Release Notes

10/19/2006 : v1.1.1

We are back from a tour overseas. I occasionally receive emails regarding questions or bugs. Thanks for that feedback - I do get inspired now and again to continue this work. For the most part, this project has stabilized and will only be receiving minor updates and game styles.

This release was continuing to fill-out th web pages of the help section. I'm sorry to have left them halfway for such time, but so many aspects of this project pull me in different directions. Hope you like the new content and let me know if there are any mispellings (I'm notorious for skipping spellcheck).

In this release, I've turned off Medusa 3D entirely, since I started tweaking it and realized it was horribly inefficient and worse, just plain wrong. So, without that logic module, puzzles may not be as difficult when generated, but they are still plenty hard for me. This speeds up things quite a bit and also removes some errors I was chasing. I will do more research into this technique soon and perhaps finish it in the next release. Thanks for your patience.

Download the v1.1.1 installable

Download the v1.1.1 source code

8/23/2006 : v1.1.0

Hello again friends! I've not been able to do lots more work to SK lately, since our personal lives have taken lots of time lately (the two designers here are getting married). Meanwhile, back on the machines, we have begun a fair number of new projects, which while fun are not related to Sudoku.

Out latest release tonight brings another round of development that has been chipped away over the past few weeks. We had a report of some printing issues, so these seems to fix that - let us know.

Look for areas of further development: The Help pages of the web site (which start strong and then kinda whimper out), and more exciting, the Hint Notes within SK are going to be expanded. From the start, we've used SK to teach us all about the logic and intricaties of Sudoku, and this area is trying to pass on such knowledge. It's a bit crowded at times, so we hope to expand it to break down the information of the logic when applied to 1 cell. We'll see!

We hope you enjoy the work. Feel free to use it and/or learn from it however you like. As usual, we answer all our email within a day, so if you have suggestions or questions, just drop us a line!

Download the v1.1.0 installable

Download the v1.1.0 source code

6/1/2006 : v1.0.9

Holy Cow! Where have we been? Sorry for the delay folks. We left the country to go exploring South America. We're back, and we've been chewing on lots of new treats in the program. Here's the short list:

• Better Generator/Solver : All displayed logic modules coded
• Printing : Take your puzzle on the road
• Collections : Rate external or create your own puzzle collection files
• Bug Fixes : As usual, we fixed what we could before ship date
• New bugs : With new features, hiccups appear. Let us know and we'll fix them quickly

Many thanks to the wonderful friends who've written to help with feedback, questions, or in some cases, code fixes and suggestions. A warm thank-you to Michael in Germany for his great code!

Occasionally, we get questions about Sudoku puzzles that are very difficult, and Sudoku Koubou cannot seem to solve without guessing. This is entirely possible, as demonstrated in the 3 puzzle collections gathered from the web in our latest build. They represent some of the hardest puzzles ever generated (from many different programs). These test the limits of SK's abilities, and usually rate > 80 when processing them. Many folks don't believe this, but Trial And Error is a type of logic.

SK uses guessing as a last resort, only after applying the solving logic you allow it to use. However, there could be yet another "logic method" that solves the puzzles without guessing, but we simply haven't written that into SK yet. For the most part though, if SK determines a puzzle is difficult, you should probably find it a challenge as well. We've tried to balance our development time here between a smoothly operating interface with lots of nice features, and a pure solving machine that uses the strongest techniques available. We hope you like the result, we sure do.

Download the v1.0.9 installable

Download the v1.0.9 source code

Fixes/Features

• Grid Analysis works, and it's neat
• Medusa3D works, but only researches the board in when there are no other moves
• Puzzle collections are simple text files (both raw and processed) - see the file menu
• Printing puzzles works, but only prints the board. We're busy making a simple grid to save ink
• Generation Ratings overall have improved. See what your new limit is!
• External puzzles collections can now be solved and "rated"
• Witty titles are now given to generated puzzles, just to tell them apart more easily

Open

• Han: making a 3rd choice guess on a cell, after two passes, will cause the move tree to skip to the bottom of the prior branch. Should insert another top parent and start a new child branch
• Jim: Solution count -needs to be on a background thread like the generator/solver
• Han: Wood board geometry seems to be slightly off

1/9/2006 : v1.0.7

Happy New Year everyone! Well, annother rainy weekend in Portland OR has chosen to place me in front of the laptop, lounging with Han, the pets, music, tea and this code. Han is working on the help files, and I'm busy trying to make the puzzles more interesting.

We had a couple of test versions over the weekend. They were published to our test machines, but I'm going to skip them and just release the 1.0.7 version today. Hope you don't mind (you didn't miss much).

I fixed a previously-unknown bug in Range Checking that meant it wasn't doing nearly as much elimination as it could, so that's a great improvement. Also, after much thought and paper-based math, Subset Elimination is done! I'm very happy to be over that hump, and pleased to see that it works efficiently for subsets of any size. Also the code is fairly "elegant".

Funny enough, as the games logic becomes better, I find that it can generate much more interesting puzzles. Also, we're determined to ensure the procedures used in the logic modules can completely explain their effects on the board, so when you use them for hints, you'll find even more detailed text in the sidebar.

Download the v1.0.7 installable

Download the v1.0.7 source code

Fixes

• Cell font centering - again! Still the MS font sizes all report inconsistent values when switching among them.
• Range Checking had a bug which didn't eliminate as much as it could.
• Subset Elimination now works for sets of any size and partial sets. Fun to watch!
• Hint text revised to be more explanatory
• Game is paused when in most dialog boxes
• Solve clearing marking - WAS a bug and fixed.
• Difficulty settings modified. "40 and up" is now harder.
• Version in the About box. How could I forget?

Open

• Han: making a 3rd choice guess on a cell, after two passes, will cause the move tree to skip to the bottom of the prior branch. Should insert another top parent and start a new child branch
• Jim: Solution count -needs to be on a background thread like the generator/solver
• Jim: Import/Export for standard formats as text files
• Jim: Judge difficulty based on the logic level discoveries and number of backups
• Han: Wood board geometry seems to be slightly off
• Jim: Other logic modules TBD : Grid Analysis in progress!

Feature Requests

• Hints should be in a read/only area, with the logic switches available right there - and off by default
• Notes should be just part of the tree area, and off by default.
• Han: OCR images of other puzzles and translate to a created board
• Han: "Email this puzzle" button which will open the default email client.
• Rich: Letters instead of numbers
• Al: "is entry correct?" hint
• Jim: Logic explanation animation on board
• Jim: Printing a board with B/W board, difficulty and other settings

12/26/2005 : v1.0.4

Merry Christmas!

Download the v1.0.4 installable

Download the v1.0.4 source code

Fixes

• Cell font centering. When choosing different size fonts, they geometry should adjust
• Move count no longer appears after visible solve
• Solve clears marking - not a bug
• The "count single mark as entry" logic removed
• Tree text not right

Open

• Jim: Solution count -needs to be on a background thread like the generator/solver
• Jim: Import/Export for standard formats as text files
• Jim: Judge difficulty based on the logic level discoveries and number of backups
• Han: Wood board geometry seems to be slightly off
• Rich: Solve clears marking - (perhaps not a bug)
• Jim: Subset Elimination module incomplete (doesn't do partial sets). Design complete
• Jim: Other logic modules TBD.
• Jim: Generation needs a round of optimization.

Feature Requests

• Han: OCR images of other puzzles and translate to a created board
• Rich: Letters instead of numbers
• Al: "is entry correct?" hint
• Jim: Logic explanation animation on board

12/20/2005 : v1.0.3

Minor fixes. No bug list or change list. Sorry, no details. Just rushing these out.

Download the v1.0.3 installable

Download the v1.0.3 source code

12/07/2005 : v1.0.2

Moore bug fixes, now reported by our regular correspondents. Thanks everyone! Also, many thanks to the programmers out there making great suggestions to the code.
Download the v1.0.2 binaries

Download the v1.0.2 source

Fixes

• Han: Generator Details geometry fixed. Thanks to new laptop!
• Han: Reduced difficulty scale
• Jim: High scores clear with board
• Han: Style dialog adjusts to current board
• Jim: "Current Style" added to style list
• Han: Undo/Redo implemented
• Jim: High Scores now save correctly, we hope

Open

• Jim: Tree text not right : shouldn't include special characters when in tree, and should duplicate the move text each highlight
• Jim: Solution count -needs to be on a background thread like the generator/solver
• Han: Cell font centering. When choosing different size fonts, they geometry should adjust
• Han: Move count no longer appears after visible solve
• Jim: Import/Export for standard formats as text files
• Jim: Judge difficulty based on the logic level discoveries and number of backups
• Han: Wood board geometry seems to be slightly off
• Rich: Solve clears marking - (perhaps not a bug)
• Jim: Subset Elimination module incomplete (doesn't do partial sets). Design complete
• Jim: Other logic modules TBD.
• Jim: Generation needs a round of optimization.
• Jim: The "count single mark as entry" logic deeply affects puzzle generator difficulty/speed, make optional

12/06/2005 : v1.0.1

We've now played the game all the way through several times. So much do to still! The short bursts of playing a single game are only the beginning, as now we find uncleared settings, bogus dialog boxes, and other anomalies. Tap tap, I hunt the bugs down.

Download the v1.0.1 installable

Download the v1.0.1 source code
Fixes

• Han: Shift-# now changes marks
• Han: All Style items sticky
• Jim: Bulk Gen does now set starts
• Han: Puzzle begins with no marks (but still visible)
• Jim: High Score save no longer stores entered numbers/marks

Open

• Rich: Solve clears marking - (perhaps not a bug)
• Jim: Subset Elimination module incomplete (doesn't do partial sets)
• Jim: Other logic modules TBD
• Jim: Generation needs a round of optimization

Feature Requests

• Rich: Letters instead of numbers
• Al: "is entry correct?" hint
• Jim: Logic explanation animation on board

12/05/2005 : v1.0.0

Version one was a bear to get out. Han thought it'd be a nice idea, but when I first read the wikipedia nad sourceforge notes on Sudoku programming, I was somewhat intimidated. Nevertheless, the basic game was without graphics (just lines on a blank background) until Han stepped up and whipped out some amazing images. Adding in transparancies and a tighter control over geometry, the game began to look nicer and nicer. Here's our first release.

Download the v1.0.0 installable

Download the v1.0.0 source code

Open

• Solve clears marking
• Bulk Gen does not set starts
• High Score save stores entered numbers/marks
• Subset Elimination module incomplete (doesn't do partial sets)
• Other logic modules TBD
• Generation needs a round of optimization