Message #198

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] I’m back!
Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:23:03 -0700

thesamer@interia.pl wrote:

>Few suggests:
>
>1. Timer…showing time of solving ((2 ways - counting time then cube is on (you can close program and open again (and time between this 2 events doesn’t count) or time from start solving to the end (even when you don’t solve cube timer is still on)
>
>
>First is good for beginers and big cubes…
>
>Second is important in quick solving (in competition)…
>
>
Saving the start time across sessions would require changing the file
format and would allow cheating on time by purposely exiting, modifying,
and then restarting. I can see how cross-session timing could be useful
for casual users and I’m not against adding support for this but the
only version that seems to be really useful in competition is when a
solution occurs in a single session. Note also that even if the log file
timestamp is impossible to hack, users could still cause the program to
not count a long period of thought between 2 twists by exiting the
program and planning their next twist by studying a screenshot before
restarting.

BTW, I’m not sure where to display the time elapsed. The obvious
solution is an overlay in a corner of the 3D display something like your
gabbasoft puzzle does but do you think it might be distracting to see
the seconds ticking away in the display? It could easily be hidden
somewhere or displayed via a tooltip while hovering the mouse pointer
over some UI element.

>2. SHOW THE NUMBER Of TWISTS during the solving (i mean twist, not moves…)
>
>
Definitely. Rotations do not count.

>
>I send link to http://gabbasoft.com/ where you can download program with cubes from 2^3 to 20^3 (it has timer and counter)
>
>——————————————-
>Some time ago I also reported :
>
>-make linux version SLOWER…(5x5x5x5 has good tempo …but 2x2x2x2 is crazy…just like looking on changing snapshots)
>
>
This and all sorts of other user preferences should be relatively easy
to support in a Java version.

>-Could I ask about puting more options to the program instead comannd line options ?
>
>
I would like to support both. I.E. persistent user preferences which can
be overridden with command-line options. I already have the code to
handle this sort of thing.

>- I would be very happy to see all axis with the same flexibility (I need this when I’m doing quick solve with macros)
>
>The lack of moving z-axis is really annoying (i like windows version…
>
>
The new version will likely support the current Windows screen rotations.

>- there are problems with making macros which starts from middle slices (or using two slices)
>
>
Don will need to comment on macro support.

>And the last:
>
>other cubes and macros in windows version
>
>
I’d initially intended to support other cubes in the Windows version but
ran into some mysterious and fatal bug when attempting to use it so I
took it out.

-Melinda