PokerStars (+FTP) software improvements thread...

[MC]

Happy about the bolding coming in for SNGs, volume slider might be handy as well as I have all sounds muted whereas I probs should have a time-out noise of some description.

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We are having another planned client update coming up over the next few days and early next week. As usual, following is the list of new features and changes, which we hope you will enjoy:

Font Changes for Games

We have changed the fonts for games that you are part of to be more distinguishable and more friendly to people with various types of color blindness. Changes:

• Ring games you are waitlisted for will be blue, bold and italics.
  
• Ring games you are seated at will be red, bold and italics.
  
• Tournaments you are part of will show the "State" column in red, bold and italics.
  

We hope this will address the reports about difficulty to distinguish such games.

Find Seat

“Find Seat” has been opened as a feature to all real money players after making some back-end adjustments. We strongly suggest you try the feature, since it can make joining 24 tables or swapping tables a no-brainer!

To recap, when you select a full table in the lobby you will see a “Find Seat” button where “Seat Me” usually is. Click the button and the system will look for an empty seat at the exact same type of table.

Alternatively, once you are seated at a table, press Ctrl+S or go to “Session Options” menu and you will be seated at another table of the exact same type as the one you are already playing. If you have “Auto-Buy-In (Ring Games)” enabled you won’t even have to click any additional buttons! Click Ctrl+S again and you will be seated at a third table of the same type. You get the idea.

Sit & Go’s already had this feature enabled – Ctrl+S from a S&G tourney or accessing the “Session Options” menu allow you to join another S&G of the exact same type.

Volume Sliders

We have added a master volume slider for all PokerStars sounds and also individual volume sliders for each sound. You can find them under “Options” > “Sound Settings...” This can allow you to have certain sounds that you believe are more important louder than others.

Bracket for Heads Up Tournaments

We have developed the ability to display a bracket for Heads Up tournaments from the Tourney Lobby which will show the pairings of opponents and how the tournament has progressed. This is very similar to playoff brackets that exist in many other sports. The feature is in Beta stage and will be slowly added to selected Heads Up tournaments. For now the bracket will only be available after the tournament is down to 64 players.

Register to Any

There was an issue where “Register To Any” would open the S&G tournament lobby even if you had “Options” > “Advanced Multi-table options” > “Auto-open Sit & Go tournament lobby” unchecked. This is now fixed so Register To Any won’t open the Tournament Lobby with the Auto-open option disabled, reducing the number of clicks needed to join S&Gs through Register to Any or Ctrl+S from the table. “Requests” > “Registered in Tournaments” (or Ctrl+R) can be used to show you the tournaments you are registered for.

Saving Tournament Summaries

The reliability of saved summaries has been improved, so please do let us know if you miss any summaries. Regarding the difference between saved and requested summaries – this will be addressed in a future update.

Other updates

• Font for the text within dialogs was changed to a font that is easier to read in the Windows client.
• Detached Chat minor updates – the window now can be detached on some themes directly from the table by using a button. Other themes will be updated with the January release.
• Bet sizing buttons have changed behavior for draw games – the first draw will show the pre-flop shortcuts, while subsequent draws will show the post-flop buttons.
• When Seat Me fails to find a seat for you at the selected table (if it had filled), there will now be a “Find Seat” button in the pop-up alert. Clicking Find Seat will take you to another table identical to the one where Seat Me couldn’t seat you.
• We have a new mixed game combining two of the most popular game types – No Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha. No games are available yet, but they will slowly start appearing over the course of December.

That’s it for this update. From the development team I would like to wish you all a successful end of 2010!


source: PokerStars Blog

[GreekStein]

u gonna be the next DaleRoxxu James?

[MC]

u gonna be the next DaleRoxxu James?

Yes please!

[s4ooter]

You  must be Isuldur1

[MC]

It’s that time of the month again – updates to the PokerStars software will be released over the next week and here are the highlights:

Lobby Column Customization
You will be able to choose what lobby columns are displayed in the list of games and be able to resize the columns. The new ‘Column Settings’ dialog is accessible via a small icon to the right of the last column. So if you have never cared about the “H/hr” column or the “ID” tournament column, now you can remove them and make your lobby simpler. Another part of this feature is the ability to lock the sort of the columns – this way you would not be able to mis-click on a header and have your advanced sort accidentally change.



Chat Bubbles
We want to make it more obvious when players are talking, and who is talking. You’ll see how these work the next time you play after updating. If you don’t like this feature, you will be able to turn it off at the table by mousing over a Chat Bubble and using the drop-down menu that will show in the right of the bubble. Alternatively, you can also disable Chat Bubbles in 'Options' > 'Table Display Options'.



Easier Note Taking for Detached Chat  
If you are using Detached Chat and are in “Merge All Detached Chat Windows” mode (we strongly advise you try it, especially if you stack your tables), tables stealing focus will not interrupt your chat and note taking. If you are taking a note on one table and another requires action, the table will come to the front but the detached chat window will still retain the information about the previous table so you can finish your chat or note.

Show List of Registered Players in Lobby
You will now be able to see the list of players that have already registered for Heads-up and Single Table Tournaments directly from the main lobby.

Add Recipient’s Avatar when Confirming a Transfer
After the City to Country change, players expressed concerns that country is not enough in order to be sure that you are transferring to the right person. We have now added the recipient’s avatar in the confirmation screen as well. There were many ideas suggested, but the ultimate goal is not to show more information than is available on the tables and also not to complicate the transfer process. We are monitoring the issue and will consider further changes as needed.

Recurring Home Games Tournaments
If you run a game every Tuesday night (or whenever, the feature isn’t limited to Tuesdays) at 9:00, this feature will make it much easier to run your club.  Options will be available to run daily, weekly and monthly tournaments and are clearly accessible from the dialog to create a tournament.

Hide Hole Cards (Ctrl+H)
If you want to only peek at your cards and see them face down otherwise, now you can. This feature is mostly aimed at players in Home Games playing in the same room as their opponents, but you can use it outside of Home Games as well. If this feature is enabled, simply move your mouse cursor over your hand to see your cards.

Other
•   We have been tracking down the issues related to not being able to play your hands after disconnecting and another set of fixes have been implemented. Please do let us know if the problems persist after the client update.
•   Minor change to the custom bet-sizing buttons available at “Options” > “Bet Slider Options”. If a button does not apply, it will just be greyed out as opposed to not show; if the button bets more than your stack, then the bet size would be set to put you all in. If you are not using bet slider buttons, we recommend you give them a try.
•   Other small improvements throughout the client.

That’s it for this client update. Just to tease you, we’ve got a couple of exciting projects that are almost ready for release. Both are aimed at making multi-tabling a better experience and both (in my biased opinion) are going to be pretty sweet. We may be looking for beta testers later this month, so stay tuned.

Note: As usual, the above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to ensure you get the update delivered.

(http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/software-news/#sfn8)

[Longy]

We have made some updates designed to fk up 3rd party software and tilt the regs.

kthxbye stars.

[MC]

We have made some updates designed to fk up 3rd party software and tilt the regs.

kthxbye stars.

lol. Tableninja usually fix these kinda things within a day.

[MC]

Let's just hope they sort out the huge problems with SNGs ASAP!

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Over the next few days we will release another update that will bring improvements to the PokerStars software. Here are the highlights of player-facing features:

Sit & Go Lobby Revamp

As posted in another thread by Steve, PokerStars has made changes to the Sit & Go lobby to make it easier to navigate and find the games you want. We have added two new columns -- "Speed" and "Type" and structured everything a lot more.

Hyper Turbo Cash Sit & Go's

By popular demand, we have added hyper turbos for cash as a trial at one limit. Please see Steve's post for more information.

Sit Out Next Big blind and Close Table

We have added the functionality to be able to sit out next big blind and close an individual table. “Options” > “Advanced Multi-Table Options” > “’Sit out next big blind’ checkbox: Close table on big blind” enables this feature.

Activating this checkbox changes the behavior when manually selecting “Sit out next big blind” checkbox to also close the table once sitting out. Note that Session Options can still be used to sit out next big blind on all tables without closing tables. We are interested to hear if this implementation meets the needs of the players.

Apply Active Layout

You will now be able to reapply a currently saved layout without having to switch it off and on again. The shortcut for this will be CTRL+3, or you can use “Apply Active Layout” from the “View” menu, also accessible directly from every table.

Rearrangement of Title bar for Tournament Tables

The title bar of tournament table windows will now have the most important information (Tournament name and blind information) appearing at the front.

Gx.ini Encryption

As promised, the encryption for gx.ini will revert to pre-April state so that custom mods will work again after this update.

Option not to Steal Focus when Typing in Chat or taking a Note

Following up on the update for detached chat last build, we have added an option in “Options” > “Advanced Multi-Table Options” called “Don’t steal focus from chat and notes”. When this checkbox is enabled and a new table pops to the front, the focus will remain on the table where you were typing. Note that enabling this option might affect third party tools such as hotkeys, since the table which has keyboard focus is not the table that needs action, but the table where you are taking a note.

Other changes:

• The Filter buttons have changed slightly – now the “light” is independent of the menu button so you can turn the filters on or off without having to close the settings dialog as well.
• Various minor improvements and fixes throughout the client, including a set of improvements that deal with disconnections.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to ensure you get the update delivered.

[smashedagain]

Hide Hole Cards (Ctrl+H)
If you want to only peek at your cards and see them face down otherwise, now you can. This feature is mostly aimed at players in Home Games playing in the same room as their opponents, but you can use it outside of Home Games as well. If this feature is enabled, simply move your mouse cursor over your hand to see your cards.

would love to see this switch itself on whilst you are playing 32 tables

[MC]

After listening to player feedback, we have enacted changes in the PokerStars software to speed up dealing in certain situations.  A few other related changes have been made as well, though in most cases the time a player has to act on their hand has not been affected.

Read below for more details.  


Non-Satellite Sit & Go Tournaments

Hyper Turbo Sit & Go Tournaments are most affected by the changes.  Players in these tournaments will have 12 seconds to act on their hand instead of 16.  Several other dealing speed improvements including time taken between hands and speed of dealing cards once players are all-in have also been made.

All other Sit & Go tournaments have had dealing speed reduced, but not quite as much. Cards dealt after all action is complete due to players being all-in are now dealt twice as fast. The time between all hands being shown or mucked and the next hand being dealt has also been reduced by one second per hand.

Players in regular speed Sit & Go’s will now have 16 seconds to act on their hand, reduced from 18 seconds.

The time taken to start dealing after all players have registered and been seated has been reduced for many popular Sit & Go tournaments.  Many Heads-up and Hyper speed  tournaments now start after only a 10 second delay. Other popular tournaments start after 20 seconds.


Scheduled Tournaments, Satellites, and Step Tournaments

Dealing speed has been increased in these tournaments similar to the changes made in Sit & Go’s. Cards dealt after all action is complete due to players being all-in are now dealt twice as fast. The time between all hands being shown or mucked and the next hand being dealt has also been reduced by one second per hand.

Players in some tournaments will experience slightly different amounts of time to act on their hand. This is as a result of standardizing this setting across all tournaments.

Hyper-turbo satellites have been sped up drastically. These satellites will run at the same speed as hyper-turbo cash S&Gs.

These changes will not take place for all future tournaments, but will instead filter their way into the tournament schedule over the next few weeks.


Ring Games

As with all tournaments, cards dealt after all action is complete due to players being all-in are now dealt twice as fast. The time between all hands being shown or mucked and the next hand being dealt has also been reduced by one second per hand.

The delay prior to dealing the first hand of a session at a table has been reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.

The changes to ring games will not have a significant impact on the number of hands played per hour at this point in time. PokerStars is considering further changes that may include changes to the amount of time players have to act on their hand.  

Comments about playing experience at ring game tables are appreciated. In particular, if there is anything about the ring game experience other than players’ time to act that seems too slow or too fast we’d love to know.


Request for Comments

While PokerStars never stops considering player feedback, in this case we are particularly interested in response to these changes. Additional tweaks are possible if desired by players as a whole. Thanks in advance for any constructive suggestions.

Thanks to all players who have already provided input that helped us make this round of changes. Special thanks to all of those who helped test these settings on PokerStars.test and provided helpful input.

[Longy]

Love the new dealing speed.

[PizzicatoXev]

Will be nice to not have the software slowroll me any more :p

[strak33]

Yeah you run terrible

[MC]

We will be releasing a client update over the next few days (some players might have already received an update). This update continues to focus significantly on Italian ring games which were launched very recently. Some exciting things coming up with this update and over the month of August for all players:

New Table Themes
We are collecting final feedback about a new family of themes that will deliver a lot of requested table features from this thread – North-South seating, full face cards, bigger opponent cards, more readable fonts at table min-size and others. To this end, we will initially be releasing the themes to a small group of players. If you would like to be part of this pre-launch group send me a PM and I will send you instructions once everything is ready for player testing. We are working on this theme with BarNuthin and he already posted a sneak peek of one of the themes!

Home Games Social Features
Home Games clubs will be more social in the future. We are adding a wall feature to allow players to post and reply to messages in the club lobby. We are also adding an announcement / whiteboard feature for club admins so they can share important messages with the members.

Deal Making Improvements
Over the last month we have added to all guaranteed MTTs a feature that allows players to pause a tournament manually when on the final table. If you want to pause a tournament for deal discussions, simply go to “Info” tab on the table and select “Discuss a deal”. If all players on the final table select this, then the tournament will auto-pause and a Support representative will be called to the table to facilitate the deal. We will be expanding this option to more MTTs over August.

As always we have made a number of minor fixes / improvements to the client and server. These include adding a timestamp for when a note was last modified.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to get the update.

[Karabiner]

So I'm playing my tourney tonight and checking out some footie stuff in another window having folded.

The stars thingy in the taskbar flashes, I click it, get taken to the table and suddenly and totally unintentionally I've min-raised the next hand from the SB for half my chips with q8o.

Grrrrr that is all.