COMP1206 PROGRAMMING II LECTURE NOTES
SEMESTER TWO, 2020
(Submission Deadline:
2pm, Monday 27th April)
Please ask any question about the coursework
on the COMP1206 Team or email Sebastian
Stein ([email protected]).
In this coursework, you will implement a
JavaFX application to play a logic puzzle game
called MathDoku.
Rules of the Game:
A player needs to fill the cells in an NxN
square grid with the numbers 1 to N (one
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assignment instructions:
mathdoku
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number per cell), while adhering to the
following constraints:
Each number must appear exactly once
in each row.
Each number must appear exactly once
in each column.
Furthermore, there are groups of adjacent
cells called cages, which are highlighted on
the grid by thicker boundaries. Within each
cage is a label showing a target number
followed by an arithmetic operator (+, -, x,
÷). There is an additional constraint
associated with these cages:
It must be possible to obtain the target
by applying the arithmetic operator to
the numbers in that cage. For - and ÷,
this can be done in any order.
Note: If a cage consists of a single cell, then
no arithmetic operator is shown. The label
simply shows the number that must be in that
cell.
Here's an image of what a MathDoku game
looks like (courtesy of Wikipedia):
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And here's what the solved puzzle looks like:
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You will build your application in parts of
increasing difficulty (marks will be awarded for
achieving each part, but you only need to
hand in your final application). There are 40
marks available in total.
Part One: A Skeleton GUI
First, build a dumb GUI without functionality.
instructions
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This GUI should have controls for the
following user actions:
Undo / redo actions.
Clear the board.
Load a game from file.
Load a game from text input.
Option to show mistakes on grid.
There should also be space in your GUI to
show the grid, which you will implement in
Part Two.
Note: Try to make your GUI resizable, so that
it adjusts to different window sizes.
[4 marks]
Part Two: The Grid
Display a MathDoku grid in your application.
You could start by displaying the example grid
in the image above.
Note: think carefully about how to keep your
design general, so that it can cope with
different layouts and grid dimensions (you can
assume the smallest grid is a 2x2 grid and the
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largest is a 8x8 grid).
[4 marks]
Part Three: Cell Completion
Now it's time to add some functionality. Write
appropriate event handling code to allow
users to select cells, enter numbers into them
and clear individual cells again. You should
provide functionality to allow number entering
and clearing via the keyboard (e.g., by
pressing the number keys or the backspace
key) and via the mouse (e.g., by showing
appropriate number buttons in your GUI).
[4 marks]
Part Four: Win and Mistake
Detection
Add functionality to detect when the grid has
been filled correctly and solved (adhering to
all the constraints in the rules of the game
above). Show an appropriate message to the
user when this happens.
If the user has selected the option to show
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mistakes on the grid, immediately highlight
rows, columns or cages that do not meet the
constraints as numbers are being entered
(e.g., if a row contains two 2s, that entire row
should be highlighted).
Note: It is tricky to handle cages with the -
and ÷ operators that consist of more than two
cells. If you wish, you can ignore these, but
for full marks, make sure that you can handle
them too.
[5 marks]
Part Five: Clearing, Undo,
Redo
Allow the user to clear the board using the
control defined in Part One. A dialog box
should be displayed to the user to confirm this
action.
Also add functionality to undo the last cell
modification(s) and redo previously undone
modifications. Disable the buttons as
appropriate when undoing or redoing is not
possible.
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[4 marks]
Part Six: Loading Files
Allow the user to load pre-defined MathDoku
puzzles. The user should be able to do this in
two ways: by choosing a specific file on their
computer or by entering the puzzle through
an appropriate text input control.
A pre-defined puzzle must be given in the
following text format:
Each line defines one cage of the puzzle.
The line starts with the target followed
immediately by the arithmetic operator
(or none if it's a single cell) for that cage.
This is followed by a space and a
sequence of cell IDs that belong to the
cage (consecutive cell IDs are separated
by a comma). Here cells are numbered
from 1 to (NxN), where 1 to N are the
cells in the top row (left to right), N+1 to
2N are the cells in the second row from
the top, and so on.
As an example, the MathDoku puzzle in the
images above can be defined as shown in this
file: example.txt.
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You can find more examples of different sizes
in this zip file: examples.zip (4x4_divdiff.txt is
the only one that contains - and ÷ cages with
more than 2 cells).
Note: The same puzzle could be specified in
multiple ways. Specifically, the order of the
cages and of the cells within a cage do not
matter. You should do simple error checking
on the input (e.g., whether cells within a cage
are adjacent and whether each cell is part of
exactly one cage) and notify the user if a
mistake was detected. You do not need to
check whether the puzzle can be solved.
[7 marks]
If you have made it this far and
everything is working as expected,
well done! You should be able to
obtain a mark in the region 60-70%.
If you are brave, carry on with the
extensions below. Warning: the last
two are quite challenging - only
attempt them if you have some spare
time.
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Part Seven: Font Sizes
Add an option to change the font size for your
grid display (affecting the values in cells and
the cage labels). Add at least three options
(e.g., small, medium and large) and make
sure that the text remains aligned within cells.
[2 marks]
Part Eight: Winning
Animation
Add some appropriate animations when a win
is detected. Be creative: you could animate
the grid, have a colourful display or even add
some fireworks over the grid.
[2 marks]
Part Nine: Solver
Add the option to automatically solve any
puzzle (including those loaded from a file or
text input). Use this functionality to also add a
"Hint" option, which briefly reveals the correct
value of one cell to the user.
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[4 marks]
Part Ten: Random Game
Generator
Include functionality to generate random
games. This should give some appropriate
options to the user (e.g., board size or
difficulty level).
Note: Try to ensure that a randomly
generated game has exactly one unique
solution.
[4 marks]
In total there are 40 marks available, which
will contribute 40% towards your overall
course mark. The breakdown of available
marks is as follows:
Part One : 4 Marks
Part Two : 4 Marks
Part Three : 4 Marks
Part Four : 5 Marks
mark scheme
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Part Five : 4 Marks
Part Six : 7 Marks
Part Seven : 2 Marks
Part Eight : 2 Marks
Part Nine : 4 Marks
Part Ten : 4 Marks
You can find a detailed marking scheme here.
Submission Information:
Please place all of your source files into a
single directory and make a zip archive of it.
Please do not use RAR archiver and do not
include any compiled bytecode (i.e. .class
files ). Include a README.txt file that explains
how to compile and run your code from the
command line. Also add a short user guide
(instructions.docx or instructions.pdf) that
explains how to carry out the main
functionality of the application (complete this
template here). You should submit your
zipped directory.
You should use the automated ECS hand-in
facilities found at:
additional information
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https://handin.ecs.soton.ac.uk
Originality of work:
Please be aware of and adhere to the
University regulations on collusion and
plagiarism.
Regulations Governing Academic Integrity
ECS also has extensive information about the
topic at
https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/notes/ai/.
Please note that we run automatic plagiarism
detection tools on all submissions.
Do we need to consider possible
bracketing when evaluating cages with
the division and subtraction operators?
E.g., 2-(1-6) = 7
No, you can assume there are no brackets.
Is there a maximum size for a cage?
No, there is no maximum. But you only need
to consider grids of sizes 2x2 to 8x8. Thus,
the largest possible cage will have 64 cells.
frequently asked questions
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Can a target be negative or a fraction?
No, only positive (or zero) integers are
allowed. The operation on the cells in a cage
must result in exactly the target (i.e., no
further rounding is allowed).
Can we use GUI builders or FXML?
No, please construct the GUI
programmatically as we covered in the
lectures.
Will our comments be assessed?
No, this won't be part of the mark scheme.
Can I be creative in designing the GUI,
e.g., add less frequently used
functionality to tabs, use menus or show
pop ups to enter numbers via mouse?
Yes, this is all fine and I encourage you to
think about good GUI design. Please be
sensible and use common sense though.
Should the random game generator
produce a different game each time?
Yes. If you want, you can ask the user to
enter a seed, which then produces the same
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game for a given seed (but entering other
seeds should be possible).
Should I highlight mistakes in cages
before they are completely filled?
No, you only need to highlight mistakes in
cages that are completed filled (and where the
numbers cannot be combined to reach the
target).
Regarding the "Application can identify
puzzles in the wrong input format and
notify the user" requirement, what are
the restrictions I should impose?
Some examples are given at the end of Part
Six, but try to think about other things that
could go wrong in the input file.
Is it ok to create a corresponding puzzle
file when a user uses the text field to
input the puzzle?
This is not the intended behaviour and would
not be an elegant way of implementing the
functionality. However, you won't be penalised
if you implement it in this way.
Pages maintained by Sebastian Stein and the module team. Original material by Julian Rathke.
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