New Play Bots page

All day the play bots page has been alternating between the old (perfectly good) page and a new (totally awful) one. Please stop fussing with things that work and fix the many many actual problems that exist. Also if you *have* to mess with the bot page, please include a way to opt out of the new (awful) interface and stick with the old one. 

What don't you like about the update? The site doesn't keep two versions of code around long term so making suggestions to make the new version better will help.

Hi Martin,

Having the bots in dropdown lists is bad interface design; it makes me have to do more work to select a bot. The old system where all the bots are in a grid is better. It only makes sense if you're designing for a small screen (so, if you're trying to make the website look the same as the phone app, I can see why you might do it; otherwise, no). In general, you want to *take away steps* to complete UI tasks, not *add new ones.*

Having the color selection / challenge level controls be in a tiny pop-up bar is similarly bad (adds steps). Also, it's not clear how to exit out of the tiny bar to get back to the bot selection screen if you accidentally select the wrong bot. I did eventually figure it out, but it is unintuitive, and still a PITA.

In general, I should be able to successful operate the UI even if I'm in a hurry, and all the visual elements should reduce, not increase, the number of actions I have to take and the chance that might make an error.

Moreover, on these forums people regularly report actual problems, and you reply something like "yes, the dev's have that ticketed for attention." That's good! What I don't understand is why changing this existing interface that we're all used to would be a priority for the devs over fixing actual problems. You ask what I don't like about the new interface. I imagine that in a bit of a challenging tone, like "what's wrong with the new one?" The real question is, what was wrong with the old one?

I is pretty frustrating that every day chess.com does some things to annoy me; those things have been reported (every so often by me, usually by others before me). We receive assurances that they will be improved, and yet what actually happens is that *more annoyances appear* as things that work perfectly well are fussed with.

I think part of the move to groups is that as more bots are added, a long list becomes very unwieldy as well, especially on mobile web.

What does desktop web care about mobile web? They are and SHOULD be two separate things.

Anyway, I like the idea, because I can keep the ones I will never use (like Masters) closed. But sadly it doesn't remember which ones you opened and just closes them all by default...

Please remember our choices.

I can't figure out how to adjust the "mode" setting in the new play Bots interface. The old "play computer" interface had a selection before you hit the "play button". Where is it now?

It's right above the Play button on the left.

Another very useful improvement would be a toggle to show the ELO above the bots pictures. SUPER annoying to have to click every single one just to see their ELO.

not sure if it's just for me, but I legitimately cannot play any bot right now. no matter how much I click Play and wait for something to happen, nothing happens and I simply cant play against a bot with this new UI. any solutions?

Try clearing your browser cache

just tried that and it still doesnt work.. sad