Pontes Backgammon Change Log More information at: www.backgammon.pontes.ro Changes in version 1.7 (future release) 1. Spanish language is available. Translated by Miguel Pacheco. (06 January 2016) ----------- Changes in version 1.6 (11 May 2014) 1. Pontes Backgammon can be played also using only the numeric keyboard. (10 September 2012) - 5 announces current position, 0 takes and puts down a checker, comma removes a checker, 7 and 1 have the functions of home and end keys respectively, 2 4 6 8 have the functions of the arrows keys. 2. When playing offline, pressing key Q you can hear the names of the available partners waiting as host of an online game. (13 September 2012) - During an offline game, the available partners waiting for clients are announced automatically periodically if their list changes. - In Sound Settings You can enable or disable the automatic announcement of available partners. 3. Added a new ambience. You can choose now to play like in a restaurant on the beach. (16 December 2010) 4. The typing sound in chat has been changed. It is not heard anymore for each key pressed by your partner, but constantly while he or she writes. (04 January 2013) 5. By default, wrap navigation is enabled in all menus. Pressing key W in menus, the wrap navigation can be enabled or disabled. (21 January 2013) 6. Added support for other sound themes. The default theme is Pontes Backgammon Modern, a new one. (16 February 2013) - It is possible to change the theme from Main Menu or pressing Control + F6 during a game. The classic theme is still available. 7. Hungarian language is available. Translated by Tanko Csaba. (26 March 2013) 8. Added the possibility to pause an offline game. Press F2 to pause and Escape to resume. (27 April 2013) 9. Added a dice game to be played while an offline game is paused. The target score is 6. See more details reading the Manual. (28 April 2013) 10. Pressing F12 twice quickly, current date is announced. (29 April 2013) 11. Aded a new option in the Main Menu: Information. (29 April 2014) - It is possible to ask for your number of played games, total points, positions in score boards. 12. The statistics and scoreboard web pages were updated. (04 May 2014) - You can see stats and scoreboard for a chosen period of time. - It is possible to see stats like score between you and a partner. 13. When a player has problems with Internet connection, it is considered an abandon. (10 May 2014) 14. Added the possibility to send a buzz or various audibles in chat. (10 May 2014) - Press Control + G to send a buzz, or Control + M to choose an audible. 15. Some sounds were replaced by new others. Fixed bugs: - Fixed an inconsistence in Windows Registry. Now Pontes Backgammon can be played also if the user is not an administrator. (22 Octomber 2012) - Fixed a file writting permission issue. Now the chosen language will be remembered also if the user is not an administrator. (18 December 2012) - Fixed an error when choosing the ambience. Pressing key Escape, the ambience is not changed anymore. (20 January 2013) - Q key is available also in menus. (02 May 2014) - Fixed other bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.5 (7 August 2012) 1. Italian language is available. Translated by Claudio Garanzini. (20 May 2012) 2. Pressing key G, you can hear who's turn is to move. (14 July 2012) 3. Pressing control + t in an online game, you can hear the remaining time for current move. Remember that after 3 minutes without moving, it is considered an abandon. (14 July 2012) 4. Changed some sounds like the edges for history lists. Added a left beep when the entire message is deleted in the chat history. (15 July 2012) 5. The mouse support was entirely rewritten for a better usability. (17-23 July 2012) The mouse status is also saved and charged at the start of the game for registered users. 6. All user settings are now saved into Windows Registry. The SApi voice rate, sound settings, board notation and other settings must be set again. (29 July 2012) 7. Pressing control + m you can set now the mouse delay, its speed. By default, the delay between mouse position refreshing is 200 milliseconds. (30 July 2012) 8. Game pad and joystick support added, read more about game pad and joystick support in the manual. (01 August 2012) 9. Pressing control + j you can set the game pad or joystick delay, its speed. By default, the delay between cursor movements made by a game pad is 150 milliseconds. (01 August 2012) 10. At game launch it is verified if an instance of Pontes Backgammon is already running. It is not possible to open Pontes Backgammon more times accidentally. (03 August 2012) 11. If Pontes Backgammon is registered, the Registration Manager can also unregister it. (03 August 2012) 12. German language is available. Translated by Dogan Yildirim and Mihaela Cirlig. (04 August 2012) 13. All the Yes / No question dialogs where changed. Now it is possible to choose between Yes or No using the arrows or Tab key. The question is also repeated each 20 seconds. (05 August 2012) Fixed bugs: - If alt + tab is pressed and JAWS is running, the screen reader will work correctly outside the game window. (Thanks Philip) (13 July 2012) - A nickname longer than 15 characters is now spoken entirely. (14 July 2012) - The ambience can not be changed anymore pressing control + x while the music player is running. (14 July 2012) - To open a saved game, control right + o is also available. (14 July 2012) - The current time announced automatically by clock cuckoo is not repeated more times. (14 July 2012) - When writing or deleting text in chat, the space is also pronounced by synthesizers. (15 July 2012) - Alt + shift and control + shift change now the speak output mode also in the chat window. (15 July 2012) - Corrected some mistakes in the history games files found in My Games folder. (16 July 2012) - The music player jumps now to the next track also in chat window. (16 July 2012) - Fixed an important bug at bearing checkers off time. Now it is impossible anymore to remove a wrong checker in some situations. (21 July 2012) - Fixed other bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.4 (16 January 2012) 1. Danish language is available. Translated by Alexander Nielsen. (30 December 2011) 2. In the chat window, pressing Control + Backspace you can delete the message written since last Enter key was pressed. (4 January 2012) 3. Croatian language is available. Translated by Igor Zelenika. (6 January 2012) 4. Added translation in chat. After writing a message, if Control + Enter is pressed, the written text will be translated and it will replace the writen text, just press Enter to send it. After choosing a message from the list, pressing Control + T that message is also translated. F5 repeat the last translation made by Control + T. You can choose your language pressing F3 or Shift + F3, and the partner's language pressing F4 or Shift + F4. F2 says current languages set. (8 January 2012) 5. When your partner is writing a message, a typing sound will be heard. When you partner presses the first letter in a new message, the voice will announce: "Your partner is writing a message...". (10 January 2012) 6. The timer in a game is paused when a chat session is running. (11 January 2012) 7. Pressing Control + U, you can hear the points where are vulnerable checkers. U was already saying the number of vulnerable checkers since version 1.0 revision 3. (13 January 2012) 8. Serbian language is available. Translated by Nikola Stojšić. (14 January 2012) 9. The abandon system added. If one of the partners closes the game, the other player will be the winner. There is also a timeout per turn: if one player doesn't move for 3 minutes, an abandon will be considered. (15 January 2012) 10. Fixed some bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.3 (30 November 2011) 1. Added the possibility to play Backgammon with JAWS screen reader opened. It is not necessary anymore to unload or to put it on sleep. (17 November 2011) 2. The diacritics in other languages are read correctly. (17 November 2011) 3. The keys 1 to 6 and Shift + 1 to 6 work now correctly. (20 November 2011) 4. Added support for screen readers. Supported screen readers are: JAWS for Windows, Window-Eyes, System Access and NVDA. (21 November 2011) 5. Alt + Shift change speech between screen readers and SApi 5 voice. (23 November 2011) 6. Control + Shift, when the speech is set to SApi 5, change voices between installed SApi 5 voices. (23 November 2011) 7. F7 and F8, when the speech is set to screen readers, adjust the time duration between computer actions. When the speech is set to SApi 5, F7 and F8 continue to adjust the voice rate. (23 November 2011) 8. Turkish language was added. Translated by Yusuf Kovanci. (24 November 2011) 9. Added copy (Control + C) and paste (Control + V) in the chat. Control + C copies from the list the current line chosen by Page-up or Page-down keys. (25 November 2011) 10. There is now a Silence background available as option in the Choose Ambience menu. (26 November 2011) 11. Added specific sounds when chat is activated and closed. Now it is not necessary anymore to wait for your turn to activate the chat window in online games. (27 November 2011) 12. Added the possibility to play with mouse. During a game, Left Mouse Button takes / puts a checker, the Middle Button rolls the dice, Right Mouse Button removes a checker, the Wheel reads the game history. More information about mouse can be found in Online Help, press F1 during a game to open it. 28 November 2011) 13. Pressing key M you can enable or disable the mouse. The mouse works only for first actions in a game if Pontes Backgammon is used in demo mode. (29 November 2011) 14. Fixed some bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.2 (6 November 2011) 1. Added decimal key on numeric keyboard to remove a checker. (19 October 2011) 2. Home and End keys are available when is your partner's turn to jump directly to the edges of the board. (21 October 2011) 3. Added Alt + F4 to close the game when waiting for a partner as a client and in other places. (21 October 2011) 4. Added F7 and F8 keys to change the voice rate in menus. (21 October 2011) 5. Pressing tab key, you can hear the registration status, for instance: "Online No, Offline Yes" means that the game is registered for offline games, but it is not registered for online games. (21 October 2011) 6. Added the clock in the menus. Press F12 to hear the current time. The clock is also announced automatically if it is enabled in Sounds settings. (22 October 2011) 7. The music player is available also when waiting for a partner as a client. (22 October 2011) 8. Pressing Control + W during a game the current partner's name is spelled. (22 October 2011) 9. When the CD is reinserted in the music player, it searches now for current tracks in My music folder. It is possible to change the content of the My music folder during a game, just stop and restart the player to create the new playlist. (22 October 2011) 10. Added F9 and F10 to adjust the music player or background volume in the Chat section. (22 October 2011) 11. Pressing F1, the online help is opened anywhere: in the menus, in the Chat section etc. (22 October 2011) 12. Added support for other languages. Any file.lng can be found as a language in the Change Language option from Main Menu. You can translate the content of English.lng and put into a file named language_name.lng. [30 October 2011) 13. Romanian language is available. (01 November 2011) 14. Control + F11 opens the Change Language option. You can change the language during a game. (02 November 2011) 15. Some sounds were fixed to be played on the corresponding position. For instance the beep on a movable checker is heard like the checker itself produces it. (03 November 2011) 16. There is a new option in Main menu: Choose Ambience. Here you can choose the ambience in games, like: park, forest, night, cafeteria. Control + X opens this option during a game. [04 November 2011) 17. Fixed some problems with sounds. (when detected) 18. Fixed some minor bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.1 (14 August 2011) 1. Difficult Level added in games with computer. 2. Adventures level added: for instance you can play against computer which has only doubles, you can try to play against computer having only 6 6 etc. 3. The registration name appears now in the title of the game window. 4. Pressing key F, you can hear how many dice points are necessary to bear all checkers off. For instance if a checker is on 24 you need 24 points to bear it off. If when is the removing time, if there are for instance 2 checkers on 1 and 2 checkers on 6, you need a total of 14 dice points to bear them off. This information is good to see who is more advanced, who has more chances to win at any moment. 5. Pressing D key you can hear some dice statistics: the total dice points from start and the number of doubles. 6. Pressing Key E, you can hear the efficiency. The efficiency is 100% as long you used all the dice points to go into home board, and it becomes smaller for instance when a checker is hit. 7. Pressing Key A you can hear the dice average. In this information, a double is considered as 4 dice. If you start for instance with 6 4, the average is 5; if the second dice rolling is 2 2, the average will be 3 because there were 6 dice with a total of 18 points. 8. Pressing key A, after the average is spoken, it is also announced the number of dice rolls since current game started. 9. The registration system was changed, you must receive a new key from Pontes Association. If you didn't receive any key, send an e-mail at emanuelboboiu (a rond) gmail.com. 10. All the statistics are saved in the game history files found in My Games Folder. 11. Fixed some bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.0 (revision 3) (22 April 2011) 1. Game History implemented. Pressing L key will let you hear the last action. Pressing K will let you hear the first item in the list, the title. The comma and period keys move the cursor up or down one by one item in the history list. Comma and Period keys shifted are also Less and Greater signs in an American layout. Pressing Insert key will copy the current game history into the clipboard. 2. When playing online games, you can touch the board when it is not your turn. If you check the board and you are not careful at your partner's actions, you can check the history to see what happened. 3. My Games folder. In the Pontes Backgammon group you will see a folder My Games. In this folder there are folders for all kind of games you played. For instance in Online folder you can see all the games played online in TXT format. There is also a folder named Unfinished, there you can see all the games started, having at least 4 moves done. You can delete the folders at any time, when new games are played, they will continue to appear there. 4. The TTS speed set by F7/F8 is also saved. 5. You can hear how many checkers are alone on a point, vulnerable. Press key U for this information. 6. In menus Home and End keys move the cursor directly to the first respectively to the last item found. 7. Fixed some bugs. ----------- Changes in version 1.0 (Revision 2) (11 April 2011) 1. Major change: In accordance with Backgammon rules, first dice decide who goes first. Both partners rolls one die. Who has the greater one starts the game moving conform these two dice. Important! When playing online, it's necessary that both partners to update Pontes Backgammon to last version. 2. The moving using numbers system changed. When shift is down and a number is pressed the cursor jumps back the corresponding number of points. When pressing just the numbers without shift, the cursor jumps forward. The change direction option was removed, it's not necessary anymore. 3. Fixed a bug when changing turn and a beep was heard before rolling the dice.. 4. The join system fixed, when a player starts to play or exits the game, he or she will not longer appear waiting for a partner. 5. Fixed a bug when pressing T key to hear the time elapsed. The number of seconds was sometimes wrong spoken. (thanks Philip) 6. If it's enabled, The clock cuckoo is available also when chatting and when waiting for a hosted game. 7. Fixed some bugs when launching the game not connected to the internet or server was temporary inactive. There is not possible to appear runtime errors. (thanks sdjNick) 8. In on-line mode, the chat becomes available just after deciding who goes first and if it's your turn. 9. New sound added when Enter key is pressed in the menu. ----------- Changes in version 1.0 (Revision 1) (31 March 2011) 1. Added Shift Key to change the direction when moving using number keys. (thanks SplendidFault) 2. When it's your turn, the "cursor" is on the same point when you moved before the online partner or computer moved. (thanks Quasar) 3. The sound for middle of the board or edges of the board is another one, not like iron, something closer to wood. (thanks Grifnas) 4. The score is kept when loading saved games. (thanks Quasar and Ludi) 5. There are specific sounds when a partner is available as host or when a partner asks if you want to play with him or her. (thanks Gruia) 6. The sounds are played in the Sounds Settings option. (thanks Pitermach) 7. The Easy level is available for entire games in demo mode. (thanks SplendidFault) 8. Bug fixed when saving board notation. (thanks Grifnas and Quasar) ----------- 25 of March 2011: The first version was realized. ----------- www.backgammon.pontes.ro