MINEHELP.EXE
============

MineHelp is a little nonsense program which assists you with the Minesweeper
game included in Windows 3.1. It is able to solve the simple parts of the
puzzle, leaving only the really challenging ones to you.

This program is free, no warranties of course. It should always be
distributed as a package containing MINEHELP.EXE, MINEHELP.PAS (TPW source
code), MINEHELP.RES (resource file) and MINEHELP.DOC (this document).

Description
===========

You can start MineHelp at any time. When Minesweeper is not active, MineHelp
just sits and waits; as soon as Minesweeper is started, MineHelp begins to
analyze the game situation.

When started, MineHelp displays a little dialog box:

Status:
-------
  Inactive:  MineHelp doesn't do anything.

  Active:    When you press the OK button, MineHelp will do one step towards
             the solution of the puzzle, according to the "Level" settings.
             If it doesn't find a move, it does nothing, and it is up to
             you to figure out the next step.

  Automatic: MineHelp continuously monitors the mine field and does what it
             can do to solve the puzzle. It will only stop when there is no
             obvious thing to do (and "Level" is not set to "Random").

Level:
------
  Basic:     MineHelp will only do the basic tricks: clearing around a square
             if there are already enough squares marked as mined, or marking
             all covered adjacent squares if their number adds up to the
             total number of mines.

  Expert:    MineHelp will also solve problems which depend on two numbered
             squares. Here is a typical situation:

             .::,      (X means any nubered field)
             X21,      The ':' region contains one mine at most, but the '2'
             XXX,      square needs two mines in its neighbourhood. Hence,
                       '.' is a mine, and the ',' fields are all safe. 

  Random:    If it doesn't find a move using the "basic" and "expert"
             strategies, MineHelp will uncover a square at random. This can
             go wrong, of course.

Animation:   MineHelp will move the mouse cursor around on the mine field
----------   while it simulates mouse clicks.


Remarks:  - If "Status" is "Automatic" and "Level" is "Random", MineHelp
========    effectively attempts to solve the puzzle without user interaction.

          - These options take effect immediately; there's no need to press
            the OK button. The OK button is only for single-step execution
            in "active" mode.

Command line arguments
======================

The program parameter is a single string of lowercase (sorry) characters.

  c: MineHelp will start iconized
  h: MineHelp will start hidden (and probably remain so)
  i: initial status will be "inactive"
  a: inital status will be "active"
  b: initial level will be "basic"
  r: initial level will be "random"
  n: animation will be on initially.

Defaults: window visible, status automatic, level expert, animation off.

Example: minehelp cab   -> Start iconized, status is active, level is basic.

How it works
============

MineHelp analyzes the Minesweeper window by finding its position on the
screen and then examining the contents of the mine field squares. It does
this by reading pixels at strategic locations, using Windows' GetPixel
function.

The program then analyzes the current position and sends the appropriate
mouse clicks to the Minesweeper window.

In "automatic" mode, MineHelp uses a timer to examine the mine field once
every second.

Limitations
===========

- MineHelp works only when Minesweeper is in color mode.

- Minehelp doesn't do anything if the mine field is not fully visible
  on the screen.

- The program relies on the Minesweeper window dimensions and on the
  colors and shapes of the bitmaps used for the squares. If this should
  change with future Minesweeper versions, MineHelp would stop working. 

- MineHelp doesn't make mistakes (hopefully), except in "Random" mode;
  however, it always assumes that the marks on the mine field are correct.

- In automatic mode, you cannot safely use the "?" feature, because the
  first right mouse click will produce a "mark", which is taken literally
  by MineHelp.

- In automatic mode, Minesweeper sometimes loses the "button up" message
  from a *user's* mouse click. This leaves the clicked square in a "pushed"
  state, which looks like a safe field with no mines around it to MineHelp.

Performance
===========

In automatic/random mode, MineHelp solves Minesweeper's "Expert" mode in
about 20% of all cases.

The time used to solve the puzzle depends of course on the processor
speed, but also on the speed of the video driver. On a Compaq 486/33M
with QVision card, the best score was 7 seconds (usually 9 to 15). On
a 386/20, times are around 50 seconds.

What could be improved
======================

- MineHelp doesn't take into account the number of remaining mines displayed
  in the upper left corner of Minesweeper's window. This information is
  often useful in the final phases of the game.

- "Random" mode does not have to be completely random; there could be some
  basic probability calculations.

- MineHelp cannot solve problems which depend on more than two numbered
  squares. These situations are quite rare, but here's a simple one:

  XXX     The '.' and ',' regions both contain exactly one mine, therefore
  .1XX    ':' is safe.
  .21X
  :,,X


Have fun....                    Peter Karrer      pkarrer@bernina.ethz.ch