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
- 07/12/03 - Some speed improvements