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Comments and Results for 'Sudoku-X 12x12 59'

StateTypeTitleSizePlayedAvg timeRating (#users)YoursYour bestPublishedExpires
UnplayedSudoku XSudoku-X 12x12 5912x127529:38Moderate (42)Subscribers only21st Sep-
Show full chart rankings for Sudoku-X 12x12 59
Your puzzle statistics First solution time distribution Overall puzzle statistics
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Slowest 10% not shown
0:00
51:49

Solution time without 'show wrong'
0:00
1:19:37

Unaided first solution time
0:00
1:19:37
Completed by54 users
Best time without any aid18:00 by mikeyc1223
Best time with major aid10:27 by Brendon
Best time with show wrong
or multiple sessions
4:58 by Cate-Lyn
Average solve time with no or minor aid33:10
Average solve time with no aid33:10
Average difficulty rating - all players3.3/10.0
Average difficulty rating - no aid3.7/10.0
Average difficulty rating - major aid3.3/10.0
Average difficulty rating - show wrong or
multiple sessions
3.3/10.0
16 comments (Add new comment)
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 10:03
ClareJuliette Rated puzzle: Moderate Completion time: 24:12 Used 'show wrong moves'
Please could you add a way to turn off that keyboard shortcut to check puzzles. Having it directly between 1 and A makes it far too easy to press accidentally. It's annoying when it happens. Or you could change the shortcut button so it's more difficult to accidentally press. Perhaps even a shortcut button that needs to use the shift key too - easy to use but almost impossible to use accidentally.
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 11:18
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
Okay, now done. You now need to press shift+Q to use the 'check' shortcut.

I've had to change the way the buttons are styled on the player in order to add the 'shift' icon, which in turn required me to change any code that updates the button text. This has also affected the button appearance on mobile devices, since some of the browser defaults for form buttons showed through on iOS (e.g. 3D shading across the button face) and which are now no longer present.

If anyone spots any new issues please let me know.

Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 11:33
kocos Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
Shift+Q definitely feels as a setback compared to the standalone Q. :(
Also it was not straightforward to me what is the meaning of "house + Q", had to came here to check.
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 14:12
Last edited by gareth 21st Sep 2020 at 14:13
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
I thought that symbol was standard for 'shift', but obviously not - so I've done some better picture research and changed it to a different arrow. :) Is this clearer do you think?

The single keypress 'Q' was the most complained-about feature on Puzzlemix in 15 years, so I needed to make this change. If a lot of people now ask to change it back, I could make it an option on a per-user basis I guess - but I tested it and found SHIFT+Q almost as easy to press. Maybe a quarter of a second slower.

Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 14:55
kocos Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
I already know what it should represent, cannot erase it from my head to simulate a first impression. :)
Quarter of a second is incredibly slow. :) OK, I probably will get used to it, but I am at the stage "Why this Q isn't working, let's push it again. Oh wait, wasn't this changed recently?".
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 18:25
JoergWausW Daily subscriber Completion time: 37:13
"Why this Q isn't working, let's push it again" - and I didn't know about the change...
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 21:52
soundwater Daily subscriber Rated puzzle: Moderate Completion time: 1:19:37
I'm with Clare on this one. I've accidently used keyboard shortcuts including "Q" and changing colors, etc. Gareth, maybe an option to turn on/off keyboard shortcuts altogether? I really don't need them, but understand others like the option.
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 22:10
JoergWausW Daily subscriber Completion time: 37:13
Maybe we can talk about Mouse short cuts?

If I left-clicked in the top left corner of a cell, I'd like to see a big 1 pop up... right-click to see a pencil "one". And a C for the bottom left corner of a 12x12... Benefit:
Nobody uses the keyboard anymore - but for shortcuts only :-)

Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 23:01
Last edited by gareth 21st Sep 2020 at 23:04
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
It's not practical to add that sort of mouse shortcut to the current version of the player, unless it was based on hovering until you found the 'right' place and then clicking, which would be annoying I think. It's so old it predates modern web technologies, and consists of lots (and lots!) of HTML elements. It might be possible to hack it to sort of work slightly more nicely, but fundamentally I need to rewrite the player so it draws to a canvas - and then it would be able to process the mouse itself, rather than relying on the browser handling it based on whatever element it's over. Also the code would be mostly reusable in e.g. an app. (you should see the slitherlink code - lots of invisible elements for mouse detection. Yuck!)

I've read elsewhere that it seems to be widely accepted that the best sudoku interactive players (for advanced puzzles and skilled solvers) allow two types of number pencil marks in a cell, which some systems achieve by placing digits in either the centre of the cell or around the edge of the cell. You can then keep track of multiple types of information for more complex puzzles. Of course it would be overkill for the easy puzzles, however, and I am not really sure if it is worth getting to that level of complexity, but I'm interested in opinions. Other potential options are the ability to colour pencil marks, and also to select multiple squares at once and place pencil marks simultaneously. But again I think these risk confusing people, and having options to configure the player seems a bit niche and not necessarily worth investing time in - but then if I was to rewrite it, I'd want it to be as flexible as possible, so I would like to hear of all requests for functionality.

Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 23:03
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
More generally, I'm interested in anything that could be practically added to make solving better, for any puzzle type. Marks across cell boundaries are something I do on paper, for example, although I am not really sure how these could work so well in an interactive player. But it might still be worth considering. I also tend to draw faint lines to indicate horizontal or vertical sets of matching pencil marks, but I think the ability to draw lines on top is almost certainly a step too far...
Posted 21st Sep 2020 at 23:07
Last edited by gareth 21st Sep 2020 at 23:10
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
Soundwater, I've disabled the 'Q' shortcut now - you now have to press shift+Q.

Other than 'Z' and 'X', for undo and redo, the only other shortcut affecting the keyboard-using players is 'S', but that's harmless, so I'm interested in the colour shortcuts issue you mention, since these are only active in players that don't otherwise the keyboard. How do you accidentally alter the colours? Do you rest your hand on the keyboard while solving with the mouse, and press buttons by accident? Is that what you mean? Because otherwise the keyboard doesn't do anything during the puzzles that use the colours. Unless I'm missing something, and apologies if I am! :)

Posted 22nd Sep 2020 at 02:23
soundwater Daily subscriber Rated puzzle: Moderate Completion time: 1:19:37
The hand resting would be it, not a big deal tho. I have a habit of tapping while I'm thinking sometimes and get surprised with a color change. All-in-all, I'm happy with the puzzles. Wish I had my younger eyes for the 12x12 puzzles, but you can't help with that and my glasses only go so far............
Posted 22nd Sep 2020 at 09:53
kocos Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
Coloring pencilmarks might be beneficial.
I use pencilmarks a few ways:
- these are the only cells that can contain the given number in the sector
- these are the only cells that can contain the given number in the column
- these are the only cells that can contain the given number in the row
- this cell cannot contain anything else but these numbers

It would be nice to be able to distinguish them for a larger puzzle.

Posted 22nd Sep 2020 at 10:50
Last edited by gareth 22nd Sep 2020 at 10:52
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
Thanks kocos - interesting, and of course I imagine that's what we all do. I normally indicate the row and column digits by adding lines, or writing on borders for neighbouring squares, so perhaps colours could work as a proxy in the online solver. In which case maybe the display should automatically group by colour, rather than have e.g. two sets of pencilmarks, one central and one around the outside. That way I think perhaps it's more subtle - you can ignore the colours and it would behave as before, or if you change colour the display could shift to grouping pencilmarks in each square in the same way, based on the number of colours being used. Perhaps on mobile it could just sort them into order (for compactness), but on a larger display it could group them into quadrants of the square (for, say, 4 distinct colours the square could be subdivided into 4 regions). Then the actual colours could be configurable, and the definition of 'colour' could be extended to include other visual changes such as typeface, weight and maybe other stylistic features such as a feint horizontal or vertical line. 4 colours would be the limit, but how they were arranged would change dynamically depending on how many colours were being used and the maximum number of pencilmarks in a square of a single colour.
Posted 22nd Sep 2020 at 10:56
Penelope Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
This discussion had been fascinating and enlightening. I only ever do puzzles on my tablet so none of the shortcuts etc are available. It might partly explain why I'm so slow... apart from incompetence on my part of course.
Posted 22nd Sep 2020 at 11:49
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
Yes, it's definitely much slower solving the number-placement puzzles without a keyboard, particularly for the easier ones. Even for the shading puzzles it's slower since you need to keep pressing the clear/shaded buttons. (Any ideas, anyone, for a better way of toggling shading/clearing without a mouse? Then there's also reverting to 'no state').

I should probably move this discussion to a new topic.

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Key

  • A yellow/light blue highlight in the time distribution charts highlights your time, where relevant.
  • Rating scores out of 10.0 show the average difficulty rating chosen by users, where 1.0 is "Easy" and 10.0 is "Hard".
  • If a puzzle is opened more than once, including by loading from a saved position, then this is potentially a significant aid so it is listed as being completed with 'multiple sessions' for the purpose of the best time/average rating displays above.
  • Minor aid is defined as no more than one use of 'Check solution' when incomplete and/or no more than one use of 'Check solution' when wrong; and/or using highlighting aids (show repeated digits, show broken inequalities and show valid/invalid placements [slitherlink] only). Major aid is any and all other use of the solving aids except for 'show wrong'.

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