should also show if the other person is logged in and ready to play. (as the text console version does). Even better if you can invite them from there too.

Being a software guy myself I could get used to this - suggesting things when you don't have to implement them yourself....

[diane]

Ok I installed the version with the sliding scale for checker speed - that is much better  
That encouraged me to stay a bit longer and try more features, so then I found myself limited on chatting options - which I didnt like one bit!! The tell box doesnt seem to send tells to people who havent already spoken to you, so the only way for me to send the tell is to use the command line and go long hand - which is a bit tedious. - Am I doing something wrong here too?

When I log in I appear as logged in long before I can do anything cos the system window is rather busy - a lot of output appears in there and it takes ages to settle - I assume it is doing the whoising with fibs to populate the playerlist - but it is very annoying to watch - I havent seen this with any other clients - do they supress that?  Also annoying is that I cant 'hold' a window to read what is there - each new piece of data appearing in the bottom pushes it back up the screen to the display that new information - I find that annoying if I am trying to find and read an error message to find out, for instance, why the tell function didnt work for me.

[DeAnimator]

The tell box doesnt seem to send tells to people who havent already spoken to you, so the only way for me to send the tell is to use the command line and go long hand - which is a bit tedious. - Am I doing something wrong here too?

I agree - there should be a plain Tell in the chat drop-down so you can put in the name of the person you want to chat to. It should also remember those names to make it easy to chat again in the future regardless of whom you've played in that session.

a lot of output appears in there and it takes ages to settle - I assume it is doing the whoising with fibs to populate the playerlist - but it is very annoying to watch

I'm with you on that too - very annoying. All you should see is the MOTD. Everything else should be suppressed - it would make logging in go quicker too.

Also annoying is that I cant 'hold' a window to read what is there - each new piece of data appearing in the bottom pushes it back up the screen to the display that new information

Well that's fairly normal behaviour, but it shows that there's something wrong with the program if you have to resort to reading that info. Really the system window should be a last resort - everything you need to know should be available in other places.

Some other things the chat window could display:
Your rating changes if you have it toggled on.
Whether someone from a saved game has logged on or is ready to play.
Erm...bound to be other stuff...

Still, it is beta software so there's lots of scope for improvements to happen.

[diane]

Well that's fairly normal behaviour, but it shows that there's something wrong with the program if you have to resort to reading that info. Really the system window should be a last resort - everything you need to know should be available in other places.

I regularly use the sytem window in javafibs for various things - one good example is if there is lag - many commands sent by the client never make it to fibs - a good way to know where you are is to keep an eye on the system window and see if fibs responds to the command - then you know if it happpened or not.  At the moment it is scrolling by too quickly with log ins, log outs, match reports etc - and the 'hold' feature doesnt work.

I am with the idea of putting the information somewhere else - if you can come up with something sensible. So, a separate screen for log in and outs (I use this information quite a lot - particularly when running tournaments) - and one for server/client command interaction only?

Sounds a tall order to me - but it is on my wish list - so I might as well ask..    

[DeAnimator]

I regularly use the sytem window in javafibs for various things - one good example is if there is lag - many commands sent by the client never make it to fibs - a good way to know where you are is to keep an eye on the system window and see if fibs responds to the command - then you know if it happpened or not.  At the moment it is scrolling by too quickly with log ins, log outs, match reports etc - and the 'hold' feature doesnt work.

I'd want to hide most of that stuff in the system window - match reports, logins, drops and shouts from other people mainly. So then it wouldn't scroll so much in the first place. But a 'hold' feature when scrolling manually would be handy too.

Another bug - commands typed into the system get echoed twice.
And another - if you type 'show saved' to see if anyone has logged in to finish a game, the 'Match | Show saved match' lists all games twice. Shouldn't that item be on the View menu?

Also typing 'toggle silent' doesn't work. Most of the time I don't want to  see shouts. As I can't hide the shout window if I want to kibitz, I should be able to toggle shouts off.

The person developing Delfibs is going to have a lot of work to do when they get back from holiday...

[diane]

Toggle silent does sort of work - you see other's shouts - but you cant shout    

[DeAnimator]

Toggle silent does sort of work - you see other's shouts - but you cant shout 

Ah, my mistake for not knowing what toggle silent actually does...

[Hardy_whv]

I tried DelFIBS recently and the first look and feel was really good  

I did not have time to go into detail yet. I only noticed one thing that should be changed on next opportunity: When saving the password for the login, it should nevertheless been displayed as "******" instead of showing the password with it's real letters.

Success in your further development work!


Hardy    

[delfibs]

thanks for all your suggestions.
I try to answer to some questions.

1-The system tab. Most of the lines you find here are there only to help me with debuging. Only the lines that appears twice will stay in the final version

2-With the tell function, the normal way to use it is: right click on a player in the players list and choose 'Tell' in the pop up menu, then the name of that player will be added to the drop down menu. If someone chats with you his name is also added.

3-Hide the shouts: ok you'll have that in a future version, the space will be use by the chat window.

4-bug when you type show saved.  Need to be corrected

5-*** in the sameword file : need to be corrected

6- the window showing the saved matches should also show if the other person is logged in and ready to play. (as the text console version does). Even better if you can invite them from there too: good idea i'll work on that.

7-Checkers animation speed : i'll add slower speeds

8-Sound: i can add sounds but i have no sounds files. If someone has goods waves files for dices ,checkers, etc please send them to me.

9-Some other things the chat window could display:
Your rating changes if you have it toggled on.
Whether someone from a saved game has logged on or is ready to play. good ideas

For the chat window, i'm open to any suggestions. Would you prefer to type the name yourself? Would it be a good idea to have a different tab for every player you are chating with? Would you like a dropdown menu whith the name of all the players connected?

[diane]

For the chat window, i'm open to any suggestions. Would you prefer to type the name yourself? Would it be a good idea to have a different tab for every player you are chating with? Would you like a dropdown menu whith the name of all the players connected?

If it works as you said - highlight the name and click and it appears in the list - that sounds ideal - I think a list of too many names would be cumbersome - and encourage sending tells to the wrong player  

I like the option of separate tabs for chat - as long as it isnt going to mean boxes appearing over the playing surface again - and that I wont miss tells because I am not clicked on that tab - how you get around that I am not sure.  In a tourney I am often conversing with many players - and need to see all the tells as soon as they appear - in case someone has a problem.  Perhaps an option to tabulate or integrate as the user wishes?  

[delfibs]

Delfibs 0.9 beta 11 available

-sounds added
-You can hide shouts in the preference menu
-Checkers speed can be set from *1/4 to *10 the default speed
-bug when you type show saved corrected
-password edit will show ***
-saved matches : the command has gone to the view menu, you can see the status of the players 'offline,playing.etc..'
if you select a saved match from here and the player is ready, you can invite him by clicking on the 'invite' button
-if a player with a saved match logs in, you will be told in the chat window.
-ratings changes will show in the system window if you have ratings toggle on
-system window will show only interestings things.
-bug with post crawford matches where the doubling dice didn't show is corrected


the final version isn't far away, i need to correct some bugs witch make the client crash.
They are difficult to find because they occur rarely.

If you want more features to be added it's now.
tell me if you find bugs.

[adrian]

GREAT WORK!

Please add the feature to fully resize program window (my screen is 1280x800...), and different sounds for shout, tell, kibitz, whisper, along with the option to enable/disable them ( this is very useful when running tourneys, so I will know where to check for the message)
Also, a separate, detachable shout window will be nice.

[DeAnimator]

Delfibs 0.9 beta 11 available

All the new features are great - good job!

But.... I'm now getting video display errors on the board during checker animation that wasn't there in beta 10. As the pieces move, there is a lot of horizontal flickering all over the board area - double buffering turned off?

This is with the Titanium board. Unfortunately the bottom chunk of the board is not displaying properly either so it's a bit unusable right now. Gone back to beta 10 for now.

[delfibs]

de animator
i see what  the error is, i fix it as soon as i can

[don]

I like the way you have RepBot wired in.

Have you considered also wiring in the FIBS help files?  It would save a lot of questions from new users.  IMO, a lot of GUIs could benefit from this.

--
don

[delfibs]

delfibs beta 12
Correct the flickering problem
add an option for debugging in the preferences menu. If you activate it a small window shows witch lists the lines parsed by the pgm. if the client crashes please post here the last 10 lines.

[DeAnimator]

delfibs beta 12
Correct the flickering problem

Ah, much better. I can appreciate the other new features now.

[Fergus]

I downloaded the client today and had to abandon a match when I rolled a 3-3 and it would only let me do two of the four moves.

To get around it I did a manual move using the server command interface but there was no feedback that it had worked either on the board (which I wouldn't have expected anyway) or in the server output window (which I would). At some point in all the clicking and typing a popup box informed me of some error. Getting my match going was my priority so I didn't write it down but it wasn't a happy little popup.

I killed the program and continued the match in 3DFibs. I discovered there that the manual move had, in fact, worked successfully and that my opponent had played on.

I look forward to a bug free version. It's going to be a great client so keep up the good work. :-D

[Fergus]

Some pointers..

Remembering where the window was when last used is an absolute must. Using Windows' default positioning is strictly for amateurs!   So too, must remember things like column sorting order, last tab used, etc.

Modal dialogues like "foobar gives up, barfly wins one point" - avoid these like the plague. What if I want to have the program watch a match or series of matches (eg. a bot) for me but I'm away for 15 minutes, or what if I'm working in another program and just want Fibs in the background (perhaps I like to hear dice click and pieces get moved  )? Besides, having to click to say I've seen something that I may not care to see anyway is bad UI design. And having Windows chime its ALERT sound is a big too. If I'm watching the game, I don't need to be alerted and if I'm away I don't want to rush back just to be told a game's ended!

loose.wav - The Internet's favourite spelling mistake! It's LOSE    

[delfibs]

The modal dialogs can be disable in preference->General->show message at the end of a match
remember windows position, tab used and colomn sorting order... : why not , i personally don't find it usefull but if other ask...
For the bug, with no precise data, i can't do anythink.
If you test the program please eanble the debug mode in Preference-> General->Debug mode on , if you meet a bug deconnect and  post then 10 last lines.
Thanks for your interest.

[adrian]

 
No direct answer from a mod means I must read help files again..

I`ll do. It is worth to read.