Sudoku Savant [was Re: Searching for a Sudoku client to put into GNOME-games]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006, Chris Rankin wrote:

> Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:56:07 +0100 (BST)
> From: Chris Rankin <rankincj yahoo com>
> To: games-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: Searching for a Sudoku client to put into GNOME-games
>
> > The user interface of Sudoku Savant is the furthest away from the style
> > of Gnome Games and the Gnome Human Interface guidelines.

> Not surprising really; I was only scratching a personal itch, not aiming for World Sudoku
> Domination ;-).

It is impractical to find out all the details in advance but the number
and activity of developers in a project should have a big part to play in
any decisions.

Aside from releasing your source code to the world you didn't invite this
extra scrutiny but I provide feedback and you are welcome to make of it
what you will.

If you are interested in making your Game more like the other gnome games
I can provide more feedback.

> > The use of colour raises accessibility issues.

> But is inevitable when two of the algorithms involved are "simple colouring" and
> "multi-colouring".

Generally speaking there is a need to use colour with some kind of shape
or texture so that things are still usable for people with poor colour
vision.  If you provide enough other information the colour may be an
optional extra.

Without knowing and understanding algorithms I cannot speak to the
specifics of the problem.

Not that I think about it more there is the matter of fitting in with
existing themes, such as High Contrast with large fonts.  Some users find
black text on a white background to be extremly harsh and painful to look
at so this kind of thing is important.

> > The second seems to be the only version to allow other grid sizes besides 9x9

> Not true; sudoku-savant allows up to 30x30 grids (with 5x6 or 6x5 boxes)
> for people who should really try and get out more.

More screenshots please!

I didn't claim to have compiled and tried out all the mentioned games.

The sizes which interest me are the really small 4x4 just for fun, and
16x16 because one of the local newspapers ran competitions using that size
of grid.

I think I'd need a Bomberman version of Sudoku to get me really interested
though.

> > One thing to test would be keyboard navigation.

> Nope,

Yes!  Gnome Games is not fully keyboard accessible (not even very keyboard
accessible) but it is worth keeping in mind for the long run.  I've used
some very crappy laptop trackpads and been in other situations where i
didn't have a mouse but wouldn't have minded the option to play a game or
two.  The MouseKeys feature provide in windows is even more painful than a
bad trackpad.  I'm not entirely sure what the accessibility issue are but
tapping on a keyboard can be a lot less awkward than trying to navigate
with a mouse.

I don't deny it would be rather a pain to actually do it but in principle
it is something to keep in consideration.

> I didn't put any keyboard support in because my original goal was drive
> the GUI entirely by mouse. I'm not sure how a keyboard-only user would
> want to navigate the GUI, but I think that round-robin TABing between
> all the controls would irritate me very quickly. At least the menu bar
> has (some) keyboard support ;-).

It would probably be a lot like a spreadsheet, maybe a few tabs to get to
the main game area then arrow keys to move from box to box.

Again this is one of those great long term features like Networking you
can think about when an application is really mature and trying to appeal
to an audience of millions.

> > I wonder if there is a way to get the Sudoku games to interoperate
> > better with each other.
>
> A worthy goal,

Notice a pattern?  I'm just outlining the big ideas, if I was approaching
as the developer of a Sudoku application I enjoyed using I would be making
much more specifc suggestions.

> but surely the net of interoperability should be wider than these 3 sudoku
> implementations? The population of www.sudoku.com's forums like to share 9x9 grids as a string of
> 81 characters, e.g.
>
> ..24...............91.56....3....6.9...6.1..41.6.35..2........1..92...3.38.....47

I've long had an idea to take some of those text based formats and rejig
them into another text based format like XPM which is also an image
format, that way you get an abstract visual representation of your game
layout.  (I did this with a few game layouts, like Minesweeper and a
Civilisation map.)

> so I put support for that in via the "-c" parameter. But ultimately, everyone seems to have
> his/her own representation. The world is crying out for some kind of XML schema.

Sarcasm?  I fully expect several different Sudoku schemas to appear.

I realise that as a developer of a Sudoku app. you understand the
specifics of the problems and I respect that.  I'm just providing
suggestions, and explaining how you could meet or even exceed the
standards of the current Gnome games.  Thanks for showing an interest in
this discussion.


Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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