When you first play a new version, this page is displayed one time. See what's new on this page, but also take a look at the "World Wide Stats" menu on the website.

5.21.0.0 

Fixes: Cleaned up some issues seen in the local scoring files picking up an older backup file.

Game Added 

New: Game Chinese in family Oddballs added. Works with existing build.

5.20.0.0 

New: Added site message upon startup.

Fixes: Cleaned up some issues seen in the scoring.

Fixes:

• The "NASA Picture Of The Day" site is down and preventing SolMan from starting. This version allows for these picture sites to be down and not impact the game.

Fixes:

• The win detection in Curds&Whey had an issue whereby the win was granted, but it didn't tell you. This is fixed.

New Games:

• Droppings - A newly invented game in the Canfields family, it acts as cross between Canfields and Spiders.

New Features:

• If you review your per-game rank in the Rankings flyout, there is now a new button that will show you the rankings of all players, including their adjusted raking points. This will allow you to see how close you are to the ranks above and below you.

  The Ranking now uses an adjusted ranking points that causes players no longer actively playing to fall own the list. This is necessary as some players change PCs and start over.

  We have a new addition to the background photo feeds, Upsplash! This site offers some more unusual and compelling backdrops with links to the Photographer's portfolio if you want to see more. Unfortunately, National Geographic has unplugged their feed. I'm keeping them in the search for now in case they come back.

Fixes:

• Solman default background images. Removal of these was not working but is now fixed.

New Games:

• SeaHaven - A new game in the Reserves family, it acts as a bridge to help Reserve players get ready for Napoleon games.

New Features:

• The game analysis button that shows your play versus others for the game in process has been extended.

  The former is a button on the left side just above your ranking and shown a map of moves versus scores by all players with your scores higlighted.

  This feature is now extended as a button in the Scores display for each game, even if you are not playing it currently.

Fixes:

• Game Analysis Caching The back-end website was caching results causing incorrect game returns should multiple users look at the analysis in a short time frame. This is resolved.
• Https Now that the back-end website is natively https, all url references to it are updated in the app.

New Features:

• Finalized updated to support an Analyze button that now appears near the rankings display when playing a game. This display shows an analysis of how players from all over the world have done when playing this game. The display consists of a graph of game scores versus the number of moves. As winning the game causes a big boost in score, it is fairly clear how many moves is needed to win.

  Your own games are highlighted on the display (as long as you have played 3 or more times).

New Games:

• CastlesInCanton - A new strategy game in the Ups family.

Fixes:

• NASA POD - The game now ignores the new videos that they sometimes provide. Previously these appeared as mysterious "black backgrounds".
• All POD Sources -  Some of the "picture of the day" sources we use for background pictures have taken to including html in their JSON descriptions that we download. We now handle these descriptions properly in the restored info button display.

New Features:

• Restored the "Info" button for background graphics. If you want info on the background picture, right click on the background and a short description appears on the lower-right corner of the window. Two buttons are with that description, one for more information and one that allows you to change the background image.

New Games:

• Russian My take on this classic game. Placed in the Klondike family, all cards are dealt out at the beginning in a modified triangle. Table play is by suit. This is a logic challenge game.
• Russian_2 My variation on Russian to make it a two deck game. I find this version more interesting!

These new games do not require an upgraded game engine.

New Features:

• Added a horizontal depth feature for piles where you want to have an idea of how deep the pile is but are not allowed to see the card faces. You will see this in the new Algerian and Algerian_2 games for now, perhaps others in the future.

New Fixes:

• Scores Fix for a newly discovered cause for this issue. Hopefully this is the last fix for this. I know. I've said that before. So I also added the ability to click on your rank display button and see the different backup score files. If you see a larger file in the list, try to pick it.

Game Definition Changes:

• Algerian_2 now flips 2 cards from the hand to each talon pile instead of only 1. Algerian is not changed.

New Features:

• New Games Added Algerian and Algerian_2. Two and Four deck versions of a new classic game that combines aspects of the Napoleons, Squares, and Spiders. New rules had to be added to the game engine so these new games require the upgrade.

New Features:

• Game Backgrounds Added a button for more information on the background pictures as we are unable to control the tooltip timeout.

New Fixes:

• Scores Continuation of fixes for loosing score data. Hopefully this is the last fix for this.

New Features:

• Game Backgrounds You can now change the settings to allow the backgrounds to randomly be selected from more than one source. Just go to the Settings button (the gear) to set your preferred background selections. In addition to our original Solman images included in the game, you can select from stunning images from Bing Picture of the Day, NASA Picture of the Day, and Natioanal Geographic.  These more stunning images only work while you are connected to the internet.

• Game Badges When you go to select a new game, the game badges have a tooltip that shows information about the game. We now include an image of the game itself in the tooltip as an aid to remind you of the game.

New Fixes:

• Scores For the last few releases we have been fighting an issue with what happens to the game scores stored on your computer getting wiped out when Microsoft updates things. This version includes a rewrite of how this is handled and includes logic that should find your best scoresheet if it was wiped out from backup copies we stashed. Hopefully this is the last fix for this.

New Games:

• Montana This is a game that my sister-in-law used to love on her I-Mac. So I have added my version of this classic game.
  It is an open packer, and your goal is to arrange the cards in order with a few re-shuffles as possible.
  You can always win this game so it is really about doing so with a high score.
  Find Montana in the Fans family.

• Sultan This is a game I found on the internet and felt it would be a unique variation on the 'Up' games we have.
  It is a theme game. The Sultan (the King of Diamonds) is placed in the center and surrounded by the foundations that are filled with other kings and an Ace of Diamonds. Play cards from the talon onto the outside foundations until the Sultan is surrounded by all the Queens.
  Find Sulta in the Ups family.

Fixes:

• Saved Score Data I have been fighting an issue that occurs when Microsoft updates you version that causes you to loose your past scores. I may have finally solved it in this release.
• Win Notification On games that don't pack to foundations around the edges, the winner notifications now appears on top of the cards in stead of below.

Updated Features:

• New background options In addition to the popular Bing Picture of the Day background images, we have added options for both the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day and National Geographic Picture of the Day sources. You can select your source in the app settings.
  
  If you right click on the background, it toggles a Copyright display for the image. If you hover over the image some sources provide additional information about the image that you can view.
  
  Because some images might not be a great option on these new sources, a button was added to the Copyright box to select a new image.

Fixes:

• Offline Crashes Added numerous fixes for situations where the internet might be intermittent or non-existent.
• In game buttons The display and layout of the in-game buttons (Undo, Repeat last deal, Redeal) have been colored and separated out to help prevent inadvertent redeals.
• Bakers_4 The rules for Bakers_4 have been adjusted to add an additional column. Statistics were showing the game to be impossible.

Fixes:

• Game Ranking Added scrollbar so all your game rankings may be viewed. Threw in a family average rank for good measure too.

Updated Features:

• New Ranking Feature! Because of the positive feedback on the global ranking feature in version 5.4, ranking has now been expanded for per-game also.

  You should notice a new button on the card table with the "Star". This button will display ranking statistics for every game that you have played.

  There are four ranking items for each game: Most Wins, Highest Win Percentage, Highest Average Score, and Highest Score.

  In each case, you are shown your ranking against all other players around the world. So let's have some fun working your ranking toward #1. I think you'll have a tough time getting the #1 ranking in a lot of these games because Mary Jane is just that good!

• Game Changes! If you haven't yet played Zebra, check it out! This game was added in 5.4 and now has a slight rule change for filling an empty space.
• Families Added a description to the fly-out game picker that describes the family once you select one. This is mostly for new players that might start with the Arachnoid family and find it too hard.

Fixes:

• Score Saving We broke the saving of scores between rounds in version 5.4. You didn't loose your old scores, but we temporarily stopped saving the scores. This is now fixed. By the way, in case you didn't know this, Microsoft saves a copy of your personal score file up in Azure. If you replace your computer and use the same Microsoft Account when you acquire the game again, your scores will follow you. How awesome is that?
• Random Game The random game button was broken in the prior release. This is now fixed. This button will select a random game from those that you have not yet won.
• Arachnoids Fixed issue that prevented double-clicking on the hand/talon to rotate and spider. Previously you had to drag the Talon to the Hand.
• Shuffling Lowered the volume of the shuffles.

Known Issues:

• Per-Game Rankings The scrollbar is missing in the new flyout. To be fixed shortly.

Updated Features:

• New Games! Three new games have been added. Two of these new games (ThirteenDown and Zebra) require the 5.4 update as new rules needed to be added to the game engine. The third game, "Amazon", did not require a new rule and thus may be played using the prior release software.
• Game Improvements: The rules for a couple of older games have been relaxed, as the games are so difficult that they have proved impossible, or nearly impossible, to win. These two games are Interchange_3, and TripleLine. For Interchange_3, the number of Tableau columns was increased from 8 to 10 to put more cards into view and give more opportunities to manipulate the cards. For TrippleLine, the ability to rotate the cards in the Talon back to the Hand was added (previously this was not allowed, you now get three runs through the Hand).

  Meanwhile, all of the Arachnapobia games games have been made a little harder. These four games were not intended to allow multiple cards to be moved together, so the rules have been changed to only allow single card movement. This change makes the games appropriately challenging (and explains why the win percentages were too high previously).

  All of these game improvements take effect without updating the software.

• Ranking: A global ranking system has been added so that you can compare your progress against others around the world. While we don't identify people, your computer stores information about the games that you played (displayed using the Scores button) and the Solman application will use this information to generate a calculation that represents your success. This value is sent to our server, along with a randomly generated identifier, and a global ranking is sent back. Your ranking may be seen in the main app interface (on the left), and also in the summary in the scores display. Finally, when you start the game your ranking is displayed as a notification.
• Notifications: We don't want to bother you, but the new rankings use Windows notifications. When you launch the application, your current ranking is briefly displayed. Also, when you end a game if your ranking improves you will also be notified.
• Help Improvements: Issues were fixed that omitted important information in the help files displayed by the game. Additionally, a link was added in each of these to the website page for the game, which often contains additional information. The concept is that the in-game help provides "just the facts" regarding the rules used in this game while the website often includes historical and/or advice in strategies for playing this particular game.

Updated Features:

• Game Locks. Certain games have always been locked from access until you win prerequisite games. After a request was received, we decided to relax these restrictions. With this version, playing a fame 50 or more times without winning it will also unlock.

Updated Features:

• Shuffling. We noticed that three deck games needed improved shuffling. So we updated the shuffle algorithm.
• Game crash. Just the right flick, in just the right location, led to the game crashing. This is fixed.
• Game help. Updated the help files for many games. No rule changes made.

Updated Features:

• Rule for Gate. Added a new rule to handle the game of Gate. You'll find it in the Canfields.
• New Version.  After you upgrade the game engine, the first time (only) that you start the game this web page will pop up to tell you what is new in the version.
• World Wide Scoring. Added a button on the main (Family level) scoring display that will take you to the web-site reports on world-wide game play.
• Pile Background texts. Increased the size and intensity of text labels for the card piles.  Especially for the Foundation piles. Also moved pile type labels outside of the border so that they are visible even when the pile has cards.
• Application Insights Removal Complete. The removal of Microsoft's deprecated Application Insights is now complete. World-wide scoring is now tracked on this website.
• Bing Picture of the Day.  For new players, the Bing Picture of the Day is now the default gameboard background.  These images are very interesting and seem to all work well as background images.
• Bing Background Info. If you right click on a background image it displays information about the image, but when you start a new game, the image changes but the info did not.  Now it does.

Updated Features:

• Return of the right click! Back by popular request you may again right click on a card to see how many cards are under that one in the pile. This will display in the upper right corner of the card, but will disappear if you move the card.
• We have removed Application Insights from the product and replaced it with our own equivalent. AI was a tool provided by Microsoft that is being removed. It provided information about application usage via an Azure web portal which was very helpful to understand what games people found most interesting. Eventually, with more feedback, the tool would also help us to tune games based people did. This capability is being replaced by own capabilities, which also allows us to show you the relevant data. We still do not capture who you are so there shouldn't be any privacy concerns. To get an idea of what interesting data we collect, check out the reports in the About menu. Note: the existing data includes a lot of test data and is not real. We'll remove the test data over time.

 Updated Features:

• Added ability to double click on a foundation pile to play up all available table cards to that foundation pile.  This speeds up play late in the game.  Currently, it will only pull from face-up cards on the table piles, not the stock, reserve, talon, or hand.  It works left to right, but if a card plays it will continue the sequence on that pile before looking for more cards to play.
• Added a link to the SolManSolitaire website in the help window.

 Updated Fixes:

• Fixed the card-peek feature.  When you have too many cards in a table pile to display them all with the standard overlap, the cards at the top become more squished are you may not be able to see what they all are.  Additionally, if there are too many facedown cards, you can't tell how many there are.  So if you move the mouse over any of those cards, the card is supposed to peek out to the side; if face-up you can see what the card is and if face down you can slide the mouse/pointer up and count how many there are.  There was a bug when face down cards were present, causing some of the squished face-up cards to not move.  This has been fixed.
• The Harp games contained a conflict in the rules that prevented the player from picking up a sequence of cards from the table to play to an empty table pile.  This is fixed, requiring changes in both the game engine and the game rules file.
• The AgnesSolMan games proved too unlikely to be won, requiring an extremely lucky deal just to have a chance to win.  The rules were softened to allow the foundation capper (foundation base minus one) card to be moved to an empty space.  Without this change, the card would be unmovable if any card of that suit was covered by it on a table pile.  This is fixed, requiring both an engine and rule file change.
• Hides the Flop button in FlipFlop when there are no more Flops available.
• Fixed issue for new users.

Updates for new issues:

• Double Click in table area issue. Double clicking on a card from a table pile in a column who's pile number is greater than the number of foundation piles failed to work. This issue is fixed.
• Double Click on talon added feature. Normally when you double click on the talon, the purpose is to play off the top card to the foudation. When the hand is empty, if the card does not play to the foundation we interpret it as an attempt to rotate the talon back to the hand (if allowed).
• Information on Games Won in the Game Selection Dialog. While game wins and losses were correctly shown in the Statistics dialog, the game selection dialog also provides a subset of that information, and the infomation was not correct on the family display for the number of different games types won.  This was fixed, and information enhanced a little also.
• Right Click on games in Game Selection Dialog. If you right click/tap on a game in the selection dialog, locked games would show the game help, but unlocked games would start, as if left clicked.  Now all games will display the game help on right click/tap.
• Support for "Live Tile".  The live tile (the thing that you pin to the start menu) now has information about the last game played.
• Support for Microsoft Hololens. Yes, for a mere $3000 (current suggested retail price for the Hololens) you too can play solitaire in the air!

Cleanup on a number of game rule files.  For the most part, these changes do not affect the display, only the help information which showed points subtracted for rotating the talon back to the hand when the game didn't allow it.  Some users would get confused looking at the game help when this occurred. 

In one case, Canfield_1_1 the rotation rule was altered.  The rule inadvertently allowed two rotations when it should not have allowed any.