Software: SVG Sliding Tile Puzzle

I wanted to create a simple interactive SVG demonstration, so I wrote this sliding tile puzzle (see http://kamhungsoh.com/000e.xhtml).

The initial coding was straightforward and quick. Only when I wanted to make the demonstration work in MSIE6 and ASV3 did I run into trouble. The first problem was that ASV3 did not process events for SVG elements if the SVG code was inline XHTML, so onclick didn't work. The workaround was to put all the SVG code in a separate .svg file and get the user to open that file. The second problem was that MSIE6 (or ASV3) did not accept a function reference as the first argument to the setTimeout() function, unlike Firefox and Opera. That stumped me for about half an hour until I found an example that used a string as the first argument.

1 May 2006: Tested the program on another Windows XP computer using MSIE6 + ASV3, and it works without needing to open another window. It must be some setting on my notebook.

2 May 2006: In a Gamedev.net thread, Enselic points out that the shuffle doesn't usually move the "1" and could be replaced by a randomizer that ensures that the initial configuration is solvable. I found some maths required to determine if a sliding tile puzzle can be solved in Kevin Gong's Analysis of the Sixteen Puzzle.