Hi bridge pals.
This is in Computation Corner because I’m going to go on and on about the web page itself, not bridge per se, so if you’re looking for pure bridge content this is not it. But fans of deal generation, let’s geek out!
One of the blessings of having few users (for now) is that when you arbitrarily demolish and rebuild the whole page, few people are discommoded (and we all know how painful that can be). Nevertheless, I do apologize for all the abrupt changes with no warning. Things should settle down now. I hope you like the result.
Here’s the close-to-final new look:
My readers who are also commercial airliner pilots may be experiencing deja vu:
Yes, all the controls (most, anyway) are right there in your face, all the time. It’s a busy page indeed, but I did that because the former separate pages (main page, custom deal selector, and recipe maker [formerly “manual deal”]) all work together in some fashion, and displaying just one of those pages at a time required the user to remember where they were in the deal construction and generation process.
This combining of all things led to the elimination of “Deal Type” as something the user has to manage via radio button. It has only been during this reconstruction phase that I have reminded myself that not all users are also programmers, and providing visible controls for things like “processing phase” (formerly disguised as “Deal Type”) is something only a programmer (me) would love.
I will produce a whole suite of targeted user guides, one for each feature to keep it small and focused. But for now I will tell you that rather than selecting a “Deal Type” and pressing a “Deal” button, you now get the equivalent effect by pressing one of three buttons: “Random Deal,” “Generate Deal” in the Deal Recipe Maker area, or “Generate Deal” in the Deal Type Selector area. This way, you just choose which button to press based on which area of the cockpit—er, the page—you are working with.
To make up for massive changes without warning, I’ll give you a list of things to come:
A guide to the Deal Recipe Maker. That’s the one area whose use is not intuitive to the savvy button-pusher and link-clicker. I had a list of user-keyed recipe-construction codes in that section of the page before, but it was too large and jumbly.
User guide - rewrite as a topic list with links to small, targeted guides.
Provide links to relevant user guides throughout the generator page—most likely in the legend/title of each functional area.
More user guide. Not really, just noticed that it has been all documentation so far.
Build out the Report function. Why didn’t I just call those buttons “Print”? Because as I envision it, they won’t go straight to print. They will take you to a form where you can then select different types of printed output—whole deals, deals showing just the hands you want for your instructional materials, deal analysis reports, etc. Right now, the “Report” buttons do take you to a form where you can print, but the output is not properly formatted and provides none of the planned output options. You are better off cutting and pasting images of deals into documents, for now.
By popular demand, I will add Opener HCP to the Deal Type Selector area where you configure deals. I will replace the point range dropdown boxes with user-keyed point ranges for user control that suits any system.
Solve, or at least ameliorate (if not downright discommode) the Impossible Deal Problem. My site currently lets users specify impossible configurations, and then it spends untold computer cycles in a fruitless search for a deal that fits. I doubt that I can find a 100% solution to this, but I can prevent some of that wasted time and effort.
Thankfully, none of those changes involved a radical rebuild of the website, so if you are actually using this generator, please have fun exploring the functionality. Your feedback is welcomed.