Hello all,

The website and the web client have got an important update today.
The essential part of the changes happened under the hoo and aren't really visible for most players, but we are still proud to present the following list:

• Shake device option is back
• Web client on the home screen of your phone or tablet as a progressive web application (PWA)
• Security improvements of the web client
• Dark mode and other visual improvements
• Definive end of support for Internet Explorer and other old browsers

We thank you all those who participated in the beta-test since november 2023, and hope you will have fun with these new features.

Shake device option is back

Until 2018, the web client had an option allowing to shake the device to perform various actions in several games, such as throw dice, say uno, or draw a card. Since then, this option has been removed because Apple no longer allowed access to motion sensors in web applications.
This option is now back! However, in order to have it working, you must be connected in secure mode (HTTPS), and you must explicitely grant access to the accelerometer.

To do that, go to options, web options, shake device. An authorization request will appear, systematically on iOS, only for some models on Android.
The setting is saved and you normally need to activate only once. However, the authorization will be requested again periodically, and we don't have control on the frequency of these requests.

The web client as a progressive web application (PWA)

You have now the possibility to add the playroom directly to the home screen of your phone or tablet.
Additionally to be much easier and quickier to launch it that way, when the web client is running in that mode, the address bar and other native elements of the browser are hidden, what allows you to have more space to play, and less risks to make bad manipulations.
The system also put a little less restrictions and will interrupt you less often to request authorizations, for example to play sounds or use motion sensors.

This new possibility works as well on iOS as on Android.

Security improvements on the web client

A new connection system based on authorization tokens has been put in place for the web client.
Your password is no longer stored deep inside your phone, as it was the case so far. Even if it was of course encrypted, it has never been the best idea.
Additionally to greatly improve security, you no longer need to connect again to the web client if you are already connected on the website.

Dark mode and other visual news

A dark mode is now automatically used on the website and web client if you have configured it on your system.

Unfortunately, we got too few feedbacks about it during the beta-test, so we don't know if it is really satisfactory.
Your feedbacks about visual appearence of the playroom are very important, and sadly far too rares.

By the way, a lot of small visual changes went unnoticed during that beta-test, on the website in general as well as on the web client. Don't hesitate to tell us about problems on that side.
You can now for example play scrabble with the grid displayed.

End of support for Internet Explorer and other old browsers

This update signs the definiteve end of support for Internet Explorer, and other old browsers, on the web client as well as on the website in general. This allowed us to get rid of quite a lot of old code!
Internet Explorer was already gone from Windows 10 since June 2022, forcibly replaced by Edge. Only a few rare users of Windows XP and 7 were still using it. This is thus not a great loss.

As far as we can, we will try to keep support for systems or devices up to 4 or 5 years after their release, as we mostly always have done it so far.
This means that the new expectation for example on Apple side is now Safari 14 at least, version which allows to rewind up to iPhone 6 and 6S, or iPad 5. This is a lot more than most other applications.

Hello,
a small issue appeared, but this issue was never present during the beta, and in fact still isn't present on the development site, only on the main one. Unfortunately that issue makes the new layout a little annoying to use, especially on mobile.

iOS, when swiping across the links on the home page, there is an additional bullet.

For example, if I go to https://qcsalon.net here is how the navigation looks like, each different swipe is on a new line, and I have indicated the spoken symbols with letters to avoid pasting just the symbol on its line and illustrate exactly what is spoken by VoiceOver:

Home page

Quentin C's Playroom image,
bullet,
Menu,
bullet,
Nikola,
Bullet,
English.

Then, for example, if I enter the menu, it's even more annoying:

Menu

Play,
🎲 (Unicode dice symbol),
bullet,
Home,
⌂ (unicode house symbol)
bullet,
Forum,
💬 (unicode speech baloon symbol),
bullet,
Statistics,
🖩 (not sure what is this one as no synthesizer I have speaks its description).

Essentially, it is 3 swipes to reach a different menu item.
I was one of the people who liked the new layout, but that's because it was very simple to navigate. Here is how it should sound like, and how it still does sound like on the place we used to test:

Home page

Quentin C's Playroom image,
Menu,
Nikola,
English.

Menu

Play,
🎲 (Unicode dice symbol),
Home,
⌂ (unicode house symbol)
Forum,
💬 (unicode speech baloon symbol),
Statistics,
🖩 (not sure what is this one as no synthesizer I have speaks its description).

Ideally the unicode symbols should be just one item as they are on Windows, but regardless of that, the main fact remains, these bullets which stand on their own line don't appear there, and so here it is two swipes. In the language menu, which has no unicode symbols, it is one swipe per item, and again compared to the current Website, there it is 2 swipes.

Any idea what caused this issue/if it is fixable?

Thanks.

Hello,

Is the problem only with Safari ? Or also with Chrome on Android ?