Multi-lingual Poker Copilot?

Poker Copilot comes in any language you like, as long as it is English. British English, that is.

I think it is about time to put things right. So I’ve started making the necessary changes for Poker Copilot to be in French, German, Spanish, Luxembourgish, and many other languages.

So far I’ve translated the menu bar into French…

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…and German.

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Unfortunately my limited language skills won’t take me much further. So I’m hoping to draw on the awesome power of my globally-dispersed customer base to volunteer.

The text to be translated is stored in property files, one for each language (or language/country combination where necessary):

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I’m still researching and pondering a good way to undertake this distributed task. If you have ideas on how I can pleasantly manage this task please post them in the comments.

 

My Opponent Goes to Showdown With…

The next Poker Copilot update will show the last 6 hands a player went to showdown with:

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This is the detailed statistics window you see when you click on a player’s HUD panel.

Coming in the Next Poker Copilot Update

This is a minor tweak suggested by loyal Poker Copilot customer Arthur. “Times seen” in the HUD now shows big numbers better:

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Up to 1,000, the # of hands played is shown in full. From 1,001 to 9,999, you’ll see something like 1.2K – that is, to a precision of hundreds. From 10,000 onwards, the precision is thousands: 13K.

 

Second Update for Today

Mea culpa. I didn’t perform adequate testing so lots of people lost their HUD with today’s update. Those same people didn’t get a working hand replayer recorder.

Both these problems are now fixed in Poker Copilot 2.63. You can download it now.

Sorry for the time some of you had to spend without a HUD.

 

Poker Copilot 2.62 Now Available

Poker Copilot 2.62 is now available to download.

What’s changed:

  • The hand replayer now can record hands to a video file
  • Winamax hand history files from before 30th August, 2010 are no longer supported, as these tended to have incorrect numbers
  • PokerStars.FR step tournaments now handled correctly
  • Sometimes Full Tilt hands omit important information. Poker Copilot now detects when this is the case and reports an error, rather than pretending everything is alright.

What’s fixed:

  • All-in equity value difference calculations with split pots has improved
  • The new Winamax hand history format from 30th August, 2010 onwards is now handled correctly
  • Cereus Network hands without a hero no longer cause an error

Update Instructions:

  1. Download the latest version here.
  2. Open the downloaded file.
  3. Drag the Poker Copilot icon to the Applications icon. If prompted to replace an existing version, confirm that you do want to replace.

Now you’re done and ready to hit the tables.

 

 

Please Don’t Give Me Options

I went to the drugstore to buy new shampoo. They didn’t have my regular brand anymore so I had to select a new brand. But which one? Shelf after shelf of shampoos surrounded me and taunted me. I had any useful criteria  to select one. I suspected that most of them were the same formula in different colour bottles but I couldn’t be sure. Spending two euros to buy an everyday product became a brain-taxing challenge.

What I needed in the drugstore was a big sign that said “This is the shampoo for everyday men like YOU”. Below the sign would be a marble pedestal, upon which a glowing bottle of shampoo would just want me to purchase it. No choices. Just an easy solution.

You’ve been there right? Whether it’s pasta or water or digital cameras or mobile phone plans, we are burdened either with choices that are inconsequential or with choices that we are ill-equipped to make.

Worse even is the choice some software gives you when you download it (“professional version or extended version?”), install it (“Where shall our product install its Quidjibo data?”), or run it for the first time (“Would you like classic mode or postmodern mode?”). I want to defiantly say, “I don’t know, I’ve never used your software, just do all the defaults for me please”.

I try hard to keep Poker Copilot free of options. Every time I add an option I feel like I’ve failed slightly in the user interface design and implementation. People want the option to increase the font size? The hand replayer speed? The keyboard shortcuts? Then I’ve probably done a poor job in that part of the program. Instead i consider improving how it works so that more people are satisfied with the defaults. Naturally some options are helpful. But most aren’t.

This mentality drove the design of the new Hand Replayer 1-click video recorder. When you click “Record” there are no options. You are not asked where to save the file, what to call it, what type of video encoding to us, or what resolution you want it. You shouldn’t have to know about these things. Instead I copied the approach used by taking screenshots on the Mac – press [Cmd] + [Shift] + 3 and a screenshot is immediately saved onto your desktop with the word “Screenshot” and the current date and time in the filename. Likewise with Poker Copilot’s recorder. The recording starts immediately. The file is saved to your desktop with the poker room name and the game number. It is in a video encoding liked by both QuickTime and YouTube.

 

Coming in the next Poker Copilot Update

Do you have poker tracking software on your Mac that allows you to replay any hand and record it to a video? Something you can play in QuickTime, send to your friends or to online poker forums, or post on YouTube?

The next update of Poker Copilot will do this. One click on the replayer’s “Record” button, and a video replay of the hand is saved to your desktop.

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