The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[StrmCkr]

enter game:

how about

build grid.

[hobiwan]

Or: "Setup new game" ("Setup new grid")

[StrmCkr]

i think it should be "build A grid"

as thats your doing...

making a new grid or modifying the exisiting grid..

either way your still "building" it

is there a way to offest the two diffrences?

have a button to only "modify grid" the current grid?

rather then the popup that askes to keep the current grid or delete it.

and a button to "build" a new one. (which should have the procced and delete yes/no question to prevent accidents)

also:
"set up new game" sounds like it would genreate a new board randomly..not have your self build it by hand.

[daj95376]

I must admit that the distinction between Enter Game and Play Game are a mystery after I've entered a game.

Any suggestions for a better choice of words?

When your program first starts, there appears to be no difference between Enter Game and Play Game to me. Both allow you to manually enter givens, but I've never entered a full puzzle to see how you get from entering givens to actually solving the puzzle.

Once I have a puzzle loaded, I can use paste to enter a new puzzle. Again, this works the same in Enter Game as Play Game.

Are you getting an idea of what I mean by not understanding the distinction between the two?

What can I do in Enter/Play Game mode that I can't do in Play/Enter Game mode? Once I know this, then I might be able to suggest better labels for these File Menu selections.

[daj95376]

Now, for an enhancement suggestion. Knowing All possible steps is currently just an impressive list. To make this more useful to me, I need to know how productive each choice would be towards advancing the complete solution. In other words, if I add the step into the solution, how many candidates will be remaining after I execute this step and All simple steps resulting from it.

At a minimum, it would be nice to have steps highlighted that result in All simple steps completing the puzzle!

[StrmCkr]

the enter game mode.

allows you to delete clues as well as enter clues.

from the starting grid that is loaded.

it doesnt appear to due anything with no grid started.

play mode
only allows you to add clues.


hence
"build" & or "modify"
is a better description

[sarker306]

I have a stupid .
Perhaps i built a grid that is invalid. Hence the program can suggest me some moves(extra additions if it has more than one solution or some negations if no solution) to make it a valid puzzle.
No need to take it seriously .

[hobiwan]

What can I do in Enter/Play Game mode that I can't do in Play/Enter Game mode? Once I know this, then I might be able to suggest better labels for these File Menu selections.

From the user manual (which unfortunately nobody but me has ever seen):

Enter a puzzle

If your puzzle is printed in a newspaper or a book you have to manually enter the givens.

Choose "File|Enter game" from the menu. If at least one cell already contains a value a warning is displayed (see left).

Choosing "Yes" will empty all cells and let you enter a completely new puzzle. If you choose "No" all cells containing a value will be shown in blue to indicate that they can be changed.

If all givens are entered in their correct cells choose "File|Play game". HoDoKu first checks whether your puzzle has a unique solution. If that is not the case a warning is displayed but the puzzle is accepted anyway.

Note: If the puzzle doesn't have a unique solution you can play anyway, you can even use the hint system, but some of the steps computed by HoDoKu will just be wrong!

If the source of your puzzle is at least halfway reliable the warning probably means that you entered something wrong (e.g. missed a given or put it in the wrong cell). If that is the case simply choose "File|Enter game" again (be sure to press "No" or everything will be lost), correct your error and choose "File|Play game" again.

If the puzzle has a unique solution HoDoKu will solve it and display the rating in the status bar. If one of the additional views is visible it's contents will by updated.

The german version has "Spiel eingeben" (which I still think is descriptive enough). I translated that to English without thinking that in english games "enter game" is equivalent to "begin playing the game" - so I see now how you could get confused.

I think StrmCkr's "build grid" comes pretty close I am just not a hundred percent sure (does "build" fit if you are entering givens from a newspaper puzzle?), so I am open to further suggestions (enter givens? build new puzzle?).

[hobiwan]

Now, for an enhancement suggestion. Knowing All possible steps is currently just an impressive list. To make this more useful to me, I need to know how productive each choice would be towards advancing the complete solution. In other words, if I add the step into the solution, how many candidates will be remaining after I execute this step and All simple steps resulting from it.

At a minimum, it would be nice to have steps highlighted that result in All simple steps completing the puzzle!

This is a really good suggestion (although one that will take some time ). I would add that as an additional sorting method:

Sort by number of eliminations desc
Sort by eliminations
Sort by step type
Sort by how far the puzzle is advanced by the step

What is still missing too is a backdoor searcher.

[hobiwan]

I have a stupid .
Perhaps i built a grid that is invalid. Hence the program can suggest me some moves(extra additions if it has more than one solution or some negations if no solution) to make it a valid puzzle.
No need to take it seriously .

There are no stupid ideas!

To your suggestion: I am not sure whether this will be really helpful. If you type in a puzzle from a newspaper the error could be:

an omission
a wrong digit
a digit in the wrong cell

The program would have to check all of these possibilities and the search would probably result in many different possible sudokus. Which should be presented?

And if you did a completely new sudoku by hand, the difficulty level of the resulting puzzle would be completely random. I would have to write some kind of UI for setting parameters for the search and that sounds like too much work for now.

[daj95376]

The german version has "Spiel eingeben" (which I still think is descriptive enough). I translated that to English without thinking that in english games "enter game" is equivalent to "begin playing the game" - so I see now how you could get confused.

I think StrmCkr's "build grid" comes pretty close I am just not a hundred percent sure (does "build" fit if you are entering givens from a newspaper puzzle?), so I am open to further suggestions (enter givens? build new puzzle?).

Off the top of my head.

Code: Select all

Enter game   ==>   New/Edit Givens (or paste)
Play  game   ==>   Play Game       (or paste)


The Summary/Steps/All possible steps panes should be cleared/regenerated when appropriate.

[daj95376]

Now, for an enhancement suggestion. Knowing All possible steps is currently just an impressive list. To make this more useful to me, I need to know how productive each choice would be towards advancing the complete solution. In other words, if I add the step into the solution, how many candidates will be remaining after I execute this step and All simple steps resulting from it.

At a minimum, it would be nice to have steps highlighted that result in All simple steps completing the puzzle!

This is a really good suggestion (although one that will take some time ). I would add that as an additional sorting method:

Sort by number of eliminations desc
Sort by eliminations
Sort by step type
Sort by how far the puzzle is advanced by the step

What is still missing too is a backdoor searcher.

What you might wish to provide is a (limited) list of techniques to be used when determining how far a puzzle can be advanced. (Trust me on this one!)

This list can also be used when incorporating a backdoor searcher into your solver. (Trust me on this one, too!)

[hobiwan]

What you might wish to provide is a (limited) list of techniques to be used when determining how far a puzzle can be advanced. (Trust me on this one!)

This list can also be used when incorporating a backdoor searcher into your solver. (Trust me on this one, too!)

I do

[hobiwan]

A user manual is now online at http://hodoku.sourceforge.net.

[PIsaacson]

In experimenting with templates in ver 1.1, I see the entries for "Template Set" in the batch solution log output, but there is no indication of which cell(s) have been assigned some specific value, at least on that specific output line. "Template Delete" gives the exact candidate eliminations.