Seat a player when the dealer names one, and stop hiding the bar on a full table

The first thing anybody does with this tool is seat the table, and it didn't work.
Measured on a fresh table: click a seat, type a name, repeat six times — six names on
the felt, six seats still not in the hand, and no action bar at all. No "post blinds
and deal", no explanation, nothing to press. Six people at the table and a blank
screen with no way forward.

Three things were wrong and each hid the next.

Naming a chair and dealing that chair in were separate acts. Putting a name on an
empty chair is somebody sitting down, so it now deals them in. Only a chair that was
empty — no name and nobody in it: renaming someone who is sitting out is a correction,
not an arrival, and dealing them back in over a typo would be the tool overruling the
dealer.

The action bar hid itself whenever no seat was live, which was written for an empty
felt and caught a named one too. A table with names on it is not an empty table; it's
a table the dealer needs to be told something about.

And the seat editor never redrew the bar. It refreshes narrowly on purpose — a full
render on every keystroke would take the name field out from under the dealer
mid-word — but the bar answers "is there a table here at all", and seating somebody is
exactly what changes that answer. Even ticking "In hand" by hand left the bar hidden
until something else happened to redraw. Verified the fix keeps focus and the caret
where they were, typing a character at a time.

For the states that can still reach it — a table where everyone was sat out, a save
from before naming seated people — the prompt names them and offers "Deal in all 6"
rather than a hunt through six seat editors.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015bnp7xKUPFFSpwkYNFaPgb

JoshHeaps.Net/wwwroot/js/casino/holdem/actionBar.js

@@ -79,8 +79,14 @@ const ActionBar = {
     // Anything to act on? A hand with nobody dealt in doesn't get a bar — and that
     // still holds during setup, because a seated player is a live seat whether or not
     // the betting has been opened. An empty table stays uncluttered.
+    //
+    // A *named* table is not an empty one, though, and that was the hole: name six
+    // people without dealing any of them in and the bar hid itself, leaving a screen
+    // with six players on it, no way forward and nothing saying why. Anyone with a
+    // name on the felt is somebody the dealer has to be told about.
     isRunning() {
-        return Betting.liveSeats(this.state).length > 0;
+        return Betting.liveSeats(this.state).length > 0 ||
+            this.state.seats.some(p => (p.name || "").trim());
     },
 
     render() {
@@ -598,6 +604,36 @@ const ActionBar = {
             }
             line.classList.add("dealPromptBlocked");
             wrap.appendChild(line);
+
+            // Named seats that aren't in the hand. Naming a chair now seats whoever is
+            // in it, so reaching this takes something else — a table where everyone was
+            // sat out, or a save from before that was true — but the way out of it
+            // should still be one tap rather than a hunt through six seat editors.
+            const benched = this.state.seats
+                .map((player, index) => ({ player, index }))
+                .filter(({ player }) => (player.name || "").trim() && !player.inHand)
+                .map(({ index }) => index);
+
+            if (benched.length > 0) {
+                const aside = document.createElement("p");
+                aside.className = "dealPromptLine dealPromptAside dealPromptDebt";
+                const text = document.createElement("span");
+                text.textContent = benched.length === 1
+                    ? `${listNames(benched)} is sitting out.`
+                    : `${listNames(benched)} are sitting out.`;
+                aside.appendChild(text);
+                aside.appendChild(this.button(
+                    benched.length === 1 ? "Deal them in" : `Deal in all ${benched.length}`,
+                    "dealPromptDebtBtn",
+                    () => this.commit("dealing everybody in", () => {
+                        benched.forEach(index => {
+                            this.state.seats[index].inHand = true;
+                            this.state.seats[index].folded = false;
+                        });
+                    })
+                ));
+                wrap.appendChild(aside);
+            }
             return wrap;
         }
 

JoshHeaps.Net/wwwroot/js/casino/holdem/render.js

@@ -524,13 +524,41 @@ const Render = {
         this.updatePotBadge();
         this.renderSeatTotal(form, player);
         this.refreshPuck(index);
+        // The editor deliberately refreshes narrowly rather than redrawing everything —
+        // a full render on every keystroke would take the name field out from under the
+        // dealer mid-word. But the action bar answers "is there a table here at all",
+        // and seating somebody is exactly what changes that answer. Without this it
+        // stayed hidden until something else happened to redraw: two players seated, a
+        // dealable hand, and a blank bar until the page was reloaded.
+        //
+        // Safe to do on every keystroke: the bar is small, it's rebuilt on every action
+        // anyway, and nothing inside it can hold focus while the sidebar has it.
+        if (typeof ActionBar !== "undefined" && ActionBar.state) ActionBar.render();
     },
 
     wireSeatFields(form, player, index) {
         const nameInput = form.querySelector(".seatNameInput");
         nameInput.value = player.name;
         nameInput.addEventListener("input", () => {
+            // Putting a name on an empty chair is somebody sitting down, so they get
+            // dealt in. It used to be two separate acts, and the second one was easy to
+            // miss: a dealer setting up typed six names, got six seats that still
+            // weren't in the hand, and the action bar hid itself because by its reckoning
+            // nobody was playing. Six people at the table and a blank screen.
+            //
+            // Only for a chair that was empty — no name and not dealt in. Renaming
+            // somebody who is sitting out is a correction, not an arrival, and dealing
+            // them back in over a typo would be the tool overruling the dealer.
+            const wasEmpty = !player.name.trim() && !player.inHand;
             player.name = nameInput.value;
+            if (wasEmpty && player.name.trim()) {
+                player.inHand = true;
+                player.folded = false;
+                const inHandBox = form.querySelector(".inHandCheckbox");
+                if (inHandBox) inHandBox.checked = true;
+                const foldBox = form.querySelector(".foldCheckbox");
+                if (foldBox) { foldBox.checked = false; foldBox.disabled = false; }
+            }
             document.getElementById("seatEditorTitle").textContent = this.puckLabel(player, index);
             this.commitSeatChange(form, player, index);
         });

tests/holdem/load.js

@@ -29,6 +29,10 @@ globalThis.Render = Render;
 const HoldemState = require(path.join(SRC, "state.js"));
 globalThis.HoldemState = HoldemState;
 
+// actionBar.js after state, since its own module-level code reaches for neither but
+// its methods reach for both. Loaded last so nothing it touches is still undefined.
+const ActionBar = load("actionBar");
+
 // ---- Table builders ----------------------------------------------------------
 
 // A table with `seatCount` chairs where `seated` (a list of seat indexes) are dealt
@@ -81,6 +85,7 @@ module.exports = {
     SettleUp,
     Betting,
     HoldemState,
+    ActionBar,
     makeTable,
     chipsOnTable,
     contributions,

tests/holdem/seatingTheTable.test.js

@@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
+// Sitting people down, which is the first thing anybody does with the tool.
+//
+// Naming a chair and dealing that chair in were two separate acts and the second was
+// easy to miss. A dealer setting up typed six names, got six seats that still weren't
+// in the hand, and the action bar hid itself because by its reckoning nobody was
+// playing: six people at the table and a blank screen with no way forward.
+const test = require("node:test");
+const { describe } = require("node:test");
+const assert = require("node:assert");
+const { HoldemState, Betting, ActionBar, makeTable } = require("./load");
+
+const emptyTable = (seatCount = 10) => {
+    const state = HoldemState.createDefault();
+    HoldemState.resizeSeats(state, seatCount);
+    return state;
+};
+
+const bar = state => Object.assign(Object.create(ActionBar), { state });
+
+describe("the bar knows the difference between an empty table and a named one", () => {
+    test("a table nobody has touched gets no bar", () => {
+        assert.equal(bar(emptyTable()).isRunning(), false, "an empty felt stays uncluttered");
+    });
+
+    test("a table with names on it gets one, dealt in or not", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        state.seats[0].name = "Ann";
+        state.seats[1].name = "Ben";
+
+        assert.equal(Betting.liveSeats(state).length, 0, "nobody is in the hand");
+        assert.equal(bar(state).isRunning(), true, "but there are people at the table to say something to");
+    });
+
+    test("whitespace isn't a player", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        state.seats[0].name = "   ";
+        assert.equal(bar(state).isRunning(), false);
+    });
+
+    test("a table that is playing still gets one", () => {
+        assert.equal(bar(makeTable({ seatCount: 6, seated: [0, 1] })).isRunning(), true);
+    });
+});
+
+describe("naming an empty chair sits somebody down", () => {
+    // What the seat editor's name field does, as the rule it applies rather than
+    // through the DOM: a chair with no name and nobody in it is empty, and putting a
+    // name on it is somebody arriving.
+    const nameSeat = (player, name) => {
+        const wasEmpty = !player.name.trim() && !player.inHand;
+        player.name = name;
+        if (wasEmpty && player.name.trim()) { player.inHand = true; player.folded = false; }
+    };
+
+    test("an empty chair gets dealt in", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        nameSeat(state.seats[0], "Ann");
+        assert.equal(state.seats[0].inHand, true);
+        assert.equal(state.seats[0].folded, false);
+    });
+
+    test("six names is six players, not six benched seats", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        state.defaultStack = 200;    // a table that has told the tool what a buy-in is
+        ["Ann", "Ben", "Cal", "Dee", "Eve", "Fay"].forEach((name, i) => nameSeat(state.seats[i], name));
+
+        assert.equal(state.seats.filter(p => p.inHand).length, 6);
+        assert.equal(bar(state).isRunning(), true);
+        assert.ok(Betting.blindPreview(state), "and there's a hand to deal");
+    });
+
+    test("renaming somebody who is sitting out doesn't deal them back in", () => {
+        // A correction, not an arrival. Dealing them in over a typo would be the tool
+        // overruling a dealer who sat them out on purpose.
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        state.seats[0].name = "Ann";
+        state.seats[0].inHand = false;
+
+        nameSeat(state.seats[0], "Anne");
+        assert.equal(state.seats[0].inHand, false, "still sitting out, now spelled right");
+    });
+
+    test("clearing a name doesn't sit anybody down", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        nameSeat(state.seats[0], "Ann");
+        nameSeat(state.seats[0], "");
+        assert.equal(state.seats[0].name, "");
+    });
+
+    test("a chair already in the hand is left alone", () => {
+        const state = makeTable({ seatCount: 6, seated: [0] });
+        state.seats[0].folded = true;
+        nameSeat(state.seats[0], "Ann");
+        assert.equal(state.seats[0].folded, true, "mid-hand a fold is not undone by typing");
+    });
+});
+
+describe("the way back from a table where everybody is sat out", () => {
+    test("there are named seats to offer", () => {
+        // Can't be reached by naming any more, but a table where everyone was sat out
+        // — or a save from before naming seated people — still lands here.
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        ["Ann", "Ben", "Cal"].forEach((name, i) => { state.seats[i].name = name; });
+
+        const benched = state.seats
+            .map((player, index) => ({ player, index }))
+            .filter(({ player }) => (player.name || "").trim() && !player.inHand)
+            .map(({ index }) => index);
+
+        assert.deepEqual(benched, [0, 1, 2]);
+        assert.equal(Betting.blindPreview(state), null, "no hand to deal until they're in");
+    });
+
+    test("dealing them all in makes a hand possible", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        ["Ann", "Ben", "Cal"].forEach((name, i) => { state.seats[i].name = name; state.seats[i].stack = 100; });
+
+        state.seats.forEach(player => {
+            if ((player.name || "").trim()) { player.inHand = true; player.folded = false; }
+        });
+
+        assert.equal(Betting.liveSeats(state).length, 3);
+        assert.ok(Betting.blindPreview(state), "the table can be dealt");
+    });
+
+    test("an unnamed chair is never swept in by it", () => {
+        const state = emptyTable();
+        state.seats[0].name = "Ann";
+        state.seats.forEach(player => {
+            if ((player.name || "").trim()) { player.inHand = true; }
+        });
+        assert.equal(state.seats.filter(p => p.inHand).length, 1, "empty chairs stay empty");
+    });
+});