Bridge Tools — Full-Deal

Entering a Full-Deal

This is one in a series of mini-tutorials. They are intended to be succinct.

Required Knowledge

• How to log-in to your account on bridgeblogging.com
• How to create and edit a blog post (i.e. the basics)
• How to pick out and click on suitable tools on the editor tool-bars

Covered

• How to fill in the Bridge Tools II dialog for inserting a full-deal diagram into your post.

Each of the bridge tools, except for simply inserting suit symbols, displays a pop-up dialog in which you fill-in the details of the diagram. Near the top, they each have a selection to indicate whether the diagram should be horizontally centered or set on the left with text flowing around it. Near the bottom, they each have an “Insert the Diagram into Your Post” button. Each of the dialogs has been designed to resemble the actual diagram that will be inserted into your post.

When you select the “Insert Full-Deal” tool, the remaining part of the dialog looks like the one pictured at the left.

This is a 3 x 3 grid of rectangles (almost squares). We enter information in six of them: the obvious four that represent bridge hands held by the four players, and also the top-left corner one (deal or “board” information) and the very center one (the opening lead).

We will look at these three types of information one at a time.

Quick Hint: If you position the insertion point in the text-entry area beside the word “Board:” you can use the TAB key to move from field to field. The fields will be visited in the following order:

• The Board information (board number, vulnerability and dealer, in order)
• The North hand (player name, spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs in order)
• The West hand (similar to North)
• The lead (first the suit, then the card)
• The East hand and then the South hand (similar to North again)

You can move backward in order by holding down the SHIFT key while you press the TAB key.

Board Information

There are three items of information in this part of the grid: the board number, the vulnerability and the dealer. Each of these is optional. If you do not enter anything for an item, there will be nothing displayed in the resulting diagram. It will not, for example, display ”Board:” without a board number (that would just look silly!). You can enter any or all of these items, depending on what is relevant to your post.

Board: This is nice and easy. Just click in that text-entry area to the right of the label and type-in the board number. Any very short text is fine. You could enter, for example, “88 of 90”.

Vulnerability and Dealer: Entering these is very similar. Click on the downward pointing triangle offset a little from the label (see “Vul:” in the picture on the left and “Dlr:” on the right). When you do this, a drop-down menu will be displayed. Click on the appropriate entry. In the case of vulnerability, it will actually be reflected in the resulting diagram (and in the dialog as you do this — give it a try!).
 
Quick Hint: If you do not like using the mouse, you can tab to these fields and use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move through the selections.

Opening Lead

Suit and Card: Entering these is similar to what you did to set the vulnerability and dealer — see the suit in the diagram at the left and the card at the right.

You do not have to enter an opening lead. It is entirely optional.

A Bridge Hand

We are almost there! Entering any of the four bridge hands is the same. Optionally enter a player name and then enter the four suits.

Player Name: This is illustrated on the left. You can click on a player name (initially set as the direction) or double/triple-click to select the entire name for replacement. Type-in the name and then move on to the next field.

Quick Hint: If you use the TAB key to get to a player name, the entire name will be selected automatically.

When you click in the text-entry area for a suit, the dash will be cleared automatically (if you previously entered cards, they will remain unless you explicitly delete them).

Quick Hint: Do not bother with the SHIFT key when entering cards. As soon as you move to another field, the honor cards will be converted to upper-case automatically. You can also use the letter “T” (upper- or lower-case) for a TEN. It will be automatically changed to “10”.

Making Life Easy

When you insert a full-deal diagram into your post, Bridge Tools II will “remember” it. When you subsequently go to insert other bridge-hand diagrams, the dialogs will be populated with the information from the last full-deal. This also applies to the dialog for the full-deal as well.

The reason for remembering is that writers often want to show parts of a deal before revealing the entire deal. This facility helps you do that. Not to worry though. If a dialog is populated with remembered data, there will be an Eraser icon beside the insert-diagram icon. Just click on the eraser to clear the dialog to its default values.

Quick Hint: In the case of a full-deal dialog, clicking the eraser (if it shows), not only clears the dialog, it also makes Bridge Tools II “forget” that data. So if you click the eraser but do not insert a new full-deal (e.g. you click the “X” to quit the dialog), none of the Bridge Tools II dialogs will have remembered data displayed (until after you again save a full-deal).