Slitherlink / Fence, and Loop Finder with dots

Method 1 :
For Fence puzzle, some times the answer keys have number of cells 'inside' the loop, while some times it is 'outside' the loop.
If we've to follow one standard, may be we should use 'outside' the loop, since most of the time counting will be less. But I'm not sure what others think.

In either of cases, some rows / some columns should be marked. Entering for all rows / columns should be strictly avoided.


Method 2 :
Enter the lengths of horizontal line segments along the marked arrows
This is something I used in Twist. The good thing about this method is it applies to other loop puzzles too, and it is less counting as well.

Method 2 is better than Method 1 but I dislike both :-)

Method 3: Enter the Fence-rule values for marked row/column. Like the 1st row is 232132, the last column is 233213.

I dont like Method 3 either :-)
(I'm a difficult customer ;-) )

One of the ideas of this whole exercise is to have consistent answer keys for similar puzzle types.
Method 2 is something that can be applied to all loop kinda puzzles.

I don't like Method 3 since it involves a lot of detailed attention

I like method 2. Also, its similar to the tapa style answer key for non-loop puzzles, again keeping with the theme of universal answer keys.

I like Method 2

OR

Method 4 :
Enter the "number of turns" along marked arrows. Answer will be 6,6 for the example.

Method 5, still keeping the same reasoning as my post in Loop without All Cells. I/O for Inside or Outside; row 1 would be OIOOIO.

To get it without need of shading insides, simply start from left/top/wherever you need to start counting. Begin from "very far" outside the loop; it's outside. Everytime you cross a segment, it changes the inside/outside.

For example, you begin from somewhere outside the grid but in row 1, to the left of the grid, and moving right. When you get to the grid, you haven't encountered any segment, so first square is outside. The second square requires passing a segment so it's inside. The third square requires passing a segment again so it's outside again, etc.

This is identical to marking on which columns the vertical segments of row 1 are on, with leftmost column being column 0/1 (your choice). This method can't be applied if the loop can intersect itself (MellowMelon's Crosslink?), but it's rare enough to justify having some sort of exception for those kind of puzzles.

In principle, I like this method. But for a bigger grid, it would mean lot of typing. So I would like to suggest to compress the answer key to 11211 (ah, not compressed much in this case, but in general it should be). For Column 4, the answer key will be 312 instead of OOOIOO.

It also gets rid of any "English" letters. It can easily be applied to other types e.g. Tapa, Fillomino as well.

ETA : If you are worried about LMI submission engine not being able detect variable length answer keys, we should be able to upgrade the engine to check "sum of digits" to be same as "size of the grid" in this case.

Edited by debmohanty 2012-12-14 6:34 AM