NAME
gnubik - an interactive, graphic Magic cube program.
SYNOPSIS
gnubik [window_system_options] [-hvs] [-z n] [-a m]
DESCRIPTION
This is a program which displays a 3 dimensional image of a magic cube,
as introduced to the world by its Hungarian inventor, Erno Rubik. The
user rotates the blocks of the cube, and attempts to solve the puzzle,
by moving all the blocks to their correct positions and orientations,
resulting in a cube with a single colour on each face.
OPERATION
The user interacts with the program in the following ways:
Viewing the Cube
The viewing position may be altered using the arrow keys or by using
the mouse. The left and right arrow keys rotate the cube about the
vertical axis. The up and down keys rotate the cube about the
horizontal axis. Holding down the shift key whilst pressing the left
and right arrow keys rotates the cube about the z axis.
To rotate the cube using the mouse, hold down button 1 and move the
mouse anywhere on the window. If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you
can use this to rotate the cube about the z axis.
Performing Rotations
Rotations are performed using the mouse. To manipulate the cube, place
the mouse cursor on a square in the cube, against the edge facing the
direction you want to move, and click button 1.
The mouse cursor will indicate the direction of rotation.
OPTIONS
The following options may be specified on the command line at
invocation.
-z n Draws a cube of dimension n, where n is positive. The default
value of n is 3.
-a m When rotating parts of the cube, show m intermediate positions.
The default for this value is 2. Setting to a higher value,
will give smoother animations, but will slow down the whole
program.
-s Starts with the cube already solved. By default, it starts in a
random position.
-h Display a help message and exit.
-v Display version number and then exit.
IMPLEMENTATION
The code for gnubik was written in ANSI compliant C, using the Mesa
graphics library, and the Gtk+ library. As such, it should be easy to
generate a version for any system complying with these standards. The
program was developed on a GNU/Linux platform running XFree86.
BUGS
The rendering process is slow - especially over a network, since
display lists aren’t currently used. The entire image is re-rendered,
during each refresh, regardless of which components have changed their
appearance.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1998 John Darrington.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.