Floater

Floater lets you play bridge over the Internet.

News

August 12, 2007. I have posted a minor maintenance update, version 1.4.15. I did not compile it for Windows or OS/X due to lack of time to work on it. However, the old versions should continue to work fine. If anyone would like to help with builds for other platforms, please contact lex@lexspoon.org!

September 3, 2005. The server is now hosted on a Linode virtual server. Hopefully the transition went smoothly. Uptime should be much higher now. The old server, logrus, was sitting in an apartment and had to cope with Comcast's Internet service and Atlanta's power grid.

February 27, 2005. The results page is back up. Thanks to Syela for figuring out the necessary algorithm to calculate dealing seeds!

How to Get It

To get Floater, follow the instructions for your operating system:

Mac OS/X

1. If you do not have Tcl/Tk 8.4, or if you are not certain, then go to the download page for TclTkAqua-8.4.4.dmg, download the file, and execute it.
2. Go to the download page for floater-1.4.12-macosx.zip and follow the instructions.

Mac Classic

1. If you do not have Tcl/Tk 8.4, or if you are not certain, then go to the download page for MacTclTk_8.4.2_RuntimeInstl.bin, follow the directions, and then run the file you have downloaded.
2. Go to the download page for floater-1.3b2-macos.sea.hqx, follow the directions, and then extract the file you have downloaded.

MS Windows

Go to the download page for floater-1.4.12-win32.exe and follow the instructions to download the Floater installer. Run the installer.'

Debian/unstable

Execute "apt-get install floater".

All Other Unix Machines

Grab the source tarball from the download page for floater-1.4.15-source.tar.gz and do "./configure; jam". You will need to have Tcl/Tk 8.0 or higher and jam (jam's ftp site).

Why Floater?

There are several reasons people prefer Floater to other bridge networks:

• It's free. Play as much as you want.
• It is cross-platform. You don't need a particular kind of computer to play.
• It's non-commercial. Floater will never do annoying things like post advertisements, sell your email to spam agencies, or use platform support (or non-support) as leverage to influence your behavior.
• It's open source. That means the above advantages will never go away.
• It supports a variety of scoring modes: MP, IMP, rubber, and three-handed hearts.
• The user base is congenial: Floater is the only bridge network we have seen that has anything like the feel of a face-to-face club. When you log into Floater you see people you know. When you sit down and partner someone, you actually have a feeling of what their bids mean. To contrast, the bigger networks tend to dump you in a room with hundreds of people you have never met before.

Help, Feedback, and Discussion

There are several forums on SourceForge that can be used to ask for help or for other forms of discussion. There is also a bug tracker on SourceForge; if you think you have found a bug in Floater then please post it there.

Developers

Floater can use more developers! If you are interested, visit the SourceForge Floater project and jump in! We especially need people that are good with one of these things:

• MacOS, especially OS 9 or earlier
• RedHat
• MSWindows
• technical writing, for help docs and tutorials

But help in any way you can.

History

Floater was created in 1996 by Geoff Pike as part of the Laconic group, for most of the reasons described above. Floater would be nothing without Geoff's long and tireless efforts.

In 2003, Geoff turned Floater over to a group of folks on the Internet. It is now maintained on SourceForge.

Other Floater Pages

• Floater Activity Page - see how many tables there are and who has logged in recently
• Results Page - see all results from recent weeks

This page written by Lex Spoon.