ndmckinney|net

Officially Abandoned

As of today (18 Aug 06), I’m officially abandoning my Sudoku Solver project. Since I wrote the program, I’ve no longer felt the need to solve these puzzles anymore. I’m going to leave the project up for anyone who wants to use it.

Version 0.4

I’ve added keyboard navigation to the board, making it much easier to input data. The buttons are still not mapped to the keyboard; I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. I’ve also made some small tweaks to try and improve performance.

As always, donations are appreciated!

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Please leave comments via the posting system below. If you would like to send me a private message, email me.

Instructions

1. Have a Sudoku puzzle that needs solving. If you need one, you can always go here.
2. Click on the square into which you would like to insert data. The square will turn orange. Enter the number between 1 and 9.
3. If you need to clear a square, select it and press any other key. This should clear the square.
4. When you are finished entering data, press the “Commit” button. You will no longer be able to enter data
5. The “Solve!” button will now be active. Press this button to solve the puzzle. If it cannot be solved given the current information, a dialog box will indicate this problem.
6. Press “Reset” to revert to a blank puzzle.

Your browser does not support Java, so nothing will happen.

Old release notes

Version 0.3

Yet more updates (the last for today). I’ve added the boundary checking function, so the applet will now die off if gets stagnant. This should eliminate the problem of it crashing within the browser window, so it shouldn’t be a problem any more. I just need to optimize the performance at this point.

Version 0.2

I’ve improved my solver. It now has a reset function, so you don’t have to reload the page to reload the solver. I still have a number of bugs to fix, so stay tuned for updated.

Version 0.1

It’s finally here! I’ve posted the first beta of my Sudoku Solver applet here. There are a couple of known bugs.

1. I had problems loading it in FireFox on my desktop. I think this has to do with how the Java runtime is installed, but I can’t be positive. It seems to run using Firefox on my Mac just fine, as well as using Safari on my Mac and IE on my PC
2. I haven’t implemented all the boundary checking yet. If you find that it is taking a while, then either (a) the sudoku board was entered incorrectly, or (b) it cannot solve the particular puzzle. If it stops half way, then you definitely entered the puzzle incorrectly. Refresh the page and try again.
3. You may have to restart your browser if the applet does not reload. I’ve had this problem in Firefox on my Mac. I’m working on it so this doesn’t happen in the first place.

I know applet doesn’t have a reset function. I was working on it, but it didn’t seem to function properly. That will be in the next release.