Developer documentation for Simon Tatham's puzzle collection ============================================================ This is a guide to the internal structure of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection (henceforth referred to simply as `Puzzles'), for use by anyone attempting to implement a new puzzle or port to a new platform. This guide is believed correct as of r6190. Hopefully it will be updated along with the code in future, but if not, I've at least left this version number in here so you can figure out what's changed by tracking commit comments from there onwards. 1. Introduction --------------- The Puzzles code base is divided into four parts: a set of interchangeable front ends, a set of interchangeable back ends, a universal `middle end' which acts as a buffer between the two, and a bunch of miscellaneous utility functions. In the following sections I give some general discussion of each of these parts. 1.1. Front end -------------- The front end is the non-portable part of the code: it's the bit that you replace completely when you port to a different platform. So it's responsible for all system calls, all GUI interaction, and anything else platform-specific. The current front ends in the main code base are for Windows, GTK and MacOS X; I also know of a third-party front end for PalmOS. The front end contains main() or the local platform's equivalent. Top- level control over the application's execution flow belongs to the front end (it isn't, for example, a set of functions called by a universal main() somewhere else). The front end has complete freedom to design the GUI for any given port of Puzzles. There is no centralised mechanism for maintaining the menu layout, for example. This has a cost in consistency (when I _do_ want the same menu layout on more than one platform, I have to edit two pieces of code in parallel every time I make a change), but the advantage is that local GUI conventions can be conformed to and local constraints adapted to. For example, MacOS X has strict human interface guidelines which specify a different menu layout from the one I've used on Windows and GTK; there's nothing stopping the OS X front end from providing a menu layout consistent with those guidelines. Although the front end is mostly caller rather than the callee in its interactions with other parts of the code, it is required to implement a small API for other modules to call, mostly of drawing functions for games to use when drawing their graphics. The drawing API is documented in chapter 3; the other miscellaneous front end API functions are documented in section 4.25. 1.2. Back end ------------- A `back end', in this collection, is synonymous with a `puzzle'. Each back end implements a different game. At the top level, a back end is simply a data structure, containing a few constants (flag words, preferred pixel size) and a large number of function pointers. Back ends are almost invariably callee rather than caller, which means there's a limitation on what a back end can do on its own initiative. The persistent state in a back end is divided into a number of data structures, which are used for different purposes and therefore likely to be switched around, changed without notice, and otherwise updated by the rest of the code. It is important when designing a back end to put the right pieces of data into the right structures, or standard midend- provided features (such as Undo) may fail to work. The functions and variables provided in the back end data structure are documented in chapter 2. 1.3. Middle end --------------- Puzzles has a single and universal `middle end'. This code is common to all platforms and all games; it sits in between the front end and the back end and provides standard functionality everywhere. People adding new back ends or new front ends should generally not need to edit the middle end. On rare occasions there might be a change that can be made to the middle end to permit a new game to do something not currently anticipated by the middle end's present design; however, this is terribly easy to get wrong and should probably not be undertaken without consulting the primary maintainer (me). Patch submissions containing unannounced mid-end changes will be treated on their merits like any other patch; this is just a friendly warning that mid-end changes will need quite a lot of merits to make them acceptable. Functionality provided by the mid-end includes: - Maintaining a list of game state structures and moving back and forth along that list to provide Undo and Redo. - Handling timers (for move animations, flashes on completion, and in some cases actually timing the game). - Handling the container format of game IDs: receiving them, picking them apart into parameters, description and/or random seed, and so on. The game back end need only handle the individual parts of a game ID (encoded parameters and encoded game description); everything else is handled centrally by the mid-end. - Handling standard keystrokes and menu commands, such as `New Game', `Restart Game' and `Quit'. - Pre-processing mouse events so that the game back ends can rely on them arriving in a sensible order (no missing button-release events, no sudden changes of which button is currently pressed, etc). - Handling the dialog boxes which ask the user for a game ID. - Handling serialisation of entire games (for loading and saving a half-finished game to a disk file, or for handling application shutdown and restart on platforms such as PalmOS where state is expected to be saved). Thus, there's a lot of work done once by the mid-end so that individual back ends don't have to worry about it. All the back end has to do is cooperate in ensuring the mid-end can do its work properly. The API of functions provided by the mid-end to be called by the front end is documented in chapter 4. 1.4. Miscellaneous utilities ---------------------------- In addition to these three major structural components, the Puzzles code also contains a variety of utility modules usable by all of the above components. There is a set of functions to provide platform-independent random number generation; functions to make memory allocation easier; functions which implement a balanced tree structure to be used as necessary in complex algorithms; and a few other miscellaneous functions. All of these are documented in chapter 5. 1.5. Structure of this guide ---------------------------- There are a number of function call interfaces within Puzzles, and this guide will discuss each one in a chapter of its own. After that, (chapter 6) discusses how to design new games, with some general design thoughts and tips. 2. Interface to the back end ---------------------------- This chapter gives a detailed discussion of the interface that each back end must implement. At the top level, each back end source file exports a single global symbol, which is a `const struct game' containing a large number of function pointers and a small amount of constant data. This structure is called by different names depending on what kind of platform the puzzle set is being compiled on: - On platforms such as Windows and GTK, which build a separate binary for each puzzle, the game structure in every back end has the same name, `thegame'; the front end refers directly to this name, so that compiling the same front end module against a different back end module builds a different puzzle. - On platforms such as MacOS X and PalmOS, which build all the puzzles into a single monolithic binary, the game structure in each back end must have a different name, and there's a helper module `list.c' (constructed automatically by the same Perl script that builds the Makefiles) which contains a complete list of those game structures. On the latter type of platform, source files may assume that the preprocessor symbol `COMBINED' has been defined. Thus, the usual code to declare the game structure looks something like this: #ifdef COMBINED #define thegame net /* or whatever this game is called */ #endif const struct game thegame = { /* lots of structure initialisation in here */ }; Game back ends must also internally define a number of data structures, for storing their various persistent state. This chapter will first discuss the nature and use of those structures, and then go on to give details of every element of the game structure. 2.1. Data structures -------------------- Each game is required to define four separate data structures. This section discusses each one and suggests what sorts of things need to be put in it. 2.1.1. `game_params' -------------------- The `game_params' structure contains anything which affects the automatic generation of new puzzles. So if puzzle generation is parametrised in any way, those parameters need to be stored in `game_params'. Most puzzles currently in this collection are played on a grid of squares, meaning that the most obvious parameter is the grid size. Many puzzles have additional parameters; for example, Mines allows you to control the number of mines in the grid independently of its size, Net can be wrapping or non-wrapping, Solo has difficulty levels and symmetry settings, and so on. A simple rule for deciding whether a data item needs to go in `game_params' is: would the user expect to be able to control this data item from either the preset-game-types menu or the `Custom' game type configuration? If so, it's part of `game_params'. `game_params' structures are permitted to contain pointers to subsidiary data if they need to. The back end is required to provide functions to create and destroy `game_params', and those functions can allocate and free additional memory if necessary. (It has not yet been necessary to do this in any puzzle so far, but the capability is there just in case.) `game_params' is also the only structure which the game's compute_size() function may refer to; this means that any aspect of the game which affects the size of the window it needs to be drawn in must be stored in `game_params'. In particular, this imposes the fundamental limitation that random game generation may not have a random effect on the window size: game generation algorithms are constrained to work by starting from the grid size rather than generating it as an emergent phenomenon. (Although this is a restriction in theory, it has not yet seemed to be a problem.) 2.1.2. `game_state' ------------------- While the user is actually playing a puzzle, the `game_state' structure stores all the data corresponding to the current state of play. The mid-end keeps `game_state's in a list, and adds to the list every time the player makes a move; the Undo and Redo functions step back and forth through that list. Therefore, a good means of deciding whether a data item needs to go in `game_state' is: would a player expect that data item to be restored on undo? If so, put it in `game_state', and this will automatically happen without you having to lift a finger. If not - for example, the deaths counter in Mines is precisely something that does _not_ want to be reset to its previous state on an undo - then you might have found a data item that needs to go in `game_ui' instead. During play, `game_state's are often passed around without an accompanying `game_params' structure. Therefore, any information in `game_params' which is important during play (such as the grid size) must be duplicated within the `game_state'. One simple method of doing this is to have the `game_state' structure _contain_ a `game_params' structure as one of its members, although this isn't obligatory if you prefer to do it another way. 2.1.3. `game_drawstate' ----------------------- `game_drawstate' carries persistent state relating to the current graphical contents of the puzzle window. The same `game_drawstate' is passed to every call to the game redraw function, so that it can remember what it has already drawn and what needs redrawing. A typical use for a `game_drawstate' is to have an array mirroring the array of grid squares in the `game_state'; then every time the redraw function was passed a `game_state', it would loop over all the squares, and physically redraw any whose description in the `game_state' (i.e. what the square needs to look like when the redraw is completed) did not match its description in the `game_drawstate' (i.e. what the square currently looks like). `game_drawstate' is occasionally completely torn down and reconstructed by the mid-end, if the user somehow forces a full redraw. Therefore, no data should be stored in `game_drawstate' which is _not_ related to the state of the puzzle window, because it might be unexpectedly destroyed. The back end provides functions to create and destroy `game_drawstate', which means it can contain pointers to subsidiary allocated data if it needs to. A common thing to want to allocate in a `game_drawstate' is a `blitter'; see section 3.1.11 for more on this subject. 2.1.4. `game_ui' ---------------- `game_ui' contains whatever doesn't fit into the above three structures! A new `game_ui' is created when the user begins playing a new instance of a puzzle (i.e. during `New Game' or after entering a game ID etc). It persists until the user finishes playing that game and begins another one (or closes the window); in particular, `Restart Game' does _not_ destroy the `game_ui'. `game_ui' is useful for implementing user-interface state which is not part of `game_state'. Common examples are keyboard control (you wouldn't want to have to separately Undo through every cursor motion) and mouse dragging. See section 6.3.2 and section 6.3.3, respectively, for more details. Another use for `game_ui' is to store highly persistent data such as the Mines death counter. This is conceptually rather different: where the Net cursor position was _not important enough_ to preserve for the player to restore by Undo, the Mines death counter is _too important_ to permit the player to revert by Undo! A final use for `game_ui' is to pass information to the redraw function about recent changes to the game state. This is used in Mines, for example, to indicate whether a requested `flash' should be a white flash for victory or a red flash for defeat; see section 6.3.5. 2.2. Simple data in the back end -------------------------------- In this section I begin to discuss each individual element in the back end structure. To begin with, here are some simple self-contained data elements. 2.2.1. `name' ------------- const char *name; This is a simple ASCII string giving the name of the puzzle. This name will be used in window titles, in game selection menus on monolithic platforms, and anywhere else that the front end needs to know the name of a game. 2.2.2. `winhelp_topic' ---------------------- const char *winhelp_topic; This member is used on Windows only, to provide online help. Although the Windows front end provides a separate binary for each puzzle, it has a single monolithic help file; so when a user selects `Help' from the menu, the program needs to open the help file and jump to the chapter describing that particular puzzle. Therefore, each chapter in `puzzles.but' is labelled with a _help topic_ name, similar to this: \cfg{winhelp-topic}{games.net} And then the corresponding game back end encodes the topic string (here `games.net') in the `winhelp_topic' element of the game structure. 2.3. Handling game parameter sets --------------------------------- In this section I present the various functions which handle the `game_params' structure. 2.3.1. default_params() ----------------------- game_params *(*default_params)(void); This function allocates a new `game_params' structure, fills it with the default values, and returns a pointer to it. 2.3.2. fetch_preset() --------------------- int (*fetch_preset)(int i, char **name, game_params **params); This function is used to populate the `Type' menu, which provides a list of conveniently accessible preset parameters for most games. The function is called with `i' equal to the index of the preset required (numbering from zero). It returns FALSE if that preset does not exist (if `i' is less than zero or greater than the largest preset index). Otherwise, it sets `*params' to point at a newly allocated `game_params' structure containing the preset information, sets `*name' to point at a newly allocated C string containing the preset title (to go on the `Type' menu), and returns TRUE. If the game does not wish to support any presets at all, this function is permitted to return FALSE always. 2.3.3. encode_params() ---------------------- char *(*encode_params)(game_params *params, int full); The job of this function is to take a `game_params', and encode it in a string form for use in game IDs. The return value must be a newly allocated C string, and _must_ not contain a colon or a hash (since those characters are used to mark the end of the parameter section in a game ID). Ideally, it should also not contain any other potentially controversial punctuation; bear in mind when designing a string parameter format that it will probably be used on both Windows and Unix command lines under a variety of exciting shell quoting and metacharacter rules. Sticking entirely to alphanumerics is the safest thing; if you really need punctuation, you can probably get away with commas, periods or underscores without causing anybody any major inconvenience. If you venture far beyond that, you're likely to irritate _somebody_. (At the time of writing this, all existing games have purely alphanumeric string parameter formats. Usually these involve a letter denoting a parameter, followed optionally by a number giving the value of that parameter, with a few mandatory parts at the beginning such as numeric width and height separated by `x'.) If the `full' parameter is TRUE, this function should encode absolutely everything in the `game_params', such that a subsequent call to decode_params() (section 2.3.4) will yield an identical structure. If `full' is FALSE, however, you should leave out anything which is not necessary to describe a _specific puzzle instance_, i.e. anything which only takes effect when a new puzzle is _generated_. For example, the Solo `game_params' includes a difficulty rating used when constructing new puzzles; but a Solo game ID need not explicitly include the difficulty, since to describe a puzzle once generated it's sufficient to give the grid dimensions and the location and contents of the clue squares. (Indeed, one might very easily type in a puzzle out of a newspaper without _knowing_ what its difficulty level is in Solo's terminology.) Therefore, Solo's encode_params() only encodes the difficulty level if `full' is set. 2.3.4. decode_params() ---------------------- void (*decode_params)(game_params *params, char const *string); This function is the inverse of encode_params() (section 2.3.3). It parses the supplied string and fills in the supplied `game_params' structure. Note that the structure will _already_ have been allocated: this function is not expected to create a _new_ `game_params', but to modify an existing one. This function can receive a string which only encodes a subset of the parameters. The most obvious way in which this can happen is if the string was constructed by encode_params() with its `full' parameter set to FALSE; however, it could also happen if the user typed in a parameter set manually and missed something out. Be prepared to deal with a wide range of possibilities. When dealing with a parameter which is not specified in the input string, what to do requires a judgment call on the part of the programmer. Sometimes it makes sense to adjust other parameters to bring them into line with the new ones. In Mines, for example, you would probably not want to keep the same mine count if the user dropped the grid size and didn't specify one, since you might easily end up with more mines than would actually fit in the grid! On the other hand, sometimes it makes sense to leave the parameter alone: a Solo player might reasonably expect to be able to configure size and difficulty independently of one another. This function currently has no direct means of returning an error if the string cannot be parsed at all. However, the returned `game_params' is almost always subsequently passed to validate_params() (section 2.3.10), so if you really want to signal parse errors, you could always have a `char *' in your parameters structure which stored an error message, and have validate_params() return it if it is non-NULL. 2.3.5. free_params() -------------------- void (*free_params)(game_params *params); This function frees a `game_params' structure, and any subsidiary allocations contained within it. 2.3.6. dup_params() ------------------- game_params *(*dup_params)(game_params *params); This function allocates a new `game_params' structure and initialises it with an exact copy of the information in the one provided as input. It returns a pointer to the new duplicate. 2.3.7. `can_configure' ---------------------- int can_configure; This boolean data element is set to TRUE if the back end supports custom parameter configuration via a dialog box. If it is TRUE, then the functions configure() and custom_params() are expected to work. See section 2.3.8 and section 2.3.9 for more details. 2.3.8. configure() ------------------ config_item *(*configure)(game_params *params); This function is called when the user requests a dialog box for custom parameter configuration. It returns a newly allocated array of config_item structures, describing the GUI elements required in the dialog box. The array should have one more element than the number of controls, since it is terminated with a C_END marker (see below). Each array element describes the control together with its initial value; the front end will modify the value fields and return the updated array to custom_params() (see section 2.3.9). The config_item structure contains the following elements: char *name; int type; char *sval; int ival; `name' is an ASCII string giving the textual label for a GUI control. It is _not_ expected to be dynamically allocated. `type' contains one of a small number of `enum' values defining what type of control is being described. The meaning of the `sval' and `ival' fields depends on the value in `type'. The valid values are: `C_STRING' Describes a text input box. (This is also used for numeric input. The back end does not bother informing the front end that the box is numeric rather than textual; some front ends do have the capacity to take this into account, but I decided it wasn't worth the extra complexity in the interface.) For this type, `ival' is unused, and `sval' contains a dynamically allocated string representing the contents of the input box. `C_BOOLEAN' Describes a simple checkbox. For this type, `sval' is unused, and `ival' is TRUE or FALSE. `C_CHOICES' Describes a drop-down list presenting one of a small number of fixed choices. For this type, `sval' contains a list of strings describing the choices; the very first character of `sval' is used as a delimiter when processing the rest (so that the strings `:zero:one:two', `!zero!one!two' and `xzeroxonextwo' all define a three-element list containing `zero', `one' and `two'). `ival' contains the index of the currently selected element, numbering from zero (so that in the above example, 0 would mean `zero' and 2 would mean `two'). Note that for this control type, `sval' is _not_ dynamically allocated, whereas it was for `C_STRING'. `C_END' Marks the end of the array of `config_item's. All other fields are unused. The array returned from this function is expected to have filled in the initial values of all the controls according to the input `game_params' structure. If the game's `can_configure' flag is set to FALSE, this function is never called and need not do anything at all. 2.3.9. custom_params() ---------------------- game_params *(*custom_params)(config_item *cfg); This function is the counterpart to configure() (section 2.3.8). It receives as input an array of `config_item's which was originally created by configure(), but in which the control values have since been changed in accordance with user input. Its function is to read the new values out of the controls and return a newly allocated `game_params' structure representing the user's chosen parameter set. (The front end will have modified the controls' _values_, but there will still always be the same set of controls, in the same order, as provided by configure(). It is not necessary to check the `name' and `type' fields, although you could use assert() if you were feeling energetic.) This function is not expected to (and indeed _must not_) free the input `config_item' array. (If the parameters fail to validate, the dialog box will stay open.) If the game's `can_configure' flag is set to FALSE, this function is never called and need not do anything at all. 2.3.10. validate_params() ------------------------- char *(*validate_params)(game_params *params, int full); This function takes a `game_params' structure as input, and checks that the parameters described in it fall within sensible limits. (At the very least, grid dimensions should almost certainly be strictly positive, for example.) Return value is NULL if no problems were found, or alternatively a (non- dynamically-allocated) ASCII string describing the error in human- readable form. If the `full' parameter is set, full validation should be performed: any set of parameters which would not permit generation of a sensible puzzle should be faulted. If `full' is _not_ set, the implication is that these parameters are not going to be used for _generating_ a puzzle; so parameters which can't even sensibly _describe_ a valid puzzle should still be faulted, but parameters which only affect puzzle generation should not be. (The `full' option makes a difference when parameter combinations are non-orthogonal. For example, Net has a boolean option controlling whether it enforces a unique solution; it turns out that it's impossible to generate a uniquely soluble puzzle with wrapping walls and width 2, so validate_params() will complain if you ask for one. However, if the user had just been playing a unique wrapping puzzle of a more sensible width, and then pastes in a game ID acquired from somebody else which happens to describe a _non_-unique wrapping width-2 puzzle, then validate_params() will be passed a `game_params' containing the width and wrapping settings from the new game ID and the uniqueness setting from the old one. This would be faulted, if it weren't for the fact that `full' is not set during this call, so Net ignores the inconsistency. The resulting `game_params' is never subsequently used to generate a puzzle; this is a promise made by the mid-end when it asks for a non- full validation.) 2.4. Handling game descriptions ------------------------------- In this section I present the functions that deal with a textual description of a puzzle, i.e. the part that comes after the colon in a descriptive-format game ID. 2.4.1. new_desc() ----------------- char *(*new_desc)(game_params *params, random_state *rs, char **aux, int interactive); This function is where all the really hard work gets done. This is the function whose job is to randomly generate a new puzzle, ensuring solubility and uniqueness as appropriate. As input it is given a `game_params' structure and a random state (see section 5.1 for the random number API). It must invent a puzzle instance, encode it in string form, and return a dynamically allocated C string containing that encoding. Additionally, it may return a second dynamically allocated string in `*aux'. (If it doesn't want to, then it can leave that parameter completely alone; it isn't required to set it to NULL, although doing so is harmless.) That string, if present, will be passed to solve() (section 2.7.4) later on; so if the puzzle is generated in such a way that a solution is known, then information about that solution can be saved in `*aux' for solve() to use. The `interactive' parameter should be ignored by almost all puzzles. Its purpose is to distinguish between generating a puzzle within a GUI context for immediate play, and generating a puzzle in a command-line context for saving to be played later. The only puzzle that currently uses this distinction (and, I fervently hope, the only one which will _ever_ need to use it) is Mines, which chooses a random first-click location when generating puzzles non-interactively, but which waits for the user to place the first click when interactive. If you think you have come up with another puzzle which needs to make use of this parameter, please think for at least ten minutes about whether there is _any_ alternative! Note that game description strings are not required to contain an encoding of parameters such as grid size; a game description is never separated from the `game_params' it was generated with, so any information contained in that structure need not be encoded again in the game description. 2.4.2. validate_desc() ---------------------- char *(*validate_desc)(game_params *params, char *desc); This function is given a game description, and its job is to validate that it describes a puzzle which makes sense. To some extent it's up to the user exactly how far they take the phrase `makes sense'; there are no particularly strict rules about how hard the user is permitted to shoot themself in the foot when typing in a bogus game description by hand. (For example, Rectangles will not verify that the sum of all the numbers in the grid equals the grid's area. So a user could enter a puzzle which was provably not soluble, and the program wouldn't complain; there just wouldn't happen to be any sequence of moves which solved it.) The one non-negotiable criterion is that any game description which makes it through validate_desc() _must not_ subsequently cause a crash or an assertion failure when fed to new_game() and thence to the rest of the back end. The return value is NULL on success, or a non-dynamically-allocated C string containing an error message. 2.4.3. new_game() ----------------- game_state *(*new_game)(midend *me, game_params *params, char *desc); This function takes a game description as input, together with its accompanying `game_params', and constructs a `game_state' describing the initial state of the puzzle. It returns a newly allocated `game_state' structure. Almost all puzzles should ignore the `me' parameter. It is required by Mines, which needs it for later passing to midend_supersede_game_desc() (see section 2.11.2) once the user has placed the first click. I fervently hope that no other puzzle will be awkward enough to require it, so everybody else should ignore it. As with the `interactive' parameter in new_desc() (section 2.4.1), if you think you have a reason to need this parameter, please try very hard to think of an alternative approach! 2.5. Handling game states ------------------------- This section describes the functions which create and destroy `game_state' structures. (Well, except new_game(), which is in section 2.4.3 instead of under here; but it deals with game descriptions _and_ game states and it had to go in one section or the other.) 2.5.1. dup_game() ----------------- game_state *(*dup_game)(game_state *state); This function allocates a new `game_state' structure and initialises it with an exact copy of the information in the one provided as input. It returns a pointer to the new duplicate. 2.5.2. free_game() ------------------ void (*free_game)(game_state *state); This function frees a `game_state' structure, and any subsidiary allocations contained within it. 2.6. Handling `game_ui' ----------------------- 2.6.1. new_ui() --------------- game_ui *(*new_ui)(game_state *state); This function allocates and returns a new `game_ui' structure for playing a particular puzzle. It is passed a pointer to the initial `game_state', in case it needs to refer to that when setting up the initial values for the new game. 2.6.2. free_ui() ---------------- void (*free_ui)(game_ui *ui); This function frees a `game_ui' structure, and any subsidiary allocations contained within it. 2.6.3. encode_ui() ------------------ char *(*encode_ui)(game_ui *ui); This function encodes any _important_ data in a `game_ui' structure in string form. It is only called when saving a half-finished game to a file. It should be used sparingly. Almost all data in a `game_ui' is not important enough to save. The location of the keyboard-controlled cursor, for example, can be reset to a default position on reloading the game without impacting the user experience. If the user should somehow manage to save a game while a mouse drag was in progress, then discarding that mouse drag would be an outright _feature_. A typical thing that _would_ be worth encoding in this function is the Mines death counter: it's in the `game_ui' rather than the `game_state' because it's too important to allow the user to revert it by using Undo, and therefore it's also too important to allow the user to revert it by saving and reloading. (Of course, the user could edit the save file by hand... But if the user is _that_ determined to cheat, they could just as easily modify the game's source.) 2.6.4. decode_ui() ------------------ void (*decode_ui)(game_ui *ui, char *encoding); This function parses a string previously output by encode_ui(), and writes the decoded data back into the provided `game_ui' structure. 2.6.5. changed_state() ---------------------- void (*changed_state)(game_ui *ui, game_state *oldstate, game_state *newstate); This function is called by the mid-end whenever the current game state changes, for any reason. Those reasons include: - a fresh move being made by interpret_move() and execute_move() - a solve operation being performed by solve() and execute_move() - the user moving back and forth along the undo list by means of the Undo and Redo operations - the user selecting Restart to go back to the initial game state. The job of changed_state() is to update the `game_ui' for consistency with the new game state, if any update is necessary. For example, Same Game stores data about the currently selected tile group in its `game_ui', and this data is intrinsically related to the game state it was derived from. So it's very likely to become invalid when the game state changes; thus, Same Game's changed_state() function clears the current selection whenever it is called. When anim_length() or flash_length() are called, you can be sure that there has been a previous call to changed_state(). So changed_state() can set up data in the `game_ui' which will be read by anim_length() and flash_length(), and those functions will not have to worry about being called without the data having been initialised. 2.7. Making moves ----------------- This section describes the functions which actually make moves in the game: that is, the functions which process user input and end up producing new `game_state's. 2.7.1. interpret_move() ----------------------- char *(*interpret_move)(game_state *state, game_ui *ui, game_drawstate *ds, int x, int y, int button); This function receives user input and processes it. Its input parameters are the current `game_state', the current `game_ui' and the current `game_drawstate', plus details of the input event. `button' is either an ASCII value or a special code (listed below) indicating an arrow or function key or a mouse event; when `button' is a mouse event, `x' and `y' contain the pixel coordinates of the mouse pointer relative to the top left of the puzzle's drawing area. interpret_move() may return in three different ways: - Returning NULL indicates that no action whatsoever occurred in response to the input event; the puzzle was not interested in it at all. - Returning the empty string ("") indicates that the input event has resulted in a change being made to the `game_ui' which will require a redraw of the game window, but that no actual _move_ was made (i.e. no new `game_state' needs to be created). - Returning anything else indicates that a move was made and that a new `game_state' must be created. However, instead of actually constructing a new `game_state' itself, this function is required to return a string description of the details of the move. This string will be passed to execute_move() (section 2.7.2) to actually create the new `game_state'. (Encoding moves as strings in this way means that the mid-end can keep the strings as well as the game states, and the strings can be written to disk when saving the game and fed to execute_move() again on reloading.) The return value from interpret_move() is expected to be dynamically allocated if and only if it is not either NULL _or_ the empty string. After this function is called, the back end is permitted to rely on some subsequent operations happening in sequence: - execute_move() will be called to convert this move description into a new `game_state' - changed_state() will be called with the new `game_state'. This means that if interpret_move() needs to do updates to the `game_ui' which are easier to perform by referring to the new `game_state', it can safely leave them to be done in changed_state() and not worry about them failing to happen. (Note, however, that execute_move() may _also_ be called in other circumstances. It is only interpret_move() which can rely on a subsequent call to changed_state().) The special key codes supported by this function are: LEFT_BUTTON, MIDDLE_BUTTON, RIGHT_BUTTON Indicate that one of the mouse buttons was pressed down. LEFT_DRAG, MIDDLE_DRAG, RIGHT_DRAG Indicate that the mouse was moved while one of the mouse buttons was still down. The mid-end guarantees that when one of these events is received, it will always have been preceded by a button-down event (and possibly other drag events) for the same mouse button, and no event involving another mouse button will have appeared in between. LEFT_RELEASE, MIDDLE_RELEASE, RIGHT_RELEASE Indicate that a mouse button was released. The mid-end guarantees that when one of these events is received, it will always have been preceded by a button-down event (and possibly some drag events) for the same mouse button, and no event involving another mouse button will have appeared in between. CURSOR_UP, CURSOR_DOWN, CURSOR_LEFT, CURSOR_RIGHT Indicate that an arrow key was pressed. CURSOR_SELECT On platforms which have a prominent `select' button alongside their cursor keys, indicates that that button was pressed. In addition, there are some modifiers which can be bitwise-ORed into the `button' parameter: MOD_CTRL, MOD_SHFT These indicate that the Control or Shift key was pressed alongside the key. They only apply to the cursor keys, not to mouse buttons or anything else. MOD_NUM_KEYPAD This applies to some ASCII values, and indicates that the key code was input via the numeric keypad rather than the main keyboard. Some puzzles may wish to treat this differently (for example, a puzzle might want to use the numeric keypad as an eight-way directional pad), whereas others might not (a game involving numeric input probably just wants to treat the numeric keypad as numbers). MOD_MASK This mask is the bitwise OR of all the available modifiers; you can bitwise-AND with ~MOD_MASK to strip all the modifiers off any input value. 2.7.2. execute_move() --------------------- game_state *(*execute_move)(game_state *state, char *move); This function takes an input `game_state' and a move string as output from interpret_move(). It returns a newly allocated `game_state' which contains the result of applying the specified move to the input game state. This function may return NULL if it cannot parse the move string (and this is definitely preferable to crashing or failing an assertion, since one way this can happen is if loading a corrupt save file). However, it must not return NULL for any move string that really was output from interpret_move(): this is punishable by assertion failure in the mid- end. 2.7.3. `can_solve' ------------------ int can_solve; This boolean field is set to TRUE if the game's solve() function does something. If it's set to FALSE, the game will not even offer the `Solve' menu option. 2.7.4. solve() -------------- char *(*solve)(game_state *orig, game_state *curr, char *aux, char **error); This function is called when the user selects the `Solve' option from the menu. It is passed two input game states: `orig' is the game state from the very start of the puzzle, and `curr' is the current one. (Different games find one or other or both of these convenient.) It is also passed the `aux' string saved by new_desc() (section 2.4.1), in case that encodes important information needed to provide the solution. If this function is unable to produce a solution (perhaps, for example, the game has no in-built solver so it can only solve puzzles it invented internally and has an `aux' string for) then it may return NULL. If it does this, it must also set `*error' to an error message to be presented to the user (such as `Solution not known for this puzzle'); that error message is not expected to be dynamically allocated. If this function _does_ produce a solution, it returns a move string suitable for feeding to execute_move() (section 2.7.2). 2.8. Drawing the game graphics ------------------------------ This section discusses the back end functions that deal with drawing. 2.8.1. new_drawstate() ---------------------- game_drawstate *(*new_drawstate)(drawing *dr, game_state *state); This function allocates and returns a new `game_drawstate' structure for drawing a particular puzzle. It is passed a pointer to a `game_state', in case it needs to refer to that when setting up any initial data. This function may not rely on the puzzle having been newly started; a new draw state can be constructed at any time if the front end requests a forced redraw. For games like Pattern, in which initial game states are much simpler than general ones, this might be important to keep in mind. The parameter `dr' is a drawing object (see chapter 3) which the function might need to use to allocate blitters. (However, this isn't recommended; it's usually more sensible to wait to allocate a blitter until set_size() is called, because that way you can tailor it to the scale at which the puzzle is being drawn.) 2.8.2. free_drawstate() ----------------------- void (*free_drawstate)(drawing *dr, game_drawstate *ds); This function frees a `game_drawstate' structure, and any subsidiary allocations contained within it. The parameter `dr' is a drawing object (see chapter 3), which might be required if you are freeing a blitter. 2.8.3. `preferred_tilesize' --------------------------- int preferred_tilesize; Each game is required to define a single integer parameter which expresses, in some sense, the scale at which it is drawn. This is described in the APIs as `tilesize', since most puzzles are on a square (or possibly triangular or hexagonal) grid and hence a sensible interpretation of this parameter is to define it as the size of one grid tile in pixels; however, there's no actual requirement that the `tile size' be proportional to the game window size. Window size is required to increase monotonically with `tile size', however. The data element `preferred_tilesize' indicates the tile size which should be used in the absence of a good reason to do otherwise (such as the screen being too small, or the user explicitly requesting a resize if that ever gets implemented). 2.8.4. compute_size() --------------------- void (*compute_size)(game_params *params, int tilesize, int *x, int *y); This function is passed a `game_params' structure and a tile size. It returns, in `*x' and `*y', the size in pixels of the drawing area that would be required to render a puzzle with those parameters at that tile size. 2.8.5. set_size() ----------------- void (*set_size)(drawing *dr, game_drawstate *ds, game_params *params, int tilesize); This function is responsible for setting up a `game_drawstate' to draw at a given tile size. Typically this will simply involve copying the supplied `tilesize' parameter into a `tilesize' field inside the draw state; for some more complex games it might also involve setting up other dimension fields, or possibly allocating a blitter (see section 3.1.11). The parameter `dr' is a drawing object (see chapter 3), which is required if a blitter needs to be allocated. Back ends may assume (and may enforce by assertion) that this function will be called at most once for any `game_drawstate'. If a puzzle needs to be redrawn at a different size, the mid-end will create a fresh drawstate. 2.8.6. colours() ---------------- float *(*colours)(frontend *fe, int *ncolours); This function is responsible for telling the front end what colours the puzzle will need to draw itself. It returns the number of colours required in `*ncolours', and the return value from the function itself is a dynamically allocated array of three times that many `float's, containing the red, green and blue components of each colour respectively as numbers in the range [0,1]. The second parameter passed to this function is a front end handle. The only things it is permitted to do with this handle are to call the front-end function called frontend_default_colour() (see section 4.30) or the utility function called game_mkhighlight() (see section 5.4.7). (The latter is a wrapper on the former, so front end implementors only need to provide frontend_default_colour().) This allows colours() to take local configuration into account when deciding on its own colour allocations. Most games use the front end's default colour as their background, apart from a few which depend on drawing relief highlights so they adjust the background colour if it's too light for highlights to show up against it. Note that the colours returned from this function are for _drawing_, not for printing. Printing has an entirely different colour allocation policy. 2.8.7. anim_length() -------------------- float (*anim_length)(game_state *oldstate, game_state *newstate, int dir, game_ui *ui); This function is called when a move is made, undone or redone. It is given the old and the new `game_state', and its job is to decide whether the transition between the two needs to be animated or can be instant. `oldstate' is the state that was current until this call; `newstate' is the state that will be current after it. `dir' specifies the chronological order of those states: if it is positive, then the transition is the result of a move or a redo (and so `newstate' is the later of the two moves), whereas if it is negative then the transition is the result of an undo (so that `newstate' is the _earlier_ move). If this function decides the transition should be animated, it returns the desired length of the animation in seconds. If not, it returns zero. State changes as a result of a Restart operation are never animated; the mid-end will handle them internally and never consult this function at all. State changes as a result of Solve operations are also not animated by default, although you can change this for a particular game by setting a flag in `flags' (section 2.10.6). The function is also passed a pointer to the local `game_ui'. It may refer to information in here to help with its decision (see section 6.3.7 for an example of this), and/or it may _write_ information about the nature of the animation which will be read later by redraw(). When this function is called, it may rely on changed_state() having been called previously, so if anim_length() needs to refer to information in the `game_ui', then changed_state() is a reliable place to have set that information up. Move animations do not inhibit further input events. If the user continues playing before a move animation is complete, the animation will be abandoned and the display will jump straight to the final state. 2.8.8. flash_length() --------------------- float (*flash_length)(game_state *oldstate, game_state *newstate, int dir, game_ui *ui); This function is called when a move is completed. (`Completed' means that not only has the move been made, but any animation which accompanied it has finished.) It decides whether the transition from `oldstate' to `newstate' merits a `flash'. A flash is much like a move animation, but it is _not_ interrupted by further user interface activity; it runs to completion in parallel with whatever else might be going on on the display. The only thing which will rush a flash to completion is another flash. The purpose of flashes is to indicate that the game has been completed. They were introduced as a separate concept from move animations because of Net: the habit of most Net players (and certainly me) is to rotate a tile into place and immediately lock it, then move on to another tile. When you make your last move, at the instant the final tile is rotated into place the screen starts to flash to indicate victory - but if you then press the lock button out of habit, then the move animation is cancelled, and the victory flash does not complete. (And if you _don't_ press the lock button, the completed grid will look untidy because there will be one unlocked square.) Therefore, I introduced a specific concept of a `flash' which is separate from a move animation and can proceed in parallel with move animations and any other display activity, so that the victory flash in Net is not cancelled by that final locking move. The input parameters to flash_length() are exactly the same as the ones to anim_length(). Just like anim_length(), when this function is called, it may rely on changed_state() having been called previously, so if it needs to refer to information in the `game_ui' then changed_state() is a reliable place to have set that information up. (Some games use flashes to indicate defeat as well as victory; Mines, for example, flashes in a different colour when you tread on a mine from the colour it uses when you complete the game. In order to achieve this, its flash_length() function has to store a flag in the `game_ui' to indicate which flash type is required.) 2.8.9. redraw() --------------- void (*redraw)(drawing *dr, game_drawstate *ds, game_state *oldstate, game_state *newstate, int dir, game_ui *ui, float anim_time, float flash_time); This function is responsible for actually drawing the contents of the game window, and for redrawing every time the game state or the `game_ui' changes. The parameter `dr' is a drawing object which may be passed to the drawing API functions (see chapter 3 for documentation of the drawing API). This function may not save `dr' and use it elsewhere; it must only use it for calling back to the drawing API functions within its own lifetime. `ds' is the local `game_drawstate', of course, and `ui' is the local `game_ui'. `newstate' is the semantically-current game state, and is always non- NULL. If `oldstate' is also non-NULL, it means that a move has recently been made and the game is still in the process of displaying an animation linking the old and new states; in this situation, `anim_time' will give the length of time (in seconds) that the animation has already been running. If `oldstate' is NULL, then `anim_time' is unused (and will hopefully be set to zero to avoid confusion). `flash_time', if it is is non-zero, denotes that the game is in the middle of a flash, and gives the time since the start of the flash. See section 2.8.8 for general discussion of flashes. The very first time this function is called for a new `game_drawstate', it is expected to redraw the _entire_ drawing area. Since this often involves drawing visual furniture which is never subsequently altered, it is often simplest to arrange this by having a special `first time' flag in the draw state, and resetting it after the first redraw. When this function (or any subfunction) calls the drawing API, it is expected to pass colour indices which were previously defined by the colours() function. 2.9. Printing functions ----------------------- This section discusses the back end functions that deal with printing puzzles out on paper. 2.9.1. `can_print' ------------------ int can_print; This flag is set to TRUE if the puzzle is capable of printing itself on paper. (This makes sense for some puzzles, such as Solo, which can be filled in with a pencil. Other puzzles, such as Twiddle, inherently involve moving things around and so would not make sense to print.) If this flag is FALSE, then the functions print_size() and print() will never be called. 2.9.2. `can_print_in_colour' ---------------------------- int can_print_in_colour; This flag is set to TRUE if the puzzle is capable of printing itself differently when colour is available. For example, Map can actually print coloured regions in different _colours_ rather than resorting to cross-hatching. If the `can_print' flag is FALSE, then this flag will be ignored. 2.9.3. print_size() ------------------- void (*print_size)(game_params *params, float *x, float *y); This function is passed a `game_params' structure and a tile size. It returns, in `*x' and `*y', the preferred size in _millimetres_ of that puzzle if it were to be printed out on paper. If the `can_print' flag is FALSE, this function will never be called. 2.9.4. print() -------------- void (*print)(drawing *dr, game_state *state, int tilesize); This function is called when a puzzle is to be printed out on paper. It should use the drawing API functions (see chapter 3) to print itself. This function is separate from redraw() because it is often very different: - The printing function may not depend on pixel accuracy, since printer resolution is variable. Draw as if your canvas had infinite resolution. - The printing function sometimes needs to display things in a completely different style. Net, for example, is very different as an on-screen puzzle and as a printed one. - The printing function is often much simpler since it has no need to deal with repeated partial redraws. However, there's no reason the printing and redraw functions can't share some code if they want to. When this function (or any subfunction) calls the drawing API, the colour indices it passes should be colours which have been allocated by the print_*_colour() functions within this execution of print(). This is very different from the fixed small number of colours used in redraw(), because printers do not have a limitation on the total number of colours that may be used. Some puzzles' printing functions might wish to allocate only one `ink' colour and use it for all drawing; others might wish to allocate _more_ colours than are used on screen. One possible colour policy worth mentioning specifically is that a puzzle's printing function might want to allocate the _same_ colour indices as are used by the redraw function, so that code shared between drawing and printing does not have to keep switching its colour indices. In order to do this, the simplest thing is to make use of the fact that colour indices returned from print_*_colour() are guaranteed to be in increasing order from zero. So if you have declared an `enum' defining three colours COL_BACKGROUND, COL_THIS and COL_THAT, you might then write int c; c = print_mono_colour(dr, 1); assert(c == COL_BACKGROUND); c = print_mono_colour(dr, 0); assert(c == COL_THIS); c = print_mono_colour(dr, 0); assert(c == COL_THAT); If the `can_print' flag is FALSE, this function will never be called. 2.10. Miscellaneous ------------------- 2.10.1. `can_format_as_text' ---------------------------- int can_format_as_text; This boolean field is TRUE if the game supports formatting a game state as ASCII text (typically ASCII art) for copying to the clipboard and pasting into other applications. If it is FALSE, front ends will not offer the `Copy' command at all. If this field is FALSE, the function text_format() (section 2.10.2) is not expected to do anything at all. 2.10.2. text_format() --------------------- char *(*text_format)(game_state *state); This function is passed a `game_state', and returns a newly allocated C string containing an ASCII representation of that game state. It is used to implement the `Copy' operation in many front ends. This function should only be called if the back end field `can_format_as_text' (section 2.10.1) is TRUE. The returned string may contain line endings (and will probably want to), using the normal C internal `\n' convention. For consistency between puzzles, all multi-line textual puzzle representations should _end_ with a newline as well as containing them internally. (There are currently no puzzles which have a one-line ASCII representation, so there's no precedent yet for whether that should come with a newline or not.) 2.10.3. wants_statusbar() ------------------------- int wants_statusbar; This boolean field is set to TRUE if the puzzle has a use for a textual status line (to display score, completion status, currently active tiles, etc). 2.10.4. `is_timed' ------------------ int is_timed; This boolean field is TRUE if the puzzle is time-critical. If so, the mid-end will maintain a game timer while the user plays. If this field is FALSE, then timing_state() will never be called and need not do anything. 2.10.5. timing_state() ---------------------- int (*timing_state)(game_state *state, game_ui *ui); This function is passed the current `game_state' and the local `game_ui'; it returns TRUE if the game timer should currently be running. A typical use for the `game_ui' in this function is to note when the game was first completed (by setting a flag in changed_state() - see section 2.6.5), and freeze the timer thereafter so that the user can undo back through their solution process without altering their time. 2.10.6. `flags' --------------- int flags; This field contains miscellaneous per-backend flags. It consists of the bitwise OR of some combination of the following: BUTTON_BEATS(x,y) Given any x and y from the set {LEFT_BUTTON, MIDDLE_BUTTON, RIGHT_BUTTON}, this macro evaluates to a bit flag which indicates that when buttons x and y are both pressed simultaneously, the mid- end should consider x to have priority. (In the absence of any such flags, the mid-end will always consider the most recently pressed button to have priority.) SOLVE_ANIMATES This flag indicates that moves generated by solve() (section 2.7.4) are candidates for animation just like any other move. For most games, solve moves should not be animated, so the mid-end doesn't even bother calling anim_length() (section 2.8.7), thus saving some special-case code in each game. On the rare occasion that animated solve moves are actually required, you can set this flag. 2.11. Things a back end may do on its own initiative ---------------------------------------------------- This section describes a couple of things that a back end may choose to do by calling functions elsewhere in the program, which would not otherwise be obvious. 2.11.1. Create a random state ----------------------------- If a back end needs random numbers at some point during normal play, it can create a fresh `random_state' by first calling `get_random_seed' (section 4.26) and then passing the returned seed data to random_new(). This is likely not to be what you want. If a puzzle needs randomness in the middle of play, it's likely to be more sensible to store some sort of random state within the `game_state', so that the random numbers are tied to the particular game state and hence the player can't simply keep undoing their move until they get numbers they like better. This facility is currently used only in Net, to implement the `jumble' command, which sets every unlocked tile to a new random orientation. This randomness _is_ a reasonable use of the feature, because it's non- adversarial - there's no advantage to the user in getting different random numbers. 2.11.2. Supersede its own game description ------------------------------------------ In response to a move, a back end is (reluctantly) permitted to call midend_supersede_game_desc(): void midend_supersede_game_desc(midend *me, char *desc, char *privdesc); When the user selects `New Game', the mid-end calls new_desc() (section 2.4.1) to get a new game description, and (as well as using that to generate an initial game state) stores it for the save file and for telling to the user. The function above overwrites that game description, and also splits it in two. `desc' becomes the new game description which is provided to the user on request, and is also the one used to construct a new initial game state if the user selects `Restart'. `privdesc' is a `private' game description, used to reconstruct the game's initial state when reloading. The distinction between the two, as well as the need for this function at all, comes from Mines. Mines begins with a blank grid and no idea of where the mines actually are; new_desc() does almost no work in interactive mode, and simply returns a string encoding the `random_state'. When the user first clicks to open a tile, _then_ Mines generates the mine positions, in such a way that the game is soluble from that starting point. Then it uses this function to supersede the random-state game description with a proper one. But it needs two: one containing the initial click location (because that's what you want to happen if you restart the game, and also what you want to send to a friend so that they play _the same game_ as you), and one without the initial click location (because when you save and reload the game, you expect to see the same blank initial state as you had before saving). I should stress again that this function is a horrid hack. Nobody should use it if they're not Mines; if you think you need to use it, think again repeatedly in the hope of finding a better way to do whatever it was you needed to do. 3. The drawing API ------------------ The back end function redraw() (section 2.8.9) is required to draw the puzzle's graphics on the window's drawing area, or on paper if the puzzle is printable. To do this portably, it is provided with a drawing API allowing it to talk directly to the front end. In this chapter I document that API, both for the benefit of back end authors trying to use it and for front end authors trying to implement it. The drawing API as seen by the back end is a collection of global functions, each of which takes a pointer to a `drawing' structure (a `drawing object'). These objects are supplied as parameters to the back end's redraw() and print() functions. In fact these global functions are not implemented directly by the front end; instead, they are implemented centrally in `drawing.c' and form a small piece of middleware. The drawing API as supplied by the front end is a structure containing a set of function pointers, plus a `void *' handle which is passed to each of those functions. This enables a single front end to switch between multiple implementations of the drawing API if necessary. For example, the Windows API supplies a printing mechanism integrated into the same GDI which deals with drawing in windows, and therefore the same API implementation can handle both drawing and printing; but on Unix, the most common way for applications to print is by producing PostScript output directly, and although it would be _possible_ to write a single (say) draw_rect() function which checked a global flag to decide whether to do GTK drawing operations or output PostScript to a file, it's much nicer to have two separate functions and switch between them as appropriate. When drawing, the puzzle window is indexed by pixel coordinates, with the top left pixel defined as (0,0) and the bottom right pixel (w-1,h- 1), where `w' and `h' are the width and height values returned by the back end function compute_size() (section 2.8.4). When printing, the puzzle's print area is indexed in exactly the same way (with an arbitrary tile size provided by the printing module `printing.c'), to facilitate sharing of code between the drawing and printing routines. However, when printing, puzzles may no longer assume that the coordinate unit has any relationship to a pixel; the printer's actual resolution might very well not even be known at print time, so the coordinate unit might be smaller or larger than a pixel. Puzzles' print functions should restrict themselves to drawing geometric shapes rather than fiddly pixel manipulation. _Puzzles' redraw functions may assume that the surface they draw on is persistent_. It is the responsibility of every front end to preserve the puzzle's window contents in the face of GUI window expose issues and similar. It is not permissible to request that the back end redraw any part of a window that it has already drawn, unless something has actually changed as a result of making moves in the puzzle. Most front ends accomplish this by having the drawing routines draw on a stored bitmap rather than directly on the window, and copying the bitmap to the window every time a part of the window needs to be redrawn. Therefore, it is vitally important that whenever the back end does any drawing it informs the front end of which parts of the window it has accessed, and hence which parts need repainting. This is done by calling draw_update() (section 3.1.9). In the following sections I first discuss the drawing API as seen by the back end, and then the _almost_ identical function-pointer form seen by the front end. 3.1. Drawing API as seen by the back end ---------------------------------------- This section documents the back-end drawing API, in the form of functions which take a `drawing' object as an argument. 3.1.1. draw_rect() ------------------ void draw_rect(drawing *dr, int x, int y, int w, int h, int colour); Draws a filled rectangle in the puzzle window. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of the top left pixel of the rectangle. `w' and `h' give its width and height. Thus, the horizontal extent of the rectangle runs from `x' to `x+w-1' inclusive, and the vertical extent from `y' to `y+h-1' inclusive. `colour' is an integer index into the colours array returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). There is no separate pixel-plotting function. If you want to plot a single pixel, the approved method is to use draw_rect() with width and height set to 1. Unlike many of the other drawing functions, this function is guaranteed to be pixel-perfect: the rectangle will be sharply defined and not anti- aliased or anything like that. This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.2. draw_rect_outline() -------------------------- void draw_rect_outline(drawing *dr, int x, int y, int w, int h, int colour); Draws an outline rectangle in the puzzle window. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of the top left pixel of the rectangle. `w' and `h' give its width and height. Thus, the horizontal extent of the rectangle runs from `x' to `x+w-1' inclusive, and the vertical extent from `y' to `y+h-1' inclusive. `colour' is an integer index into the colours array returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). From a back end perspective, this function may be considered to be part of the drawing API. However, front ends are not required to implement it, since it is actually implemented centrally (in misc.c) as a wrapper on draw_polygon(). This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.3. draw_line() ------------------ void draw_line(drawing *dr, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, int colour); Draws a straight line in the puzzle window. `x1' and `y1' give the coordinates of one end of the line. `x2' and `y2' give the coordinates of the other end. The line drawn includes both those points. `colour' is an integer index into the colours array returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). Some platforms may perform anti-aliasing on this function. Therefore, do not assume that you can erase a line by drawing the same line over it in the background colour; anti-aliasing might lead to perceptible ghost artefacts around the vanished line. This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.4. draw_polygon() --------------------- void draw_polygon(drawing *dr, int *coords, int npoints, int fillcolour, int outlinecolour); Draws an outlined or filled polygon in the puzzle window. `coords' is an array of (2*npoints) integers, containing the `x' and `y' coordinates of `npoints' vertices. `fillcolour' and `outlinecolour' are integer indices into the colours array returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). `fillcolour' may also be -1 to indicate that the polygon should be outlined only. The polygon defined by the specified list of vertices is first filled in `fillcolour', if specified, and then outlined in `outlinecolour'. `outlinecolour' may _not_ be -1; it must be a valid colour (and front ends are permitted to enforce this by assertion). This is because different platforms disagree on whether a filled polygon should include its boundary line or not, so drawing _only_ a filled polygon would have non-portable effects. If you want your filled polygon not to have a visible outline, you must set `outlinecolour' to the same as `fillcolour'. Some platforms may perform anti-aliasing on this function. Therefore, do not assume that you can erase a polygon by drawing the same polygon over it in the background colour. Also, be prepared for the polygon to extend a pixel beyond its obvious bounding box as a result of this; if you really need it not to do this to avoid interfering with other delicate graphics, you should probably use clip() (section 3.1.7). This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.5. draw_circle() -------------------- void draw_circle(drawing *dr, int cx, int cy, int radius, int fillcolour, int outlinecolour); Draws an outlined or filled circle in the puzzle window. `cx' and `cy' give the coordinates of the centre of the circle. `radius' gives its radius. The total horizontal pixel extent of the circle is from `cx-radius+1' to `cx+radius-1' inclusive, and the vertical extent similarly around `cy'. `fillcolour' and `outlinecolour' are integer indices into the colours array returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). `fillcolour' may also be -1 to indicate that the circle should be outlined only. The circle is first filled in `fillcolour', if specified, and then outlined in `outlinecolour'. `outlinecolour' may _not_ be -1; it must be a valid colour (and front ends are permitted to enforce this by assertion). This is because different platforms disagree on whether a filled circle should include its boundary line or not, so drawing _only_ a filled circle would have non-portable effects. If you want your filled circle not to have a visible outline, you must set `outlinecolour' to the same as `fillcolour'. Some platforms may perform anti-aliasing on this function. Therefore, do not assume that you can erase a circle by drawing the same circle over it in the background colour. Also, be prepared for the circle to extend a pixel beyond its obvious bounding box as a result of this; if you really need it not to do this to avoid interfering with other delicate graphics, you should probably use clip() (section 3.1.7). This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.6. draw_text() ------------------ void draw_text(drawing *dr, int x, int y, int fonttype, int fontsize, int align, int colour, char *text); Draws text in the puzzle window. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of a point. The relation of this point to the location of the text is specified by `align', which is a bitwise OR of horizontal and vertical alignment flags: ALIGN_VNORMAL Indicates that `y' is aligned with the baseline of the text. ALIGN_VCENTRE Indicates that `y' is aligned with the vertical centre of the text. (In fact, it's aligned with the vertical centre of normal _capitalised_ text: displaying two pieces of text with ALIGN_VCENTRE at the same y-coordinate will cause their baselines to be aligned with one another, even if one is an ascender and the other a descender.) ALIGN_HLEFT Indicates that `x' is aligned with the left-hand end of the text. ALIGN_HCENTRE Indicates that `x' is aligned with the horizontal centre of the text. ALIGN_HRIGHT Indicates that `x' is aligned with the right-hand end of the text. `fonttype' is either FONT_FIXED or FONT_VARIABLE, for a monospaced or proportional font respectively. (No more detail than that may be specified; it would only lead to portability issues between different platforms.) `fontsize' is the desired size, in pixels, of the text. This size corresponds to the overall point size of the text, not to any internal dimension such as the cap-height. `colour' is an integer index into the colours array returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.7. clip() ------------- void clip(drawing *dr, int x, int y, int w, int h); Establishes a clipping rectangle in the puzzle window. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of the top left pixel of the clipping rectangle. `w' and `h' give its width and height. Thus, the horizontal extent of the rectangle runs from `x' to `x+w-1' inclusive, and the vertical extent from `y' to `y+h-1' inclusive. (These are exactly the same semantics as draw_rect().) After this call, no drawing operation will affect anything outside the specified rectangle. The effect can be reversed by calling unclip() (section 3.1.8). Back ends should not assume that a clipping rectangle will be automatically cleared up by the front end if it's left lying around; that might work on current front ends, but shouldn't be relied upon. Always explicitly call unclip(). This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.8. unclip() --------------- void unclip(drawing *dr); Reverts the effect of a previous call to clip(). After this call, all drawing operations will be able to affect the entire puzzle window again. This function may be used for both drawing and printing. 3.1.9. draw_update() -------------------- void draw_update(drawing *dr, int x, int y, int w, int h); Informs the front end that a rectangular portion of the puzzle window has been drawn on and needs to be updated. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of the top left pixel of the update rectangle. `w' and `h' give its width and height. Thus, the horizontal extent of the rectangle runs from `x' to `x+w-1' inclusive, and the vertical extent from `y' to `y+h-1' inclusive. (These are exactly the same semantics as draw_rect().) The back end redraw function _must_ call this function to report any changes it has made to the window. Otherwise, those changes may not become immediately visible, and may then appear at an unpredictable subsequent time such as the next time the window is covered and re- exposed. This function is only important when drawing. It may be called when printing as well, but doing so is not compulsory, and has no effect. (So if you have a shared piece of code between the drawing and printing routines, that code may safely call draw_update().) 3.1.10. status_bar() -------------------- void status_bar(drawing *dr, char *text); Sets the text in the game's status bar to `text'. The text is copied from the supplied buffer, so the caller is free to deallocate or modify the buffer after use. (This function is not exactly a _drawing_ function, but it shares with the drawing API the property that it may only be called from within the back end redraw function, so this is as good a place as any to document it.) The supplied text is filtered through the mid-end for optional rewriting before being passed on to the front end; the mid-end will prepend the current game time if the game is timed (and may in future perform other rewriting if it seems like a good idea). This function is for drawing only; it must never be called during printing. 3.1.11. Blitter functions ------------------------- This section describes a group of related functions which save and restore a section of the puzzle window. This is most commonly used to implement user interfaces involving dragging a puzzle element around the window: at the end of each call to redraw(), if an object is currently being dragged, the back end saves the window contents under that location and then draws the dragged object, and at the start of the next redraw() the first thing it does is to restore the background. The front end defines an opaque type called a `blitter', which is capable of storing a rectangular area of a specified size. Blitter functions are for drawing only; they must never be called during printing. 3.1.11.1. blitter_new() ----------------------- blitter *blitter_new(drawing *dr, int w, int h); Creates a new blitter object which stores a rectangle of size `w' by `h' pixels. Returns a pointer to the blitter object. Blitter objects are best stored in the `game_drawstate'. A good time to create them is in the set_size() function (section 2.8.5), since it is at this point that you first know how big a rectangle they will need to save. 3.1.11.2. blitter_free() ------------------------ void blitter_free(drawing *dr, blitter *bl); Disposes of a blitter object. Best called in free_drawstate(). (However, check that the blitter object is not NULL before attempting to free it; it is possible that a draw state might be created and freed without ever having set_size() called on it in between.) 3.1.11.3. blitter_save() ------------------------ void blitter_save(drawing *dr, blitter *bl, int x, int y); This is a true drawing API function, in that it may only be called from within the game redraw routine. It saves a rectangular portion of the puzzle window into the specified blitter object. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of the top left corner of the saved rectangle. The rectangle's width and height are the ones specified when the blitter object was created. This function is required to cope and do the right thing if `x' and `y' are out of range. (The right thing probably means saving whatever part of the blitter rectangle overlaps with the visible area of the puzzle window.) 3.1.11.4. blitter_load() ------------------------ void blitter_load(drawing *dr, blitter *bl, int x, int y); This is a true drawing API function, in that it may only be called from within the game redraw routine. It restores a rectangular portion of the puzzle window from the specified blitter object. `x' and `y' give the coordinates of the top left corner of the rectangle to be restored. The rectangle's width and height are the ones specified when the blitter object was created. Alternatively, you can specify both `x' and `y' as the special value BLITTER_FROMSAVED, in which case the rectangle will be restored to exactly where it was saved from. (This is probably what you want to do almost all the time, if you're using blitters to implement draggable puzzle elements.) This function is required to cope and do the right thing if `x' and `y' (or the equivalent ones saved in the blitter) are out of range. (The right thing probably means restoring whatever part of the blitter rectangle overlaps with the visible area of the puzzle window.) If this function is called on a blitter which had previously been saved from a partially out-of-range rectangle, then the parts of the saved bitmap which were not visible at save time are undefined. If the blitter is restored to a different position so as to make those parts visible, the effect on the drawing area is undefined. 3.1.12. print_mono_colour() --------------------------- int print_mono_colour(drawing *dr, int grey); This function allocates a colour index for a simple monochrome colour during printing. `grey' must be 0 or 1. If `grey' is 0, the colour returned is black; if `grey' is 1, the colour is white. 3.1.13. print_grey_colour() --------------------------- int print_grey_colour(drawing *dr, int hatch, float grey); This function allocates a colour index for a grey-scale colour during printing. `grey' may be any number between 0 (black) and 1 (white); for example, 0.5 indicates a medium grey. If printing in black and white only, the `grey' value will not be used; instead, regions shaded in this colour will be hatched with parallel lines. The `hatch' parameter defines what type of hatching should be used in place of this colour: HATCH_SOLID In black and white, this colour will be replaced by solid black. HATCH_CLEAR In black and white, this colour will be replaced by solid white. HATCH_SLASH This colour will be hatched by lines slanting to the right at 45 degrees. HATCH_BACKSLASH This colour will be hatched by lines slanting to the left at 45 degrees. HATCH_HORIZ This colour will be hatched by horizontal lines. HATCH_VERT This colour will be hatched by vertical lines. HATCH_PLUS This colour will be hatched by criss-crossing horizontal and vertical lines. HATCH_X This colour will be hatched by criss-crossing diagonal lines. Colours defined to use hatching may not be used for drawing lines; they may only be used for filling areas. That is, they may be used as the `fillcolour' parameter to draw_circle() and draw_polygon(), and as the colour parameter to draw_rect(), but may not be used as the `outlinecolour' parameter to draw_circle() or draw_polygon(), or with draw_line(). 3.1.14. print_rgb_colour() -------------------------- int print_rgb_colour(drawing *dr, int hatch, float r, float g, float b); This function allocates a colour index for a fully specified RGB colour during printing. `r', `g' and `b' may each be anywhere in the range from 0 to 1. If printing in black and white only, these values will not be used; instead, regions shaded in this colour will be hatched with parallel lines. The `hatch' parameter defines what type of hatching should be used in place of this colour; see section 3.1.13 for its definition. 3.1.15. print_line_width() -------------------------- void print_line_width(drawing *dr, int width); This function is called to set the thickness of lines drawn during printing. It is meaningless in drawing: all lines drawn by draw_line(), draw_circle and draw_polygon() are one pixel in thickness. However, in printing there is no clear definition of a pixel and so line widths must be explicitly specified. The line width is specified in the usual coordinate system. Note, however, that it is a hint only: the central printing system may choose to vary line thicknesses at user request or due to printer capabilities. 3.2. The drawing API as implemented by the front end ---------------------------------------------------- This section describes the drawing API in the function-pointer form in which it is implemented by a front end. (It isn't only platform-specific front ends which implement this API; the platform-independent module `ps.c' also provides an implementation of it which outputs PostScript. Thus, any platform which wants to do PS printing can do so with minimum fuss.) The following entries all describe function pointer fields in a structure called `drawing_api'. Each of the functions takes a `void *' context pointer, which it should internally cast back to a more useful type. Thus, a drawing _object_ (`drawing *)' suitable for passing to the back end redraw or printing functions is constructed by passing a `drawing_api' and a `void *' to the function drawing_new() (see section 3.3.1). 3.2.1. draw_text() ------------------ void (*draw_text)(void *handle, int x, int y, int fonttype, int fontsize, int align, int colour, char *text); This function behaves exactly like the back end draw_text() function; see section 3.1.6. 3.2.2. draw_rect() ------------------ void (*draw_rect)(void *handle, int x, int y, int w, int h, int colour); This function behaves exactly like the back end draw_rect() function; see section 3.1.1. 3.2.3. draw_line() ------------------ void (*draw_line)(void *handle, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, int colour); This function behaves exactly like the back end draw_line() function; see section 3.1.3. 3.2.4. draw_polygon() --------------------- void (*draw_polygon)(void *handle, int *coords, int npoints, int fillcolour, int outlinecolour); This function behaves exactly like the back end draw_polygon() function; see section 3.1.4. 3.2.5. draw_circle() -------------------- void (*draw_circle)(void *handle, int cx, int cy, int radius, int fillcolour, int outlinecolour); This function behaves exactly like the back end draw_circle() function; see section 3.1.5. 3.2.6. draw_update() -------------------- void (*draw_update)(void *handle, int x, int y, int w, int h); This function behaves exactly like the back end draw_update() function; see section 3.1.6. An implementation of this API which only supports printing is permitted to define this function pointer to be NULL rather than bothering to define an empty function. The middleware in drawing.c will notice and avoid calling it. 3.2.7. clip() ------------- void (*clip)(void *handle, int x, int y, int w, int h); This function behaves exactly like the back end clip() function; see section 3.1.7. 3.2.8. unclip() --------------- void (*unclip)(void *handle); This function behaves exactly like the back end unclip() function; see section 3.1.8. 3.2.9. start_draw() ------------------- void (*start_draw)(void *handle); This function is called at the start of drawing. It allows the front end to initialise any temporary data required to draw with, such as device contexts. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.10. end_draw() ------------------ void (*end_draw)(void *handle); This function is called at the end of drawing. It allows the front end to do cleanup tasks such as deallocating device contexts and scheduling appropriate GUI redraw events. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.11. status_bar() -------------------- void (*status_bar)(void *handle, char *text); This function behaves exactly like the back end status_bar() function; see section 3.1.10. Front ends implementing this function need not worry about it being called repeatedly with the same text; the middleware code in status_bar() will take care of this. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.12. blitter_new() --------------------- blitter *(*blitter_new)(void *handle, int w, int h); This function behaves exactly like the back end blitter_new() function; see section 3.1.11.1. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.13. blitter_free() ---------------------- void (*blitter_free)(void *handle, blitter *bl); This function behaves exactly like the back end blitter_free() function; see section 3.1.11.2. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.14. blitter_save() ---------------------- void (*blitter_save)(void *handle, blitter *bl, int x, int y); This function behaves exactly like the back end blitter_save() function; see section 3.1.11.3. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.15. blitter_load() ---------------------- void (*blitter_load)(void *handle, blitter *bl, int x, int y); This function behaves exactly like the back end blitter_load() function; see section 3.1.11.4. Implementations of this API which do not provide drawing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless drawing is attempted. 3.2.16. begin_doc() ------------------- void (*begin_doc)(void *handle, int pages); This function is called at the beginning of a printing run. It gives the front end an opportunity to initialise any required printing subsystem. It also provides the number of pages in advance. Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.2.17. begin_page() -------------------- void (*begin_page)(void *handle, int number); This function is called during printing, at the beginning of each page. It gives the page number (numbered from 1 rather than 0, so suitable for use in user-visible contexts). Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.2.18. begin_puzzle() ---------------------- void (*begin_puzzle)(void *handle, float xm, float xc, float ym, float yc, int pw, int ph, float wmm); This function is called during printing, just before printing a single puzzle on a page. It specifies the size and location of the puzzle on the page. `xm' and `xc' specify the horizontal position of the puzzle on the page, as a linear function of the page width. The front end is expected to multiply the page width by `xm', add `xc' (measured in millimetres), and use the resulting x-coordinate as the left edge of the puzzle. Similarly, `ym' and `yc' specify the vertical position of the puzzle as a function of the page height: the page height times `ym', plus `yc' millimetres, equals the desired distance from the top of the page to the top of the puzzle. (This unwieldy mechanism is required because not all printing systems can communicate the page size back to the software. The PostScript back end, for example, writes out PS which determines the page size at print time by means of calling `clippath', and centres the puzzles within that. Thus, exactly the same PS file works on A4 or on US Letter paper without needing local configuration, which simplifies matters.) pw and ph give the size of the puzzle in drawing API coordinates. The printing system will subsequently call the puzzle's own print function, which will in turn call drawing API functions in the expectation that an area pw by ph units is available to draw the puzzle on. Finally, wmm gives the desired width of the puzzle in millimetres. (The aspect ratio is expected to be preserved, so if the desired puzzle height is also needed then it can be computed as wmm*ph/pw.) Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.2.19. end_puzzle() -------------------- void (*end_puzzle)(void *handle); This function is called after the printing of a specific puzzle is complete. Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.2.20. end_page() ------------------ void (*end_page)(void *handle, int number); This function is called after the printing of a page is finished. Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.2.21. end_doc() ----------------- void (*end_doc)(void *handle); This function is called after the printing of the entire document is finished. This is the moment to close files, send things to the print spooler, or whatever the local convention is. Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.2.22. line_width() -------------------- void (*line_width)(void *handle, float width); This function is called to set the line thickness, during printing only. Note that the width is a float here, where it was an int as seen by the back end. This is because drawing.c may have scaled it on the way past. However, the width is still specified in the same coordinate system as the rest of the drawing. Implementations of this API which do not provide printing services may define this function pointer to be NULL; it will never be called unless printing is attempted. 3.3. The drawing API as called by the front end ----------------------------------------------- There are a small number of functions provided in drawing.c which the front end needs to _call_, rather than helping to implement. They are described in this section. 3.3.1. drawing_new() -------------------- drawing *drawing_new(const drawing_api *api, midend *me, void *handle); This function creates a drawing object. It is passed a `drawing_api', which is a structure containing nothing but function pointers; and also a `void *' handle. The handle is passed back to each function pointer when it is called. The `midend' parameter is used for rewriting the status bar contents: status_bar() (see section 3.1.10) has to call a function in the mid- end which might rewrite the status bar text. If the drawing object is to be used only for printing, or if the game is known not to call status_bar(), this parameter may be NULL. 3.3.2. drawing_free() --------------------- void drawing_free(drawing *dr); This function frees a drawing object. Note that the `void *' handle is not freed; if that needs cleaning up it must be done by the front end. 3.3.3. print_get_colour() ------------------------- void print_get_colour(drawing *dr, int colour, int *hatch, float *r, float *g, float *b) This function is called by the implementations of the drawing API functions when they are called in a printing context. It takes a colour index as input, and returns the description of the colour as requested by the back end. `*r', `*g' and `*b' are filled with the RGB values of the desired colour if printing in colour. `*hatch' is filled with the type of hatching (or not) desired if printing in black and white. See section 3.1.13 for details of the values this integer can take. 4. The API provided by the mid-end ---------------------------------- This chapter documents the API provided by the mid-end to be called by the front end. You probably only need to read this if you are a front end implementor, i.e. you are porting Puzzles to a new platform. If you're only interested in writing new puzzles, you can safely skip this chapter. All the persistent state in the mid-end is encapsulated within a `midend' structure, to facilitate having multiple mid-ends in any port which supports multiple puzzle windows open simultaneously. Each `midend' is intended to handle the contents of a single puzzle window. 4.1. midend_new() ----------------- midend *midend_new(frontend *fe, const game *ourgame, const drawing_api *drapi, void *drhandle) Allocates and returns a new mid-end structure. The `fe' argument is stored in the mid-end. It will be used when calling back to functions such as activate_timer() (section 4.27), and will be passed on to the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). The parameters `drapi' and `drhandle' are passed to drawing_new() (section 3.3.1) to construct a drawing object which will be passed to the back end function redraw() (section 2.8.9). Hence, all drawing- related function pointers defined in `drapi' can expect to be called with `drhandle' as their first argument. The `ourgame' argument points to a container structure describing a game back end. The mid-end thus created will only be capable of handling that one game. (So even in a monolithic front end containing all the games, this imposes the constraint that any individual puzzle window is tied to a single game. Unless, of course, you feel brave enough to change the mid-end for the window without closing the window...) 4.2. midend_free() ------------------ void midend_free(midend *me); Frees a mid-end structure and all its associated data. 4.3. midend_set_params() ------------------------ void midend_set_params(midend *me, game_params *params); Sets the current game parameters for a mid-end. Subsequent games generated by midend_new_game() (section 4.6) will use these parameters until further notice. The usual way in which the front end will have an actual `game_params' structure to pass to this function is if it had previously got it from midend_fetch_preset() (section 4.14). Thus, this function is usually called in response to the user making a selection from the presets menu. 4.4. midend_get_params() ------------------------ game_params *midend_get_params(midend *me); Returns the current game parameters stored in this mid-end. The returned value is dynamically allocated, and should be freed when finished with by passing it to the game's own free_params() function (see section 2.3.5). 4.5. midend_size() ------------------ void midend_size(midend *me, int *x, int *y, int expand); Tells the mid-end to figure out its window size. On input, `*x' and `*y' should contain the maximum or requested size for the window. (Typically this will be the size of the screen that the window has to fit on, or similar.) The mid-end will repeatedly call the back end function compute_size() (section 2.8.4), searching for a tile size that best satisfies the requirements. On exit, `*x' and `*y' will contain the size needed for the puzzle window's drawing area. (It is of course up to the front end to adjust this for any additional window furniture such as menu bars and window borders, if necessary. The status bar is also not included in this size.) If `expand' is set to FALSE, then the game's tile size will never go over its preferred one. This is the recommended approach when opening a new window at default size: the game will use its preferred size unless it has to use a smaller one to fit on the screen. If `expand' is set to TRUE, the mid-end will pick a tile size which approximates the input size _as closely as possible_, and will go over the game's preferred tile size if necessary to achieve this. Use this option if you want your front end to support dynamic resizing of the puzzle window with automatic scaling of the puzzle to fit. The mid-end will try as hard as it can to return a size which is less than or equal to the input size, in both dimensions. In extreme circumstances it may fail (if even the lowest possible tile size gives window dimensions greater than the input), in which case it will return a size greater than the input size. Front ends should be prepared for this to happen (i.e. don't crash or fail an assertion), but may handle it in any way they see fit: by rejecting the game parameters which caused the problem, by opening a window larger than the screen regardless of inconvenience, by introducing scroll bars on the window, by drawing on a large bitmap and scaling it into a smaller window, or by any other means you can think of. It is likely that when the tile size is that small the game will be unplayable anyway, so don't put _too_ much effort into handling it creatively. If your platform has no limit on window size (or if you're planning to use scroll bars for large puzzles), you can pass dimensions of INT_MAX as input to this function. You should probably not do that _and_ set the `expand' flag, though! 4.6. midend_new_game() ---------------------- void midend_new_game(midend *me); Causes the mid-end to begin a new game. Normally the game will be a new randomly generated puzzle. However, if you have previously called midend_game_id() or midend_set_config(), the game generated might be dictated by the results of those functions. (In particular, you _must_ call midend_new_game() after calling either of those functions, or else no immediate effect will be visible.) You will probably need to call midend_size() after calling this function, because if the game parameters have been changed since the last new game then the window size might need to change. (If you know the parameters _haven't_ changed, you don't need to do this.) This function will create a new `game_drawstate', but does not actually perform a redraw (since you often need to call midend_size() before the redraw can be done). So after calling this function and after calling midend_size(), you should then call midend_redraw(). (It is not necessary to call midend_force_redraw(); that will discard the draw state and create a fresh one, which is unnecessary in this case since there's a fresh one already. It would work, but it's usually excessive.) 4.7. midend_restart_game() -------------------------- void midend_restart_game(midend *me); This function causes the current game to be restarted. This is done by placing a new copy of the original game state on the end of the undo list (so that an accidental restart can be undone). This function automatically causes a redraw, i.e. the front end can expect its drawing API to be called from _within_ a call to this function. 4.8. midend_force_redraw() -------------------------- void midend_force_redraw(midend *me); Forces a complete redraw of the puzzle window, by means of discarding the current `game_drawstate' and creating a new one from scratch before calling the game's redraw() function. The front end can expect its drawing API to be called from within a call to this function. 4.9. midend_redraw() -------------------- void midend_redraw(midend *me); Causes a partial redraw of the puzzle window, by means of simply calling the game's redraw() function. (That is, the only things redrawn will be things that have changed since the last redraw.) The front end can expect its drawing API to be called from within a call to this function. 4.10. midend_process_key() -------------------------- int midend_process_key(midend *me, int x, int y, int button); The front end calls this function to report a mouse or keyboard event. The parameters `x', `y' and `button' are almost identical to the ones passed to the back end function interpret_move() (section 2.7.1), except that the front end is _not_ required to provide the guarantees about mouse event ordering. The mid-end will sort out multiple simultaneous button presses and changes of button; the front end's responsibility is simply to pass on the mouse events it receives as accurately as possible. (Some platforms may need to emulate absent mouse buttons by means of using a modifier key such as Shift with another mouse button. This tends to mean that if Shift is pressed or released in the middle of a mouse drag, the mid-end will suddenly stop receiving, say, LEFT_DRAG events and start receiving RIGHT_DRAGs, with no intervening button release or press events. This too is something which the mid-end will sort out for you; the front end has no obligation to maintain sanity in this area.) The front end _should_, however, always eventually send some kind of button release. On some platforms this requires special effort: Windows, for example, requires a call to the system API function SetCapture() in order to ensure that your window receives a mouse-up event even if the pointer has left the window by the time the mouse button is released. On any platform that requires this sort of thing, the front end _is_ responsible for doing it. Calling this function is very likely to result in calls back to the front end's drawing API and/or activate_timer() (section 4.27). 4.11. midend_colours() ---------------------- float *midend_colours(midend *me, int *ncolours); Returns an array of the colours required by the game, in exactly the same format as that returned by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). Front ends should call this function rather than calling the back end's version directly, since the mid-end adds standard customisation facilities. (At the time of writing, those customisation facilities are implemented hackily by means of environment variables, but it's not impossible that they may become more full and formal in future.) 4.12. midend_timer() -------------------- void midend_timer(midend *me, float tplus); If the mid-end has called activate_timer() (section 4.27) to request regular callbacks for purposes of animation or timing, this is the function the front end should call on a regular basis. The argument `tplus' gives the time, in seconds, since the last time either this function was called or activate_timer() was invoked. One of the major purposes of timing in the mid-end is to perform move animation. Therefore, calling this function is very likely to result in calls back to the front end's drawing API. 4.13. midend_num_presets() -------------------------- int midend_num_presets(midend *me); Returns the number of game parameter presets supplied by this game. Front ends should use this function and midend_fetch_preset() to configure their presets menu rather than calling the back end directly, since the mid-end adds standard customisation facilities. (At the time of writing, those customisation facilities are implemented hackily by means of environment variables, but it's not impossible that they may become more full and formal in future.) 4.14. midend_fetch_preset() --------------------------- void midend_fetch_preset(midend *me, int n, char **name, game_params **params); Returns one of the preset game parameter structures for the game. On input `n' must be a non-negative integer and less than the value returned from midend_num_presets(). On output, `*name' is set to an ASCII string suitable for entering in the game's presets menu, and `*params' is set to the corresponding `game_params' structure. Both of the two output values are dynamically allocated, but they are owned by the mid-end structure: the front end should not ever free them directly, because they will be freed automatically during midend_free(). 4.15. midend_wants_statusbar() ------------------------------ int midend_wants_statusbar(midend *me); This function returns TRUE if the puzzle has a use for a textual status line (to display score, completion status, currently active tiles, time, or anything else). Front ends should call this function rather than talking directly to the back end. 4.16. midend_get_config() ------------------------- config_item *midend_get_config(midend *me, int which, char **wintitle); Returns a dialog box description for user configuration. On input, which should be set to one of three values, which select which of the various dialog box descriptions is returned: CFG_SETTINGS Requests the GUI parameter configuration box generated by the puzzle itself. This should be used when the user selects `Custom' from the game types menu (or equivalent). The mid-end passes this request on to the back end function configure() (section 2.3.8). CFG_DESC Requests a box suitable for entering a descriptive game ID (and viewing the existing one). The mid-end generates this dialog box description itself. This should be used when the user selects `Specific' from the game menu (or equivalent). CFG_SEED Requests a box suitable for entering a random-seed game ID (and viewing the existing one). The mid-end generates this dialog box description itself. This should be used when the user selects `Random Seed' from the game menu (or equivalent). The returned value is an array of config_items, exactly as described in section 2.3.8. Another returned value is an ASCII string giving a suitable title for the configuration window, in `*wintitle'. Both returned values are dynamically allocated and will need to be freed. The window title can be freed in the obvious way; the config_item array is a slightly complex structure, so a utility function free_cfg() is provided to free it for you. See section 5.2.6. (Of course, you will probably not want to free the config_item array until the dialog box is dismissed, because before then you will probably need to pass it to midend_set_config.) 4.17. midend_set_config() ------------------------- char *midend_set_config(midend *me, int which, config_item *cfg); Passes the mid-end the results of a configuration dialog box. `which' should have the same value which it had when midend_get_config() was called; `cfg' should be the array of `config_item's returned from midend_get_config(), modified to contain the results of the user's editing operations. This function returns NULL on success, or otherwise (if the configuration data was in some way invalid) an ASCII string containing an error message suitable for showing to the user. If the function succeeds, it is likely that the game parameters will have been changed and it is certain that a new game will be requested. The front end should therefore call midend_new_game(), and probably also re-think the window size using midend_size() and eventually perform a refresh using midend_redraw(). 4.18. midend_game_id() ---------------------- char *midend_game_id(midend *me, char *id); Passes the mid-end a string game ID (of any of the valid forms `params', `params:description' or `params#seed') which the mid-end will process and use for the next generated game. This function returns NULL on success, or otherwise (if the configuration data was in some way invalid) an ASCII string containing an error message (not dynamically allocated) suitable for showing to the user. In the event of an error, the mid-end's internal state will be left exactly as it was before the call. If the function succeeds, it is likely that the game parameters will have been changed and it is certain that a new game will be requested. The front end should therefore call midend_new_game(), and probably also re-think the window size using midend_size() and eventually case a refresh using midend_redraw(). 4.19. midend_get_game_id() -------------------------- char *midend_get_game_id(midend *me) Returns a descriptive game ID (i.e. one in the form `params:description') describing the game currently active in the mid- end. The returned string is dynamically allocated. 4.20. midend_text_format() -------------------------- char *midend_text_format(midend *me); Formats the current game's current state as ASCII text suitable for copying to the clipboard. The returned string is dynamically allocated. You should not call this function if the game's `can_format_as_text' flag is FALSE. If the returned string contains multiple lines (which is likely), it will use the normal C line ending convention (\n only). On platforms which use a different line ending convention for data in the clipboard, it is the front end's responsibility to perform the conversion. 4.21. midend_solve() -------------------- char *midend_solve(midend *me); Requests the mid-end to perform a Solve operation. On success, NULL is returned. On failure, an error message (not dynamically allocated) is returned, suitable for showing to the user. The front end can expect its drawing API and/or activate_timer() to be called from within a call to this function. 4.22. midend_serialise() ------------------------ void midend_serialise(midend *me, void (*write)(void *ctx, void *buf, int len), void *wctx); Calling this function causes the mid-end to convert its entire internal state into a long ASCII text string, and to pass that string (piece by piece) to the supplied `write' function. Desktop implementations can use this function to save a game in any state (including half-finished) to a disk file, by supplying a `write' function which is a wrapper on fwrite() (or local equivalent). Other implementations may find other uses for it, such as compressing the large and sprawling mid-end state into a manageable amount of memory when a palmtop application is suspended so that another one can run; in this case write might want to write to a memory buffer rather than a file. There may be other uses for it as well. This function will call back to the supplied `write' function a number of times, with the first parameter (`ctx') equal to `wctx', and the other two parameters pointing at a piece of the output string. 4.23. midend_deserialise() -------------------------- char *midend_deserialise(midend *me, int (*read)(void *ctx, void *buf, int len), void *rctx); This function is the counterpart to midend_serialise(). It calls the supplied read function repeatedly to read a quantity of data, and attempts to interpret that data as a serialised mid-end as output by midend_serialise(). The read function is called with the first parameter (`ctx') equal to `rctx', and should attempt to read `len' bytes of data into the buffer pointed to by `buf'. It should return FALSE on failure or TRUE on success. It should not report success unless it has filled the entire buffer; on platforms which might be reading from a pipe or other blocking data source, `read' is responsible for looping until the whole buffer has been filled. If the de-serialisation operation is successful, the mid-end's internal data structures will be replaced by the results of the load, and NULL will be returned. Otherwise, the mid-end's state will be completely unchanged and an error message (typically some variation on `save file is corrupt') will be returned. As usual, the error message string is not dynamically allocated. If this function succeeds, it is likely that the game parameters will have been changed. The front end should therefore probably re-think the window size using midend_size(), and probably cause a refresh using midend_redraw(). Because each mid-end is tied to a specific game back end, this function will fail if you attempt to read in a save file generated by a different game from the one configured in this mid-end, even if your application is a monolithic one containing all the puzzles. (It would be pretty easy to write a function which would look at a save file and determine which game it was for; any front end implementor who needs such a function can probably be accommodated.) 4.24. Direct reference to the back end structure by the front end ----------------------------------------------------------------- Although _most_ things the front end needs done should be done by calling the mid-end, there are a few situations in which the front end needs to refer directly to the game back end structure. The most obvious of these is - passing the game back end as a parameter to midend_new(). There are a few other back end features which are not wrapped by the mid-end because there didn't seem much point in doing so: - fetching the `name' field to use in window titles and similar - reading the `can_configure', `can_solve' and `can_format_as_text' fields to decide whether to add those items to the menu bar or equivalent - reading the `winhelp_topic' field (Windows only) - the GTK front end provides a `--generate' command-line option which directly calls the back end to do most of its work. This is not really part of the main front end code, though, and I'm not sure it counts. In order to find the game back end structure, the front end does one of two things: - If the particular front end is compiling a separate binary per game, then the back end structure is a global variable with the standard name `thegame': extern const game thegame; - If the front end is compiled as a monolithic application containing all the puzzles together (in which case the preprocessor symbol COMBINED must be defined when compiling most of the code base), then there will be two global variables defined: extern const game *gamelist[]; extern const int gamecount; `gamelist' will be an array of `gamecount' game structures, declared in the automatically constructed source module `list.c'. The application should search that array for the game it wants, probably by reaching into each game structure and looking at its `name' field. 4.25. Mid-end to front-end calls -------------------------------- This section describes the small number of functions which a front end must provide to be called by the mid-end or other standard utility modules. 4.26. get_random_seed() ----------------------- void get_random_seed(void **randseed, int *randseedsize); This function is called by a new mid-end, and also occasionally by game back ends. Its job is to return a piece of data suitable for using as a seed for initialisation of a new `random_state'. On exit, `*randseed' should be set to point at a newly allocated piece of memory containing some seed data, and `*randseedsize' should be set to the length of that data. A simple and entirely adequate implementation is to return a piece of data containing the current system time at the highest conveniently available resolution. 4.27. activate_timer() ---------------------- void activate_timer(frontend *fe); This is called by the mid-end to request that the front end begin calling it back at regular intervals. The timeout interval is left up to the front end; the finer it is, the smoother move animations will be, but the more CPU time will be used. Current front ends use values around 20ms (i.e. 50Hz). After this function is called, the mid-end will expect to receive calls to midend_timer() on a regular basis. 4.28. deactivate_timer() ------------------------ void deactivate_timer(frontend *fe); This is called by the mid-end to request that the front end stop calling midend_timer(). 4.29. fatal() ------------- void fatal(char *fmt, ...); This is called by some utility functions if they encounter a genuinely fatal error such as running out of memory. It is a variadic function in the style of printf(), and is expected to show the formatted error message to the user any way it can and then terminate the application. It must not return. 4.30. frontend_default_colour() ------------------------------- void frontend_default_colour(frontend *fe, float *output); This function expects to be passed a pointer to an array of three floats. It returns the platform's local preferred background colour in those three floats, as red, green and blue values (in that order) ranging from 0.0 to 1.0. This function should only ever be called by the back end function colours() (section 2.8.6). (Thus, it isn't a _midend_-to-frontend function as such, but there didn't seem to be anywhere else particularly good to put it. Sorry.) 5. Utility APIs --------------- This chapter documents a variety of utility APIs provided for the general use of the rest of the Puzzles code. 5.1. Random number generation ----------------------------- Platforms' local random number generators vary widely in quality and seed size. Puzzles therefore supplies its own high-quality random number generator, with the additional advantage of giving the same results if fed the same seed data on different platforms. This allows game random seeds to be exchanged between different ports of Puzzles and still generate the same games. Unlike the ANSI C rand() function, the Puzzles random number generator has an _explicit_ state object called a `random_state'. One of these is managed by each mid-end, for example, and passed to the back end to generate a game with. 5.1.1. random_new() ------------------- random_state *random_new(char *seed, int len); Allocates, initialises and returns a new `random_state'. The input data is used as the seed for the random number stream (i.e. using the same seed at a later time will generate the same stream). The seed data can be any data at all; there is no requirement to use printable ASCII, or NUL-terminated strings, or anything like that. 5.1.2. random_copy() -------------------- random_state *random_copy(random_state *tocopy); Allocates a new `random_state', copies the contents of another `random_state' into it, and returns the new state. If exactly the same sequence of functions is subseqently called on both the copy and the original, the results will be identical. This may be useful for speculatively performing some operation using a given random state, and later replaying that operation precisely. 5.1.3. random_free() -------------------- void random_free(random_state *state); Frees a `random_state'. 5.1.4. random_bits() -------------------- unsigned long random_bits(random_state *state, int bits); Returns a random number from 0 to 2^bits-1 inclusive. `bits' should be between 1 and 32 inclusive. 5.1.5. random_upto() -------------------- unsigned long random_upto(random_state *state, unsigned long limit); Returns a random number from 0 to limit-1 inclusive. 5.1.6. random_state_encode() ---------------------------- char *random_state_encode(random_state *state); Encodes the entire contents of a `random_state' in printable ASCII. Returns a dynamically allocated string containing that encoding. This can subsequently be passed to random_state_decode() to reconstruct the same `random_state'. 5.1.7. random_state_decode() ---------------------------- random_state *random_state_decode(char *input); Decodes a string generated by random_state_encode() and reconstructs an equivalent `random_state' to the one encoded, i.e. it should produce the same stream of random numbers. This function has no error reporting; if you pass it an invalid string it will simply generate an arbitrary random state, which may turn out to be noticeably non-random. 5.1.8. shuffle() ---------------- void shuffle(void *array, int nelts, int eltsize, random_state *rs); Shuffles an array into a random order. The interface is much like ANSI C qsort(), except that there's no need for a compare function. `array' is a pointer to the first element of the array. `nelts' is the number of elements in the array; `eltsize' is the size of a single element (typically measured using `sizeof'). `rs' is a `random_state' used to generate all the random numbers for the shuffling process. 5.2. Memory allocation ---------------------- Puzzles has some central wrappers on the standard memory allocation functions, which provide compile-time type checking, and run-time error checking by means of quitting the application if it runs out of memory. This doesn't provide the best possible recovery from memory shortage, but on the other hand it greatly simplifies the rest of the code, because nothing else anywhere needs to worry about NULL returns from allocation. 5.2.1. snew() ------------- var = snew(type); This macro takes a single argument which is a _type name_. It allocates space for one object of that type. If allocation fails it will call fatal() and not return; so if it does return, you can be confident that its return value is non-NULL. The return value is cast to the specified type, so that the compiler will type-check it against the variable you assign it into. Thus, this ensures you don't accidentally allocate memory the size of the wrong type and assign it into a variable of the right one (or vice versa!). 5.2.2. snewn() -------------- var = snewn(n, type); This macro is the array form of snew(). It takes two arguments; the first is a number, and the second is a type name. It allocates space for that many objects of that type, and returns a type-checked non-NULL pointer just as snew() does. 5.2.3. sresize() ---------------- var = sresize(var, n, type); This macro is a type-checked form of realloc(). It takes three arguments: an input memory block, a new size in elements, and a type. It re-sizes the input memory block to a size sufficient to contain that many elements of that type. It returns a type-checked non-NULL pointer, like snew() and snewn(). The input memory block can be NULL, in which case this function will behave exactly like snewn(). (In principle any ANSI-compliant realloc() implementation ought to cope with this, but I've never quite trusted it to work everywhere.) 5.2.4. sfree() -------------- void sfree(void *p); This function is pretty much equivalent to free(). It is provided with a dynamically allocated block, and frees it. The input memory block can be NULL, in which case this function will do nothing. (In principle any ANSI-compliant free() implementation ought to cope with this, but I've never quite trusted it to work everywhere.) 5.2.5. dupstr() --------------- char *dupstr(const char *s); This function dynamically allocates a duplicate of a C string. Like the snew() functions, it guarantees to return non-NULL or not return at all. (Many platforms provide the function strdup(). As well as guaranteeing never to return NULL, my version has the advantage of being defined _everywhere_, rather than inconveniently not quite everywhere.) 5.2.6. free_cfg() ----------------- void free_cfg(config_item *cfg); This function correctly frees an array of `config_item's, including walking the array until it gets to the end and freeing precisely those `sval' fields which are expected to be dynamically allocated. (See section 2.3.8 for details of the `config_item' structure.) 5.3. Sorted and counted tree functions -------------------------------------- Many games require complex algorithms for generating random puzzles, and some require moderately complex algorithms even during play. A common requirement during these algorithms is for a means of maintaining sorted or unsorted lists of items, such that items can be removed and added conveniently. For general use, Puzzles provides the following set of functions which maintain 2-3-4 trees in memory. (A 2-3-4 tree is a balanced tree structure, with the property that all lookups, insertions, deletions, splits and joins can be done in O(log N) time.) All these functions expect you to be storing a tree of `void *' pointers. You can put anything you like in those pointers. By the use of per-node element counts, these tree structures have the slightly unusual ability to look elements up by their numeric index within the list represented by the tree. This means that they can be used to store an unsorted list (in which case, every time you insert a new element, you must explicitly specify the position where you wish to insert it). They can also do numeric lookups in a sorted tree, which might be useful for (for example) tracking the median of a changing data set. As well as storing sorted lists, these functions can be used for storing `maps' (associative arrays), by defining each element of a tree to be a (key, value) pair. 5.3.1. newtree234() ------------------- tree234 *newtree234(cmpfn234 cmp); Creates a new empty tree, and returns a pointer to it. The parameter `cmp' determines the sorting criterion on the tree. Its prototype is typedef int (*cmpfn234)(void *, void *); If you want a sorted tree, you should provide a function matching this prototype, which returns like strcmp() does (negative if the first argument is smaller than the second, positive if it is bigger, zero if they compare equal). In this case, the function addpos234() will not be usable on your tree (because all insertions must respect the sorting order). If you want an unsorted tree, pass NULL. In this case you will not be able to use either add234() or del234(), or any other function such as find234() which depends on a sorting order. Your tree will become something more like an array, except that it will efficiently support insertion and deletion as well as lookups by numeric index. 5.3.2. freetree234() -------------------- void freetree234(tree234 *t); Frees a tree. This function will not free the _elements_ of the tree (because they might not be dynamically allocated, or you might be storing the same set of elements in more than one tree); it will just free the tree structure itself. If you want to free all the elements of a tree, you should empty it before passing it to freetree234(), by means of code along the lines of while ((element = delpos234(tree, 0)) != NULL) sfree(element); /* or some more complicated free function */ 5.3.3. add234() --------------- void *add234(tree234 *t, void *e); Inserts a new element `e' into the tree `t'. This function expects the tree to be sorted; the new element is inserted according to the sort order. If an element comparing equal to `e' is already in the tree, then the insertion will fail, and the return value will be the existing element. Otherwise, the insertion succeeds, and `e' is returned. 5.3.4. addpos234() ------------------ void *addpos234(tree234 *t, void *e, int index); Inserts a new element into an unsorted tree. Since there is no sorting order to dictate where the new element goes, you must specify where you want it to go. Setting `index' to zero puts the new element right at the start of the list; setting `index' to the current number of elements in the tree puts the new element at the end. Return value is `e', in line with add234() (although this function cannot fail except by running out of memory, in which case it will bomb out and die rather than returning an error indication). 5.3.5. index234() ----------------- void *index234(tree234 *t, int index); Returns a pointer to the `index'th element of the tree, or NULL if `index' is out of range. Elements of the tree are numbered from zero. 5.3.6. find234() ---------------- void *find234(tree234 *t, void *e, cmpfn234 cmp); Searches for an element comparing equal to `e' in a sorted tree. If `cmp' is NULL, the tree's ordinary comparison function will be used to perform the search. However, sometimes you don't want that; suppose, for example, each of your elements is a big structure containing a `char *' name field, and you want to find the element with a given name. You _could_ achieve this by constructing a fake element structure, setting its name field appropriately, and passing it to find234(), but you might find it more convenient to pass _just_ a name string to find234(), supplying an alternative comparison function which expects one of its arguments to be a bare name and the other to be a large structure containing a name field. Therefore, if `cmp' is not NULL, then it will be used to compare `e' to elements of the tree. The first argument passed to `cmp' will always be `e'; the second will be an element of the tree. (See section 5.3.1 for the definition of the `cmpfn234' function pointer type.) The returned value is the element found, or NULL if the search is unsuccessful. 5.3.7. findrel234() ------------------- void *findrel234(tree234 *t, void *e, cmpfn234 cmp, int relation); This function is like find234(), but has the additional ability to do a _relative_ search. The additional parameter `relation' can be one of the following values: REL234_EQ Find only an element that compares equal to `e'. This is exactly the behaviour of find234(). REL234_LT Find the greatest element that compares strictly less than `e'. `e' may be NULL, in which case it finds the greatest element in the whole tree (which could also be done by index234(t, count234(t)-1)). REL234_LE Find the greatest element that compares less than or equal to `e'. (That is, find an element that compares equal to `e' if possible, but failing that settle for something just less than it.) REL234_GT Find the smallest element that compares strictly greater than `e'. `e' may be NULL, in which case it finds the smallest element in the whole tree (which could also be done by index234(t, 0)). REL234_GE Find the smallest element that compares greater than or equal to `e'. (That is, find an element that compares equal to `e' if possible, but failing that settle for something just bigger than it.) Return value, as before, is the element found or NULL if no element satisfied the search criterion. 5.3.8. findpos234() ------------------- void *findpos234(tree234 *t, void *e, cmpfn234 cmp, int *index); This function is like find234(), but has the additional feature of returning the index of the element found in the tree; that index is written to `*index' in the event of a successful search (a non-NULL return value). `index' may be NULL, in which case this function behaves exactly like find234(). 5.3.9. findrelpos234() ---------------------- void *findrelpos234(tree234 *t, void *e, cmpfn234 cmp, int relation, int *index); This function combines all the features of findrel234() and findpos234(). 5.3.10. del234() ---------------- void *del234(tree234 *t, void *e); Finds an element comparing equal to `e' in the tree, deletes it, and returns it. The input tree must be sorted. The element found might be `e' itself, or might merely compare equal to it. Return value is NULL if no such element is found. 5.3.11. delpos234() ------------------- void *delpos234(tree234 *t, int index); Deletes the element at position `index' in the tree, and returns it. Return value is NULL if the index is out of range. 5.3.12. count234() ------------------ int count234(tree234 *t); Returns the number of elements currently in the tree. 5.3.13. splitpos234() --------------------- tree234 *splitpos234(tree234 *t, int index, int before); Splits the input tree into two pieces at a given position, and creates a new tree containing all the elements on one side of that position. If `before' is TRUE, then all the items at or after position `index' are left in the input tree, and the items before that point are returned in the new tree. Otherwise, the reverse happens: all the items at or after `index' are moved into the new tree, and those before that point are left in the old one. If `index' is equal to 0 or to the number of elements in the input tree, then one of the two trees will end up empty (and this is not an error condition). If `index' is further out of range in either direction, the operation will fail completely and return NULL. This operation completes in O(log N) time, no matter how large the tree or how balanced or unbalanced the split. 5.3.14. split234() ------------------ tree234 *split234(tree234 *t, void *e, cmpfn234 cmp, int rel); Splits a sorted tree according to its sort order. `rel' can be any of the relation constants described in section 5.3.7, _except_ for REL234_EQ. All the elements having that relation to `e' will be transferred into the new tree; the rest will be left in the old one. The parameter `cmp' has the same semantics as it does in find234(): if it is not NULL, it will be used in place of the tree's own comparison function when comparing elements to `e', in such a way that `e' itself is always the first of its two operands. Again, this operation completes in O(log N) time, no matter how large the tree or how balanced or unbalanced the split. 5.3.15. join234() ----------------- tree234 *join234(tree234 *t1, tree234 *t2); Joins two trees together by concatenating the lists they represent. All the elements of `t2' are moved into `t1', in such a way that they appear _after_ the elements of `t1'. The tree `t2' is freed; the return value is `t1'. If you apply this function to a sorted tree and it violates the sort order (i.e. the smallest element in `t2' is smaller than or equal to the largest element in `t1'), the operation will fail and return NULL. This operation completes in O(log N) time, no matter how large the trees being joined together. 5.3.16. join234r() ------------------ tree234 *join234r(tree234 *t1, tree234 *t2); Joins two trees together in exactly the same way as join234(), but this time the combined tree is returned in `t2', and `t1' is destroyed. The elements in `t1' still appear before those in `t2'. Again, this operation completes in O(log N) time, no matter how large the trees being joined together. 5.3.17. copytree234() --------------------- tree234 *copytree234(tree234 *t, copyfn234 copyfn, void *copyfnstate); Makes a copy of an entire tree. If `copyfn' is NULL, the tree will be copied but the elements will not be; i.e. the new tree will contain pointers to exactly the same physical elements as the old one. If you want to copy each actual element during the operation, you can instead pass a function in `copyfn' which makes a copy of each element. That function has the prototype typedef void *(*copyfn234)(void *state, void *element); and every time it is called, the `state' parameter will be set to the value you passed in as `copyfnstate'. 5.4. Miscellaneous utility functions and macros ----------------------------------------------- This section contains all the utility functions which didn't sensibly fit anywhere else. 5.4.1. TRUE and FALSE --------------------- The main Puzzles header file defines the macros TRUE and FALSE, which are used throughout the code in place of 1 and 0 (respectively) to indicate that the values are in a boolean context. For code base consistency, I'd prefer it if submissions of new code followed this convention as well. 5.4.2. max() and min() ---------------------- The main Puzzles header file defines the pretty standard macros max() and min(), each of which is given two arguments and returns the one which compares greater or less respectively. These macros may evaluate their arguments multiple times. Avoid side effects. 5.4.3. PI --------- The main Puzzles header file defines a macro PI which expands to a floating-point constant representing pi. (I've never understood why ANSI's doesn't define this. It'd be so useful!) 5.4.4. obfuscate_bitmap() ------------------------- void obfuscate_bitmap(unsigned char *bmp, int bits, int decode); This function obscures the contents of a piece of data, by cryptographic methods. It is useful for games of hidden information (such as Mines, Guess or Black Box), in which the game ID theoretically reveals all the information the player is supposed to be trying to guess. So in order that players should be able to send game IDs to one another without accidentally spoiling the resulting game by looking at them, these games obfuscate their game IDs using this function. Although the obfuscation function is cryptographic, it cannot properly be called encryption because it has no key. Therefore, anybody motivated enough can re-implement it, or hack it out of the Puzzles source, and strip the obfuscation off one of these game IDs to see what lies beneath. (Indeed, they could usually do it much more easily than that, by entering the game ID into their own copy of the puzzle and hitting Solve.) The aim is not to protect against a determined attacker; the aim is simply to protect people who wanted to play the game honestly from _accidentally_ spoiling their own fun. The input argument `bmp' points at a piece of memory to be obfuscated. `bits' gives the length of the data. Note that that length is in _bits_ rather than bytes: if you ask for obfuscation of a partial number of bytes, then you will get it. Bytes are considered to be used from the top down: thus, for example, setting `bits' to 10 will cover the whole of bmp[0] and the _top two_ bits of bmp[1]. The remainder of a partially used byte is undefined (i.e. it may be corrupted by the function). The parameter `decode' is FALSE for an encoding operation, and TRUE for a decoding operation. Each is the inverse of the other. (There's no particular reason you shouldn't obfuscate by decoding and restore cleartext by encoding, if you really wanted to; it should still work.) The input bitmap is processed in place. 5.4.5. bin2hex() ---------------- char *bin2hex(const unsigned char *in, int inlen); This function takes an input byte array and converts it into an ASCII string encoding those bytes in (lower-case) hex. It returns a dynamically allocated string containing that encoding. This function is useful for encoding the result of obfuscate_bitmap() in printable ASCII for use in game IDs. 5.4.6. hex2bin() ---------------- unsigned char *hex2bin(const char *in, int outlen); This function takes an ASCII string containing hex digits, and converts it back into a byte array of length `outlen'. If there aren't enough hex digits in the string, the contents of the resulting array will be undefined. This function is the inverse of bin2hex(). 5.4.7. game_mkhighlight() ------------------------- void game_mkhighlight(frontend *fe, float *ret, int background, int highlight, int lowlight); It's reasonably common for a puzzle game's graphics to use highlights and lowlights to indicate `raised' or `lowered' sections. Fifteen, Sixteen and Twiddle are good examples of this. Puzzles using this graphical style are running a risk if they just use whatever background colour is supplied to them by the front end, because that background colour might be too light to see any highlights on at all. (In particular, it's not unheard of for the front end to specify a default background colour of white.) Therefore, such puzzles can call this utility function from their colours() routine (section 2.8.6). You pass it your front end handle, a pointer to the start of your return array, and three colour indices. It will: - call frontend_default_colour() (section 4.30) to fetch the front end's default background colour - alter the brightness of that colour if it's unsuitable - define brighter and darker variants of the colour to be used as highlights and lowlights - write those results into the relevant positions in the `ret' array. Thus, ret[background*3] to ret[background*3+2] will be set to RGB values defining a sensible background colour, and similary `highlight' and `lowlight' will be set to sensible colours. 6. How to write a new puzzle ---------------------------- This chapter gives a guide to how to actually write a new puzzle: where to start, what to do first, how to solve common problems. The previous chapters have been largely composed of facts. This one is mostly advice. 6.1. Choosing a puzzle ---------------------- Before you start writing a puzzle, you have to choose one. Your taste in puzzle games is up to you, of course; and, in fact, you're probably reading this guide because you've _already_ thought of a game you want to write. But if you want to get it accepted into the official Puzzles distribution, then there's a criterion it has to meet. The current Puzzles editorial policy is that all games should be _fair_. A fair game is one which a player can only fail to complete through demonstrable lack of skill - that is, such that a better player in the same situation would have _known_ to do something different. For a start, that means every game presented to the user must have _at least one solution_. Giving the unsuspecting user a puzzle which is actually impossible is not acceptable. (There is an exception: if the user has selected some non-default option which is clearly labelled as potentially unfair, _then_ you're allowed to generate possibly insoluble puzzles, because the user isn't unsuspecting any more. Same Game and Mines both have options of this type.) Also, this actually _rules out_ games such as Klondike, or the normal form of Mahjong Solitaire. Those games have the property that even if there is a solution (i.e. some sequence of moves which will get from the start state to the solved state), the player doesn't necessarily have enough information to _find_ that solution. In both games, it is possible to reach a dead end because you had an arbitrary choice to make and made it the wrong way. This violates the fairness criterion, because a better player couldn't have known they needed to make the other choice. (GNOME has a variant on Mahjong Solitaire which makes it fair: there is a Shuffle operation which randomly permutes all the remaining tiles without changing their positions, which allows you to get out of a sticky situation. Using this operation adds a 60-second penalty to your solution time, so it's to the player's advantage to try to minimise the chance of having to use it. It's still possible to render the game uncompletable if you end up with only two tiles vertically stacked, but that's easy to foresee and avoid using a shuffle operation. This form of the game _is_ fair. Implementing it in Puzzles would require an infrastructure change so that the back end could communicate time penalties to the mid-end, but that would be easy enough.) Providing a _unique_ solution is a little more negotiable; it depends on the puzzle. Solo would have been of unacceptably low quality if it didn't always have a unique solution, whereas Twiddle inherently has multiple solutions by its very nature and it would have been meaningless to even _suggest_ making it uniquely soluble. Somewhere in between, Flip could reasonably be made to have unique solutions (by enforcing a zero- dimension kernel in every generated matrix) but it doesn't seem like a serious quality problem that it doesn't. Of course, you don't _have_ to care about all this. There's nothing stopping you implementing any puzzle you want to if you're happy to maintain your puzzle yourself, distribute it from your own web site, fork the Puzzles code completely, or anything like that. It's free software; you can do what you like with it. But any game that you want to be accepted into _my_ Puzzles code base has to satisfy the fairness criterion, which means all randomly generated puzzles must have a solution (unless the user has deliberately chosen otherwise) and it must be possible _in theory_ to find that solution without having to guess. 6.2. Getting started -------------------- The simplest way to start writing a new puzzle is to copy `nullgame.c'. This is a template puzzle source file which does almost nothing, but which contains all the back end function prototypes and declares the back end data structure correctly. It is built every time the rest of Puzzles is built, to ensure that it doesn't get out of sync with the code and remains buildable. So start by copying `nullgame.c' into your new source file. Then you'll gradually add functionality until the very boring Null Game turns into your real game. Next you'll need to add your puzzle to the Makefiles, in order to compile it conveniently. _Do not edit the Makefiles_: they are created automatically by the script `mkfiles.pl', from the file called `Recipe'. Edit `Recipe', and then re-run `mkfiles.pl'. Also, don't forget to add your puzzle to `list.c': if you don't, then it will still run fine on platforms which build each puzzle separately, but Mac OS X and other monolithic platforms will not include your new puzzle in their single binary. Once your source file is building, you can move on to the fun bit. 6.2.1. Puzzle generation ------------------------ Randomly generating instances of your puzzle is almost certain to be the most difficult part of the code, and also the task with the highest chance of turning out to be completely infeasible. Therefore I strongly recommend doing it _first_, so that if it all goes horribly wrong you haven't wasted any more time than you absolutely had to. What I usually do is to take an unmodified `nullgame.c', and start adding code to new_game_desc() which tries to generate a puzzle instance and print it out using printf(). Once that's working, _then_ I start connecting it up to the return value of new_game_desc(), populating other structures like `game_params', and generally writing the rest of the source file. There are many ways to generate a puzzle which is known to be soluble. In this section I list all the methods I currently know of, in case any of them can be applied to your puzzle. (Not all of these methods will work, or in some cases even make sense, for all puzzles.) Some puzzles are mathematically tractable, meaning you can work out in advance which instances are soluble. Sixteen, for example, has a parity constraint in some settings which renders exactly half the game space unreachable, but it can be mathematically proved that any position not in that half _is_ reachable. Therefore, Sixteen's grid generation simply consists of selecting at random from a well defined subset of the game space. Cube in its default state is even easier: _every_ possible arrangement of the blue squares and the cube's starting position is soluble! Another option is to redefine what you mean by `soluble'. Black Box takes this approach. There are layouts of balls in the box which are completely indistinguishable from one another no matter how many beams you fire into the box from which angles, which would normally be grounds for declaring those layouts unfair; but fortunately, detecting that indistinguishability is computationally easy. So Black Box doesn't demand that your ball placements match its own; it merely demands that your ball placements be _indistinguishable_ from the ones it was thinking of. If you have an ambiguous puzzle, then any of the possible answers is considered to be a solution. Having redefined the rules in that way, any puzzle is soluble again. Those are the simple techniques. If they don't work, you have to get cleverer. One way to generate a soluble puzzle is to start from the solved state and make inverse moves until you reach a starting state. Then you know there's a solution, because you can just list the inverse moves you made and make them in the opposite order to return to the solved state. This method can be simple and effective for puzzles where you get to decide what's a starting state and what's not. In Pegs, for example, the generator begins with one peg in the centre of the board and makes inverse moves until it gets bored; in this puzzle, valid inverse moves are easy to detect, and _any_ state that's reachable from the solved state by inverse moves is a reasonable starting position. So Pegs just continues making inverse moves until the board satisfies some criteria about extent and density, and then stops and declares itself done. For other puzzles, it can be a lot more difficult. Same Game uses this strategy too, and it's lucky to get away with it at all: valid inverse moves aren't easy to find (because although it's easy to insert additional squares in a Same Game position, it's difficult to arrange that _after_ the insertion they aren't adjacent to any other squares of the same colour), so you're constantly at risk of running out of options and having to backtrack or start again. Also, Same Game grids never start off half-empty, which means you can't just stop when you run out of moves - you have to find a way to fill the grid up _completely_. The other way to generate a puzzle that's soluble is to start from the other end, and actually write a _solver_. This tends to ensure that a puzzle has a _unique_ solution over and above having a solution at all, so it's a good technique to apply to puzzles for which that's important. One theoretical drawback of generating soluble puzzles by using a solver is that your puzzles are restricted in difficulty to those which the solver can handle. (Most solvers are not fully general: many sets of puzzle rules are NP-complete or otherwise nasty, so most solvers can only handle a subset of the theoretically soluble puzzles.) It's been my experience in practice, however, that this usually isn't a problem; computers are good at very different things from humans, and what the computer thinks is nice and easy might still be pleasantly challenging for a human. For example, when solving Dominosa puzzles I frequently find myself using a variety of reasoning techniques that my solver doesn't know about; in principle, therefore, I should be able to solve the puzzle using only those techniques it _does_ know about, but this would involve repeatedly searching the entire grid for the one simple deduction I can make. Computers are good at this sort of exhaustive search, but it's been my experience that human solvers prefer to do more complex deductions than to spend ages searching for simple ones. So in many cases I don't find my own playing experience to be limited by the restrictions on the solver. (This isn't _always_ the case. Solo is a counter-example; generating Solo puzzles using a simple solver does lead to qualitatively easier puzzles. Therefore I had to make the Solo solver rather more advanced than most of them.) There are several different ways to apply a solver to the problem of generating a soluble puzzle. I list a few of them below. The simplest approach is brute force: randomly generate a puzzle, use the solver to see if it's soluble, and if not, throw it away and try again until you get lucky. This is often a viable technique if all else fails, but it tends not to scale well: for many puzzle types, the probability of finding a uniquely soluble instance decreases sharply as puzzle size goes up, so this technique might work reasonably fast for small puzzles but take (almost) forever at larger sizes. Still, if there's no other alternative it can be usable: Pattern and Dominosa both use this technique. (However, Dominosa has a means of tweaking the randomly generated grids to increase the _probability_ of them being soluble, by ruling out one of the most common ambiguous cases. This improved generation speed by over a factor of 10 on the highest preset!) An approach which can be more scalable involves generating a grid and then tweaking it to make it soluble. This is the technique used by Mines and also by Net: first a random puzzle is generated, and then the solver is run to see how far it gets. Sometimes the solver will get stuck; when that happens, examine the area it's having trouble with, and make a small random change in that area to allow it to make more progress. Continue solving (possibly even without restarting the solver), tweaking as necessary, until the solver finishes. Then restart the solver from the beginning to ensure that the tweaks haven't caused new problems in the process of solving old ones (which can sometimes happen). This strategy works well in situations where the usual solver failure mode is to get stuck in an easily localised spot. Thus it works well for Net and Mines, whose most common failure mode tends to be that most of the grid is fine but there are a few widely separated ambiguous sections; but it would work less well for Dominosa, in which the way you get stuck is to have scoured the whole grid and not found anything you can deduce _anywhere_. Also, it relies on there being a low probability that tweaking the grid introduces a new problem at the same time as solving the old one; Mines and Net also have the property that most of their deductions are local, so that it's very unlikely for a tweak to affect something half way across the grid from the location where it was applied. In Dominosa, by contrast, a lot of deductions use information about half the grid (`out of all the sixes, only one is next to a three', which can depend on the values of up to 32 of the 56 squares in the default setting!), so this tweaking strategy would be rather less likely to work well. A more specialised strategy is that used in Solo and Slant. These puzzles have the property that they derive their difficulty from not presenting all the available clues. (In Solo's case, if all the possible clues were provided then the puzzle would already be solved; in Slant it would still require user action to fill in the lines, but it would present no challenge at all). Therefore, a simple generation technique is to leave the decision of which clues to provide until the last minute. In other words, first generate a random _filled_ grid with all possible clues present, and then gradually remove clues for as long as the solver reports that it's still soluble. Unlike the methods described above, this technique _cannot_ fail - once you've got a filled grid, nothing can stop you from being able to convert it into a viable puzzle. However, it wouldn't even be meaningful to apply this technique to (say) Pattern, in which clues can never be left out, so the only way to affect the set of clues is by altering the solution. (Unfortunately, Solo is complicated by the need to provide puzzles at varying difficulty levels. It's easy enough to generate a puzzle of _at most_ a given level of difficulty; you just have a solver with configurable intelligence, and you set it to a given level and apply the above technique, thus guaranteeing that the resulting grid is solvable by someone with at most that much intelligence. However, generating a puzzle of _at least_ a given level of difficulty is rather harder; if you go for _at most_ Intermediate level, you're likely to find that you've accidentally generated a Trivial grid a lot of the time, because removing just one number is sufficient to take the puzzle from Trivial straight to Ambiguous. In that situation Solo has no remaining options but to throw the puzzle away and start again.) A final strategy is to use the solver _during_ puzzle construction: lay out a bit of the grid, run the solver to see what it allows you to deduce, and then lay out a bit more to allow the solver to make more progress. There are articles on the web that recommend constructing Sudoku puzzles by this method (which is completely the opposite way round to how Solo does it); for Sudoku it has the advantage that you get to specify your clue squares in advance (so you can have them make pretty patterns). Rectangles uses a strategy along these lines. First it generates a grid by placing the actual rectangles; then it has to decide where in each rectangle to place a number. It uses a solver to help it place the numbers in such a way as to ensure a unique solution. It does this by means of running a test solver, but it runs the solver _before_ it's placed any of the numbers - which means the solver must be capable of coping with uncertainty about exactly where the numbers are! It runs the solver as far as it can until it gets stuck; then it narrows down the possible positions of a number in order to allow the solver to make more progress, and so on. Most of the time this process terminates with the grid fully solved, at which point any remaining number-placement decisions can be made at random from the options not so far ruled out. Note that unlike the Net/Mines tweaking strategy described above, this algorithm does not require a checking run after it completes: if it finishes successfully at all, then it has definitely produced a uniquely soluble puzzle. Most of the strategies described above are not 100% reliable. Each one has a failure rate: every so often it has to throw out the whole grid and generate a fresh one from scratch. (Solo's strategy would be the exception, if it weren't for the need to provide configurable difficulty levels.) Occasional failures are not a fundamental problem in this sort of work, however: it's just a question of dividing the grid generation time by the success rate (if it takes 10ms to generate a candidate grid and 1/5 of them work, then it will take 50ms on average to generate a viable one), and seeing whether the expected time taken to _successfully_ generate a puzzle is unacceptably slow. Dominosa's generator has a very low success rate (about 1 out of 20 candidate grids turn out to be usable, and if you think _that's_ bad then go and look at the source code and find the comment showing what the figures were before the generation-time tweaks!), but the generator itself is very fast so this doesn't matter. Rectangles has a slower generator, but fails well under 50% of the time. So don't be discouraged if you have an algorithm that doesn't always work: if it _nearly_ always works, that's probably good enough. The one place where reliability is important is that your algorithm must never produce false positives: it must not claim a puzzle is soluble when it isn't. It can produce false negatives (failing to notice that a puzzle is soluble), and it can fail to generate a puzzle at all, provided it doesn't do either so often as to become slow. One last piece of advice: for grid-based puzzles, when writing and testing your generation algorithm, it's almost always a good idea _not_ to test it initially on a grid that's square (i.e. w==h), because if the grid is square then you won't notice if you mistakenly write `h' instead of `w' (or vice versa) somewhere in the code. Use a rectangular grid for testing, and any size of grid will be likely to work after that. 6.2.2. Designing textual description formats -------------------------------------------- Another aspect of writing a puzzle which is worth putting some thought into is the design of the various text description formats: the format of the game parameter encoding, the game description encoding, and the move encoding. The first two of these should be reasonably intuitive for a user to type in; so provide some flexibility where possible. Suppose, for example, your parameter format consists of two numbers separated by an `x' to specify the grid dimensions (`10x10' or `20x15'), and then has some suffixes to specify other aspects of the game type. It's almost always a good idea in this situation to arrange that decode_params() can handle the suffixes appearing in any order, even if encode_params() only ever generates them in one order. These formats will also be expected to be reasonably stable: users will expect to be able to exchange game IDs with other users who aren't running exactly the same version of your game. So make them robust and stable: don't build too many assumptions into the game ID format which will have to be changed every time something subtle changes in the puzzle code. 6.3. Common how-to questions ---------------------------- This section lists some common things people want to do when writing a puzzle, and describes how to achieve them within the Puzzles framework. 6.3.1. Drawing objects at only one position ------------------------------------------- A common phenomenon is to have an object described in the `game_state' or the `game_ui' which can only be at one position. A cursor - probably specified in the `game_ui' - is a good example. In the `game_ui', it would _obviously_ be silly to have an array covering the whole game grid with a boolean flag stating whether the cursor was at each position. Doing that would waste space, would make it difficult to find the cursor in order to do anything with it, and would introduce the potential for synchronisation bugs in which you ended up with two cursors or none. The obviously sensible way to store a cursor in the `game_ui' is to have fields directly encoding the cursor's coordinates. However, it is a mistake to assume that the same logic applies to the `game_drawstate'. If you replicate the cursor position fields in the draw state, the redraw code will get very complicated. In the draw state, in fact, it _is_ probably the right thing to have a cursor flag for every position in the grid. You probably have an array for the whole grid in the drawstate already (stating what is currently displayed in the window at each position); the sensible approach is to add a `cursor' flag to each element of that array. Then the main redraw loop will look something like this (pseudo-code): for (y = 0; y < h; y++) { for (x = 0; x < w; x++) { int value = state->symbol_at_position[y][x]; if (x == ui->cursor_x && y == ui->cursor_y) value |= CURSOR; if (ds->symbol_at_position[y][x] != value) { symbol_drawing_subroutine(dr, ds, x, y, value); ds->symbol_at_position[y][x] = value; } } } This loop is very simple, pretty hard to get wrong, and _automatically_ deals both with erasing the previous cursor and drawing the new one, with no special case code required. This type of loop is generally a sensible way to write a redraw function, in fact. The best thing is to ensure that the information stored in the draw state for each position tells you _everything_ about what was drawn there. A good way to ensure that is to pass precisely the same information, and _only_ that information, to a subroutine that does the actual drawing; then you know there's no additional information which affects the drawing but which you don't notice changes in. 6.3.2. Implementing a keyboard-controlled cursor ------------------------------------------------ It is often useful to provide a keyboard control method in a basically mouse-controlled game. A keyboard-controlled cursor is best implemented by storing its location in the `game_ui' (since if it were in the `game_state' then the user would have to separately undo every cursor move operation). So the procedure would be: - Put cursor position fields in the `game_ui'. - interpret_move() responds to arrow keys by modifying the cursor position fields and returning "". - interpret_move() responds to some sort of fire button by actually performing a move based on the current cursor location. - You might want an additional `game_ui' field stating whether the cursor is currently visible, and having it disappear when a mouse action occurs (so that it doesn't clutter the display when not actually in use). - You might also want to automatically hide the cursor in changed_state() when the current game state changes to one in which there is no move to make (which is the case in some types of completed game). - redraw() draws the cursor using the technique described in section 6.3.1. 6.3.3. Implementing draggable sprites ------------------------------------- Some games have a user interface which involves dragging some sort of game element around using the mouse. If you need to show a graphic moving smoothly over the top of other graphics, use a blitter (see section 3.1.11 for the blitter API) to save the background underneath it. The typical scenario goes: - Have a blitter field in the `game_drawstate'. - Set the blitter field to NULL in the game's new_drawstate() function, since you don't yet know how big the piece of saved background needs to be. - In the game's set_size() function, once you know the size of the object you'll be dragging around the display and hence the required size of the blitter, actually allocate the blitter. - In free_drawstate(), free the blitter if it's not NULL. - In interpret_move(), respond to mouse-down and mouse-drag events by updating some fields in the game_ui which indicate that a drag is in progress. - At the _very end_ of redraw(), after all other drawing has been done, draw the moving object if there is one. First save the background under the object in the blitter; then set a clip rectangle covering precisely the area you just saved (just in case anti-aliasing or some other error causes your drawing to go beyond the area you saved). Then draw the object, and call unclip(). Finally, set a flag in the game_drawstate that indicates that the blitter needs restoring. - At the very start of redraw(), before doing anything else at all, check the flag in the game_drawstate, and if it says the blitter needs restoring then restore it. (Then clear the flag, so that this won't happen again in the next redraw if no moving object is drawn this time.) This way, you will be able to write the rest of the redraw function completely ignoring the dragged object, as if it were floating above your bitmap and being completely separate. 6.3.4. Sharing large invariant data between all game states ----------------------------------------------------------- In some puzzles, there is a large amount of data which never changes between game states. The array of numbers in Dominosa is a good example. You _could_ dynamically allocate a copy of that array in every `game_state', and have dup_game() make a fresh copy of it for every new `game_state'; but it would waste memory and time. A more efficient way is to use a reference-counted structure. - Define a structure type containing the data in question, and also containing an integer reference count. - Have a field in `game_state' which is a pointer to this structure. - In new_game(), when creating a fresh game state at the start of a new game, create an instance of this structure, initialise it with the invariant data, and set its reference count to 1. - In dup_game(), rather than making a copy of the structure for the new game state, simply set the new game state to point at the same copy of the structure, and increment its reference count. - In free_game(), decrement the reference count in the structure pointed to by the game state; if the count reaches zero, free the structure. This way, the invariant data will persist for only as long as it's genuinely needed; _as soon_ as the last game state for a particular puzzle instance is freed, the invariant data for that puzzle will vanish as well. Reference counting is a very efficient form of garbage collection, when it works at all. (Which it does in this instance, of course, because there's no possibility of circular references.) 6.3.5. Implementing multiple types of flash ------------------------------------------- In some games you need to flash in more than one different way. Mines, for example, flashes white when you win, and flashes red when you tread on a mine and die. The simple way to do this is: - Have a field in the `game_ui' which describes the type of flash. - In flash_length(), examine the old and new game states to decide whether a flash is required and what type. Write the type of flash to the `game_ui' field whenever you return non-zero. - In redraw(), when you detect that `flash_time' is non-zero, examine the field in `game_ui' to decide which type of flash to draw. redraw() will never be called with `flash_time' non-zero unless flash_length() was first called to tell the mid-end that a flash was required; so whenever redraw() notices that `flash_time' is non-zero, you can be sure that the field in `game_ui' is correctly set. 6.3.6. Animating game moves --------------------------- A number of puzzle types benefit from a quick animation of each move you make. For some games, such as Fifteen, this is particularly easy. Whenever redraw() is called with `oldstate' non-NULL, Fifteen simply compares the position of each tile in the two game states, and if the tile is not in the same place then it draws it some fraction of the way from its old position to its new position. This method copes automatically with undo. Other games are less obvious. In Sixteen, for example, you can't just draw each tile a fraction of the way from its old to its new position: if you did that, the end tile would zip very rapidly past all the others to get to the other end and that would look silly. (Worse, it would look inconsistent if the end tile was drawn on top going one way and on the bottom going the other way.) A useful trick here is to define a field or two in the game state that indicates what the last move was. - Add a `last move' field to the `game_state' (or two or more fields if the move is complex enough to need them). - new_game() initialises this field to a null value for a new game state. - execute_move() sets up the field to reflect the move it just performed. - redraw() now needs to examine its `dir' parameter. If `dir' is positive, it determines the move being animated by looking at the last-move field in `newstate'; but if `dir' is negative, it has to look at the last-move field in `oldstate', and invert whatever move it finds there. Note also that Sixteen needs to store the _direction_ of the move, because you can't quite determine it by examining the row or column in question. You can in almost all cases, but when the row is precisely two squares long it doesn't work since a move in either direction looks the same. (You could argue that since moving a 2-element row left and right has the same effect, it doesn't matter which one you animate; but in fact it's very disorienting to click the arrow left and find the row moving right, and almost as bad to undo a move to the right and find the game animating _another_ move to the right.) 6.3.7. Animating drag operations -------------------------------- In Untangle, moves are made by dragging a node from an old position to a new position. Therefore, at the time when the move is initially made, it should not be animated, because the node has already been dragged to the right place and doesn't need moving there. However, it's nice to animate the same move if it's later undone or redone. This requires a bit of fiddling. The obvious approach is to have a flag in the `game_ui' which inhibits move animation, and to set that flag in interpret_move(). The question is, when would the flag be reset again? The obvious place to do so is changed_state(), which will be called once per move. But it will be called _before_ anim_length(), so if it resets the flag then anim_length() will never see the flag set at all. The solution is to have _two_ flags in a queue. - Define two flags in `game_ui'; let's call them `current' and `next'. - Set both to FALSE in `new_ui()'. - When a drag operation completes in interpret_move(), set the `next' flag to TRUE. - Every time changed_state() is called, set the value of `current' to the value in `next', and then set the value of `next' to FALSE. - That way, `current' will be TRUE _after_ a call to changed_state() if and only if that call to changed_state() was the result of a drag operation processed by interpret_move(). Any other call to changed_state(), due to an Undo or a Redo or a Restart or a Solve, will leave `current' FALSE. - So now anim_length() can request a move animation if and only if the `current' flag is _not_ set. 6.3.8. Inhibiting the victory flash when Solve is used ------------------------------------------------------ Many games flash when you complete them, as a visual congratulation for having got to the end of the puzzle. It often seems like a good idea to disable that flash when the puzzle is brought to a solved state by means of the Solve operation. This is easily done: - Add a `cheated' flag to the `game_state'. - Set this flag to FALSE in new_game(). - Have solve() return a move description string which clearly identifies the move as a solve operation. - Have execute_move() respond to that clear identification by setting the `cheated' flag in the returned `game_state'. The flag will then be propagated to all subsequent game states, even if the user continues fiddling with the game after it is solved. - flash_length() now returns non-zero if `oldstate' is not completed and `newstate' is, _and_ neither state has the `cheated' flag set. 6.4. Things to test once your puzzle is written ----------------------------------------------- Puzzle implementations written in this framework are self-testing as far as I could make them. Textual game and move descriptions, for example, are generated and parsed as part of the normal process of play. Therefore, if you can make moves in the game _at all_ you can be reasonably confident that the mid-end serialisation interface will function correctly and you will be able to save your game. (By contrast, if I'd stuck with a single make_move() function performing the jobs of both interpret_move() and execute_move(), and had separate functions to encode and decode a game state in string form, then those functions would not be used during normal play; so they could have been completely broken, and you'd never know it until you tried to save the game - which would have meant you'd have to test game saving _extensively_ and make sure to test every possible type of game state. As an added bonus, doing it the way I did leads to smaller save files.) There is one exception to this, which is the string encoding of the `game_ui'. Most games do not store anything permanent in the `game_ui', and hence do not need to put anything in its encode and decode functions; but if there is anything in there, you do need to test game loading and saving to ensure those functions work properly. It's also worth testing undo and redo of all operations, to ensure that the redraw and the animations (if any) work properly. Failing to animate undo properly seems to be a common error. Other than that, just use your common sense.