[Help Contents]

27 May 2006: Welcome to Pocket-Monkey v1.5!

We're pleased to be able to bring this update live on the site. Here's a brief rundown of what's changed:

Note: If you have trouble where you go into games and it's not your turn even though it is your turn, clear your Java cache and try again. Some versions of the Java plug-in aren't noticing the updated applet. The updated one says "(version 1.5.0)" on it.

Look and Feel

• New page layout and menus make for easier navigation and a cleaner look
• Color themes! From variations on the classic Monkey colors to bright purple -- there's something for everyone!
• Monkey Tags let you customize messages, forum posts, and player profiles with bold text, links, and images

Games

• Tournaments!
• Improved navigation with easy links to ways to start new games
• New menus make it much easier to send an invite, and view and post open invites
• "Contact us" link on each game page makes it easy to report a problem with a specific game
• Open Invites improvements
  • The Open Invites page loads more quickly
  • It's now categorized by game to make it easier to get to games you want to play
  • When posting an open invite, you can set the time limit for the game
  • You can set how many games you want from your open invite (after you've gotten that many games, it disappears)
• Clearer, less fuzzy graphics in the DHTML (dynamic HTML -- e.g., non-Java) games
• A proper way to cancel games. (No more resigning early; resigning always counts as a loss. See this FAQ entry for details.)
• Rated and unrated games: When sending a game invite, if you're just teaching someone a game and neither of you wants it to count in your stats, you can send an "unrated" game invitation.
• WebTV users: We've done a board layout specifically for WebTV, to make it easier to play your games
• Clearer turn labelling
• Date/time recording of move history

Players

• Official player pictures! Fill in the URL of your picture in the "Player Icon" field on your profile.
• A new page lets you manage your Buddy List -- add or remove entries yourself!
• Your Buddy List has area for comments
• Searchable Player Directory

Messages

• New menus make it easier to view, send, and delete messages
• You can use MonkeyTags in your messages!

Settings

• Choose whether you want to view other players' icons and/or images on the site
• Choose your date/time display format
• Set your preferred default time limit for games (this is automatically filled in on the invites you send)
• A setting for whether you use the DHTML (non-Java) games or Java games, no more special links at login
• Options for what the "Next Game >>" link does: Cycle through all games by date, tournament games first, or non-tournament games first

Help

• There's lots more help now
• Most pages have page-specific help; use the hotlink on the tab bar to see it
• There's a Site Map now, just click the icon on the tab bar

Miscellaneous

• The list of forum threads in a section is now sorted by the "last updated" date, rather than the "posted" date -- so it's easy to see at a glance which threads have been updated
• Improved session handling (this is largely invisible to players, but it means -- for instance -- that you can bookmark parts of the site other than the main page, and hopefully it will fix some of the WebTV issues).
• Various bugfixes