[JmBrPotter]

Partner and I use unusual methods. Check our card under JmBrPotter, my BBO ID. We have frequent alert obligations.

My practice is to click the ALERT button before clicking on the last button of my call. After I complete my call, immediately after my call appears inside the round cornered red box, I click on the call and immediately begin typing my explanation. Often, my explanation disappears either while I'm typing it or immediately after/while I click on OK (or press the "Return" key on my keyboard). It seems that sometimes this event correlates with opponents clicking on my call to ask for an explanation. Other times, it is just a mystery. Wednesday night (12 May), I alerted a 3♦ opening and followed my usual procedure. My explanation, "Preemptive. Always missing one or more of ♦AKQ," got erased TWICE. I gave up and made the alert in chat after the opponents never saw the alert and asked about it in chat.

This has been persistent for some months, now. It frustrates my opponents and me. It also delays our games.

It would be nice if (1) invoking the "explanation" box automatically put the cursor in the "ready to type an explanation" position (It doesn't, now.), (2) the evaporating explanation text bug would go away, and (3) a longer explanation text were allowed (at minimum, up to about twice as long as now).

I'm using the browser client version of BBO from a MacBook Pro running MacOS 11.2.3 (20D91) with Safari 14.0.3 (16610.4.3.1.7). If you do any special Microsoft encouraged things to "optimize" for Internet Explorer, I suspect that there is a chance that those nonstandard bits may be breaking other browsers. Such behavior would be consistent with historic Microsoft practices.

[pilowsky]

Some spelling/grammar checking add-ins or extensions do this.
When I disabled mine on BBO the problem disappeared.
Unfourtunately I now have a lot of speling and grammar eros in alerts.

[JmBrPotter]

Thanks for the tip. I do not use any browser extensions, but I do have Safari's builtin spell checker enabled. I'll try disabling spell checking during my next few BBO sessions to see if that helps. Even if losing spell checking fixes #2 on my "It would be nice if" list, that still leaves #1 and #3 open.

[mycroft]

Also, a better pattern (that doesn't trigger "yeah, so tell me" response that could very easily wipe out your explanation) is:
"3", (optional)[Alert], "Preemptive. Always missing one or more of ♦AKQ", "[♦]"
A little slower to bid, but no slower in practise because they don't have to wait for your explanation (which you think they need) before bidding.

And absolutely, if they could migrate the typing to the "expected spot" like they did in the flash days, that would be amazing.

[stanmaz]

JmBrPotter, on 2021-May-14, 01:43, said:

Partner and I use unusual methods. Check our card under JmBrPotter, my BBO ID. We have frequent alert obligations.

My practice is to click the ALERT button before clicking on the last button of my call. After I complete my call, immediately after my call appears inside the round cornered red box, I click on the call and immediately begin typing my explanation. Often, my explanation disappears either while I'm typing it or immediately after/while I click on OK (or press the "Return" key on my keyboard). It seems that sometimes this event correlates with opponents clicking on my call to ask for an explanation. Other times, it is just a mystery. Wednesday night (12 May), I alerted a 3♦ opening and followed my usual procedure. My explanation, "Preemptive. Always missing one or more of ♦AKQ," got erased TWICE. I gave up and made the alert in chat after the opponents never saw the alert and asked about it in chat.

This has been persistent for some months, now. It frustrates my opponents and me. It also delays our games.

It would be nice if (1) invoking the "explanation" box automatically put the cursor in the "ready to type an explanation" position (It doesn't, now.), (2) the evaporating explanation text bug would go away, and (3) a longer explanation text were allowed (at minimum, up to about twice as long as now).

I'm using the browser client version of BBO from a MacBook Pro running MacOS 11.2.3 (20D91) with Safari 14.0.3 (16610.4.3.1.7). If you do any special Microsoft encouraged things to "optimize" for Internet Explorer, I suspect that there is a chance that those nonstandard bits may be breaking other browsers. Such behavior would be consistent with historic Microsoft practices.

Consider using the BBOalert extension for fully automated alerts. BBOalert is used by more than 600 players worldwide.

All you have to do after the installation is start playing. All alerts will be recorded and if in the future the same bidding context occurs your bid will be alerted automatically. But this feature is only the top of the iceberg.

Read the project documentation for more details :

https://github.com/stanmaz/BBOalert

Installation Chrome :

https://chrome.googl...l=en&authuser=0

Installation Firefox :

https://addons.mozil...addon/bboalert/

BBOalert users group :

https://www.facebook...06384146770707/

If you have any questions :

stanmaz.git@gmail.com

[barmar]

I've combined your two threads with identical starting posts.

[morecharac]

stanmaz, on 2021-May-14, 13:54, said:

Consider using the BBOalert extension for fully automated alerts. BBOalert is used by more than 600 players worldwide.

All you have to do after the installation is start playing. All alerts will be recorded and if in the future the same bidding context occurs your bid will be alerted automatically. But this feature is only the top of the iceberg.

Have you added the ability to read what's been stored, yet?

The lack of that ability is what made me give up on it.

[stanmaz]

morecharac, on 2021-May-16, 08:50, said:

Have you added the ability to read what's been stored, yet?

The lack of that ability is what made me give up on it.

The recorded alerts can be always exported as text, eventually edited and imported back in BBOalert. This functionality has been implemented from the beginning.