Hi George
nj3h wrote:
when a big number is placed, the pencil marks that can be eliminated are highlighted in red.
What technique do others use to clear these red pencil marks?
This sounds different to my version of SS.
OK, think I've worked out why it's not happening for you. When you first open a puzzle, "make one solver step" (looks like an arrow ">" on the solver buttons or F10). This will update all the marks at the beginning. That will make the other features I mention on this post work.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[edit: For a killer puzzle, go to
Solver>Options then Untick "Find Hidden" in Initial Sweeps>click Save. See pic below.
[To get just the legal candidates for a samurai killer (or any killer). Click on each grid then press "Make one solver step"][edit:If you want to use SudokuSolver to teach you solving killers, I strongly recommend ticking the "Scoring" big radio button at the bottom then "Save".See pic below. This puts the routines into an order that is much more human puzzler like.]----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With "Placement Feedback" ticked (in the Tools menu), my version
automatically eliminates all the pencil marks from the peers (mine shows in yellow but this can be changed to red). I never have this item ticked when I'm solving since it does too much in killers for my taste.
nj3h wrote:
So what is the best key to hit to clear the pencil marks?
I have Placement Feedback UNticked. Instead, I update the marks by pressing "u" on the keyboard (after double clicking on a candidate to place a number). "u" is the shortcut for "update marks" (don't need to do "CTRL u" as the Tool menu says).
nj3h wrote:
when going to other grids, the overlapping cells aren't updated. What is the best way to make this happen consistently?
Pressing "u" does this for me. That would be very annoying if the overlapping cells arn't updated.
If none of this works for you, please email Richard with the saved SS file for that puzzle. Hopefully, he is about to release an updated version. If this does work for you now, it still might be worth an email Richard so he can fix this need to "make one solver step" first!
Cheers
Ed