SudoCue Users

In case you do not read the news items on www.sudocue.net, you may have missed the launch of a new website, introducing a new and exciting puzzle format.

Visit www.hanidoku.com to learn about this puzzle format, the unique solving strategies that you can use and a daily HaniDoku for you to try.

You can also download the beta version of the new HaniCue program. You'll never guess what kind of puzles you can generate and play with this new program...

Enjoy this new format. Feedback in this forum is always appreciated, as usual. I'm still looking for advanced solving strategies.

Ruud

Hello Ruud,

I am reposting my two message here that I had posted on Wayne's forum, so my comments, along with other people's comments will all be in one location for your consideration. I agree this is a better place to talk about your program.

By the way, after a puzzle is generated, I did find a way to clear an entry that was made in error. Copy/paste from an empty cell does work. However, this won't work during a manual entry of a puzzle (the blue cells cannot be pasted into).

Are your daily puzzles being generated using HaniCue?

Regards,
George



======== Copy of Previous Messages ========
For some reason, the Save menu option is grayed out. I cannot save the game, using the Save command. I can copy/paste to a text file. Perhaps the Save menu item will be activated later.

I notice that when I hit the M key, then auto pencl marks work just fine. Is there a way to manually enter pencil mark? Perhaps a way to bring up the pencil marks number check box in the lower right corner, without auto pencil marks turned on, to allow manual entry could be an option.

Also, once I place an entry into a cell, how do I delete it? The delete key (or any other key I could find) doesn't clear the cell.

A couple more thoughts added 9 Jul:

In the random create menu choice, the choices are easy and hard. Do these correspond to gentle and moderate from your daily puzzles? Will other difficulty levels be available in the future?

When a puzzle doesn't have a solution, the solver doesn't post a message saying that. Recommend you do that at some point in the future. Also, stepping through the solution should have a message when the puzzle reaches a point that it cannot be solved.

More on the save issue: I noticed if I enter a puzzle (new), then the save menu item is available. I think it ought to be available for puzzles that are randomly generated as well.

I think this is a great puzzle variant and am enjoying it very much. Thanks for making it available.

Hi Ruud,

An item that I forgot to mention.

When I performed a "copy marks" and then cleared the puzzle, I found that the following happened:

I pasted the "copy marks" back into a blank puzzle.

The program apparently recalculates the pencil marks when I hit the M key.

Therefore, changes I had made to the pencil marks were not kept. This also happens if I have the pencil marks to be automatically engaged when the program starts up.

Checking the pasted string, I find that the deletions I made were indeed in the string. They just weren't used when reloaded into the puzzle.

As I said above, the program seems to ignore the changes I made and recalculates the pencil marks.

Also, the values I had figured out (not initial clues) were shown as clues (blue-background) when the string was pasted into a new game.

In my opinion, since the string indicates which cells are clues and which are user determined, when the string is pasted into a blank grid, the blue-background numbers and the white-background numbers should be indicated. Their background color should be maintained.

Also, I think the pencil marks should reflect the changes the user makes to them and they shouldn't be recalculated. If someone wants them recalculated, then copy paste only the cell values and then the program will recalulate the pencil marks. Of course a menu option could be added to recalculate the pencil marks, thus ignoring user-made changes.

Hopefully my message makes sense and that you can put this on your list of improvements for a future version.

Regards,
George

Hi Ruud,

Hope your busy week has settled down somewhat. You don't want to ruin a perfectly good weekend with a lot of work.

I am finding that I don't finish a HaniCue puzzle in one sitting. My previous message talks about the problem with the cell candidates I removed still showing up and user filled-in cells looking like clues when pasted back into a puzzle. I do hope you can fix these issues soon.

If I was smarter and quicker, I could solve them in one sitting, but I'm not there yet. LOL

Regards,
George