Practise Games - Cricket Added!

Due to popular demand, I've started work on adding practise games to DartMan. The first of these to be added is Cricket.

To start a game of cricket:

• Open DartMan
• Click the Practise Games tab in the Game Setup section
• Select the players to play
• You can add new players to the list by entering their name, and clicking Add Player to List
• When you click Start Game, the cricket screen will be displayed:

• The player who's shot it is now, will be highlighted in blue.
• The current shot number (1st Shot, 2nd Shot, 3rd Shot) will be highlighted.
• Click the appropriate buttons corresponding to the player's score.
• If a player misses in a single shot, click No Score
• If a player misses in all of their shots, just click Submit Scores to submit empty scores for each shot
• The next shot number will be highlighted. To go back to change a shot, click the corresponding box - the highlighting will change to indicate that shot will be logged next.
• When all three scores are entered, click Submit Scores to log the scores.
• The next player will be highlighted.
• Scores are tallied after each time that Submit Scores is entered.
• When a player has won the game, a message will be displayed to indicate this.
• Click Restart Game to start another game with the same group of players.
• Check the Randomise Player Order box to sort the player order randomly.

As this is a new addition, please provide any feedback or report any issues you may encounter. Hope you enjoy it - Happy Christmas from the DartMan team!

Website Updates

The DartMan website has been updated with the following changes:

Updates

• Updated the Games List page (stats/games) to show player usernames instead of their real names
• Updated the Recent Games list on the right side of the home page with a button to toggle the display of computer games in the list.
• Updated the player Stats page to show the most recent games played by the player, and most recent records achieved by the player. There are also links to show all games by that player (view all…) under the Recent Games list.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug on the stats page which showed 'NaN' (Not a Number) in the some figures, instead of 'n/a'
• Fixed a bug which meant that changing the dates in the Stats page, and clicking Refresh Stats had no effect - the results shown were the same as previously. This is now corrected.
• Fixed bugs which meant that changes to the filters on the games list page were not reflected properly when the Refresh button was clicked.  This is now corrected.

DartMan v2.2.1.6 released!

DartMan has been updated with the following changes:

Updates

• Made some aestethic changes to the display of online players and game requests.
• Added a 'friend' icon beside online players who are in your friends list.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that meant the F12 function key for submitting the remaining score for the current player to win the leg, as well as other function keys (for example pressing F5 with 60 remaining) didn't complete the leg correctly, and could also cause exceptions which crashed the program. This now works as expected.
• Corrected the logic that determines if the score entered is valid in some scenarios
• Fixed a bug which meant that if any player declined an online game request, those two players could not make new game requests to each other after that point.
• Set the Minimum Value on First To Legs to 1, instead of 0

DartMan will update automatically the next time it's started.

DartMan v2.2.1.5 released!

DartMan has been updated to version 2.2.1.5 with the following changes:

Updates:

• Added ability to edit the display name in the Game Screen
• This is possible only for non computer players, in offline games only.
• Double-click the Player Name to edit it. Press enter when done.
• Improved Computer Player logic when approaching or executing finishes. The Computer player attempts smarter choices now, dependent on how many darts they've thrown so far in the current turn. For example:
• If the computer has 188 remaining and one dart left, he will aim for Treble 18
• Single 18 leaves 170, which is still a finish.
• With 50 remaining, and more than one dart, the Computer won't shoot for the bull, however if it's last dart he will shoot for bull.

The following updates have also been applied in the interim versions between this and version 2.2.1.0:

Updates:

• Added a Frames Per Second option to control how many video frames are sent to the opposition player's computer in online web cam games. This should help allow players adjust video to a satisfactory level.
• Added notification for a failed connection to the server. In these instances, logs will be uploaded to the server for my analysis.
• Player states change if a local game is started now, no longer just Online games

Bug Fixes:

• All game requests and rejected/cancelled, and existing games are quit if a player shuts down DartMan
• Fixed a bug in the UDP hole punching code which meant that hole punches were not sent for as long a duration as the other client would be listening for them.
• Fixed a bug that meant connection to server was lost when the player starts a local game.

DartMan 2.2.1.0 released!

A major update to the online code for DartMan should result in almost all logged-in players going online automatically, without any configuration! The same technique used for connecting players to the server is applied to the video-streaming between players, meaning that this should also have a much higher success rate. The online page layout has also been updated so that it is more fluid, and allows all the areas to be resized to suit your preference. The full list of changes in this release are as follows:

• Updated the entire Networking codebase to use UDP instead of TCP for server and player to player connections. This should eliminate the need for manual router configuration for most users, and allow most users to go online automatically.
• Reorganised the Online screen with sizable areas to better display all information.
• When you go online, you are notified of how many players are online, and how many of those are friends.
• New Video Streaming options:
• Added Video Compression option to control level of compression.
• Added Frames Per Second to Send option to control how many video frames are sent to the opposition player's computer. This should help adjust video to a satisfactory level.
• These options should allow players to adjust the video streaming to a level that works well for their system.

Please set the video resolution to the lowest resolution on your WebCam initially, and then test with higher ones to see which gives the best balance between quality of image, and frame rate.

Please provide any feedback or suggestions in the comments box below.

DartMan v2.2.0.12 released!

DartMan has been updated, with the following changes:

Updates

• Added a Send Current Log to Support... menu item in the Help menu
• This will allow you to directly send a log file to us if you experience an issue, so that it can be investigated quickly.
• DartMan will now attempt to open ports on the router, even if it experiences an error retrieving existing port mappings from the router.
• This may help more users get online automatically, without having to manually forward ports on their router

Bug Fixes

• Fixed another scenario where video would only work for 1 online game. After one online game, video might not work again until DartMan was restarted.

DartMan will automatically update the next time it is restarted.

DartMan 2.2.0.10 released!

DartMan has been updated with the following changes:

Updates

• Clicking the highlighted player's name in the Online Lobby will open their stats page on the website.
• Records are now shown to the user again when a player beats their best leg and/or high checkout. This was broken in the last few releases. Also, an optional sound is played when this occurs to further alert the player.
• The Test Camera button is now disabled while there is an online game in progress. This is because clicking this button during a game could result in issues with the live video feed to the other player.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed scenario where the video stream was too large to send to the remote player. Now, if too high a resolution is chosen for the webcam, DartMan will automatically reduce the resolution until a suitable one is found for streaming video.
• Fixed a bug which caused users to go offline and online any time any setting was changed and saved.

DartMan will automatically update when restarted. Please provide feedback and suggestions in the comments, or via the Contact page on the website.