9 October 2006

Version 1.4 of SnapShot has been released. This has some fairly minor changes to bring it more up to date.

8 September 2006

In an effort to halt the ever increasing flood of spam, all hyperlink email addresses have been removed from this site. The email address displayed on the contact page is now shown in an image in an effort to foil the spammer's address harvesters. Alternatively, there's also an online form you can use to send me a message.

1 September 2006

Version 2.8 of Sudoku has been released. This has the following changes:

• Trivial grade has been renamed to Simple.
• Added the ability to specify whether a simple grade puzzle should require only naked or hidden singles. Depending on how you like to solve sudoku puzzles, you may look for naked or hidden singles before the other. Naked singles are easier to spot if you use a computer program to keep the pencil marks accurate, but if you prefer to solve entirely by hand, you'll probably look for hidden singles before naked singles.
• Added background creation of a "library" of puzzles. This is created using the idle time of the computer, so it shouldn't slow down any other applications. When you request a new puzzle, the library is checked to see whether it contains a suitable one. If it doesn't, then the searching begins as in previous versions, but if it does, it's returned almost immediately. The background creation can be disabled from the options dialog if it causes any problems by slowing down other applications. This may be necessary on some older systems.
• Added the ability to periodically check for updates online. This must first be enabled from the options dialog.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent block / block and block / column / row interactions from being found when there were none of the relevant number in the grid.
• Prevented an annoying, but otherwise innocuous, error message on start-up if the PC has no default printer selected.
• Auto pencil mark calculation is no longer unselected when the grid is cleared or the puzzle reset.
• When looking for a hint, the currently allowed solving techniques are now tested before any disallowed techniques.
• The correct solution and grade are now determined when pasting in a puzzle from an image.
• When printing several puzzles at a time, it no longer calculates the pencil marks if the puzzle already contains any.
• When printing a puzzle, the font used for printing the filename is now fixed at Arial size 12.
• Changed the layout of the OCR Select Image Area dialog as the buttons could occasionally be positioned off-screen.
• Added a timer. The timer value isn't saved with the puzzle though, so when opening a partially completed puzzle, the timer will restart at 00:00. The timer can by paused using the Pause key.
• Added a menu option to automatically enter any hidden singles.
• Added a sub-menu below File -> New to allow easy creation of a puzzle of a specific grade.

26 August 2006

SadMan Software Sudoku is now available in Chinese (simplified). The language kit can be downloaded from sudokuzhcn.exe. Note: to be detected by SadMan Software Sudoku, the language files must be installed in the same folder as the Sudoku program (usually C:\Program Files\SadMan Software\Sudoku\.) See the translations page for details of the currently available translations.

1 August 2006

Version 3.2 of Search has been released. This is a minor upgrade to allow the specification of files to be excluded from the search.

4 June 2006

SadMan Software Sudoku is now available in French. The language kit can be downloaded from sudokufr.exe.

13 May 2006

SadMan Software Sudoku is now available in Dutch. The language kit can be downloaded from sudokunl.exe.

10 April 2006

SadMan Software Sudoku is now available in German. The language kit can be downloaded from sudokude.exe.

7 April 2006

SadMan Software Sudoku is now available in Finnish. The language kit can be downloaded from sudokufi.exe.

1 April 2006

The SadMan Software website has moved. It's now to be found at sadmansoftware.com and sadmansoftware.com. Please update any bookmarks, as the old site (www.simes.clara.co.uk) will cease to exist at some time.

17 March 2006

Version 2.7 of Sudoku has been released. This has the following changes:

• Added support for other languages. See the translations page for details of the currently available translations.
• When a puzzle is first loaded or entered, it will warn if the puzzle has multiple or no solutions.
• Can now optionally highlight incorrect numbers as well as invalid ones. (Incorrect numbers are numbers that do not match the solution, while invalid numbers are those that break the rule of Sudoku. Incorrect numbers are not highlighted if the puzzle has no or multiple solutions.)
• Added a hint option. Press it once for a vague hint, again for more detail, and perhaps a third time for more detail still.
• The puzzle grade is now shown in the status bar.
• Added the Select Technique form to allow for easier selection of several solving techniques.
• Hidden-singles can now be entered via a double-click (this function must first be enabled on the options form.)
• Added short-cuts for the highlight and effects toolbar. Pressing the alt key along with a digit will highlight that digit, and pressing the control and alt keys along with a digit will show the effects for that digit.
• The log viewer now remembers its size and position between runs.
• Added an option to print up to six different puzzles on a single page.
• It now saves and restores your preferred printer orientation.
• Changed the order in which the swordfish and colouring techniques are applied. It is now swordfish before colouring.
• Added an option to highlight cells with exactly two candidates.
• Added an option to highlight numbers by filling the entire cell background.
• Added an option to prevent the highlighting of big numbers.
• For those who don't like the diagonal line used to show effects, I've added an option that will cause the entire cell to be coloured.
• Added a menu option to automatically enter any naked singles.
• A candidate elimination (or set of related eliminations) now counts as a move when single stepping. Previously, single stepping would make a many eliminations as necessary until it could place a big number.
• The size of a big number has been reduced ever so slightly.
• Pressing the Enter key on a selected cell has the same effect as double-clicking it and will complete naked and hidden singles as appropriate.
• The highlights, effects and selected cell are no longer cleared when an auto-solve function is used.

11 March 2006

Version 2.3 of HTML Image Browser has been released. This is a minor change to better handle those few cases where it can't determine the image size and colour depth.

9 February 2006

Version 2.14 of TResourceAllocationChart has been released. The changes are mostly minor, but see the history page for full details. Registered users should have already received the latest source code by email - if not, please contact us.