Redesign the user interface

[owenca]

• Move the Restart level menu item to the bottom of the grid window and make it a button labeled Restart puzzle.
• Add a centered title underneath the menu bar for the selected pack (Classic Pack, Six-Move Pack, etc).
• Move the Level menu to the top left of the grid view (where the Level label is) and make it a popup menu.

[humdingerb]

If you're determined to move stuff from the menu bar into the playing area, you could put the "Puzzle pack" into a popup menu like you plan for the "Level" menu, instead of adding the pack title as a string view. When using these standard GUI widgets, I can magine that using a standard panel background colour looks better than the current dark blue.

I'd suggest putting the "Moves" score (maybe using a bigger font) together with the "Restart" below the game grid, and the menus above. Maybe the "Restart" button will look better as icon button...

[owenca]

Thanks for the advice! I've got the different grid sizes (3x3, 4x4, 5x5, and 6x6) and random puzzles to work, but with the current GUI, I can't integrate the code in a way that the UI would still make sense. I just wanted to make minimum changes to the GUI for now and work on the rest later. Oh well, it has taken much longer than I anticipated. :(

[owenca]

The GUI must be changed to accommodate the new features below:

• selection of grid size (3x3, 4x4, etc)
• selection of minimum number of moves for random puzzles

Perhaps the simplest way is:

• Insert a Random menu of grid sizes between Game and Puzzle pack. Each grid size has its own Level submenu.
• Change the Level menu on the menu bar to a submenu of Puzzle pack so that each pack has its own Level submenu.
• Disable Puzzle pack if the selected grid size is not 5x5.
• Move the Restart level menu item to the bottom of the window and make it a button.