MobileFIBS User Guide

There are three screens that provide most of the functionality of MobileFIBS: The Terminal screen, the Board screen, and the Player List screen. There is also a Settings screen and a separate Key Setup screens for the three main screens.

When the program is started, the Terminal screen is shown. From there, you can select "Login". If it is the first time you run the program, you should go to the Settings screen first to enter your FIBS user name and password. You should also go through the Key Setup options from the three main screens before starting to play.

To logout from FIBS and exit the program, select the "Exit" option from the Terminal.

The Terminal

The Terminal screen has a number of counfigurable keys which are set up by selecting "Key Setup". Basically, text you enter in the text entry field at the bottom of the screen is sent to the server when pressing the "Send" key. Text sent from the server is parsed by MobileFIBS to render the board, show popup dialogs for invitations etc. Text that is not understood by the program is printed on the Terminal screen. This includes other players' chat messages.

Text is entered into the text field at the bottom of the screen by tapping the numeric keys of the device.

The following keys can be set up for the Terminal screen by selecting "Key Setup":

Send

transmits the text in the text entry field to the FIBS server

Backspace

erases the character to the left of the cursor

Cursor left

moves the cursor one position to the left

Cursor right

moves the cursor one position to the right

Previous line

replaces the text in the input field with the previous entry in the history list

Next line

moves to the next entry in the history list

The Player List

The Player List screen shows all players on the FIBS server that are currently ready to play, and optionally, players that are playing agains someone else. Selecting a player in the Player List brings up a dialog to invite the player to play, or to watch the game he is playing.

When you are invited to play by someone, a dialog is shown where you can select if you want to accept, decline, or dismiss. If you select "decline", a configurable string is sent (using "tell") to the person inviting you. If you "dismiss" the dialog, this does not happen. In both these events, however, the line showing the player that invited you changes color in the Player List. You can select any of these players later and "accept" to play a match with them.

The following keys can be set up for the Player List by selecting "Key Setup":

Select

brings up a pop-up dialog to invite the player to a match, or to watch the player's ongoing match

Up

move to the previous player in the list

Down

move to the next player in the list

Page up

move to the previous page of the list

Page down

move to the next page of the list

The Board

The Board is used to play games (and to watch games). Some mobile phones benefit from rotating the board 90 degrees while playing; there is a setting for this on the Settings screen.

The following keys can be set up for the Board by selecting "Key Setup":

Roll, Select & Done

rolls the dice, selects a move, or sends a move to the server

Undo

before sending the move to the server, undo a partially made move

Swap dice

swaps the order of the dice

Left

moves the cursor left

Right

moves the cursor right

Alert letters

The letters "B" and "T" may appear in the title bar of any of the screens. This indicates that something changed on the Board, or that some message has appeared in the Terminal, respectively. When you see one of these symbols, it means that you should probably go to the corresponding screen to see what happened.

Settings

The following options may be set from the Settings screen:

FIBS user

Your FIBS user name.

FIBS password

Your FIBS password.

FIBS server URL

The FIBS server URL; for the usual FIBS server, this should be "socket:fibs.com:4321".

Kibitz at match start

This text is sent to your apponent at the start of each match using tell.

Say when declining

This text is sent whenever you are declining to play against someone.

Board rotation

If "On", the board is rotated 90 degrees to fit some phone displays better.

Show playing players

"Selects wheter to show players that are currently playing in the Player List.

Play sounds

Selects whether to enable sounds. Currently, the only sound that is played is when one of the alert letters "B" or "T" appears in the title bar.

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