Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Color Tool

This post describes how to use the Color Tool. The color tool allows the user to select pieces having similar average color. 

To use the color tool, first create a blank palette using the Add Palette tool and add a single piece to it:


The overall color of the piece should match the color you want to select by. When you add a single piece to a palette, the color tool is activated. This is indicated by the blue and red icon changing from a faded to a bright color.

Color tool is faded before piece is added to palette.

Color tool is bright when a single piece is on the active palette.


When the user taps the red and blue color tool icon, all pieces having a similar average color are added to the palette. The sensitivity of the color tool is controlled by a setting in the preferences screen. Tap the gears icon to view the preferences screen.



When the Color Sensitivity slider is adjusted, help text is displayed near the bottom of the preferences screen. With the slider set to the minimum value (0.05 is the minimum), only very similar average colors are selected, as illustrated here:



All pieces having the same average color have been added to the palette containing the sample piece. With the slider set to a higher value, more pieces, with more varied colors are added to the palette:



One other setting affects the pieces that are selected. On the Preferences screen there is a setting called "Ignore Hidden Palettes when Selecting". If this is set to ON, then any palettes hidden off-screen will be ignored when selecting pieces. In the examples shown above, there are only two palettes, the original palette containing all scrambled pieces, and the palette being used by the color selection process, so this setting has no effect. 



Sunday, August 18, 2013

Expanding Palettes

It's often the case that you want to expand a palette to make more room for puzzle pieces. Normally, palettes automatically resize according to the placement of pieces they contain. It is possible to expand them with this simple technique:

Drag a puzzle piece near the edge of the palette you wish to expand. If you move the piece quickly or in a diagonal direction, the palette remains unchanged. However, if you move the piece slowly, either horizontally or vertically, the size of the palette adjusts to include the location where you are dragging the piece.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Volume of Sound Effects

The sound effects are created as system sounds. The volume is controlled the same as with other system sound effects.

Settings, Sounds, Ringer and Alerts

Adjust the slider to the desired volume. Note that adjusting this slider affects all system sounds equally.

Change with Buttons can be toggle ON to allow system sound volume to be changed with the normal volume control.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Version 1.0.1 Released

Version 1.0.1 of Palette Jigsaw was released today.  Here is a list of changes with this version.


  • Previously, partially worked puzzles in Portrait orientation were not restored. That problem has been fixed.
  • Previously, multiple gestures were recognized simultaneously. This created a weird situation where a piece could be moved within a palette while the palette was being resized. This problem has been changed so that now the only gestures recognized simultaneously with each other are two finger pan and pinch, which control moving and resizing palettes.
  • On the statistics view after multiple puzzles have been at least partially worked, it used to be the case that the highest score was always displayed. Now, puzzle completion takes precedence over score. So, what is displayed is the highest score attained by a completed puzzle, if there was one, or the highest score of an incompletely solved puzzle if none has been solved for that level. The top line always shows the current puzzle, whether or not it is complete.
  • The sound accompanying the pinch gesture that is intended to indicate a merge of two palettes was sounding even if no merge actually happened. This has been corrected.
  • Shape and eyedropper tool were not unpausing the timer when used. This has been corrected.
  • Check for whether a piece can snap to another piece has been optimized.
  • Fixed issue with LED display if pieces are moved after a puzzle is solved. Was stuck on yellow. Now LED disappears because there is nothing to save.
  • Fixed an issue with scoring when a previously worked puzzle is restarted.
  • Score no longer limited to 2,147,483,647.
  • Fixed problem with palettes getting stranded off view. Now if a piece being removed from a palette results in the palette resizing smaller and thus being stranded, it moves back enough into view that the user can manipulate it.
  • Score is now updated every 0.2 seconds. This is also the time between checks to see if the puzzle needs to be saved.