Sudoku-plugin

Description

Sudoku plugin screenshot

Sudoku is a VDR plug-in to generate and solve Number Place puzzles, so called Sudokus.

A Sudoku puzzle consists of 9 x 9 cells subdivided into 9 regions with 3 x 3 cells. The rules are simple. There have to be the numbers from 1 to 9 in every row, column and region. In the beginning some numbers are given. These cells are painted with cyan background color. The aim of the puzzle is to find the missing numbers. There is only one solution of a Sudoku puzzle.

The Sudoku puzzles are generated on-the-fly. The number of givens can be set in the plug-in's setup page down to a minimum of 26 givens. The generation of puzzles with less than 26 givens takes too long. By default the cells with givens are symmetrically ordered. But this can be changed in the setup.

To solve difficult Sudoku puzzles some hints can be used. Incorrect cells are red and cells with ambiguous numbers are magenta. These hints can be disabled in the setup. With the green key a cell can be marked. A marked cell has green background color. With the yellow key the cursor is moved to the next free cell with minimal possible numbers. The red key set the next possible number for the current cell.

Each time the plug-in is started from the main menu the same puzzle is shown. A new puzzle is only generated on VDR startup or if it has been requested by selecting this command in the commands menu, which is opened with the blue key.

In the commands menu you can load and save puzzles from/to the sudoku-list file. This file is located at the plugins folder inside the configuration folder of VDR. If you don't specify a configuration folder, your videodir is used (e.g. /video0/plugins/sudoku/sudoku-list).

The sudoku-list file contains lines with a sudoku dump and an optional description. The sudoku dump has to begin at the first position of the line. The delimiter between sudoku dump and description is a space. All behind the first space is considered as description.

A sudoku dump consists of up to three parts. The first part contains only the givens, the second part all numbers set so far (including the givens), and the third part the marked cells. They are delimited from each other by a colon. All except of the first part is optional. The parts are strings with 81 digits or underlines. An underline is considered as a zero. All other characters, except of colons and spaces, which terminate the string, are ignored. They could be used to structure the dump, e.g. plus signs after each 9 digits/underlines.

Software requirements

VDR >= 1.3.47

Installation

See plugin installation

Setup

Parameter	Values	Default	Description
Givens count	26-81	36	Givens count of the generated puzzles.
Symmetric givens	yes/no	yes	Cells with givens are symmetrically ordered.
Mark errors	yes/no	yes	Incorrect cells are marked with red color.
Mark ambiguous numbers	yes/no	yes	Cells with ambiguous numbers are marked with magenta color.
Show possible numbers as pattern	yes/no	yes	Show a pattern in all empty cells representing the possible numbers. The pattern is structured by a small 3 x 3 grid featuring the numbers from 1 to 9 from top left to bottom right. If a number is possible in this cell the background of the corresponding grid section is colored.
Show possible numbers as digits (VDR >= 1.5.4)	yes/no	yes	Show digits in all empty cells representing the possible numbers.
Clear marks on reset	yes/no	no	Unmark all cells when the puzzle is reset.
Transparency (%)	0-100	50	Set the transparency of the menu.

Usage

Key	Description
Left/Right/Up/Down	Move the cursor in the puzzle.
1-9	Set the number in the current cell.
0	Remove the number from the current cell.
Green	Mark/unmark the current cell.
Yellow	Move the cursor to the next free cell with minimal possible numbers.
Red	Set the next possible number for the current cell - reset the number if greater numbers are not possible.
Blue	Open the commands menu.
Back	Quit the plug-in.

Commands menu

Command	Description
Generate a new puzzle	Generate a random puzzle.
Load a puzzle	Load a puzzle from the sudoku list. In the list menu you can also delete sudokus from the list or edit the descriptions.
Save the puzzle	Add the puzzle to the sudoku list, together with an optional description.
Reset the puzzle	Reset the numbers in all cells, excluding the givens.
Open setup menu	Open the setup menu of the plug-in.
Exit	Quit the plug-in.

Cell colors

Cyan	Givens
Green	Marked cells
Red	Incorrect cells
Magenta	Ambiguous numbers

Links

[1]	http://toms-cafe.de/vdr/sudoku	Plugin homepage
[2]	http://www.freedailysudoku.net	Free Daily Sudoku puzzles