[Kde-games-devel] ksudoku and kde-games

[Ian Wadham]

> Johannes Bergmeier wrote:
> > After the kdegame IRC meeting I contacted the author of ksudoku and
> > he has began to work on ksudoku again. And there are 2 new
>> developers (of which I am one).
> >
> > Currently we are working on improving the KDE3 version before we
> > start to port to KDE4. We still have no decision on whether we try
> > to join kdegames, but I'm optimistic that we will.
>
I have been playing KSudoku v0.3 for a few months now and am
greatly enjoying it.  I also find it a useful (and much faster) way
to work on the daily puzzles from the newspaper.  Maybe it's just
the way I'm running it (./ksudoku, rather than a full install), but I
have just a few suggestions for improvement.

When I do New Puzzle, I get a window about the size of a business
card, with cells and numbers that are almost invisible.  Could the
game select a size that is more reasonable, based on the monitor
size and resolution?

Could the program also work out a window size, based on the fonts
used for the numbers, that gives you a selected number of pencilled
in small numbers per cell (say 3 or 4)?  Or maybe the small numbers
could accumulate clockwise around the cell?  It's rather difficult at
first to get a window-size, by trial and error, that is convenient
for puzzle solving.

Finally, the language in the menus and buttons is hard to
understand, especially for older people, many of whom are avid
Sudoku fans.  I'm thinking especially of "Rip Puzzle", "Push
Checkpoint" and "Pop Checkpoint", which are very useful features
but what they do is not obvious to a speaker of ordinary English.

I am really looking forward to seeing KSudoku become part of the
KDE Games set.

All the best, Ian W.