Jim Cassidy: Yes, there should be instructions on how to do a Sim,
but first, there should be a better/easier way to do Sims and post-
mortem in general.
Jason & John: Yes, I understand that you have your hands full with
getting the endgame straightened out, getting first-play evaluation
(long-word, short-word, 1-tile exchange) working better, and solving
various O/S issues with Windows. What follows are just some ideas &
requests that might make Quackle easier to use for doing post-
mortem. Use whatever you see fit :)
Lest somebody want to jump on me for anything I've written below, let
me state (as I told you in person) that I really like Quackle, and
I'm just trying to provide some ideas here to help make the program
better. I've done Maven post-mortem on over 1,000 games and Quackle
post-mortem on about 50, so these ideas are carefully considered.
Thank you,
John Hart
FEATURE REQUEST: Separate path for post-mortem.
Example: Launch program, Quackle could ask "play or analyze?" If
play, then proceed as now. If analyze, make it easier for the user
to do post-mortem without some of the "objection" dialogs that crop
up when playing an actual game. Specific ideas follow...
======================
Who goes first... no need for Quackle to assign. Since the game has
already been played, we *KNOW* who went first, so let me specify
either "me" or "opponent" as making the first play.
--------------------------------------------
DIALOG NOT NEEDED IN POST-MORTEM
"opp's rack does not include all tiles in <loc> <word>; make play
anyway?"
Totally irrelevant. Quackle doesn't know what my opponent had on his
rack. The worst aspect of this problem is that when I have a blank
on MY rack, and try to put my opponent's move on the board, Quackle
takes MY blank and puts it on the board as part of my opponent's
play. That didn't happen, doesn't happen, and shouldn't happen.
------------------------------------------
SHOW THE BOARD AS IT PRESENTLY STANDS
After 'Generate Choices' I can click & remove some plays from the
list, but the first play clicked is still shown on the board. I can
click on the move actually played and display *that* move on the
board before starting Sim, but I can't find a way to remove any & all
listed plays from the board. Please display on the board ONLY the
plays that have actually been made thus far in the game.
------------------------------------------
DON'T CHOOSE MY LETTERS FOR ME
Quackle shouldn't assign me my tiles. The game has already been
played; I know what my tiles were. It's an extra level of work to
have to change what's on my rack every time. Please leave the rack
blank.
-------------------------------------------
(very minor) When I type in my rack, please echo the tiles in upper-
case, even if I don't have Caps Lock on. If possible, consider
showing the letters in a fixed-width font (with a proportional font,
a rack with 3 I's appears to be a letter short; a rack with 2 W's
looks like it has 8 letters).
------------------------------------------
WORDING OF THE "challenged off?" QUESTION
My opponent played the phony OSTER, and I didn't know that it was
phony. Got the msg "forms an unacceptable word; make play anyway"
[Yes] -> "if committed, should <play> be challenged off the
board?" is totally baffling, because "should" is a tricky concept.
Yes, I "should" have challenged the play off the board, but I didn't,
so the question Quackle really needs to ask is "Did the play get
challenged off the board?"
What happened during my post-mortem was that I answered 'Yes' to the
question, so the play appeared, then vanished. I double-clicked on
my previous play to go back and put the opponent's word on the board,
and didn't notice that MY previous play was removed from the board.
Worse, the score for the play that I didn't challenge off went into
my column, my play was not scored, and the score got all messed up as
a result, which leads to the next issue...
-----------------------------------------
LET USER CHANGE THE SCORES
Please allow the user to alter the scores manually (right-click on
the score and change it, or display them in an editable text field).
While the actual and correct score of the game might be such-and-
such, it sometimes happens that we plod along with an incorrect score
because of a scoring error. Example: several weeks ago at club, I
mis-scored one of my plays by a whopping 8 points. I played the rest
of the game thinking that I had 8 fewer points than I should have,
and based several of my move selections on incorrect information.
I'd like to be able to have Quackle "think" that it's making a
decision on what to play based on being behind by 20 rather than by
12, or leading by 30 rather than by 38. (No, I wasn't "banking
points," I just made a mistake.)
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