CSSE 220 – Object-Oriented Software Development
Linear Lights Out
Objectives
More practice with event-based programming in Swing.
Tasks
Linear Lights Out: Implement the game Linear Lights Out in the linearLightsOut project. In Linear Lights Out, the user is presented with an array of buttons that are randomly initialized to either Xs or Os, 50% probability each. Clicking on a button changes the symbol of the button and both its left and right neighbors, if they exist. Buttons on the end just change their own symbol and their one neighbor’s symbol; the buttons don’t “wrap around”. The object of the game is to reach a state where the buttons all show the same symbol, whether Xs or Os, it doesn’t matter.
We’re providing a lot less “scaffolding” for this problem than most of the previous ones. Everything you need to solve the problem has either appeared in previous homework or examples, or is in the Java API documentation for JButton. Remember to ask for help if you get stuck.
Here are the various stages you should complete:
- Stage 0: Examine the main method in the LinearMain class in the linearLightsOut package in the LinearLightsOut project that you checked out in class. This is all the code that we supply for the project — the rest is your responsibility.
- Stage 1: Display a frame with the right title.
- Stage 2: Display the right number of buttons in the frame (see the
nButtons variable in LinearMain.main) without worrying about event handling or the symbols on the buttons. For full credit, your final solution must work with any nButtons greater than 2.
- Stage 3: Make sure the buttons are initialized to random symbols (Xs and Os, 50% probability each).
- Stage 4: Implement a working Quit button (This involves implementing an event handler for the Quit button).
- Stage 5: Implement a working New Game button. When the button it pressed, the game should reset the symbol buttons to a new set of random symbols.
- Stage 6: Set up event handlers for the symbol buttons that correctly toggle the symbols as described above.
- Stage 7: Check for a win and notify the player in some way through the GUI (not simply by System.out.println). Changing the window title would suffice. (If you do that, be sure to change it back when the player clicks New Game.)
Hints:
- The
setText() and getText() methods of JButton are your friends.
- You do not need to use inheritance to solve this problem; your BallWorlds project will give you practice with that.
- You may, however, use inheritance
in this project if you wish: extending
JFrame, JButton, and/or JPanel, for
example. But usually this is not
helpful.
Here’s a screen shot of the game in progress:
Remember, in all your code:
- Write appropriate comments:
- Javadoc comments for public fields and methods.
- Explanations of anything else that is not obvious.
- Give self-documenting variable and method names:
- Use name completion in Eclipse, Ctrl-Space, to keep typing cost low and readability high.
- Use Ctrl-Shift-F in Eclipse to format your code.
- Take care of all auto-generated TODO’s.
- Then delete the TODO comment.
- Correct ALL compiler warnings.
- Quick Fix is your friend!
Rubric
-
Linear Lights Out - 10 points for each stage
- -5 points - The windows does not automatically
size for the number of buttons entered
- -5 points - The new game button does not reset the game won notification (if applicable)
Total: 70 points
Turn-in Instructions
Turn in your programming work by committing it to your SVN repository.