Backgammon Studio 3.4

[PillowFighter]

Hi!

Backgammon Studio keeps improving and today I have updated the version number to 3.4 with these fine improvements:

Backgammon Studio 3.4

Improvements since 3.3:

• New actiontags:
  
  
  
  • Double hit or not.
    
  • Unstack or not.
    
  • Deep stack or not.
    
  • Give up 6 point or not.
    
  • Make board point or hit.
    
• New training tracks:
  
  
  
  • Double whammy! Hitting two checkers can be very effective if you aren't hit back. Worth the risk?
    
  • Pickup artist! Pick&pass with a checker is a nifty way to get an advantage but sometimes it might be worth just hitting and possibly make the point in the next turn.
    
  • Firepower! Adding a spare to a point can give you extra firepower for attack or more point making numbers. Or are there more clever options available?
    
  • Point taken! Hitting a checker or make a sweet board point? Tough choice!
    
• Score based cube training section.
  
• Display how many matches you have played against an opponent and easy access to more info.
  
• Some help info on problems registering/logging in.
  
• Speedup for player overview.
  
• Show your own match stats when clicking on your name.
  
• ctrl-u to open users list from anywhere. Allows you to open chat to friends asking for help if you are stuck.
  
• Duel dialog opens up to other users unless a timed challenge is being played.
  
• On mobiles you can use an expanded board when playing against opponents.
  
• A 'Go advanced!' button has been added to the light home screen. You may still want to explore the settings section to adjust your homescreen to fit your perference. (Thanks tnx-foxtrot!)
  
• Database switch is now just one button with a dialog to select database.
  
• 
  
• Bugfixes:
  
  
  
  • My matches doesn't include incomplete matches (Thanks tnt-foxtrot!).
    
  • The average PR shown in your my matches section now matches what you see when you click on your own name (Thanks Hall!).
    
  • Moving backward (current move) when viewing match didn't update pipcount.
    
  • Highscore ordering for same result was inconsistent.
    
  • Fixed problem with board frame color and numbers color (Thanks MRolovic!).
    
  • "Play" has become "Confirm" and "Clear" has become "Undo" (Thanks NCMC!).
    
  • Score hint on positions where white is to play (and gets reversed) didn't show correctly.
    
  • Illegal move didn't reset the board on the opponent side.
    
  • 'Opponent has left' message wasn't cleared after online match and starting a challenge (Thanks tnt-foxtrot!).
    
  • 'Rollout rumble' got renamed to 'Opening Training' as the original name might be a bit too obscure.
    
  • Clicking on other users opens both duel and stats dialog similar to interest+stats dialog when clicking on your name.
    
  • Using 'Play Winning' or 'Play Gammon' when searching for positions now shows a info alert if not searching for cube action instead of strange -10000 errors when playing through positions (Thanks tnt-foxtrot!).
    
  • 
    
• Known issues:
  
  
  
  • Using Internet Explorer (Edge) non premium account the ads triggers a lot of errors: "SEC7111: HTTPS security is compromised by http://cdn.stickyadstv.com/mustang/OVVBeacon.swf" possibly making Backgammon Studio appear sluggish on IE. -> Chrome is an ok browser.
    
  • Firefox version 50 seems to have problems connecting to chat server which will prevent online match play and chat functionality. Firefox version 52 seems to work ok (developer edition). -> Chrome is an ok browser.
    
  • Sometimes the client uses the same die twice in an online match but the server will refuse the move if you try to use a wrong move. -> Undo and move again.
    
  • In online matches sometimes messages are lost or arrives very delayed to the client and in the wrong order causing some odd situations. -> Undo and move again or if that fails make an illegal play which will then reset the position.
    

New users

Backgammon Studio went past 1000 users a couple of weeks ago which is sweet! Maria Petrova Rolovic (MRolovic) has been trying to get all her friends to join Backgammon Studio which is just awesome!

Some users have used an incorrect email address when registering which caused the email verification mail to never arrive. While others may have had other problems. If you do have problems registering please email me (terjepe@gmail.com) and I'll help you out!

Some images



The number of training tracks has reached 60! Pretty good I think and they are good fun to test your skills against! They are very difficult so don't get too frustrated if you have problems getting into the top 5. The action training section is a much less cruel place to start your training.



Cube training is a new section where the focus is on cube handling given different scores. As you increase level the cube errors gets gradually smaller.



New action tags keep showing up! They are useful in creating training tracks and when searching for specific types of positions. And there is a wonderful amount of possibilities in Backgammon so I suspect more will show up!



The number of private shared databases keeps growing and it became obvious that having a separate button for each database was impractical. It is now a single button where you can select which database to use. If you would like a private database for your club or organization let me know and I'll see what I can do.




When playing online matches on a mobile phone you may want to have a board that is as large as possible so I have added an option to use a 'Expanded board'.




The space for the moves list does become rather small but that is the tradeoff here. You can open a full screen chat window with the speech bubble. This button should highlight (with an audio effect also) when your opponent sends you a message (or some other message appears).. The shrink button in the lower right corner lowers the chat window again.



The average PR player overview section has become a joy to use as more data is cached. You may get one initial delay if you try to get some data for a year where the data hasn't been generated yet but after that it should be fairly instatnt.

Online match play

Online match play isn't the main feature of Backgammon Studio but more people has started to try it out which is cool! I guess the trick is to find someone to play against and your best bet is to bring a friend! When both are logged on you need to find a users list to challenge your opponent to a match. Originally the 'Showtime!' section was used to find opponents:



But you can also use the chat home screen which has the same users list and server chat:



But now you can also open up a users list from anywhere (on desktop) by clicking ctrl-u:



And you can even open the server chat dialog which also has a users button:



You can move these away and keep (one or both of) them open while navigating elsewhere on Backgammon Studio and then watch when someone you'd love to play against arrives.

Clicking on a username will open the duel dialog where you can set what type of match and match length you want to play. The old 10 position duel should still work although I haven't tried it in ages...

Do try it out! At least the consultation match with running PR is different from what you can find on other backgammon servers!

Holiday season!

As a christmas gift I have opened up all 60 training tracks so everyone can try them out! Normally only half of them are available for non premium users. Actually I opened this gift a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy it while it lasts!

https://www.backgammonstudio.com The swiss army knife of backgammon!

Happy holidays everyone!

Best regards,
TP