Technical Notes
Difficulties & Known
Bugs:
- Pressing TAB will crash older versions of Netscape. I don't know why. Just don't do it.
- In Internet Explorer 5.0 through at least 6.0, the OnMouseOver event forces the window to take
the focus from any other browser window.
- Opera 7.x ignores the no scroll bars directive, and the status line seen during loading causes the
game window to have a left-right scroll bar.
The horizontal scroll bar causes a vertical scroll bar, which in turn makes
the board wrap. On the plus side (sort of), Opera also ignores the
non-resizable directives, so the user can adjust the screen size accordingly.
- In Opera 7.x, the right mouse button doesn't work. The user must use
the space bar instead.
- I'm sure there are more bugs. Tell me about yours, and
I'll see what I can do.
Differences from the Microsoft Version:
- To use the "Area Open" option click on
an exposed square with the correct number of bomb
neighbors marked. (much easier than left
and right clicking at the same time or double clicking).
- Did you know the MS version has an error with the clock?
First of all, it jumps to 1 second immediately when you
open the first square. Then it makes the first second tic
based on the true clock, as opposed using the real-time
original click as the baseline. In other words, you
always have from 1 to 2 seconds added to your score! (Needless to say, my version doesn't do this.)
- The maximum number of bombs in a custom game is limited
to 1/3 the total number of squares. (Any
more than 1/3 bombs is unplayable anyway - but the real
reason I did this has to do with the way I randomly place
bombs in the program.)
- There is no way to pause or stop the clock.
(However, you can switch to counting clicks.)
Enhancement in My Version:
- Opening Move option - Not only will the first square never
be a bomb, but neither will any of the neighbors. This
goes a long way to leveling the playing field of random
chance in the first few seconds, making Minesweeper more
of a skill game. (It is statistically
possible to
have evenly spaced bombs and no 0-neighbor squares,
although it is extremely unlikely, and not much fun to play.)
- Open Remaining option - Many people play to find the bombs,
as opposed to opening all the safe squares. This option allows those players
to open all remaining squares all at once.
(This feature won't apeal to the world record
Minesweeper players, but makes the game more fun for the casual
players).
- Learning Mode - I threw in this capability because I had the
images anyway for my JavaScript Minesweeper Solver
(which I'm still working on.)
- Cheating - Cheating games do not count towards high
scores and cannot be submitted.
- Show Clicks - Toggle between showing the time and the number
of clicks made in the game.
Update History:
- 04/23/97 - Initial release
- 04/27/97 - Removed color mode; sticky cookies
- 04/27/97 - Spacebar for bomb marking
- 04/27/97 - fixed dragging focus control problem
- 05/24/97 - "waiting" yellow face; source download
- 05/26/97 - Better border images; bombs=0 on win
- 06/15/97 - Added HTML separate screen menus
- 07/11/97 - Sweep top-to-bottom; best times page
- 07/11/87 - Gray background (don't rely on default)
- 11/20/97 - Menu updates
- 11/27/97 - New intro; Select board size from menu
- 02/26/98 - Made help links work better
- 11/14/99 - MS IE as primary supported platform
- 03/03/00 - Better IE support; hide focus check box
- 10/07/00 - Converted menus to DHTML
- 10/15/00 - Better cookies, menu control
- 02/17/02 - Cosmetic updates, no code changes
- 03/01/02 - Right-click revisited, links
- 03/08/02 - Support IE6.0 and Netscape 6.2
- 03/14/02 - Options menu, more options
- 03/17/02 - Ignore drags, menu control
- 03/24/02 - Learning mode, some cheating mode
- 10/??/02 - Added the "oh" yellow face
- 02/07/03 - Resizable screen, better menus