Automatic Resumes

[enoix]

Hi,
I'm the developer of the iPhone/iPod Touch Client.

I'm sorry about the shaky connection, but I can't do very much about it.
But often (for example in a weak WLAN condition) the connection is only gone a very short time. I also play a lot with other clients, i.e. CocoaFIBS, and I remember that sometimes something screw up and if also refreshing (board command) didn't help, relogging in and resuming often solved the mess.
So wouldn't it make sense if FIBS would provide an automatic resume? I mean the following: If someone's logging  in very quickly (say, within 5-10 sec) after logging out / dropping connection and he was playing a match, FIBS would automatically resume the match (and send board states to both players). Thus my client (and maybe other mobile solutions) could automatically relogin after a connection problem and the user (and the opponent as well) didn't have to do anything about it. The opponent didn't have to bother with accepting as well.
One could implement the possibility to toggle this behaviour with some command like 'toggle autoresume'.

What do you think about this? Has it drawbacks? Could it be easily implemented?

(if you have any other suggestions, request, comments regarding the client, please open a new thread in the appropriate forum, I'll be checking the forums regularly from now on)

[adrian]

For one thing, I am glad you are here and try to do something about the IPhoneBG software flaws. Pity you cannot improve the quality of the people who use it.... I will let others, who actually use it , to say what is to be done .
(Signed: a player who has IPhoners and Odesysysss filed as villains = droppers,not reliable players, or even too stupid to understand that they are playing a game against other people) 

[Tom]

That kind of change would not likely be done to FIBS itself.

The client certainly could remember who it was playing when the connection was lost,
reconnect and then invite for resume.

I am sure players would love to accept the invite

tom

[enoix]

Yes, that would be a workaround for short disconnects, but it still requires a user action (the acception of the opponent) … better than nothing, still

[Patti]

You really want the FIBS developers' list for discussions like this, rather than the open forum-- I've been trying to contact you about it, and about some of the issues I've been having with the client, but you haven't responded.  FIBSboard is an exceedingly unreliable way of getting in touch with me, since I generally only drop in and peek at it once every several weeks.  If you'd like to join the mailing list, please drop me email so I have a good address for you.

Having said that, I don't think auto-resume would be terribly feasible, and "easily implemented" is certainly not the case.  Not only would it require a huge effort on my part, but it would also necessitate changes to all of the clients in the field, and most of them are not currently being maintained.

Having said that, I think that changes to the client could significantly improve the experience.  I would love to see the phone-based clients be much more in-your-face about saved games.  I would love to have better communication in the client about the need to finish games, and just generally about what the server is and how it works.  I'd love a command-line option, so that people could get to commands that weren't implemented in the client.  I'd love to have the MOTD displayed to users at login, so that I had a way of communicating with them.  I'd love to see the client ask for an email address and automatically send the "address" command when new accounts are created.

The idea of having the client attempt to resume automatically upon reconnect is intriguing.  At the very least, when users drop I'd like to have them be warned by the client that they need to log back in and finish.

(And also, I'd like a pony, and world peace.)

By the way, I got an iPod Touch and bought a copy of the client a couple of months ago just so that I could evaluate it.

[enoix]

You really want the FIBS developers' list for discussions like this, rather than the open forum-- I've been trying to contact you about it, and about some of the issues I've been having with the client, but you haven't responded.  FIBSboard is an exceedingly unreliable way of getting in touch with me, since I generally only drop in and peek at it once every several weeks.  If you'd like to join the mailing list, please drop me email so I have a good address for you.

Okay I've sent you an e-mail (subject "mailing list").

Having said that, I don't think auto-resume would be terribly feasible, and "easily implemented" is certainly not the case.  Not only would it require a huge effort on my part, but it would also necessitate changes to all of the clients in the field, and most of them are not currently being maintained.

Okay

I would love to see the phone-based clients be much more in-your-face about saved games.

Okay we have the saved games list entry at the first screen, in a future update I'll screen not only the number of saved games but also the number of players who are currently online, i.e. "Saved Games     3/7"
I don't know very well about MissManners but if she sends warnings to the user he should receive them via the chat function. I could show these warnings instead of a mere chat message as a iPhone OS alert 
Also I have that rather nice idea to listen for MissManner warnings the kind of "WARNING someone logs in. he has 45 saved games" and render a DROPPER sign over that player's list entry. Does a user himself get that message after logging in? Maybe a few users would hesitate then to collect to much saved games.

I would love to have better communication in the client about the need to finish games, and just generally about what the server is and how it works.  I'd love a command-line option, so that people could get to commands that weren't implemented in the client.  I'd love to have the MOTD displayed to users at login, so that I had a way of communicating with them.  I'd love to see the client ask for an email address and automatically send the "address" command when new accounts are created.

The next update (by which I mean not the upcoming which is already uploaded and currently processed by Apple) will contain a Terminal tab. It's rather difficultt to get the MOTD nicely formatted at the iPhone screen, though, and I want to preserver landscape mode for the Board.

The idea of having the client attempt to resume automatically upon reconnect is intriguing.  At the very least, when users drop I'd like to have them be warned by the client that they need to log back in and finish.

Yep I'll implement the auto-resume function, at least as a (default: YES) setting. However, if users drop by pressing the home button it's not UI-like (and indeed, I don't know atm whether it's possible) to present a alert. I could present a warning when the user opens the app next time ...

(And also, I'd like a pony, and world peace.)
By the way, I got an iPod Touch and bought a copy of the client a couple of months ago just so that I could evaluate it.

Good to have a sophisticated FIBS user for evaluation. Keep going!