[gnome-sudoku/vala-port] Add ROADMAP file: design notes from IRC meeting

[Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro src gnome org>]

commit f412399addedd824b2cb179d0efac3a2373f4cb8
Author: Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro gnome org>
Date:   Sun May 11 11:54:38 2014 -0500

    Add ROADMAP file: design notes from IRC meeting

 ROADMAP |  126 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 files changed, 126 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
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diff --git a/ROADMAP b/ROADMAP
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+Design notes from the IRC meeting on 18 March 2014.
+
+Earmarking
+
+ Alternative mode to tentatively mark a cell with a number? Could be an alternative mode for the pie menu / 
popover.
+
+Could hold down the Alt key or a long press or right click for this.
+
+Otherwise, could be a separate mode which is toggled with a button - this might be too much though.
+
+Notes
+
+Probably don't need hand-written notes. Earmarking is sufficient.
+
+Cells with notes will need to be visually indicated.
+
+Might be nice to include notes directly within the cell, so that all notes can be viewed simultaneously and 
visually associated with the correct cell (like the current version).
+
+Needs to be a direct way to edit a note for a cell, without triggering the popover/pie menu to enter a 
number. (Could be the alt press - long press, right click, etc)
+Alternatively the popover doesnt close for some interactions (earmarking). Left click opens popover. Left 
click solves and closes popover. Right click earmarks and doesnt close popover because earmarking will need 
to be done multiple times for one cell.
+
+Might be nice to have notes editable in-place through a popover.
+
+Popovers and pie menus
+
+<aday> about popovers - my concern is that it will pop up in different positions depending on which cell you 
click
+<aday> that could be a bit annoying, because you want to quickly press a button. it needs to be predictable
+<maweki> the pie menu at the proper position would be nicer for that. But again, it satisfies the same 
interface. Just wanted to clear that in general with the earmarking.
+<mcatanzaro> On the other hand, the number pad is more familiar than the pie, and I know immediately where 
each number is in the number pad. 123\456\789
+
+maweki> ...we show the popover/pie menu by default and if you use the keyboard the popover is on a 3 second 
delay until you use the mouse again on the popover and then it returns instantly. That's how computer games 
do it with keyboard/gamecontroller switches and hints on button prompts
+
+We can maybe try a popover and see how it performs in practice.
+
+New Game Screen
+
+Could be a popover rather than a screen.
+
+Maybe have two controls - one for new game at the current level, and one for changing the level. (Not sure 
about that.)
+Maybe "play again with same difficulty" when game is finished, having a "new game" button (with difficulty 
selection) in the headerbar. One click for most cases (just do that thing again). Two clicks for getting new 
game with changed difficulty.
+
+When relaunching, it should restart the previous game if it wasn't finished.
+
+Printing
+
+Might be fine as-is, but a design review would be nice. Test by doing print to file.
+
+Note that we currently have two separate print items in the app menu, one for printing the current game, and 
one for printing a set of new games to solve offline.
+
+Note that we have a couple of bugs about it printing duplicate sudokus, but that's a bug, not a design 
problem.
+
+Help Mode
+
+Current implementation in vala-port is problematic.
+
+Screenshot: https://people.gnome.org/~mcatanzaro/sudoku-temp/sudoku-help-mode.png
+Video: https://people.gnome.org/~mcatanzaro/sudoku-temp/sudoku-help-video.webm
+
+In particular, note that hovering over those sentences changes the squares on the board that are highlighted!
+
+This is low priority. It's fine if we remove it completely for now.
+
+"maweki:
+I think that this is a great functionality we should expand with the tutorial into a teacher mode that shows 
different strategies for solving with randomly generated examples. But in actual play I would remove that."
+
+First Run Tutorial
+
+Low priority.
+
+To explain the game principles and controls.
+
+Existing Features
+
+- Game
+--- New
+--- Reset < reword? "Restart Game" perhaps? Available only in the app menu?
+--- Undo < should be in the window
+--- Redo < should be in the window
+--- Puzzle Statistics... < don't include in the standard gui. Output to the command line when running in 
debug mode?
+--- Print...
+--- Print Multiple Sudokus...
+--- Close
+
+- Settings
+--- Fullscreen - [1]
+--- Show Toolbar - Goodbye, toolbar!
+--- Highlighter -  [2]
+--- Show Possible Numbers < Hide - it takes away the challenge of the game. (Keep behind command line switch 
for testing)
+--- Warn About Unfillable Squares < Keep? (aday is unsure ;) ) Probably keep as a preference.
+
+- Tools
+--- Hint [3] (remove in current state)
+--- Clear Top Notes - remove
+--- Clear Bottom Notes - remove
+--- Track Additions < remove for now. reconsider later. Will have to be implemented differently if kept: 
it's currently too powerful and confusing. Simple undo/redo in the headerbar could be sufficient for now.
+
+- Help
+--- Contents
+--- About
+
+[1] Fullscreen
+
+"Fullscreen has been removed from most of the other games, since it doesn't look
+good unless both the window and the art is designed to scale nicely. I'm also
+not fully convinced of the benefit over simply maximizing the window now that
+we have header bars. If we want to keep fullscreen, then we can probably pack
+the fullscreen icon into the header bar on the left."
+
+Fullscreen may be more useful in environments other than GNOME Shell.
+
+[2] Highlighter
+
+    * Could consider removing the preference and always having it on. If the preference is retained it will 
need a better name (maybe "visual aid").
+    * Needs visual refinement - currently too noisy. Simple shading for the selected row and column might be 
enough.
+
+[3] Hint
+
+Low-priority.
+
+Should have a button in the window if implemented.
+
+Should be useful enough to help players once they're already on an impossible track. "If we build it, we 
have to build it for people that are stuck"
+
+"If I am stuck and I get a mismatch and so on and I press hint, it should maybe show me two numbers I filled 
in incorrectly. That would be useful. That's what the hint system should do instead of pointing me to the 
direction of the next wrong number."
+
+Hints should preferably point out wrong things and if you've done everything right, it should point to cells 
you might be able to fill.