10-20-30

News, bug reports.

Nothing at this time.

New in version 2.2

Minor addition to the stats window. I found every time I won a game I was wondering if this would increase my win precentage, and if not, how many games I'd have to win to do so. Now I've added an extra field that displays how many games are needed to win in order to increase the win percentage.
Fernand in Montreal, Quebec, Canada asked for a statistic of the number of errors in a game (groups missed). Although I thought of this before when I was first developing the game, he put a new twist on it: only display the number at the end of the game. My thought was to include this as one of the stats that get updated in real time, but the problem with that is a person could just watch that counter and back up each time it incremented. Fernand's way eliminates that, as the stat is shown only after the fact.
Related to the above addition, I have added a special option called Training Mode that, until you have played 100 games, will give you a beep each time you miss a valid 10-20-30 group and deal a card to the next pile.
Also related to the statistic of the number of groups missed in one game, I have changed the program to provide further detail on just which card groupings are missed. This will be very useful in honing your skills, and to those players who routinely miss several groups in each game. Players new to the game also have the benefit of seeing the Groups Missed window in real time in Training Mode (as long as the number of games played is less than 100).
As a result of adding the training mode I decided I had to modify the Undo so that it is now possible to back up into a pile that had cards removed from it. It is still not possible to undo a card group that has been removed, or to back up past a pile that has had a group removed.
Made a minor change to the way some options are in the default condition, ie., when the program is first installed. The options for sounds, warning sounds, etc. were set to be off in the default condition; now they are on as default.
Added the ability to change the game's background color as per a suggestion made by Jana in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jana has been awarded a free registration as per the suggestion policy for this suggestion.
Minor change to the behaviour of selecting the bottom three cards in a five-card pile. Now if you click on the middle card of the five cards that card and the other two below it are also selected. Before this you had to click on the second from bottom card, then on the middle card, to select the bottom three cards.
Added card move animation. This is a feature I've felt has been sorely lacking, and finally decided to tackle the project. (I found this change to be the "straw that broke the camel's back" as it were, adding to the problems of card flickering and difficulty in refreshing the cards after coming back from minimized and such. All of this was due to problems of keeping the cards refreshed in the window because I was using a card image support file, QCard32.dll. Although this dll file provided some conveniences, it didn't work well when the card images were mixed with other shapes such as the card markers. What I have done is replaced the QCard32.dll card images with card images I have made myself, and this has cured a great many of the problems that have plagued me from day one in this program.)
Minor tweak to new player name process. It used to be that the new player's name was set at Default# and then the player had to manually change the name after that. Now the change name dialog box comes up automatically when a new player is created, with Default# automatically filled in, and the user able to change the name right there or leave it as is. Also, if the name is left at Default and only one player is defined, the change name dialog box will come up each time the statistics window is opened from the main window's menu.

New in version 2.1

Auto-play

Let the program automatically finish the game once you have only one pile with cards left.

Card pile counters

Gives you actual card counts in each pile of cards. A free registration went to Lenny S. from Ithaca, NY for this suggestion and for a change to the register reminder form.

Games won

Added display in stats form of how many games you have won in a row.
Added the ability for the program to remember when you shut the program down after just winning a game.

Register Reminder and Enter Serial Number forms

Integrated both forms into the main exe file. This makes it easier to enter your serial number after registering, as it takes effect immediately - no need to restart the game.
Added online registration links to the Register Reminder form. A free registration went to Tony C. from Spokane, Washington for this suggestion.
Register Reminder form no longer displays when program is minimized, only when it's shut down. (No longer displays at all after registering, as before.) A free registration went to Lenny S. from Ithaca, NY for this suggestion and for card counters.

Fixed bugs

Corrected wording of statistic for number of piles not emptied on lost games from old wording of piles emptied.
Fixed problems with refreshing cards after the game was minimized or after another window was in front of a game in progress.
Undo Deal wasn't working past a pile of less than 3 cards.
The statistics window wasn't staying closed if the form was closed with the Windows environment button (the 'X' in the upper right corner) instead of the menu choice of File, Close.

New in version 2.01

Fixed install bug present in version 2.0.

New in version 2.0

Statistics

Handles multiple users.
Keep the statistics window open and watch your statistics increment as you play. (Statistics will increment if you close the window too.) New records for your play are highlighted.
Copy your statistics to the clipboard, then email them to friends to compare.
Email your statistics to the program author for publishing here.

Improved warning sound configuration.

Increased warning sound repertory from 21 to 73.
Added ability to shut off warning sounds while leaving other sounds enabled.

Fixed bugs

Card markers smaller than the cards with 640 X 480 resolution.
After changing card backs during a game the cards wouldn't refresh.
Clicking on the second or third card from the bottom in longer piles wasn't working properly.

New in version 1.1

Back-up from previous move. Many times as I have played the game myself on the computer I have seen a set of three cards I could remove - an instant after clicking on the deck to move to the next pile. I've now added the ability to back up from a deal.
Modified the low-deck warning sound effects. The sounds are now triggered on a sliding scale of how many cards are left in the deck, with the sounds coming more frequently toward the end of the cards in the deck. Now it takes 5 cards dealt with no cards picked up instead of 3. The selection of which sound played has changed as well. The sound used to be fixed according to how many cards were left in the deck, so frequently when cards were picked up and dealt back out a particular sound would keep repeating. Now the sounds cycle through all warning sounds in a random order; the random order also being set differently each new game. There are more sounds now, too: an increase from 5 to 21 sounds.

Bug List.

File *.ocx or *.dll failed to self-register during install. This is sometimes the result of newer versions of other related support files already being installed on the computer. This software is tested on a computer with a fresh install of Windows 95/98 to eliminate preventable problems in this regard. First try manually registering the file after install by typing regsvr32 [path\filename] at the Run command. If this succeeds you will get a message pop up telling you so. If that doesn't work please let me know which file it is and if it affects the operation of the game and I will investigate further.

Found a bug? Something not working right? Can't find the answer in the included help file or here on my website? Email me for help.

Plans for future features.

Marie Anne from Petawawa, Ontario suggested the ability to play more piles than just four. Initially I thought that this would be not very popular, since I already have had comments about the win ratio in this game being lower than in other solitaire games. Now I decided that playing eight piles with two decks would give the same probability of winning, but still add some variety to the game. In addition, starting with eight piles with one deck gives those who like more challenge what they want. Marie Anne has been awarded a free registration.
Card movement animation when dealing or removing cards back to the deck.

See the complete list of people who have been awarded free registrations to 10-20-30 for their suggestions. Read my suggestion policy.

Wish List (suggestions still being considered)

One person asked for the ability to save a game and then restart from where they saved. This is complicated by the saving of statistics, since it could be possible to save a winning game and then skew the stats by retreiving the winning game over and over.
One person suggested picking a random color for the background on the register-reminder window each time it runs.
Due to comments from one person I'm considering modifying the register-reminder window to no longer stay on top, possibly to only stay on top if the program is still unregistered after 30 days use.

Do you have suggestions for me on improvements to any of my programs?
You may qualify for a free registered copy of the program. Read my suggestion policy.
Send me your suggestions.

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