(Adding modifier+cursors handling has had minor knock-on effects on the other
puzzles, so that they can continue to ignore modifiers.)
(An unfortunate side effect of this is some artifacts in exterior barrier
drawing; notably, a disconnected corner can now appear at the corner of the
grid under some circumstances. I haven't found a satisfactory way round
this yet.)
[originally from svn r5844]
number. Many thanks to Chris Thomas, for helping with the detailed
UI design by means of testing an endless series of prototypes.
[originally from svn r5842]
rather than literal grid descriptions, which has always faintly
annoyed me because it makes it impossible to type in a grid from
another source. However, Gareth pointed out that short random-seed
game descriptions are useful, because you can read one out to
someone else without having to master the technology of cross-
machine cut and paste, or you can have two people enter the same
random seed simultaneously in order to race against each other to
complete the same puzzle. So both types of game ID seem to have
their uses.
Therefore, here's a reorganisation of the whole game ID concept.
There are now two types of game ID: one has a parameter string then
a hash then a piece of arbitrary random seed text, and the other has
a parameter string then a colon then a literal game description. For
most games, the latter is identical to the game IDs that were
previously valid; for Net and Netslide, old game IDs must be
translated into new ones by turning the colon into a hash, and
there's a new descriptive game ID format.
Random seed IDs are not guaranteed to be portable between software
versions (this is a major reason why I added version reporting
yesterday). Descriptive game IDs have a longer lifespan.
As an added bonus, I've removed the sections of documentation
dealing with game parameter encodings not shown in the game ID
(Rectangles expansion factor, Solo symmetry and difficulty settings
etc), because _all_ parameters must be specified in a random seed ID
and therefore users can easily find out the appropriate parameter
string for any settings they have configured.
[originally from svn r5788]
keypad. The reason it doesn't is because front ends were carefully
translating the numeric keypad into 8-way directional keys for the
benefit of Cube. Therefore, a policy change:
- front ends process the numeric keypad by sending MOD_NUM_KEYPAD |
'3' and similar
- front ends running on a platform with Num Lock SHOULD do this
_irrespective_ of the state of Num Lock
- back ends do whatever they see fit with numeric keypad keys.
Result: the numeric keypad now works in Solo, and also works in OS X
Cube (which it previously didn't because I forgot to implement that
bit of the front end!).
[originally from svn r5774]
the missing fifth difficulty level to Solo: `Unreasonable', in which
even set-based reasoning is insufficient and there's no alternative
but to guess a number and backtrack if it didn't work. (Solutions
are still guaranteed unique, however.) In fact it now seems to take
less time to generate a puzzle of this grade than `Advanced'!
[originally from svn r5756]
computers, let's save the Solo and Pattern grids at generation time
and regurgitate them when asked to solve, rather than doing all the
work over again.
[originally from svn r5737]
various things:
- if you haven't fully understood what a game is about, it gives
you an immediate example of a puzzle plus its solution so you can
understand it
- in some games it's useful to compare your solution with the real
one and see where you made a mistake
- in the rearrangement games (Fifteen, Sixteen, Twiddle) it's handy
to be able to get your hands on a pristine grid quickly so you
can practise or experiment with manoeuvres on it
- it provides a good way of debugging the games if you think you've
encountered an unsolvable grid!
[originally from svn r5731]
constructed at the same time as an internally generated game seed,
so that it can preserve any interesting information known by the
program at generation time but not physically contained within the
text of the game seed itself. (Such as, for example, the solution.)
Currently not used for anything yet, but it will be.
[originally from svn r5729]
as text. This is used by front ends to implement copy-to-clipboard.
Currently the function does nothing (and is disabled) in every game
except Solo, but it's a start.
[originally from svn r5724]
definitions, so let's move it so that it's just next to the
functions it relates to. This also opens the way for me to add more
booleans next to other functions without getting confused as to
which is which.
[originally from svn r5723]
enable configurable puzzle difficulty. I'm only generating grids up
to Times level (complicated non-recursive analysis but guessing
never required); I wouldn't object to providing a Telegraph
difficulty level (guessing required) but it turns out to be very
hard indeed to generate at random. I might still add it later
(probably under the name `Unreasonable' :-) if I can think of an
efficient way to find them.
[originally from svn r5682]
- added a compilation option -DSTANDALONE_SOLVER which makes both
of Solo's internal solvers accessible from the command line.
- fix a bug in nsolve turned up by testing in this mode: it failed
to iterate at all! Oddly, this massive improvement to the
effectiveness of nsolve hasn't emptied the generated grids by
very much.
- add an extra mode of reasoning to my to-do list (which is the
dual of one already there, so I'm kicking myself).
[originally from svn r5670]
the default symmetry from order-4 down to order-2, which seems to
mitigate the excessively-full-grid problem by permitting more
freedom to remove stuff.
[originally from svn r5666]
