Sudoku

Settings

Idéa

Adviser

Safe digits

Nizze's way of giving advise could be set with high precision. If solving the easy one’s you take few hints, if you are trying the harder ones you will probably need some more help and hints.

There are five standard levels None, Some, Middle, More and All. These settings will help you before learning about all settings in Nizze. If you would like to fine-tune the settings they are stored under ‘own’ so you could practice exactly what you feel is needed. More details about that is 'Detailed hints'.

None – is what is says – no help at all, i.e. like using paper and pencil

The best choice if you are solving a sudoku at your capacity. Only information given is that you will be told how many of the cells you have filled so far ‘5 of 55’ and the yellow colour telling you that there are still ‘safe digits’ to set. You will not be warned if making any errors but have to face them as when working manually.

Some gives exact hint about which regions that has ’safe digits’ and hint about which digits that could be set. This is the standard setting of Nizze when staring for the first time.

This is the setting aimed when working with sudokus at your range or when you need to do it quickly and need good advice on regions to concentrate on.
It will teach you where the regions are to put focus on.

You probably saw directly that 1 was the only possibility in the upper right corner in the top middle region. Sometimes it is frustrating to look in the seven regions where there are nothing to set at the moment. As usual it is much harder to find that nothing is feasible than it is to find something, every hidden spot has to be searched.

Nizze warns you about ’silly errors’ i.e. when you produce a duplicate in a row, column or region.

If you would like to fine-tune the settings you activate 'Details Hints' in the dialog. If you fore example click in 'Reason' you will be given a hint of what type of safe digit that could be set in the region. When looking for the safe digits of the different types you often use different approaches.

Middle - you will be given all the digits missing across, down and in the regions and you will have a hint of which digit and the reason if you need it.

You use this level to train when you know the basics. You will be adviced about the regions of interest and what type of digit that you should look for. Now it is up to you to figure out what digit and in which cell.

In the beginning of a game there will be quit many digits shown but at the end it is convenient to have the few missing shown and not have to figure them out each time they are needed. If you do mistakes you are immediately warned about ‘silly errors’, i.e. duplicates.

More – specifies in which cell and for what reason there is a safe digit in the cell.

You will probably use this level in the beginning to understand what safe digits are all about. If you click in a cell in yellow Nizze will show you the digit in blue and show you the digits making this a safe digit.

When you understand all this it is rather boring to solve sudokus at this level, because it is Nizze doing it all. If you do mistakes you are warned when entering a digit not in the solution.

All – shows all hints Nizze is capable of giving you, you will be drown in digits. This view is not aimed for beginners and it might eventually be useful for the keen. It could be to some help if stuck in a hard sudoku. To run in this mode might be useful to analyse when you are stuck but using it regularly is just boring…

Your best choice is probably to start with one of the standard settings and make the adjustments you feel you need at the time being with ‘Details Hints’ in the dialog shown when clicking ‘Settings’, saving it under ‘Own’. Nizze (or the database behind him) will remember your settings when leaving him so they will be set the next time you start up.

There are two settings for catching mistakes you make, ‘Duplicate’ and ‘Solution’. Duplicate means you are warned as soon as you put in a duplicate in one of the regions or in a row across or down. The other setting checks every digit you enter against the correct solution and on any mistake you are warned directly. It is more safe but not as thrilling…

Choice of five standard levels.

Hint level 'None'.

Given hints on level 'Some'.

Settings of 'Some'.

Meaning of 'Middle'

Hint level 'More'

Tipsnivå 'Allt'

What 'All' means...

With the button 'Settings' you could bring up the dialog where you under 'Detail Hints' could specify exactly what type of hints you want from the program. If you click ‘Apply’ the settings are applied immediately, when clicking ‘Ok’ the settings are applied and saved while the dialog is closed, and if you click ‘Cancel’ none of your changes are saved or applied. If you use ‘Apply’ the dialog keeps open which makes it a little bit easier when experimenting with different settings.

‘Show candidates’ makes Nizze show you the possible digits ('candidates' shown as small digits) to put in all empty cells without advanced reduction techniques. If you prefer you could select just the digits you want to analyse, which makes the picture a little bit more comprehensive.

‘Show where’ specifies in which detail you want hints on where safe digits are hidden. You could specify if you want the hint in cell, region, across or down (shown by yellow background). This gives you the chance to make it easier if you like to.

‘Show what’ is the hint given for which digit that is safe and for what reason, i.e. EPR, EPD, EPA or OPD. Good for learning but boring when you know… When you are stuck use it to raise your self-confidence.

’Missing digits’ is what I use at the end to keep track on what is missing and to be done. Messy in the beginning but useful at the end when few are missing.

’Errors’ is probaly something that doesn’t concern you. You could specify warnings to be given when putting in duplicates or you could specify to be warned whenever putting in some digits not confirming to the correct solution. Setting ‘Solution’ is no good sport but useful when rebuilding your confidence after been knocked down…