I obviously haven’t written anything in a while, and if you are reading this, there is a pretty good chance that you know why. If you don’t, that’s okay. Just know that right now is a pretty rough time for me, but it’s a lot rougher for someone that I love very much. Maybe one of these days I’ll write more about it on this space, but this is too much of a public forum for it right now.

So, because I have needed something to keep my mind semi-occupied when I’m not at work, I decided to write a major revision of Java solitaire. The game itself hasn’t changed a whole lot, but the look and feel definitely has. If you haven’t played it in a while, give it a spin. I’d appreciate any feedback.

What follows is a list of changes that I made, if you’re interested.

New to version 3.1:

• Added session statistics, under the “Information” (formerly “Help”) menu.
• Fixed a bug that I introduced in some of the new 3.0 logic.

New to version 3.0:

• Converted entire application to Swing (Java’s new way of designing GUIs).
  • Gave all of the applet the “native OS” look and feel. In other words, if you play this game on Windows XP, it will look a lot like a Windows XP program. If you’re a Mac user, hopefully it will look good there, although I have no way of testing.
  • Converted the help interface to Swing and changed its interface to a tabbed pane.
• Other changes:
  • New, more colorful card images!
  • Smoother card selection. Now the card doesn’t “snap to” the cursor; instead, the card is selected from the point where it is clicked. Makes it look more professional.
  • Optimized the imports (which should result in quicker loading).