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Player Switch for Autodarts

Player Switch logo

One shared Autodarts display, everyone on their own account, one tap to switch.

The display in the hallway, the club or the pub is shared, but everyone plays under their own Autodarts account. The extension keeps the sign-in of every saved account on that computer and swaps between them with a single tap: no password, no sign-in page, and the account that steps aside is ready again the moment someone taps it.

Install Set up a display Help Security design Privacy

What it does

  • One tap, no typing

    Save each account once. A tap on a tile puts that account on the board.

  • Nobody gets signed out

    The account that steps aside keeps its session parked, so a tap brings it straight back.

  • Ready days later

    Autodarts rotates its session tokens; the extension renews every parked account in the background.

  • Private by design

    Everything stays in the browser on that computer and goes only to Autodarts. No analytics, no server of ours.

Why not just …

  • … sign out and back in for every player? Each change means typing an email and a password on the display, often on a touch screen in front of everyone, and an account that signs in with Google or Apple needs that service, and often a phone, each time. With Player Switch, each player signs in once, and from then on a tap switches.
  • … give every player a Chrome profile of their own? Each profile is a window of its own, which has to be set up and kept signed in on its own, and switching takes the profile menu of Chrome, which fullscreen and kiosk mode hide. With Player Switch, the players are a tap away on the Autodarts page itself, in one window.
  • … add the others as guests? Quick, but the darts of a guest count for no account of their own: no statistics and no match history of their own. With Player Switch, everyone plays under their own account.

Set it up

After the install, a welcome page opens with three steps:

  1. Pin the icon. Chrome puts a new extension behind the puzzle piece next to the address bar: click it, then the pin next to Player Switch for Autodarts.
  2. Sign in the first player on play.autodarts.com. The account is saved by itself, and the icon shows ✓ for a moment.
  3. Add the next players: in the popup, or in the players on the Autodarts page, choose Add account and sign in as the next person. That account is saved by itself too, without opening the popup again.

How a new player is saved by itself: After the install, which signs nobody out, or a tap on Add account, which signs the page out, the extension waits ten minutes for a new account. The new player signs in on Autodarts. Each time an Autodarts page has finished loading, the extension looks for the session. Within the ten minutes, it saves the account once, the icon shows a check mark, and the player plays on. After the ten minutes, or once a player was saved, a sign-in is never saved by itself; the icon shows a plus, and Save account in the popup saves it.How a new player is saved by itself: After the install, which signs nobody out, or a tap on Add account, which signs the page out, the extension waits ten minutes for a new account. The new player signs in on Autodarts. Each time an Autodarts page has finished loading, the extension looks for the session. Within the ten minutes, it saves the account once, the icon shows a check mark, and the player plays on. After the ten minutes, or once a player was saved, a sign-in is never saved by itself; the icon shows a plus, and Save account in the popup saves it.

The extension saves a new sign-in by itself only in the ten minutes after Add account or the install, only once, and only while no saved account plays: a sign-in later on is never saved without a tap. Cancel in the popup or the switcher stops the waiting earlier. A + on the icon says that someone is signed in who isn't saved yet, and Save account in the popup saves them. Help and Report a problem at the bottom of the popup lead to the help, which explains every message of the extension, and to the bug form, which they fill in with the versions of the extension and the browser alone.

On the board display

A board display often runs in fullscreen or as a kiosk, where the toolbar and its popup are out of reach. So the Autodarts page itself carries a round button in a corner, with the picture of the player. A tap on it shows the players over the page in large tiles for a touch screen, with everything the popup has.

  • Keyboard: Alt+Shift+O opens and closes the players on the page, Alt+Shift+P the popup; the keys 1 to 9 pick a player and Esc closes. Change the shortcuts under chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
  • A match ends only on purpose: on the page of a running match, a switch asks first, before it spends a token.
  • Your corner: Settings in the popup turns the button off or moves it to another corner.
  • Private: the players open in a page of the extension, in a frame of its own, so the scripts of the Autodarts page can't read the saved accounts.

The guide for a shared display sets it all up: kiosk mode, the start with the computer, an on-screen keyboard for the sign-ins and the power settings that keep every account ready.

The switcher over a match on a board display: the players in large tiles with the keys 1 to 4, Mia Keller playing, with Manage accounts, Add account and a button that closes it.The switcher over a match on a board display: the players in large tiles with the keys 1 to 4, Mia Keller playing, with Manage accounts, Add account and a button that closes it.

Switch players from the Autodarts page: In fullscreen or kiosk mode, a tap on the round button in a corner of the Autodarts page, or the keyboard shortcut, opens the switcher over the page. It is a page of the extension in a frame, so the page can't read the accounts. A tap on a player, or the keys 1 to 9, switches; on a match page the switcher asks first, before any token is spent, and the page reloads as the chosen player.Switch players from the Autodarts page: In fullscreen or kiosk mode, a tap on the round button in a corner of the Autodarts page, or the keyboard shortcut, opens the switcher over the page. It is a page of the extension in a frame, so the page can't read the accounts. A tap on a player, or the keys 1 to 9, switches; on a match page the switcher asks first, before any token is spent, and the page reloads as the chosen player.

With a keyboard, a screen reader or a finger

  • Keys in the popup too: the keys 1 to 9 pick a player in the popup as they do on the page; their numbers show on the tiles once you use the keyboard.
  • The focus keeps its place: after a switch it stays on the player who plays now, after a removal it moves to the same action of the account in its place, and Cancel leads back to where you came from.
  • Clear to a screen reader: the tile of the player who plays is the current one, Manage accounts says whether it is on, the actions below a tile carry the name of its account, and an error is read out at once.
  • Made for a finger: every control is at least 44 by 44 pixels and no text is smaller than 12 pixels; a contrast theme of Windows keeps the player who plays and the chips apart, and with reduced motion in the system nothing moves.
  • Tested: for every change, a test opens the popup in Chrome and checks it with axe-core, in all five languages and both color schemes, and walks through every action with the keyboard alone.

How it works

Autodarts Play keeps the signed-in session as a single value in the browser, a rotating refresh token. The extension keeps that value per account and swaps it when you switch.

What a tap on a player does: Ada plays, and a tap on Bob switches. The extension renews Bob's session at Autodarts with his parked token or, when Autodarts refuses the token, with his remembered password. When that fails, the page stays as it is and no token is lost: Bob has to sign in again when Autodarts refused him, and a tap later tries again when Autodarts couldn't be reached. Otherwise the extension saves Bob's fresh token and renews the session in the page once, to learn whose it is; without an answer, the page stays as it is here too. It parks that session with the account it belongs to, still valid at Autodarts, usually Ada's, writes Bob's session into the page and reloads it, and every other Autodarts tab reloads as Bob.What a tap on a player does: Ada plays, and a tap on Bob switches. The extension renews Bob's session at Autodarts with his parked token or, when Autodarts refuses the token, with his remembered password. When that fails, the page stays as it is and no token is lost: Bob has to sign in again when Autodarts refused him, and a tap later tries again when Autodarts couldn't be reached. Otherwise the extension saves Bob's fresh token and renews the session in the page once, to learn whose it is; without an answer, the page stays as it is here too. It parks that session with the account it belongs to, still valid at Autodarts, usually Ada's, writes Bob's session into the page and reloads it, and every other Autodarts tab reloads as Bob.

  • Switching parks the session in the page with the account it belongs to, usually the one that was playing, writes the chosen account's session into the page and reloads. Only Autodarts can say whose a session is, so the extension renews it once as it leaves the page: a session that someone signed in with right on the page never lands on the tile of another player.
  • The account that steps aside is not signed out at Autodarts. Its session stays valid; switching away only takes it off the page.
  • Parked sessions are kept fresh, because the token rotates: every 12 hours, and straight away after a start of the browser when the computer was off while a renewal was due. "Manage accounts" shows for each parked account when it was last renewed, such as "Renewed 3 hours ago", and while Autodarts can't be reached, since when renewing it fails; the extension keeps trying every 15 minutes.
  • You see who needs attention. When an account has to sign in again, the toolbar icon shows how many, and its tooltip names them.
  • One change at a time. A token works only once, so a second tap while a switch is on its way is ignored, and the renewal in the background waits for the switch. A double tap can't sign the previous player out.
  • The tab in front. A switch happens on the Autodarts tab you're looking at, and every other Autodarts tab reloads with the new player, so none plays on as the one before. With no Autodarts tab open, a tap opens Autodarts and switches there.
  • Updates need no reload. Chrome updates an extension silently, and a page that was open before gets no new script by itself. The extension brings its script into the open Autodarts tabs after each install and update, and again into a tab that doesn't answer when you tap, so a display that keeps Autodarts open for days switches straight after an update, and a running match goes on.
  • Password fallback, optional. If you let the extension remember an account's password, it signs that account back in by itself should its token ever stop working. Accounts that sign in with Google or Apple can't use this.

Manage accounts in the popup: each account with Remember password or Forget password and Remove account, and for each parked account when it was last renewed, such as “Renewed 2 hours ago”.Manage accounts in the popup: each account with Remember password or Forget password and Remove account, and for each parked account when it was last renewed, such as “Renewed 2 hours ago”.

Over days and weeks, a saved account moves between these states:

The life of a saved account: An account that signs in on the page is saved by itself after Add account or the install, or with Save account, and it plays. When another player comes on, or Add account signs the page out, its session is parked, still valid at Autodarts, and a tap brings it back. Every 12 hours the extension renews each parked session, with its token or a remembered password. When Autodarts turns an account away, in a renewal or at a tap, or it signs out on the page, it has to sign in again, and the toolbar badge counts it: remember its password and tap it, or sign in once with Add account. Remove account signs an account out at Autodarts and then deletes it with its token and password, whatever its state.The life of a saved account: An account that signs in on the page is saved by itself after Add account or the install, or with Save account, and it plays. When another player comes on, or Add account signs the page out, its session is parked, still valid at Autodarts, and a tap brings it back. Every 12 hours the extension renews each parked session, with its token or a remembered password. When Autodarts turns an account away, in a renewal or at a tap, or it signs out on the page, it has to sign in again, and the toolbar badge counts it: remember its password and tap it, or sign in once with Add account. Remove account signs an account out at Autodarts and then deletes it with its token and password, whatever its state.

Decision 0002 records why it works this way, and the security design what it stores and the risks that remain.

Which browsers

  • Google Chrome 140 or newer, and other browsers built on Chromium 140 or newer, such as Brave, Opera and Vivaldi, from the Chrome Web Store once the listing is live, or from a release.
  • Microsoft Edge 140 or newer runs the same package: turn on Allow extensions from other stores under edge://extensions and install it from the Chrome Web Store, or load it from a release. A listing in Edge Add-ons follows.
  • Firefox 140 or newer, to try it out, as a preview not yet tested by hand in Firefox: until the add-on is listed on addons.mozilla.org, unzip a release and load its manifest.json as a temporary add-on in about:debugging, which Firefox removes when it closes. The add-on's page in about:addons lists, and addons.mozilla.org will ask at the install, that the add-on sends authentication information, which goes to the sign-in service of Autodarts alone. Firefox can't keep the extension's storage from its script in the Autodarts page, so a display in a club or a pub runs Chrome or Edge: the security design says why. Firefox for Android is not tested.

Install without the store

Every release carries the extension ready to load, the very file that goes to the Chrome Web Store. It needs no Node.js and no build:

  1. Under Assets of the latest release, download player-switch-for-autodarts-<version>.zip.
  2. Unzip it into a folder that stays, such as Documents/Player Switch: the browser reads the extension from there each time it starts.
  3. Open chrome://extensions, or edge://extensions in Edge, turn on Developer mode, choose Load unpacked and pick that folder, the one with manifest.json in it.

The top of the page chrome://extensions: the switch Developer mode at the top right is on, and Load unpacked, the first of three buttons below the title Extensions, appears with it. Both are marked.The top of the page chrome://extensions: the switch Developer mode at the top right is on, and Load unpacked, the first of three buttons below the title Extensions, appears with it. Both are marked.

A copy loaded this way gets no update by itself. For a new version, replace the contents of the folder with those of the new zip and choose the reload arrow of Player Switch on that page. Leave the folder where it is: the browser ties the saved accounts to its path, so a copy in another folder starts without them. The zip is the very file that goes to the Chrome Web Store, and the release guide says how to check that a release built it.

Good to know

  • The way the extension keeps a session is not an official Autodarts interface. A change on Autodarts' side can stop it until the extension is adjusted. When Autodarts turns every saved account away at once, the popup says so and links to the known problems and updates, so you look for an update of the extension rather than sign everyone in again.
  • It is built for a display that the people of a household, club or venue share and trust: anyone at that display can switch to any saved account. Where not everyone knows everyone, the venue mode adds a manager PIN, a PIN per player and a return to a house account after a break, never during a match.
  • The saved sessions and remembered passwords are stored encrypted, with a key that the browser keeps for the extension and never hands out. A tool or a copy that reads the storage of the extension finds no token and no password in it.
  • Remove account ends the session of the account at Autodarts before it deletes it, so no copy of it keeps working, and Forget all accounts under Manage accounts does so for every account and wipes the extension before a display changes hands. Removing the extension alone signs nobody out at Autodarts: the help says more.
  • The saved accounts carry the version of their format. Going back to an older version of the extension never wipes accounts that a newer one saved: the older one leaves them untouched, keeps a copy, and the popup asks you to update.
  • It speaks English, German, Dutch, French and Spanish, in the language that Chrome runs in, and English in any other. The help and this website are in English and German; Help in Dutch, French or Spanish leads to the English help. Add a language says how another one comes in.
  • It asks only for access to the Autodarts sites, its own storage, a timer for the renewal and the right to run its own script in the Autodarts tabs after an update, or in a tab where it stopped answering. It can't read the address or title of your other tabs, or your browsing history.

Not affiliated with Autodarts.