[mgoetze]

Dear Fred,

fred, on 2016-January-21, 08:35, said:

If you can describe what exactly you would like to see with respect to audio in the web-client and why it is important to you, I might be able to do something about it.

here are the changes I would like to see along with my reasoning:

1. Remove the "Card played" sound.

I would really prefer full configurability, but I understand that it is BBO's stance that there should be as few options as possible. If there is to be only one sound scheme available to everyone, I suspect the majority of BBO's members would be best served by one that omits the "swoosh" sound when a card is played. For me personally, this sound is so grating that whenever I hear it I immediately deactivate the sound entirely. I then sometimes forget to activate it again when leaving the table, potentially leading to me not noticing when someone sends me a chat message. And of course, no sound at the table means that I can't take advantage of the "it is your turn to bid" sound when someone is tanking during the auction and I would like to use that time for something other than looking at my cards.

2. Make it more noticeable when someone initiates a conversation with you.

The standard "plop" sound when someone sends you a private message is perfectly fine when you're already engaged in a conversation with someone and are just waiting for them to reply. I find it lacking, however, for the purpose of making me aware that someone is attempting to start a new conversation with me. If I have BBO running in the background, I am liable to miss this subtle cue if I am listening to music, or make a quick trip to the kitchen. Therefore, I suggest replacing this default sound with a much more audible one, when there have been no messages to or from the person sending the message in the last n minutes (I would suggest n = 5).

3. Play the "it is your turn to bid" sound when you are the host of a bidding table and your partner passes.

This is a very minor quibble compared to the other two, but it does annoy me from time to time. Say I am the host of a bidding practice table and my partner opens 1NT. I invite him with 4NT, and he goes into the tank agonizing about whether to accept. I am unlikely to have another decision on this hand, so I switch to another tab and do something else. This works fine when partner ultimately decides to accept and bid 6NT, as I will get an audible cue that it is my turn to pass. But if he passes I will get no such indication, even though nothing is going to happen until I press "redeal".

Thank you very much for reading this far, and I would greatly appreciate if you could deviate from your policy (that is, BBO's policy as stated by barmar) of not commenting in any way on feature requests so that I can finally know whether my repeated attempts to raise these points are futile or not.

Michael Goetze

[fred]

Thanks Michael - you did a good job of describing your concerns.

As I said in my post in the other thread, since we are in the testing stages of the next version of the web-client right now, the timing of this discussion is somewhat unlucky. But I do think there is a good chance that we will try to make some audio-related improvements in the version after that. You are far from the only one who has complained about the web-client sounds - it is one of the most common issues we hear about from those who prefer to stick with the Windows client.

About your point #2... My immediate reaction is that some users might find it confusing if there were 2 different sounds for chat. Do you think that replacing the plop with something less subtle (but nothing too violent) would be a reasonable alternative?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[mycroft]

I agree with Michael: I will deal with the hassles of "no sounds" over that whoosh - and I make that decision before the first hand (in fact, the first trick!) is over. If it was a downloaded client, I could "engineer" the sound to something unobtrusive (i.e. silent); with the web client I have no such option.

I would also prefer the option of being able to decide which sounds I hear - but I understand the "minimum options are easier for everyone, especially BBO IT, even if it's a pain for users who are IT themselves" issue. But if there's one thing to do, it's make/allow the cards silent.

[mgoetze]

fred, on 2016-January-21, 19:46, said:

About your point #2... My immediate reaction is that some users might find it confusing if there were 2 different sounds for chat. Do you think that replacing the plop with something less subtle (but nothing too violent) would be a reasonable alternative?

Yes, with the right sound that can work - back when I played Go, the Go server I used had a "telephone ringing" sound which could be quite jarring if you had the volume up and weren't expecting it, but which you could get used to when having an ongoing conversation.

[TylerE]

While we're on the subject, the "it's your turn to play sound" has this sort of very sibilant reverb to it that drives me absolutely BONKERS. Admittedly, my PC sound system is probably a few order of magnitudes better than your average users (Good external DAC, external amp, big floorstanding speakers, etc).