Hi!

Some of you may have already noticed this but I have updated my server with a rather large update that I have called Backgammon Studio 2.0. The biggest change is the new board that scaled with your screen/window size which is used everywhere.



I have also made it possible to use Backgammon Studio as an app on your phone. You can use the device browser and use the 'Add to homescreen' button which will put Backgammon Studio on you homescreen. This allows Backgammon Studio to use the entire screen without the browser interface. This is a lot better solution for devices.

On my iPhone it looks like this now:



If you click on the toggle details button it will expand the information area to give it more room for text:



On phones you should switch to using a dialog menu system which takes a lot less screen space on the device:



In the first release I automatically did this for users where the server thought this was the best alternative but that was a bit confusing so you have to do this manually in the "my actions/my settings/user settings":



You should now also stay logged in even if you lower Backgammon Studio to the background and go back. You'll end up on the start page and not exactly where you left off though. This is better than having to log in again every time you return to Backgammon Studio (which you had to do until now).

With the new board there is also a customization bonanza where you can change the color/texture of the individual board elements:



It is now possible to toggle the showtime chat even if you're not in the showtime section:



This will allow you to see when someone logs on which is a perfect opportunity to challenge them to a duel! :-)

There is now a new section 'my duels' where you can review your old duels:



You can click on show on a duel and review the positions in this duel. The recorded information from old duels was a bit lacking so you'll only see if you and your opponent answered a position correctly/wrong but on duels from now on you'll also be able to see what you and your opponent answered.

When training in your training ground you'll now get a level up! message if you manage to increase your level:



The old "Latest comments" section has grown up and become "Position forum". Whenever you add a comment to a position it will show up here. This is an easier way to navigate the position comments than a single list.



Moving pieces on the board when answering a position is now more reliable and if the client finds a match with one of the possible answers it will submit this answer. If it doesn't find a match you will have to select an option manually. This could happen for double moves and possibly for pick&pass moves (13/7*/5 could also be written 13/7* 7/5 and XG and my server might not agree on what is correct...) Earlier it would submit anything and fail on some answers that were obviously correct.

There are some new challenges: Timed perfect streak. These are variations on previous challenges with a 10 second time limit:

Bar brawl 2!

Hitman 2!

Payback 2!

Bearoff bingo 2!

If you thought the old ones were hard these ones are harder! :-)

In other news Norway is still the 'best' country:



But I suspect that won't last for too much longer...

Now is the time to try this site on your device! Please give it a try and tell me what you think. I am sure there are still more ways to improve this experience (using icon style menus is one) but I think it doesn't work too bad. I still have more to learn about responsive web design and when I do I'll take another shot at improving this experience!

http://www.backgammonstudio.com/

Give it a try!

Best regards,
TP

Your board seems incredibly stretched. The big space between top and bottom makes it hard to take in the position at a glance.

A good board should be about 11.5 - 12 checker widths from top to bottom. That's the depth of most well-made tournament boards and most backgammon diagrams, and it facilitates seeing the entire position at once.

Hi Robertie!

Which device did you try it on? Do you have a screenshot? I do see the entire board on all devices I have tried it on but I am sure there are some screen resolutions where it does fail.

Backgammon Studio is ideally a desktop product where you have XG which can analyze your matches which you can then upload to your private database (requires an upgraded account). This you can't do on any other device to my knowledge (XG mobile doesn't do match analysis).

On desktop you can resize the window so that the board does fit nicely on the screen but I was sure I had fixed a problem where it got too large (laptops with rather wide display but narrow height) but perhaps not.

I just tried with 1440x800 resolution and the board does fit the screen but not the board+game info. Fitting both onto the screen makes the board very small on a mobile phone.

Ok you can try again now. If the board is still too big I may need some more info.

Best regards,
TP

I'm just looking at the screenshots you posted on this forum.

aha.. :-)

Ok I guess you have to try the actual site instead. There is room for 6 blots on two opposing pegs and almost a 7'th piece but on a tournament board I have at my desk there is room for a 7'th piece. Not terribly far off.

Hi Pillow!

Thank you for your site.

Bill is correct. The board image is hard on the eyes. The aspect ratio is "wrong." The image appears much too stretched. I don't know how else to describe it.

I'm not sure why exactly, although I think it starts with the fact that your board images appearing here and the ones on your site appear to be square. That might be part of the problem because as you know backgammon boards are slightly more rectangular than square.

The typical blue and white board images often seen at bgonline.org, for example, are approximately 327 x 255 pixels in size... not square at all.

I took a graphics program and made a screen capture of your board and then resized this image by flattening it out a bit and it looks much better. (But the checkers flattened at the same time and are no longer circular.)

I was going to mention the fact that it's very easy to miss a lone black pip if he happens to be sitting on a black column, but didn't want to start things off with a moan. I had good fun yesterday going through a few tests, which revealed that my double play is as bad as i feared it to be, and shows little sign of improving.

Will play around some more, thanks for the site!

That is another constructive comment and I agree with it. Ideally, there probably should be a little bit more of a contrast between the black pips and the black checkers. If the black pips were lightened a little bit, from a black to a grey or a dark grey, that might work.

Thanks for the feedback! I haven't thought this to be any problem. As long as it resembles a backgammon board with the frame, pegs and checkers it was enough for me. The original background graphics is 800x750 pixels and the checkers are 50x50 pixels.

If I resize the board to 330 pixels and keep the height it ends up as 309:



but on an XG html export the dimension is 330x257 so mine is a bit too tall.

I'll fix this shortly.

Ok I have it working on my internal server now:



Scaling this down to 330:



it becomes 330x258 which should be close enough.

The flip side of this is that more of the screen goes unused on my iPad:



But this area does come in use when playing challenges where I need to display a chat:



which could be made larger to fit the remaining screen area.

Does this work for you or are there additional problems that I should address?

I missed bleep69's comment. I guess I can add a frame around the checkers:



I added these as alternative checkers in the board settings section.

Hm.. release a "Backgammon Studio 2+2" edition? :-)

I have updated my server now with these changes. Now you can make a board that looks like a Geoffrey Parker board! Almost! :-)

This looks 100 times better to me. I like the new dimensions and I like the idea of an option for a frame/border around the checkers. With a frame the black checkers no longer get "lost" on the black pips.

Good work.

Thanks!

You can also change the color/texture of the pegs themselves to avoid this problem but I needed an excuse to add this as I have seen some pretty sweet Geoffry Parker boards which has checkers with metal rims.

I'll see about adding a few more checker options too.

I agree. This new layout looks much better to me.

100% agree, looking good.