h3lix:
My previous post was only meant as informative, so that you would not futilely spend time on trying to figure out how to make what I have named "udosuk Style Killer Cages" using SudokuSolver.
You can make nice images with SudokuSolver (
link), but AFAIK the colouring is done automatically so you cannot control which one of the 6 customizable cage colours a specif cage is coloured with.
The term "udosuk Style Killer Cages" is a tribute to the board member udosuk aka Matt, who also is a member of several other sudoku fora. Unfortunately he has not posted something for the past seven months.
AFAIK udosuk originally created this very pleasing way of presenting killer puzzles using Excel, manually drawing the cages.
I originally thought he produced his images using JSudoku, but learned differently.
After learning from udosuk how he "configured" Excel to produce his distinctive cage look, I made some myself, then wrote some code to alleviate the colouring and later wrote more code to draw the cages automatically from PS, SumoCue or tarek code. The initially goal was to make a releasable version of my program and give it away. Unfortunately I have not reached this goal due to the following obstacles:
- Lack of time.
- Incompatibility between Excel versions, and bugs in Excel 2007.
I have done most of the programming with Excel 2003.
The diagonal connector and connecting tubes are actually Shapes. When you in Excel 2007 rotate certain Shapes, they are also scaled, which in my opinion must be a bug. - Undesignedly use of a feature (UpDown controls) which is not present in non-professional versions of Excel XP(2002) and later.
This problem can be solved by replacing the library mscomct2.ocx with the professional version freely downloadable from Microsoft
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297381
As a solution I have started to reprogram it in C# with .NET, but are very far away from a release.
If anyone wants to try my program I will happily make it available as is, but please be aware of the following:
- You very likely have to replace the library mscomct2.ocx, unless you have Office professional or are using a PC, which previously had Office 2000 or older installed.
- Diagonal connector and connecting tubes are not drawn with Excel 2007 and 2010.
- Macros must be allowed, although I would not call approx. 6000 lines of code a macro.
I will not lock the VBA code, so anyone interested can access, use and modify it freely.
EDIT:
@afmob:
I was typing my post, which took I while, when you posted your above post._________________
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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