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#1: Kadou (Kadou) on Jul 27, 2012

Interesting... makes solving puzzles harder.
Could you please make it so a black blob can be hightlighted (fully placed)?

ah! So the black blots were intentional! Fun to solve

Rattles your brain cells a bit. Harder but fun.

They can be highlighted, and even automatically highlight when you finish the row, but it's hard to see, because they have so little background.

I understand the challenge involved, but this is what my browser does when I need to clear my Internet cache. If I hadn't read the forum, I would have assumed that was the problem and been frustrated that the problem wasn't being fixed. Perhaps a mention of the forum topic # in the title would help.

The title "Blotterfky" helped, but only because I'd read the forums before I solved it.

I think I have a problem solving these blotted puzzles. Any time i fill in a field in a row with a blot, it says there is a mistake! I think I solved the puzzle the right way, I am not sure though. The picture i got does look like a butterfly, but it doesn't say "solved". Maybe it's my browser? I use firefox. Could anyone please help me?

Okay, so when I saved the puzzle it turned to solved. But it still shows me those mistakes :D something is not right

Odd. Evidentially, the new line-solver code isn't working right on your browser...which seems to be Firefox 13.0.1. I'll have to give that a try. There are two entirely different linesolver programs used for different browsers. I think that Firefox uses the Regex version, which is usually faster, but browsers frequently introduce new regex bugs in their race to perform faster on regex benchmarks.

Could the blob be smaller so as to see when it's highlighted?
Or... make the blob a circle or a question mark?

Thank you Jan! So maybe it helps if I just update my browser... I think I'll try that tomorrow :)

Kadou - I think that something like that is needed.

Lena - I just tried this with Firefox 13.0.1 on Windows 7, which I think is exactly what you have, and I had no problem with incorrect red balls. Which is frustrating, because while I can fix any problem I can reproduce, unreproducable problems are much, much harder.

One possibility - the new versions of the Javascript libraries have the same names as the old ones. So it's possible that your browser is loading an old version from cache. This is especially likely if your web service is through a proxie, in which case it might be cached not only in your browser but in some computer between you and webpbn. SHIFT-Reload might force the browser to load a fresh copy.

Fun twist to pbn puzzles. I bet this could make some puzzles MUCH more difficult.

I just updated to the latest version of java because it turned out I forgot to do that. I think it solved the problem, I'll try to solve the second blot puzzle now to see if I have any more problems.

intriguing...

Okay it works perfectly now :)

Well, if updating to the latest version of Java solved your problem, then that's terrific, but it makes no sense. This site makes no use whatsoever of Java. It uses Javascript, which, despite the stupidly similar names, is completely different, and which is something built into the browser, not a plug-in like Java that can be updated separately from the browser.

My best guess is still that it was a caching problem. Those will tend to magically resolve themselves after a while.

Comment Suppressed:Click below to view spoilers

Thanks for the tool, Jan. It could make puzzles harder, but for me, they are pretty easy. I tried Kadou's first, and I found it simple to count the clues in the columns. I didn't think yours was much more difficult. It adds a 3rd dimension of solvability which I believe makes them easier. However, to contradict myself, it probably made this puzzle a little harder than if all clues were stated. So, it makes an easy puzzle slightly harder.

Okay, then I have no idea why it works now. I even tried shift-reload and nothing changed... strange. hehe seeing the names i thought java and javascript had SOMETHING to do with each other... I think I should learn a little more about my computer some time ;)

A very clever twist to a most fascinating puzzle concept. I like it very much, jan

Jan: this doesn't work for me...I have exployer

Doesn't work how?

Thanks for replying Jan:
When i place the 9 in c-2 and the 6 in c-5 I get an red dot error in r-2

Hmmm...you have IE 7. I should probably see if I can find a computer that still has that, but so far all of these problems have been non-reproducable and have gone away on their own, which makes me think your browser is running the old software out of cache.

I just downloaded IE 9 and it still gives the same red dot

I am using IE9 and Windows 7 and have the issue with red "mistakes" even though it also says I have correctly solved the puzzle.

i have vista Michelle

Hmmm, just tried it with IE 9 under windows 7 and it worked correctly for me. Something is very odd here.

Jan .... I have vista

I managed to solve it with no red errors - maybe there is something wrong with my computer!

Its working now :) thx Jan

I put in a new thing that displays the version number of the Javascript code you have loaded into your browser. With the mouse over the puzzle, type the "TAB" key. A short version number should be displayed under the puzzle, like

Version 3.3; HTML 3.2; FSA 3.3;

Different browsers may have "REG" instead of "FSA". If you get this version message at all, then you have the newest version, because I only just added in the version message thing. No message means an obsolete version is being loaded.

It's so much fun on my mac+safari! Thanks!

got it Jan...thanks again :)

Well, that was fun! What an ingenious idea, Jan. :-)

I like it, and I agree with kadou, it would be nice if you could make it easier to see when they are highlighted

Yeah, I'm going to do some redesign of the blots.

Jan: how does someone make Blotted puzzles?

I found that if I turn off the option to stop scrolling through a color after I've completely solved that color, that I could finish the puzzle normally.

When i completed the puzzle, it had red dots in rows 2, 3, 5, and 6, but for some of the other rows with blots, that didn't happen. I have IE9 for windows 7 but idk if its a browser problem

I solved with no problem using safari on my mac. These blotter things are going to spice things up a bit.

Jan, add yellow..

Please

You should probably ask Jan how many hours of work it would take to add yellow. I think he explained before, a long time ago, how much work that would be and why. For a job that has no pay, that's a pretty big favor to ask. Even when you say please. :-)

Yellow has long been in much demand. I'd like it myself.

I could pretty easily add it, making it work the same way as all other colors, with the clue numbers being yellow digits on a white background, and being very difficult to read.

I could easily avoid this problem by using an orangey-gold color for yellow, so the clue numbers would be easy to read. But then it'd be orangey-gold, not yellow, and who wants orangey-gold?

Or I could redesign the look of the puzzles entirely, maybe having the clue number always be black or white on a background the color of the block, so black clue numbers would be white numbers on a black background and yellow clue numbers would be black numbers on a yellow background.

And I think that would look ugly.

So the reason I haven't ever done yellow is not so much that it's too much work, but because I can't really come up with a way of doing it that would really work well and look good.

Sometimes design is more of an obstacle than mere programming.

thanks for trying. How about Grey color?

I think orange-y-yellow or peach or gold might work. I appreciate all of your unpaid efforts on this site. I enjoy it immensely. Your fan, Tom

could the number clues be an orangey-gold for readability but the squares fill a more "pure" yellow?

I believe a yellow square with a black number inside it is used at another site.

of course

there are other sites? ...sacrilege!

lol David

Ditto #48.

Nice intro to blotted clues.

Darn good puzzle for a "doodle"!

I did not know about #32. Cool!

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