Unless, of course, we follow the advice in one of the comments:

• Install “compizconfig-settings-manager”
• run “ccsm”
• go to “Ubuntu Unity Plugin” -> Switcher
• disable all key bindings.
• Go back to the main screen and enable “Static Application Switcher”.
  (If you do it the other way around, you will get segfaults.)

It gives you a more limited switcher (only to windows on current desktop). On the other hand, this one switches to windows instead of applications — so no more annoyance trying to switch to the right window of an application that you’re running 10 times (such as a terminal window).

It works!!!

Quick install

1. download and unzip soko2012.zip
   Android users: you’ll need an unzip utility.
2. install DosBox 0.74 or higher
3. For Windows only, here’s how to create a shortcut (see also the below picture):
   • Go to the Desktop.
   • Select the DosBox icon.
   • Press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V to copy the shortcut.
   • Right-click, select “Properties”
   • At the end of the field “Target“, add the full path of soko2012.exe.
     E.g., if “Target” was "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -userconf, and the files were extracted to C:\Users\hugo.jonker\Downloads\sokoban\, then “Target” should become "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -userconf C:\Users\hugo.jonker\Downloads\sokoban\soko2012.exe.
   • Change the field “Start in:” to point to the folder where you extracted the zipfile.
     E.g., continuing the previous example, “Start in:” would now become C:\Users\hugo.jonker\Downloads\sokoban\.
   • Change to the Tab “General” and rename the icon to SokoBox.

To play:

• Unix: run startsoko.sh from the command line.
• Windows: Double-click the SokoBox icon.
  Potentially the game runs slow, press Ctrl+F12 a few times to speed up DosBox.
• Android: Run DosBox and enter the following commands:
  • cd Downloads\sokoban
  • soko2012.

Screenshots

Features

• 48 completely original fields
• 22 completely original, totally not-ripped graphical sets, including:
  • a fastfood-themed set
  • a halloween-themed one
  • a crisis-themed one (bring your money to the bank)
  • a Sinterklaas-themed one
  • a christmas-themed one (notice that Sinterklaas != Santa)
  • a few inspired by videogames of the 8-bit era
  • and more!
• a stand-alone level editor
• a stand-alone graphics editor (heavily updated in 2012!)
• Keeping tracks of 2 types of highscores:
  1. the best efforts (least moves, then quickest) for the first 10 levels
  2. the 10 players who got the farthest completing all levels
• A player-state saving system, so that you could continue to improve your score for the 2nd type of highscore
• Level selector with thumbnails of the levels
• a demo mode (don't touch any key for a while in the beginning, and the game will play one of the first 20 levels).
  Pointless? FUN! :)
• Opening and ending scrolling titles
• Insanely trivial-to-break encryption scheme for said titles :)
• And, lest we forget: CHEATS! Including a complete internal level editor. I kid you not.

System requirements

• A system capable of running DosBox 0.74 or higher

Yeah, that's sort of it. This game was in development for a while, and unlike Duke Nukem Forever, we never deviated from the original specs. Sure, we need some memory (640K is enough :),  CPU (press Ctrl+F12 to speed up, Ctrl+F11 to slow down -- these are dosbox controls, not ours), and some graphical requirements (stock VGA modes). Really, your smartphone can handle these. With two fingers in its nose.  :)

Development history

Question: what does this version of Sokoban have in common with such pretentious names as Guns n' Roses' Chinese Democracy, or the game Duke Nukem Forever?
Answer:

• Chinese democracy: in development 1998-2008
• Duke Nukem Forever: in development 1997-2010
• Sokoban by us: in development 1994-2012

Message to take home: all good things deliver. Alternatively: not everyone can maintain their development quality as long as Arnout and I can :)

Thanks

Big thanks due to everyone who helped and inspired us. You're probably named in the titles already!

Questions/comments

If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact me!
If you're reading this blog, you ought to know how :)

Except that sometimes, I right-click a message, but before I can select “move to”, the context menu is gone again. Annoying. Apparently, I’m not the only one.

Work-around: minimize the window and then restore the TB window again. The bug is still being hunted, as far as I can tell.

Le what?!

Apparently, this can have multiple causes:

• Hostname of your local machine not being resolved (try adding to hosts file of the SVN server)
• Firewall issue(s)
• Negotiation issues (try changing from “file://” to “svn+ssh://”)

The first issue (your computer does not know who it is) is actually a problem. Diagnose this by checking with “sudo echo hello world” — does sudo report “cannot resolve host ….”? If so, then the below will probably solve it:
echo "127.0.0.1\t`hostname`" >> /etc/hosts

But this one can be tweaked too. Install “MyUnity” to set # desktops, and (e.g.) set whether devices should be shown (a good option since it’s harder to find them now than before).

Another tweak, adapted from this tip, is how to re-enable sloppy focus:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/focus_mode sloppy

Apparently, according to an answer to that question, there are 3 different values: sloppy, click, and mouse:

• click: click in window to get focus
• sloppy: point into a window to give it focus
• mouse: focus on window if (and only if) mouse is in window

I prefer my focus sloppy, thankyouverymuch :)

Then they told me it was that weekend (classes on Thursday evening, folks), and I hesitated. For a second or two. And then I figured “oh, whatever, we’ll make do somehow.”

Great decision! I had such an amazing time :)
Saturday morning, I woke up insanely early and was way too early at the station. We took the train to Nancy, then the bus (we being Cassandra, Ingrida and myself), and were on time to register and attend the first classes (from 10:00(!) on). Since I skipped lindy hop for a while, I figured to start with “Lindy 1″. Probably below my level, then again, last time I attended such an event (swinging in the rain), it was *not*.

Turns out that CapDanse attracts people from all sorts of dancing backgrounds, and plenty take the first level of a class just to see what it’s like — absolute beginners. Thankfully, we had Sharon and Juan teaching us, and these two are good. So they were working on everyone’s basics, which is what always needs work anyway :)
Fun class, not a complete waste of time :)

Then I went to Rock 1, which was fun. First half hour was simple stuff I’d already seen, and then suddenly there came a move I hardly came to grips with. Le oops! I reckon I forgot most of that move by now :s.

Then, Lindy 2, again with Phil and Aude (two french teachers who also taught Rock 1). Hmms, the lindy level here was better, but still… sort of “had a few classes in Lindy”, not “have danced lindy for months now” like me.

After lunch, the fun continued with (again) Lindy 2, again by Sharon and Juan. They focused on our basics (the bounce, the rhythm), and they were damn right about it. Next up: Tap dancing! This is seriously super :) Just to be tapping something with your feet which fits in with the music was really cool. Hard too — we learned a march and another routine, and I completely failed to explain to my legs how to do the march.
Last of the day was the Big Apple Routine, which is a solo jazz dance routine (like the shimsham), which was explained at *blighteningly* fast speed, and, moreover, was a continuation of an earlier class from before lunch.

Yeah, I dropped out, went to the hotel, caught the end of a movie (whose grand finale was a tap dance routine :), and layed low till dinner and the party.

At the party there was a separate room for “west coast”. It seemed to be couple dancing to popular music — didn’t quite get it. Then the shows came, and the West Coast teachers showed what, to me, basically was a variation of Zouk. That is, the moves/figures are very Zouk-style. For someone who knows as little about it as me :)

Anyway, though it looks fun, it’s the kind of music I prefer to free-form dance to. So I decided to skip it.

Sunday, first class of the day was Jazz Roots 1 with Max and Ksenia. What can I say, we got off on the wrong foot. The lesson was pretty okay, though I didn’t appreciate that the entire lesson consisted of learning one routine. Next session was Lindy 1 — yeah, not quite my level, but the other courses in parallel were over my head (or so I thought). We did a lot of basic stuff, again with Max and Ksenia. I enjoyed myself there, and tried to make the followers follow — not always easy. Then came Lindy 2, again with Max and Ksenia. I don’t know if they were tired of me, but I sure was getting tired of them ;-) Unfortunately, they basically repeated their Lindy 1 class. I had to check out so I didn’t stick till the end, but, all in all, somewhat disappointing.

After lunch (which was a different story), Lindy 3 with Sharon and Juan. What. A. Relief. We learned some fun moves, we danced a lot, I basically had a fantastic time and came away from one hour of dancing feeling energised. Which I then expended on Charleston Couple, taught by… … guess. Yep, Max and Ksenia. Again, one routine to do for the entire class, not my thing. Took me a while to sort of get it, and I was nowhere near comfortable with it.

So I clearly saw the advantage of teaching 2 figures — if a student fails to get the first, they can always have fun with the second. While if you’re teaching one routine, a small error early in the routine can prevent the fun later on.

Final class of the event was the Rock 1 class, this time by another french couple. They were fun, taught very relaxedly, and I had a good time. Rock is a lot like jive or Lindy Hop, only more strict, more “ballroom”, if you will. I realised that part of the attraction of Lindy Hop to me is the ultimate freedom you get — as Simon once said, “there are no wrong moves, there are only new moves” :)

The Rock 1 class itself was really fun, and we learned a few simple moves which were quite fun :) They weren’t lindy, as the way to lead them really violates the Lindy was of leading/following: Lindy is all about tension, natural movements, etc., while this move contained a “signal” — “If I flap my hand like this, you go like that”.
Cool effect, but didn’t feel like lindy.

Anyway, it has been *way* too long since, no chance to practice all the cool figures Sharon and Juan taught us, so I just hope I remember them.

Cool thing I learned: in Lindy, they use the term “flourish” exactly like in juggling. You’re bored, there’s an arm available, why don’t you use it to spin something around? It doesn’t interfere with the pattern anyway :)

PS: I’ll try to find some videos and photos from my fellow hoppers to sprinkle throughout this long post later :)

Point of particular annoyance: in Dosbox, QB / QBasic does not react to CTRL+Break. Which happens to be the key code to halt the program and edit it — in other words, my debugging key. I now got curious, and turned to The Google.

• Here’s why CTRL+Break doesn’t work in a normal DosBox setup.
  (tl;dr version: no event generated whatsoever by the keypress. Also: this is a “magical” key-combo, in that it triggers an erase of the keyboard buffer and a call to a special handler — in short: special magic is needed, and none of it is there).
• Apparently, there is a patch to enable CTRL+Break (note that this patch requires another patch). Didn’t try it myself.
• Best of all: QB / QBasic respond similarly to CTRL+ScrollLock. Which works out of the (dos)box. :)

Oookay…

After a search, I found one way to do it:
sudo apt-get install timidity tuxguitar-jsa
This installs a real-time sequencer.
Tweak the settings in TuxGuitar (F7 -> sound) to use this, on the appropriate MIDI port — in my case, Gervill.