Realshaggy - 2023-07-07 4:07 AM

After having done a few more puzzles, it's still the most common mistake, that a puzzle is started with the wrong default tool (e.g. "Surface" in a Sudoku). It's easy to fix for the solver, but it still feels annoying, if it comes up again and again.

It's especially bad for newcomers who don't have experience with switching tools and don't even know what the best options are. Some of them are buried deep in the menu structure. E.g. for the Ring Ring, which is also set to "Surface" on default currently, my natural choice would be switching to "Special -> Loop -> Line or x", but I don't think a new user would find that.

Therefore I think the setters should be guided better into choosing the right default tool when publishing a puzzle.

One idea might be an (initially checked) checkbox "use appropriate default tool" or something like that in the submitting dialog. If the software is able to identify the puzzle as a standard type (e.g. a Sudoku of any kind or a shading puzzle), the default tool is switched to an appropriate option, regardless of what the user has set. It's still possible to uncheck it either for unknown types, or if the setter really has something different in mind.

It's just a rough idea though, I have no idea how this could work with Penpa Lite or user defined tool lists.

Realshaggy - 2023-07-07 1:00 PM
They are filtered now on the mainpage in the "unsolved puzzles" list and they have a symbol in the "recently published" list. But if I enter the list of unsolved puzzles via the main page, they are shown again and I can't distinguish them from currently available puzzles. Depending on my activity and the number of posted puzzles, this could lead to a situation where I have a handful of unsolved puzzles among a long list of "puzzles under review". And I have to click through all of them to find the ones I can still do.
For me it seems the list of "unsolved puzzles" entered from the main page is the most common way to navigate for "heavy users". At least for now and if they are not searching for something specific. And as long as the portal does not take off with dozens of puzzles per day, there will be enough people with near completion that have the same problem.

Realshaggy - 2023-07-07 1:00 PM
You might also consider deleting "Puzzles under review", if the reason does not get adressed by the author after a reasonable time. There are a few currently which should be easily fixable in a minute or so (they are just missing a proper answer check), meanwhile the author prefers publishing more puzzles.

Soni - 2023-07-05 2:21 AM
- Can the search expo puzzles function for time (Best solving time etc) be actual time format instead of number? I cant see how to input MM:SS other than converting 0:15 to 0.25

Administrator - 2023-07-09 8:49 AM

There is no plan to make this change. This filtering is not used much, as per the filtering log.

Menderbug - 2023-07-10 11:48 AM

It seems that the latest change to limit recently published puzzles by author has broken the "Hide Sudokus" filter.

Edit: also the extra puzzles from each other are not counted for the "N more unsolved puzzles" link.

Menderbug - 2023-07-10 2:13 PM

The actual limit of two puzzles per author doesn't actually seem work properly either. This is my current list.

Soni - 2023-07-09 1:03 PM

Also, not sure where to give general LMI feedback but the "Forum updates" section of the LMI home page should be filtered to only have mod-approved messages. Right now obvious-spam things will show on the sidebar even though they will never be mod-approved

bakpao - 2023-07-10 3:40 PM

It would be nice if puzzles uploaded as example puzzles weren't treated as normal puzzles. Things I'm particularly thinking about are:

- Being able to see the (unsolved) puzzle without having started it on the puzzle page
- Being able to see the solution (by toggle?) without having to solve the puzzle
- (To a lesser extent and because of the above) perhaps no leaderboards/ratings on these puzzles
- (Also less important) an indication in the search engine that the puzzle is an example puzzle

The examples mainly serve to illustrate/explain a ruleset and being able to solve them should still be possible, but I think they would have much more value if you can see them before solving them.
This would also be in line with other platforms (puzz.link and puzzleduel come to mind) and most instruction booklets.

Apologies if any of this is already the case (I believe I'm the only one who has uploaded example puzzles so far so perhaps it's just something I'm not able to see/validate)

Realshaggy - 2023-07-05 9:50 PM

The "List of Standard Puzzles/Examples..." has a different header than the other pages (in particular it is missing the freshly introduced "Help" menu, but also a few other options). Smae for some other pages. I can't see a system behind it. Maybe the header should be the same for all pages.

Realshaggy - 2023-07-14 7:52 PM

I think the filter just excludes the pure "emoji" comments.

Realshaggy - 2023-07-14 6:12 PM
Since this is a hobby for (almost) all of us, I would suggest using a less harsh wording on the recently introduced "penalties" page . In particular, I think it would be better to talk about "restrictions" instead of "penalities".

Menderbug - 2023-07-15 6:52 AMI just tried to submit a puzzle for the first time, but both the Preview and Submit buttons seem to do nothing except set the puzzle's Display Size to 20 for some reason. Am I doing something silly?

Realshaggy - 2023-07-15 8:39 AMI have some strange behavior in my only posted puzzle. There was a comment, that the answer check was not triggering for somebody. There were a lot of solutions since then, so maybe the solution was just wrong in this case, I don't know. But I still decided to check it. And whatever I do if I start the puzzle in "review" mode, it seems like I can't trigger the answer check either. Not in Sudoku mode (which is set by default) not in numbers mode, not in any color I tried. Is it still possible to trigger the answer check in "review" mode in a puzzle that is a few weeks old? I'm sure it worked, when I set it up originally. I can provide the solution if that helps, just send me a message in that case.

Realshaggy - 2023-07-08 8:15 AMBut even then, if this is a common mistake, there is a question if there might be a better guidance for the setter.