how come not all people can play my game.

[and12]

I have my game http://blogfriendlyzone.webs.com/wof/WOF.html and i tried to share it with some online friends but some complain that they can't even spin the wheel or they can't enter a consonant (after spinning wheel):-O . It won't accept their consonant from the keyboard like it should. Is there something i can tell them what to do to get it to work for them? I have a fast computer so i don't know if clicking on the panel should help put the focus on the game and would that do it?

Instructions

1. Click on link: http://blogfriendlyzone.webs.com/wof/WOF.html

2. Click "Start a New Game" button that is located on the left bottom of the game controls.

A panel of letters appears at the top panel.

All players have 0 amount of money and thus cannot buy a vowel.

Player 1 must clicks on "Spin The Wheel".

When the wheels stops, the result appears in the right black square border of the color wheel.

If the result is BRT, the player loses all his money. The game advances to the next player.

If the result is LT, the player loses his turn and the game advances to the next player.

If the result is a number, eg. 100, the player must enter a consonant. If the consonant is in the phrase, the player must enter a consonant that appears in the phrase.

For every consonant found in the phrase, the player collects the number of letters found in the phrase multiplied by result number.

If the consonant is not in the phrase, the game advances to the next player. Also, if you enter a consonant that is already revealed on the phrase panel, you get 0 and the play advances to the next player.

To Buy a Vowel:

The player must have at least $50 to buy a vowel.
If the vowel is in the phrase, the letter is revealed. If the vowel is not in the phrase, the game advances to the next player.

A vowel is 'a', 'e', 'o', 'i', 'u'.

Solve The Puzzle

When more letters are revealed and the player wishes to solve the puzzle,
the player must first click on the "Solve The Puzzle" button. Then she/he must enter the exact phrase into the input text below. He/she must include punctuations and a single space between each word in the phrase. Capitals are not necessary.

If the user's answer is correct, the phrase panel reveals the phrase and the player gets to keep all his money while the rest of the players lose their money for that round.

If the user input is not correct, the game advances to the next player.

Show Accumulated Points

Clicking on "Show Accumulated Points" shows the accumulated scores in the message Display box for all the players accumulated so far currently.

There are up to six rounds only. I didn't think anyone would want to play more than once anyhow so that's more than enough.

[VernonDozier]

It appears to work fine as long as you don't navigate away from the page, then come back. If you do that, it appears to have problems. At least that was my experience. Perhaps something isn't completed when you leave the page or it's not resuming correctly when you return?

Anyway, experiment by browsing around back and forth and see if you're able to make it not work that way. You can tell people to go to the web page and not leave it before they're done with the game.

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/deployment/applet/lifeCycle.html

[and12]

It sounds a lot worse than that in that they can't get it working at all. They say that they can't even enter a consonant at all and has nothing to do with navigating away. I am really disappointed that they can't play my game. :'(

[BestJewSinceJC]

Yeah, I can't enter a consonant either. I tried doing so in all of the open text boxes.

[and12]

Yeah, I can't enter a consonant either. I tried doing so in all of the open text boxes.

You're not suppose to enter consonant in any textbox. You're only suppose to type a consonant from the keyboard. It won't show up on the page. It will only say in the current player's message box that #: count consonant if it accepted your consonant. :(

[BestJewSinceJC]

I did type a consonant on my keyboard. The game just gave no indication that anything had happened at all. This is a UI usability problem. . you could either change the interface to make it more clear how that part of it works, or give some sort of help messages, or more clear directions, etc. Your game looks pretty good, btw.

[and12]

I did type a consonant on my keyboard. The game just gave no indication that anything had happened at all. This is a UI usability problem. . you could either change the interface to make it more clear how that part of it works, or give some sort of help messages, or more clear directions, etc. Your game looks pretty good, btw.

Are you using a Mac? Someone who said they can't play says they have a Mac.

I am at the public library and the game works for me. It accepts my consonant. If I enter H and it's not in the phrase, it says H: 0 count consonant.
If H is in the phrase 3 times, it says H:3 count consonant in the player box.

Only a few people have so far said they could play it, the rest seems to be a majority that can't even enter a consonant, in that it still says "Enter a consonant."

[VernonDozier]

Only a few people have so far said they could play it, the rest seems to be a majority that can't even enter a consonant, in that it still says "Enter a consonant."

I can play it, aside from when I navigate away and back as mentioned earlier. I'm using Vista Home OS.

[and12]

Vernon - Can you please try it again and navigate away from it and see if you lose focus again? Let me know if the problem is still there. I can't see it from my side.

BestJew - Please try it again and see if it allows you type a char after spinning the wheel. Does the "Enter a consonant" go away now when you enter a consonant?

[Dukane]

Works OK to me, but now I have all of the letters in the puzzle, and when I try to solve the puzzle it says I am wrong everytime...but I am typing in EXACTLY what is there!

[and12]

Works OK to me, but now I have all of the letters in the puzzle, and when I try to solve the puzzle it says I am wrong everytime...but I am typing in EXACTLY what is there!

Are you sure? :-O It works fine on my end. You have to include all punctuations like !!!, .'

Also one space between each word.

[and12]

Since i've been told that Java 6 can't be run on Macs:'( , i tried compiling on older version 5 by

using that javac -target 1.5 *.java for my java files

but I am coming up with 70 errors of:
._WheelOfFortuneView.java:1 illegal character: \0

So i removed ._W* files. so ran that line again
but it told me i needed to use -Xlint
so i ran
>javac -Xlinit -tartget 1.5 *.java

Now i have six warnings.
warning: [path] bad path element "C:\Program Files\Java\jrel.6.0_06\lib\ext\QTJava.zip": no such file or directory
WheelOfForune.java:58: warming: [unchecked] unchecked cast found: java.lang Object
required: java.util.ArrayList<java.lang.String>
tempList = (ArrayList <String>) in.readObject( );

WheelOfFortuneView.java:16: warning: [serial] serializable class WheelOfFortune has no defination of serialVersionUID
public class WHeelOfForune extends JApplet

WheelOfForuneView.java:19: warning: [serial] serialiable class WheelOfFourtineView has no defintion of serialVersionUID
public class WheelOfForuneView extends JApplet implements ActionLiestener, KeyListener {

WheelOFortuneView.java:922: arning: [serial] serializable class LetterPane has no definition of serialVersionUID
class LetterPane extends JPanel {

WheelOfForuneView.java:900: warning: [serial] serialibale class ColorPane has no definition of serialVersionUID
class ColorPane extends JPanel {
6 warnings

I had to hand type the above because i couldn't redirect > into a file.

I don't undrstand the errors.:S

[VernonDozier]

I paid extra close attention to what I was doing. I even cleared the cache, cookies, etc. from my browser between each experiment. Not sure if that matters, but I figured that'd make sure I was running the most updated page of your program and there was no cached applet, etc. Might have been extra-cautious, but I've wasted an awful lot of time debugging applets due to caching issues. It's great for browsing, but a real pain for developers like me who don't know anything about how caching works. But enough about my problems. Let's talk about yours... ;)

Here was my process exactly:

1. Navigate to your page and wait for the applet to load. No mouse clicks or key presses during that time.
2. Press "Start A New Game" button.
3. Press "Spin The Wheel" button.
4. Wheel starts spinning. I do nothing until wheel stops. No key presses, no mouse clicks.
5. Wheel stops spinning and "Enter consonant" appears. At this point, I open a new instance of Firefox, surf randomly in that browser window, then close that browser window.
6. Try to enter a consonant. Nothing happens.

Here is something else that breaks it, at least for me. After the wheel stops spinning, if I click on "Enter Consonant" (which isn't clickable, but the click should just be ignored) after the wheel stops, but BEFORE typing my letter, that also causes it to not work.

If I hit a key WHILE the wheel is spinning, when it stops spinning, it takes that keystroke as the guess.

If I only click buttons, don't do anything with the browser, and only hit keystrokes when I'm asked/supposed to (i.e. when the wheel isn't spinning), everything seems to work fine. I don't know about anyone else. People, including me, are impatient and we start clicking and typing unless we're told explicitly not to ahead of time.

Try doing that stuff and see if you get the same behavior.

[and12]

I paid extra close attention to what I was doing. I even cleared the cache, cookies, etc. from my browser between each experiment. Not sure if that matters, but I figured that'd make sure I was running the most updated page of your program and there was no cached applet, etc. Might have been extra-cautious, but I've wasted an awful lot of time debugging applets due to caching issues. It's great for browsing, but a real pain for developers like me who don't know anything about how caching works. But enough about my problems. Let's talk about yours... ;)

Here was my process exactly:

1. Navigate to your page and wait for the applet to load. No mouse clicks or key presses during that time.
2. Press "Start A New Game" button.
3. Press "Spin The Wheel" button.
4. Wheel starts spinning. I do nothing until wheel stops. No key presses, no mouse clicks.
5. Wheel stops spinning and "Enter consonant" appears. At this point, I open a new instance of Firefox, surf randomly in that browser window, then close that browser window.
6. Try to enter a consonant. Nothing happens.

I seem to be ok but i am using IE. I will check later

Here is something else that breaks it, at least for me. After the wheel stops spinning, if I click on "Enter Consonant" (which isn't clickable, but the click should just be ignored) after the wheel stops, but BEFORE typing my letter, that also causes it to not work.

You're right. I see that when i click on the gameboard, won't let me enter char. I wonder if i have do a requestFocus() in actionPerformed() that is called for the buttonListeners.

If I hit a key WHILE the wheel is spinning, when it stops spinning, it takes that keystroke as the guess.

I find that strange about it accepting the key while the wheel was still spinning because i only requestFocusWindow( ) and addKeyListener( ) right after I display the Enter consonant:" in the message box. I removeKeyListener( ) after I get a character A-Z.
That means, it should NOT have been accept a char before then.

However, you're right. That's what happens.

If I only click buttons, don't do anything with the browser, and only hit keystrokes when I'm asked/supposed to (i.e. when the wheel isn't spinning), everything seems to work fine. I don't know about anyone else. People, including me, are impatient and we start clicking and typing unless we're told explicitly not to ahead of time.

Try doing that stuff and see if you get the same behavior.

Thanks for looking at it.