Startup Messages

Creating

Go to Operations → Startup Messages in the admin panel. Click New Startup Message to create a new message.

Fields

Scheduling

You can schedule messages ahead of time by lining them up consecutively. Once a message expires, the next one automatically becomes visible — no action required.

Example:

Message 1: 20 March 08:00 → 22 March 17:00   (ACTIVE)
Message 2: 22 March 17:00 → 25 March 17:00   (SCHEDULED)
Message 3: 25 March 17:00 → 28 March 17:00   (SCHEDULED)

On 22 March at 17:01, message 1 expires automatically and message 2 becomes visible.

Rules

Keep the following in mind when scheduling:

1. Periods must not overlap — If message A runs until 22-03 23:00, message B can only start at or after that time.
2. Messages are in chronological order — A new message cannot be scheduled before an existing one.
3. Expired messages are final — An expired message cannot be reactivated. Simply create a new message instead.

Status

On the list page, each message shows a status badge:

Dismissing

The Can be dismissed toggle in the form determines whether players may dismiss the message themselves:

• On — At the bottom of the message, the link "Click here to dismiss StepNews until there is a new message." appears. After clicking, the message is gone the next time the game client starts.
• Off — The message appears every time the game client starts, until the end time is reached. Useful for important notices such as maintenance or outages.

How it works

The system remembers per player up to which message they have "read". This does not work per individual message, but rather:

• Each message has an incrementing ID number (1, 2, 3, …).
• When a player dismisses message 5, the system stores: "this player has seen everything up to and including 5".
• All earlier messages (1 through 4) are therefore also considered read.
• The next message (6 or higher) will appear as normal.

Editor

The rich text editor offers the following formatting options:

• Text styles: bold, italic, underline
• Headings: Title (H1), Heading (H2), Subheading (H3)
• Alignment: align start, align center, align end
• Lists: bullet list and numbered list
• Tables and grid (grid layout, multiple columns)
• Links
• Attach files (images only: jpg, png, gif, webp — uploaded to the server)
• Horizontal rule (for the card layout, see below)
• Text color including the special colour "Notice" (see Notice)
• Clear formatting (removes formatting from selected text)
• Undo / Redo

Cards

A horizontal rule splits your message into visually separated cards — each with rounded corners and a white background.

Use the Horizontal rule button (━) in the toolbar to separate sections:

Welcome to StepBridge!

We have added a new tournament format this week.
Read more below.

--- (horizontal rule)

New: Matchpoint Pairs
Every Thursday at 20:00 you can join our
new matchpoint pairs tournament.

--- (horizontal rule)

Enjoy and good luck at the bridge table!

This produces three separate cards, each with a white background, rounded corners, a subtle border and spacing between them. Without horizontal rules, everything appears as one continuous block.

Grid

Want to place an image next to text? You can do this with the Grid (grid layout):

All grid presets:

Notice

Via the Text color button in the toolbar, you will find the option "Notice (highlights card)" at the top. When you format text in this colour, the entire card containing that text gets a prominent yellow/beige background with a golden border.

Usage

The Notice colour is intended for information that truly needs to stand out, such as:

• Planned interruptions or maintenance
• Important changes
• Registration deadlines

Example

In the editor:

--- (horizontal rule)

⚠ Please note: next Thursday 27 March there will be
  no evening tournament due to maintenance.
  (this text formatted in Notice colour)

--- (horizontal rule)

The card with the Notice text stands out with a beige/yellow background, while the other cards remain white.

Placeholders

Below the editor there is a link "View available placeholders". These placeholders are automatically filled in when the message is shown to a player.

The card symbols are displayed slightly larger than the surrounding text. Hearts (♥) and diamonds (♦) are red.

Example

Dear player, you currently have %participationpoints% participation points.

Tip of the week: with #SA #HQ #R8743 #CAQ, 3NT is the best contract.

Result

Dear player, you currently have 142 participation points.

Tip of the week: with ♠A ♥Q ♦8743 ♣AQ, 3NT is the best contract.

Preview

In the admin panel

When creating or editing a message, you will find two tabs above the editor:

1. Content — the editor itself
2. Preview — a live view of how the message looks in the game client

The preview shows the full card layout, Notice backgrounds and card symbols. Placeholders such as %participationpoints% are not filled in here (they differ per player).

In the game client

Want to see how the message truly looks for players? You can do this via the game client:

In a preview, placeholders are filled in (with your own data). You can also view expired or scheduled messages — the preview is not limited to the active message.

Statistics

On the list page, statistics about the current active message are shown at the top. On the detail page of a message, you see two counts:

• For a new message, "Pending" is high and "Hidden" is low.
• As players dismiss the message, this shifts: "Pending" decreases and "Hidden" increases.
• If "Can be dismissed" is off, these numbers do not change through user actions — "Hidden" then only counts players who have already dismissed a later message.