Version 1.3

Changes for version 1.3.

• No more ads.
• Haptic feedback for devices that support it. A light tap is generated if a puzzle piece is moved next to a piece it should connect to. A heavy tap is generated when the piece is released and it snaps to the other piece. For devices that do not support haptic feedback, the functionality is the same as before.
• Some bug fixes.

Version 1.2.0 Released

Version 1.2.0 of Palette Jigsaw was just released. Here is a list of the relevant changes. They apply almost exclusively to the iPad version of the app. The iPhone version is relatively unchanged.

In-App Purchases:

• Camera - purchasing this item will allow the user to take images with their device's camera or to select a picture from their photo library. When purchased, a new icon appears on the tool palette that looks like a camera lens. Tapping this icon opens a dialogue where the user can take photos with their camera or select a photo from their library. Note: there is a known issue where the live preview screen of the camera tool displays sideways when using the app in landscape orientation. This makes composing the image difficult. The image actually captured is oriented properly. A fix to this issue will be in the next build.
• Remove Ads - Without purchasing this item, advertisements are displayed when the user exits the preferences screen. Purchasing this item suppresses these ads.
• Additional images. There are both free and paid image packs available for download. Additional image packs will be made available on a regular basis in the future. At this time there is no subscription available, but that is something that may be added in the future. The new images are not available using the swipe or double-tap gestures. Instead, the user double-taps this icon to activate an image selection screen:
  

Additional Functionality:

The tool palette has been moved to the bottom of the screen. The reason for this is that panning down from the top of the screen interfered with the iOS notification drop down. Unfortunately, with the advent of iOS7, the Control Screen appears when the user swipes up from the bottom. Fortunately, this can be turned off by going to Settings > Control Center and turn off Access within Apps. You will still be able to access the Control Center from the home screen.

Color tool change - the color tool icon, the one that looks like a blue and red puzzle piece, works differently now. The original functionality, where pieces of a similar color to a single piece on the top palette are selected when the icon is tapped still works. However, whereas previously, this icon was greyed out when there was some other number of pieces on the top palette, now it is not. If there are more pieces on the top palette, tapping the icon will sort all the pieces by color. Here is an example of a palette arranged by hue and saturation.

There is now a marquee tool. Use a marquee tool to select a subset of the pieces on a palette. To use the marquee tool, press the [+] icon to create a blank palette. Next, drag it by two opposite corners. Doing this turns the palette into a marquee tool. It becomes semitransparent so you can see what you are selecting. Simply drag your fingers around on the screen until you have enclosed the pieces you are interested in. When you release your fingers, those pieces will be moved to the marquee palette, and it no longer functions as a marquee tool but is just another palette. In the image, below, the sunset picture was used for the puzzle design and cut up into 150 pieces. The color tool was used to arrange the pieces on the large palette. Next, the [+] icon was tapped to create a new palette. Two opposite corners were dragged to the position shown. The palette is transparent so the pieces can be seen through the palette.

When the fingers are released, the pieces are transferred to the new palette thus (if auto-grid is selected in the preferences screen, the pieces will be arranged in a grid):

Double-tap the icon with the landscape picture on it to select a new image. Both built-in images and images downloaded as part of an in-app purchase can be selected this way. The first time pictures are accessed this way, scrolling may be delayed as the images are extracted from the download. The old way of selecting pictures still works, but you can select only the built-in pictures that way.

As before, single-tapping this icon displays the reference image, or removes it if it's already showing. If the image is tapped while it is being displayed, you will be given the option to navigate to a website. The website is specific to that picture and may contain additional information about the picture or information on how to contact the artist.

Now when building the puzzle, a progress bar instead of a spinner is displayed.

The loupe tool that displays when using the eyedropper tool has been fixed. The cross hairs no longer disappear. Additionally, the image displayed within the loupe is at the correct magnification.

Version 1.1.0 Released

Support for iPhone 

New icons 

Eliminate stutter in movement of pieces in puzzles with a large number of pieces. 

Shadows of puzzle pieces are now proportional to their size, making them visible in puzzles with few pieces. 

Added shadow to tool icons that can be dragged. 

For iPhone only: disable arrow icons and enable swipe gestures to change puzzles even after the puzzle has started. For iPad, swipe gesture to change pictures works only before the puzzle has started. 

Move score from the solution palette to either next to the toolbar or at the bottom, depending upon space constraints. 

Added startup help animation that occurs if there is no activity before a puzzle is started. 

New long press functionality: long press ON a piece to find pieces of similar color, long press NEXT TO a piece to find pieces whose edge shape is similar. 

Added new pinch gesture functionality. Previously, if a palette were pinched to reduce its size, if it was reduced to 1/2 or less its previous size, it would be come transparent, and all pieces would be merged into another palette if that other palette completely enclosed it. To complement this feature, pinching out (zooming bigger) will do a sort of inverse. When zooming a palette bigger, after it grows to more than twice its size, it becomes transparent. If the fingers are then released, ALL palettes completely enclosed by the transparent one will be absorbed by the transparent one. This allows for combining many palettes into a single palette.

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. 

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.

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.

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.