# Cube Explorer 5.00 released - with slice moves



## Herbert Kociemba (Mar 22, 2010)

For the implementation of slice moves into Cube Explorer I had to work on many parts of the source code, so it justifies the jump from 4.64 to 5.00.
I use the not very logical but usual identifiers E, M S and x,y,z for the moves of the slices and the cube rotations. Here for example the output for the three chessboard patterns of order 2,3, and 6:
S2 M2 E2 (3s*)
z2 x' S E R' S2 L2 E2 L' S U' M2 D2 S2 U' (13s*)
z2 x' R' E2 L2 S2 L' U' M2 D2 S E S U' (12s*)

Slice moves work for partially defined cubes too.


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## miniGOINGS (Mar 22, 2010)

Time for Roux optimization for me.


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## waffle=ijm (Mar 22, 2010)

Just downloaded. Thanks! This should help in Roux


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## jms_gears1 (Mar 22, 2010)

i cant find it, i still see 4.64


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## waffle=ijm (Mar 22, 2010)

Here it is


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## jms_gears1 (Mar 22, 2010)

waffle=ijm said:


> Here it is



not seeing a DL link
meh just copied the link urp 464 and put 500 lol


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## Toad (Mar 22, 2010)

You need to update your copyright at the bottom to say 2010 

And I've downloaded too, thanks a lot


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## waffle=ijm (Mar 22, 2010)

jms_gears1 said:


> waffle=ijm said:
> 
> 
> > Here it is
> ...



you have to click download on the nav bar.


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## 4Chan (Mar 22, 2010)

Perfect timing, time to revise ZBLL!~


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## jms_gears1 (Mar 22, 2010)

waffle=ijm said:


> jms_gears1 said:
> 
> 
> > waffle=ijm said:
> ...


D:< i did, there is no link to 5.00 just 4.64

anyway i used my leet skillz and got it.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Mar 22, 2010)

jms_gears1 said:


> waffle=ijm said:
> 
> 
> > jms_gears1 said:
> ...



Come on guys, jou need no skills. Just update your browser cache.


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## miniGOINGS (Mar 22, 2010)

Herbert Kociemba said:


> Come on guys, jou need no skills. Just update your browser cache.



Easy for you to say. You already have skills.

I'm seriously looking at downloading this when I get home.


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## 4Chan (Mar 22, 2010)

Thank you mister Kociemba!
I've used this program to generate hundreds of cases!
So versatile and now even more user friendly!~


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## kunz (Mar 22, 2010)

cool program thanks for the link


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## Lucas Garron (Mar 22, 2010)

Cube Explorer – now with the greatest thing since sliced bread: slice turns. 

It seems to run fine under Wine in Snow Leopard, though the first launch appeared a bit buggy. I'll report if anything significant fails.

Herbert: Would you mind if I moved this thread to the software area?


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## Lucas Garron (Mar 22, 2010)

Also, I recommend the following name:

Cube Explorer 5.00
*S*lice *M*ove *E*dition​


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## Khartaras (Mar 22, 2010)

jms_gears1 said:


> anyway i used my leet skillz and got it.



I would hardly define basic searching and clicking as "leet skillz".


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## jms_gears1 (Mar 22, 2010)

Khartaras said:


> jms_gears1 said:
> 
> 
> > anyway i used my leet skillz and got it.
> ...


..
I didnt find it by searching in clicking, i just changed the DL link for cube464 to cube500...


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## qqwref (Mar 22, 2010)

This is aweSoME!

I have one comment: if the user has a face-turn solution already known, optimal or not, when looking for a slice-turn solution it should accept that face-turn solution as a starting point, rather than starting at 20s or whatever. So if I have a 14f* or something, it shouldn't ever show me positions of 15s or worse.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Mar 22, 2010)

qqwref said:


> This is aweSoME!
> 
> I have one comment: if the user has a face-turn solution already known, optimal or not, when looking for a slice-turn solution it should accept that face-turn solution as a starting point, rather than starting at 20s or whatever. So if I have a 14f* or something, it shouldn't ever show me positions of 15s or worse.



Yes this has some logic. I am sure there are other things which are wrong in the worst case. I will try to fix this in the next version.

To Lucas: Of course you can move this thread to the software section.


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## deadalnix (Mar 22, 2010)

Can you say more about logic behind slice move algorithms ?

Also, does the source code will be available one day ? I've always found a bit ackward that the program generating officials scramble is a blackbox. How can we be sure that official scrambles are really what we think it is ?


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## Herbert Kociemba (Mar 23, 2010)

deadalnix said:


> Can you say more about logic behind slice move algorithms ?
> 
> Also, does the source code will be available one day ? I've always found a bit ackward that the program generating officials scramble is a blackbox. How can we be sure that official scrambles are really what we think it is ?



The slice moves algorithms are the same as in the face move metric. Internally the slice move E for example is represented as a "new" move (UD'), so the centers do not move. So instead of 18 we now have 27 moves, which keep the centers fixed.

The sourcecode will not be available in the next time. The new version implements the Mersenne Twister MT19937 as the random generator. I did not write the unit myself but here is the description:

"This unit for MT19937 (integer version) allows to generate a sequence of pseudorandom unsigned integers (32bit) which is uniformly distributed among 0 to 2^32-1 for each call. The Mersenne Twister is "designed with consideration of the flaws of various existing generators," has a period of 2^19937 - 1, gives a sequence that is 623-dimensionally equidistributed, and "has passed many stringent tests, including the die-hard test of G. Marsaglia and the load test of P. Hellekalek and S. Wegenkittl.""

I use four calls to this generator to get the corner/edge permutations/orientations (fortunately 12! is smaller than 2^32-1). You are invited to generate a million random cubes (easy to do in Cube Explorer) and run some statistical test on the data. I would be interested in the result too.


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## Kenneth (Mar 23, 2010)

Ah, nice, you put buttons for scrambling only corners or edges, thank's for that.

MES.. I love it


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## rahulkadukar (Mar 23, 2010)

Just saw the thread today and the option to scramble only corners or edges is awesome. Great help in BLD and thanks for the awesome program


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## Erik (Mar 23, 2010)

Now there are still 2 things that I'm missing in cube explorer:

1a. The possibility to turn off and on any moves (so for example put of F2 moves but no F moves), also I already experienced after 2 minutes with cube explorer 5 that it throws in a lot of E and S moves. For speedcubing those are horrible, so it'd be MUCH better if I could just toggle off E/E'/E2 and S/S'/S2 
1b. The possibility to rate the amount of moves that count for each move. How it is now M2 would count as 1. Also imagine you could rate moves like B2 with 2 and F2 with 1.75 and U2 with 1.5 moves, you could get instant fast algorithms with this...

Combined with both 1a and 1b you could for instance search for ELL algorithms while only allowing U/R/M/F moves and rate U2 as 1.5 moves, F moves as 1.25 and F2 as 1.75.

2. The possibility to search in QTM (quarter turn metric), in my experience single turn metric algorithms are often faster than HTM ones.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Mar 23, 2010)

rahulkadukar said:


> Just saw the thread today and the option to scramble only corners or edges is awesome. Great help in BLD and thanks for the awesome program



The version 5.00 does not scramble only corners or edges. It only resets corners and edges to clean. But this may result in an unsolvable cube for parity reasons. But it is no problem to implement this feature in the next version.


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## masterofthebass (Mar 23, 2010)

Herbert Kociemba said:


> rahulkadukar said:
> 
> 
> > Just saw the thread today and the option to scramble only corners or edges is awesome. Great help in BLD and thanks for the awesome program
> ...



perhaps in the next version you could add the possibility of centers being ignored too. This would add functionality for 2x2 solving quite easily.


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## miniGOINGS (Mar 23, 2010)

masterofthebass said:


> perhaps in the next version you could add the possibility of centers being ignored too. This would add functionality for 2x2 solving quite easily.



I actually completely forgot about this untill you brought it up. The added function couldn't hurt to have, and would be really useful.


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## deadalnix (Mar 23, 2010)

How, the slice moves stuff is pretty simple in fact. I was thinking at something more complex.

Considering the cube genration, I actually trust you, and also know that some test have benn ran already, so I needn't to reproduce the same thing, I will get similar results.

But you that it's just a crappy workaround, and an analyse of the algorithm is mych better and much clearer. Anyway, I don't think this is a good thing to trust a massively tested blackbox as it's in contradiction with kerchkoff.

Actually, I'm more blaming WCA than you. This is your software, your work, you obviously do whatever you want with it. But I don't think WCA should rely on this.

Maybe you could separate the radom cube generation in a DLL, and release the source code of this DLL. We could this way rely on a known radom scramble generation without actually release all cube explorer source code.

That would be really great, and I don't think the random position cube generator is what you want to keep secret as long as it's probably a quite simple piece of code.


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## Cride5 (Mar 23, 2010)

Erik said:


> 1b. The possibility to rate the amount of moves that count for each move. How it is now M2 would count as 1. Also imagine you could rate moves like B2 with 2 and F2 with 1.75 and U2 with 1.5 moves, you could get instant fast algorithms with this...



From a speedsolving perspective this is an excellent idea. At the moment, the primary criteria that algorithms are searched by is move-distance, either QTM or HTM, neither of which capture time taken to execute particularly well. Ability to reduce down to 2 or 3 gen algorithms helps a bit, but it could be better. Assigning cost weights to individual moves would be a great advance.

There are also a couple other metrics which might be useful for sorting algorithms by fingerfriendlyness:
* The maximum angle range of the R-layer. A very good algorithm would have a range of 90°. (R U R' U' is an example). The greater the range the harder it is to execute the algorithm without a re-grip of the right hand. 
* Proportion of moves preceded by an adjacent layer twist in the opposite direction: Sequences like R U' or R' F can be executed almost as one move because the following adjacent layer is turned in the opposite direction, so that the row of cubies which intersect the two layers move in the same direction (like the rotation of connected cogs).

I'm sure there are probably other metrics which could be useful, but in general, greater flexibility in choosing the metric used to measure algorithm cost would be very useful. Applying these metrics within the core search itself seems like it would probably be very difficult. It may be easier just to apply these metrics after algorithm generation in order to sort large algorithm lists.


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## Toad (Mar 23, 2010)

Cride5 said:


> Erik said:
> 
> 
> > 1b. The possibility to rate the amount of moves that count for each move. How it is now M2 would count as 1. Also imagine you could rate moves like B2 with 2 and F2 with 1.75 and U2 with 1.5 moves, you could get instant fast algorithms with this...
> ...



All of this.


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## qqwref (Mar 23, 2010)

Erik said:


> 2. The possibility to search in STM (single turn metric), in my experience single turn metric algorithms are often faster than HTM ones.



Do you mean QTM (quarter turn metric), where half turns are always two moves? STM means slice turn metric.


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## Erik (Mar 23, 2010)

qqwref said:


> Erik said:
> 
> 
> > 2. The possibility to search in STM (single turn metric), in my experience single turn metric algorithms are often faster than HTM ones.
> ...



FAIL.... by me, yes thanks I'll correct that


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## deadalnix (Mar 23, 2010)

Actually, I have a solver that can handle custom metric, but doesn't support multiphase algorithm.

So it's only usable on 2x2x2, pyraminx, or others simple puzzles, but not on 3x3x3.


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## reThinking the Cube (May 10, 2010)

Cride5 said:


> ...Applying these metrics within the core search itself seems like it would probably be very difficult. It may be easier just to apply these metrics after algorithm generation in order to sort large algorithm lists.



Yep. I really appreciate the well reasoned effort that has been put into this. Also, I don't need to remind you that there are TRANSFORMATIONS that can be used on a total dog of an alg to turn it into a gem. Where N = #of turns in alg, there are 10 (9+1null) different cube rotations that can be applied before each and every turn, and the turns themselves can be reflected (L' = r' x) giving an additional option, there are 11^N = transformed algs to consider and score for "turnability" for each alg that is actually generated in the search. So just one 15-move parity alg would have 8,649,755,859,375 potential transformations to consider. Of course there are going to be ways to throw out the more obvious counter-productive rotations, and many of the original algs are symmetrically equivalent to one or more transformations, but you get the point. The turn>turn transitions could easily be scored with a table lookup (with user defined metrics), but the total numbers, using all possible transforms for the longer algs, is probably too great for this to be done on the fly. So just take one alg at a time (after the search is completed), and then try all the reasonable transforms for this alg, score/sort them for turnability, and show the best ones as the result.


...


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## rubixfreak (May 10, 2010)

... or you could just use JACube


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## Mattb10M (Jun 12, 2010)

Why kociemba.org is not loading right now?
Is the site down?


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## Mattb10M (Jun 12, 2010)

I want to download Cube Explorer, but kociemba.org is not loading right now. 

Is the site down?


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## nlCuber22 (Jun 12, 2010)

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/kociemba.org


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## Mattb10M (Jun 13, 2010)

I tried three different browsers, different computers on different networks and it still won't load.

I am able to view Google's cache of the site from June 5th.


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## nlCuber22 (Jun 13, 2010)

Works for me. Not sure what your problem is.

Can you load the Cube Explorer page?
http://kociemba.org/cube.htm


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## Chapuunka (Jun 13, 2010)

It works for me.


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## PeterNewton (Jun 13, 2010)

Try http://chodecircus.com/area51/.


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## Mattb10M (Jun 13, 2010)

I got it now. It was something with my network settings.

Thanks for the help though


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## cubacca1972 (Jun 13, 2010)

Outstanding version of Cube Explorer. Thanks.

If you were to release a 4x4x4 solver that performs this well, I would probably weep with joy.


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## riffz (Jun 14, 2010)

cubacca1972 said:


> Outstanding version of Cube Explorer. Thanks.
> 
> If you were to release a 4x4x4 solver that performs this well, I would probably weep with joy.



So would I, but it's not gonna happen any time soon.


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## rubixfreak (Jun 14, 2010)

I have a problem with the programm:
my Norton internet security 2010 says that the usage of the program is highly risky and that it has a suspect behaviour.
Therefore, Norton always automatically removes the .exe when I want to run the prog. 

Does anyone else has the same problem?


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## Herbert Kociemba (Jun 14, 2010)

rubixfreak said:


> I have a problem with the programm:
> my Norton internet security 2010 says that the usage of the program is highly risky and that it has a suspect behaviour.
> Therefore, Norton always automatically removes the .exe when I want to run the prog.
> 
> Does anyone else has the same problem?



Interesting. Indeed Cube Explorer has a build in Web-Interface, but this is disabled by default. But maybe Norton finds the code where you have the option to open a port on your machine.


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## rachmaninovian (Jun 15, 2010)

cubacca1972 said:


> Outstanding version of Cube Explorer. Thanks.
> 
> If you were to release a 4x4x4 solver that performs this well, I would probably weep with joy.



well, clement's solver works pretty well =P


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 15, 2010)

rachmaninovian said:


> cubacca1972 said:
> 
> 
> > Outstanding version of Cube Explorer. Thanks.
> ...


What is the minimum number of half turn moves Clement's solver outputs for this parity case?


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## cubacca1972 (Jun 21, 2010)

rachmaninovian said:


> well, clement's solver works pretty well =P



I have tried and failed several times at getting it to run on Ubuntu. I just can't seem to get the syntax right. Sigh.


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## rachmaninovian (Jun 21, 2010)

cmowla said:


> rachmaninovian said:
> 
> 
> > cubacca1972 said:
> ...



I think I tried to run the solver for that case but my computer ran out of memory. I can still try I guess....but from a speedsolving point of view, R U R' U' + lucas' BLD parity + U R U' R' is sufficiently fast.


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## Christopher Mowla (Jun 21, 2010)

rachmaninovian said:


> I think I tried to run the solver for that case but my computer ran out of memory. I can still try I guess...



Well, as they always say, "You can't do the same thing over again and obtain a different result". So, if you do try again (which I would appreciate) maybe use a different move restriction than the one you used before (or if you used a move restriction before, do not use one at all). Even if the solution is not short at all, any solution it yields will be interesting to me.

If it still doesn't work out, thanks for trying...I just wanted to test what the current 4X4X4 solvers can do.


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## rachmaninovian (Jun 22, 2010)

cmowla said:


> rachmaninovian said:
> 
> 
> > I think I tried to run the solver for that case but my computer ran out of memory. I can still try I guess...
> ...


immediately after pm-ing you the solver spat out some solutions.
F2 U r2 F2 l F2 l' U2 r U2 F2 r F2 r U' F2(16)
F2 U r' F2 r' F2 U2 r' U2 l F2 l' F2 r2 U' F2(16)
F2 r2 U r' F2 r F2 r F2 U' r U F2 U' r F2(16)
F2 r2 U l' U2 r U2 l F2 U' r U F2 U' r F2(16)
F2 r' U F2 U' r' U F2 r' F2 r' F2 r U' r2 F2(16)
F2 r' U F2 U' r' U F2 l' U2 r' U2 l U' r2 F2(16)

so its 23 qtm minimum so far...

will continue editing this post if i find new stuff


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## ezh (Aug 5, 2010)

I'm having the same problems. What did you do to fix it?


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## cuBerBruce (May 23, 2011)

I've noticed that Cube Explorer does not generate all optimal solutions to the following scramble:

U2 R L' B2 R' L

Cube Explorer generates these solutions:
R L' B2 R' L U2 (6f*)
R B2 R' L U2 L' (6f*)
B2 R' L U2 R L' (6f*)

But omits this solution:
L' B2 R' L U2 R (6f*)

My belief is that this fourth solution is "pruned out" due to certain logic in the algorithm that also "prunes out" solutions that are equivalent due to switching the order of commuting moves. I note that Reid's optimal solver (that the Cube Explorer optimal solver is based on, to my understanding), also omits this fourth solution.

I note that all four of these solutions are essentially cyclic shifts of one another (allowing for switching the order of commuting moves). But only one gets omitted when you click the green arrow button multiple times to get "all" solutions.

For speedcubing purposes, I would think it might be nice to be able to have an option not to skip these not so trivially redundant solutions.

I also note that JAcube will produce all four of these solutions (using options "fao").


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## Herbert Kociemba (May 24, 2011)

cuBerBruce said:


> I've noticed that Cube Explorer does not generate all optimal solutions to the following scramble:
> 
> U2 R L' B2 R' L
> 
> ...


 
The reason is that the position has a symmetry (mirror symmetry at the RL-plane) and my program prunes the search tree. In this case Cube Explorer uses R for the first move, but never L' because of the symmetry.

If you observe the second maneuver R B2 R' L U2 L' maneuver in the RL-mirror you get L' B2 L R' U2 R and this is just your missing L' B2 R' L U2 R.

Of course it would be no problem to omit the symmetry check. For symmetric positions this just would increase the time to find the first optimal solution.
Btw., I never looked at the source coude of Mike Reids optimal solver, but presumably he just does this symmetry check too.


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## cuBerBruce (May 24, 2011)

Herbert Kociemba said:


> The reason is that the position has a symmetry (mirror symmetry at the RL-plane) and my program prunes the search tree. In this case Cube Explorer uses R for the first move, but never L' because of the symmetry.
> 
> If you observe the second maneuver R B2 R' L U2 L' maneuver in the RL-mirror you get L' B2 L R' U2 R and this is just your missing L' B2 R' L U2 R.
> 
> ...


 
OK, that makes sense. I checked Reid's solver, and it has a "compile-time option" (trivial edit of source code required) to enable/disable the symmetry check. (With a little bit of editing, one can easily make it a runtime option.) With it disabled, it generates all four maneuvers for the case I mentioned. And yes, I assumed that "fixing" this (in Cube Explorer) would have a performance impact, so that's why I suggested it be a user option.

Also, it's cumbersome generating optimal solutions one at a time, and copying/pasting the results to an editor. Is there an alternative to this? OK, I see there is a trick of leaving a cubie gray, and it will create a window showing the solutions (including ones normally omitted by the symmetry check!), instead of adding the cube to the main window. It's just not intuitive that this feature exists from the user interface. I had to do a Google search to find it. (It seems I've probably seen this feature before, but forgot how to enable it.)


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## qqwref (May 24, 2011)

Maybe there should be an option somewhere, "optimal search (allows undefined pieces)". When it is turned off, your cube must be completely filled in, and everything goes to the main pattern window; when it is turned on, everything goes in the new window, even if all the pieces are filled in. And if it's turned off and you try to solve a cube that isn't filled in, the error box should suggest turning it on.


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## cuBerBruce (May 25, 2011)

qqwref said:


> Maybe there should be an option somewhere, "optimal search (allows undefined pieces)". When it is turned off, your cube must be completely filled in, and everything goes to the main pattern window; when it is turned on, everything goes in the new window, even if all the pieces are filled in. And if it's turned off and you try to solve a cube that isn't filled in, the error box should suggest turning it on.


 
qqwref's idea might be somewhat of an improvement, but I think it still must be more clear to the user "optimal search (allows undefined pieces)" is the feature that would allow you to generate a list of all optimal solutions for a completely specified cube.

If I already have a bunch of cubes in the main window (perhaps loaded from a file that was generated by a GAP program), I think I should be able to select one (or possibly multiple ones), and then select a menu item or click a button to generate a list of optimal solutions (and perhaps continue on to suboptimal ones as the existing window for incompletely specified cubes does). I don't think it should be necessary to have to transfer each cube back to the facelet editor before generating the list of optimal solutions.


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## minime12358 (Jun 4, 2011)

Oh, and as this was randomly bumped a week ago, I thought I might put in my suggestions: 

I agree with erik that when using slice turns, you should be able to weed out Es/Ss. 

Another thing that I find tremendously useful in JACube is the ability to ignore AUFs (By preceding something with ~(A subset of UED, RLM, or FSB)) 

And finally, a way to simply define one sticker of a cubie. I would be fine with an extra hotkey + click, but there is really no way that I have found to do this yet . For instance, what if you wanted to swap two corners on the U layer, two corners on the D layer, and keep edge orientation + edge seperation. If I were to use ctrl click, there would be a chance that I would have D edges in the U layer.

But, thanks for the program, I have generated 100s of algs on it


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## rock1313 (Jun 7, 2011)

This will be so much easier looking up BH edge algs.


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## MrMoney (Jun 7, 2011)

rock1313 said:


> This will be so much easier looking up BH edge algs.


 
What..? Why do you need to look them up? To find speed-optimal algs rather then move-optimal?


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## Jorghi (Jul 22, 2011)

I'm trying to make OLLs with cube explorer(Just to understand how it works) and for some reason I only get 1LLL algorithms even when I follow the tutorial completely. Is it possible to get only OLLs while ignoring the permutation? I'm having trouble with that.


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## whauk (Jul 22, 2011)

i dont know what you are doing but use ctrl+click for OLLs... that works perfectly


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## FatBoyXPC (Jul 22, 2011)

The reason that you get 1L LL's is because you put in all the colors of the cube. You have to leave some stuff gray. Search youtube for how to use cube explorer.


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## Jorghi (Jul 22, 2011)

I did exactly this:






Then I pressed "Add and Generate". And it takes a long time, so I pressed "Add solutions to main window" to see what it got so far.

I just get dozens of algorithms for the H OLL 1LLL.

Am I suppose to let it keep running?

Edit:Nvm I see other OLL shapes too, but there are multiples of them with different permutations of the other pieces.
I'll just wait until it finishes.


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## teller (Jul 22, 2011)

Jorghi said:


> I did exactly this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
That looks right...but I think you want "Add and Solve," not "Add and Generate"


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## spyr0th3dr4g0n (Nov 2, 2011)

I want to use cube explorer (or another piece of software if it works better) to generate algs for some LL cases and I'm not sure how to do it exactly. The goal is to orientate all the LL edges and insert the F2L pair. Could someone help me?

Example case(s)
Setup: R U R' (3)
If you look down on the U face the back 3 edges are orientated 
Solution is R U' R' (3)

Setup: R U R' F' U F (6)
There are 2 edges orientated
Solution is just inserting it with hammerhead instead. U' R' F R F' (5)

There are 8 possible cases of edge orientation. I want to generate optimum and 2 gen algs for them. I'm just not sure how to do it.


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## Cubenovice (Nov 2, 2011)

Cannot help you on the actual software but:
Did you already check Lars Vandenbergh's ' Cubezone.be?
Algs generated by ACube

Perhaps you can already take some algs from there.
If you do not like the actual algs you can still use the images of all the cases to help you set up the patterns for CE.


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## samkli (Nov 2, 2011)

Does this help?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQEMporZhD8&feature=relmfu


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## whauk (Nov 2, 2011)

mark your top colour edges with ctrl+left click. these edges will just be oriented by CE then.


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## Buddybenj (Jan 19, 2014)

*Kociemba.org Down and Cube Explorer 5.01*

For some reason kociemba.org is down (for me at least). Does any one have the download for 5.01 (and maybe 5.01s)?

Those would be helpful.

Thanks.


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## Renslay (Jan 19, 2014)

The site seems fine to me. It works, and I managed to download the 5.01.


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## Buddybenj (Jan 19, 2014)

[Ignore this post I got it]


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## rybaby (Jan 19, 2014)

Kociemba.org has never worked for me, regardless of the device or network I use.


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## googlebleh (Jan 20, 2014)

Mirror Link


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## Herbert Kociemba (Jan 21, 2014)

rybaby said:


> Kociemba.org has never worked for me, regardless of the device or network I use.



Interesting to hear. Kociemba.org has always worked for me, regardless of the device or network I use and from which country I am calling my page. So I really cannot believe that it is general problem.


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## Slippery Sid (Mar 29, 2014)

*Kociemba cube explorer website is down*

The website for the kociemba cube explorer is down. Could someone who has the file reupload it on mediafire or somewhere?


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## TheNextFeliks (Mar 30, 2014)

Slippery Sid said:


> The website for the kociemba cube explorer is down. Could someone who has the file reupload it on mediafire or somewhere?



It's just down for you. It's up for everyone.

http://isup.me/kociemba.org/cube.htm


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## Dimansel (Feb 26, 2015)

TheNextFeliks said:


> It's just down for you. It's up for everyone.
> 
> http://isup.me/kociemba.org/cube.htm



Now it's down for everyone. Can you upload this program, please?


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## abunickabhi (Aug 6, 2018)

samkli said:


> Does this help?


No it doesnt help, he was asking for a way to generate that subset using cube explorer, and not more information or a video on it.



> There are 8 possible cases of edge orientation. I want to generate optimum and 2 gen algs for them. I'm just not sure how to do it.



Just use trial and error to figure out each case and decide for yourself.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Aug 8, 2018)

Using left-click, right-click and ctrl+left-click you can get



which would be your R U R' setup. With "Add and Solve" you then find maneuvers for this. You can exclude some faces if you want. By changing the locations of the diagonal pattern you can get the other 7 cases, for example


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## AvGalen (Aug 8, 2018)

Herbert Kociemba said:


> Using left-click, right-click and ctrl+left-click you can get
> 
> View attachment 9357
> 
> ...


Nice answer to split the problem into 8 sets and have Cube Explorer generate algs for each set. I wouldn't have thought of this approach, but of course mr. Cube Explorer knows best! Interesting to see this answer appearing 7 years later . There have been a few other "can I use Cube Explorer to generate algs for situation x" threads lately. Maybe you can have a look there as well?


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## THERAGINGCYCLOPS (Aug 8, 2018)

That's essentially VHLS. There's no need to generate that because there's all really intuitive algs with sledges

If you want to insert pair and flip edges at the same time, you could use ZBLS but there's a ton of algs


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## _zoux (Aug 9, 2018)

THERAGINGCYCLOPS said:


> If you want to insert pair and flip edges at the same time, you could use ZBLS but there's a ton of algs


ZBLS is *solving last slot* and orienting edges


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## efattah (Jun 8, 2019)

For those of you who use Cube Explorer to find algorithms, I have noticed some serious errors in the program that prevent it from finding the optimal algorithms for certain cases. In some cases it doesn't even come close to finding the optimal algorithm. I have attached an image using version 5.13, showing two Waterman/LMCF cases where it fails to find the optimal algorithm, in one of the cases it isn't even close. I have noticed this effect over the last 2 years and I thought the events were just occasional bugs, but after generating hundreds of algorithms I have now found that as much as 1 in 5 cases I can find algorithms by hand that are faster and never found by the program. Please note that sometimes algorithms are obscured by preceding U/U' or M/M' or R/R' L/L' and you need to look further down the list to see these 'hidden' variants with setup moves, but I assure you I have already taken that into account and if you play with the two examples in the image, you'll see what I mean.

If for some reason you can't view the image, try this scramble:

M' D' M' U M D M' U' M2

This is a scramble for Waterman Set 2 where you solve UR+DR while orienting the midges.

The shortest algorithm and fastest was found by hand:
M2 U M D' M' U' M D [8]

If you insist on correcting the centers like cube explorer does, then the solution adds M:
M2 U M D' M' U' M D M [9]

However if you plug this case into cube explorer the shortest algorithms it finds are 10 moves, and at no point will it find the above algorithm. This is one of dozens of such cases. I have been working on the latest revision to the LMCF method and now as many as 20% of the algorithms have been found by hand, since they can't be found by cube explorer. As I understand it this is the utility that most people use to generate algorithms, and it makes me wonder if ZBLL, OLLCP, VLS or any of the big sets are actually optimal, there could be hundreds of amazing algorithms never found. If you know of any utility that can actually find the correct algorithm in the two cases provided, please let me know.

See attached image.


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## WoowyBaby (Jun 8, 2019)

TL;DR uncheck BDL boxes

This glitch only happens when using slice moves mode
So big alg sets like ZBLL are not hindered in any way
To fix glitch, allow all faces, meaning leave your B, D, and L boxes unchecked, even if you don’t want them. In your screenshot you had them checked, I’m not sure why Cube Explorer acts this way but it just does
If you’re still having issues, it might be caused by the centers so try every center combination (4) and see which yields the best alg
If nothing works, you might have to try other things like downloading it again or something
Hopefully I helped
(this post was edited)


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## xyzzy (Jun 8, 2019)

You have B, D and L moves restricted. I haven't checked the source code (which was actually publicly released somewhat recently!), but my guess is that the internal representation of move sequences consists of just the six single-layer moves, and the "slice" moves are just stored as L2 R2 or whatever, and only converted to M2 x2 for display. The restriction of B, D and L moves applies to the internal representation, not to whatever the alg looks like after the slice moves are written as slice moves. The checkboxes are greyed out when in slice moves mode, so you'll have to go back to the usual mode first, uncheck those boxes, then go back into slice mode.

Also, use ksolve++ or HARCS or something along those lines if you want to generate MUD algs and the like. Cube Explorer is entirely the wrong tool for this task.


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## Thom S. (Jun 9, 2019)

In addition on what WoowyBaby and xyzzy have said, I have two things
First, your best Algorithm always moves the centers. CE doesn't like that as it assumes you want your centers to be like this.
Second, CE won't care if the found algorithms are good, it just gives it to you


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## asacuber (Jun 9, 2019)

CE is close to optimal but not actually optimal right? idk


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## xyzzy (Jun 9, 2019)

asacuber said:


> CE is close to optimal but not actually optimal right? idk


It searches only for optimal algs when there are any "wildcards" (greyed pieces, pieces with only orientation specified, pieces with only the colours specified).

If you specify the whole cube state (which is not the case here), it'll search with the non-optimal two-phase algorithm by default, and you can check the "optimal" checkbox to make it find optimal solutions.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Jun 9, 2019)

I am not out of the world and if there are some bugs in CE I will try to fix them. I will not add any additional features to the program any more - just fix bugs or eventually improve the user interface if you can convince me that something is seriously confusing or impractical.

Before I upload a fixed version I would like to know if there are other annoying things which could probably be fixed easily.

Edit: In the fixed version you now can also use the exclude feature when using slice moves. If you exclude B moves for example and you solve a cube with the B face turned you get:

F' E2 S2 E2 S z (5s*)
F' M2 S2 M2 S z (5s*)
S M2 S2 M2 F' z (5s*)
S E2 S2 E2 F' z (5s*)

So you can replace a B move by 5 slice moves.

If you exclude B *and *F you get for example

L' E' M' E R U' S E S' x' z (9s*)

Edit:
The above is wrong. It's always dangerous to change code which you did not see for years.
S' F' z (2s*)

should be the right answer. I will have to revisit the code.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Jun 10, 2019)

I now made version 5.14 of CE in which hopefully the function for incomplete cubes works correctly also if slice moves are used. You now can also exclude S, M or E moves. You can download it from http://kociemba.org/download.htm


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## paul.edmondson.magician (Apr 16, 2020)

I'm trying to work on this software, for the latest version. Just getting to grips with it and following some tutorials. When I run it, it doesn't return the most optimum solutions. See screenshot. 

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk


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## shadowslice e (Apr 16, 2020)

Screenshot? But for cube explorer, just blank out one of the pieces and it'll generate all solutions of depth n, then n+1 etc. You should probably also specify orientation for that piece since that allows ce to use bigger pruning tables.


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## paul.edmondson.magician (Apr 16, 2020)

What it seems to be doing is not putting the double turns as R2 but as R R
Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk

Better image







I figured it out. Was using the qtm file instead of htm

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk


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## WoowyBaby (Apr 16, 2020)

You have downloaded the qtm version insetead of the htm version, or you changed some settings in it. You should try downloading the other one from Kociemba's site to get the optimal outputs you're looking for.


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## brododragon (Apr 16, 2020)

WoowyBaby said:


> You have downloaded the qtm version insetead of the htm version, or you changed some settings in it. You should try downloading the other one from Kociemba's site to get the optimal outputs you're looking for.


The download has both qtm and htm.


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## paul.edmondson.magician (Apr 17, 2020)

Does it throw out M moves?

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk


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## shadowslice e (Apr 17, 2020)

paul.edmondson.magician said:


> Does it throw out M moves?
> 
> Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk


You can generate solutions with slice moves in it, but you need to enable this by selecting the "allow slice moves" option.


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## WarriorCatCuber (May 28, 2020)

How do you ignore pieces? For example, if I wanted to ignore the M-slice in CMLL.


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## CubeExplorer (Oct 10, 2021)

I think I have misunderstood something of the basics of permutations.

FRUR'U'F' is a well known maneuver of the beginners method. I use it just as an example. 
To undo it, I can use FURU'R'F'. This is quite clear. The Rotations are inverted and executed in reverse order.
It can be verified with Cube Explorer of Herbert Kociemba.
There I type in FRUR'U'F' FURU'R'F', apply it to a solved cube and it does not change. The expression is equal to Identity.

Now I thought, the inverse of FRUR'U'F' can be written as
(FRUR'U'F')' and this would be the same as FURU'R'F'.
and (FRUR'U'F') (FRUR'U'F')' should yield Identity
But when I test this expression in Cube Explorer, the result is different, CE shows as generator:
F U R U' R' U R U' R' F' 
which is equvalent to (FRUR'U'F')4 == ((FURU'R'F')2

I had a search in the wonderful permutation-puzzle-book but could not find an answer. 

So my question remains: what does the last apostrophe operator really do in (FRUR'U'F')' ?


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## xyzzy (Oct 10, 2021)

Cube Explorer supports only the basic notation; no brackets, no commutator/conjugate notation, no wide moves.

In effect, the last apostrophe does nothing because it's not recognised as being attached to any move.

EDIT: it actually seems like bracketing _is_ supported?


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## CubeExplorer (Oct 10, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> In effect, the last apostrophe does nothing because it's not recognised as being attached to any move.


Thank you for answering.

The last apostrophe does NOT nothing in CE.
(FRUR'U'F')'
does the same as (FRUR'U'F')3
which is the same as (FRUR'U'F')(FRUR'U'F')(FRUR'U'F')

And the other part of my question is still unanswered, what does the last apostrophe do according to permutations theory?
Are my assumptions correct, when I wrote the following?
"Now I thought, the inverse of FRUR'U'F' can be written as
(FRUR'U'F')' and this would be the same as FURU'R'F'.
and (FRUR'U'F') (FRUR'U'F')' should yield Identity"


```
S48 = SymmetricGroup (48)
R=S48(" (25 ,27 ,32 ,30)(26 ,29 ,31 ,28)(3 ,38 ,43 ,19)(5 ,36 ,45 ,21)(8 ,33 ,48 ,24) ")
L=S48(" (9 ,11 ,16 ,14)(10 ,13 ,15 ,12)(1 ,17 ,41 ,40)(4 ,20 ,44 ,37)(6 ,22 ,46 ,35) ")
U=S48(" (1 ,3 ,8 ,6)(2 ,5 ,7 ,4)(9 ,33 ,25 ,17)(10 ,34 ,26 ,18)(11 ,35 ,27 ,19) ")
D=S48(" (41 ,43 ,48 ,46)(42 ,45 ,47 ,44)(14 ,22 ,30 ,38)(15 ,23 ,31 ,39)(16 ,24 ,32 ,40) ")
F=S48(" (17 ,19 ,24 ,22)(18 ,21 ,23 ,20)(6 ,25 ,43 ,16)(7 ,28 ,42 ,13)(8 ,30 ,41 ,11) ")
B=S48(" (33 ,35 ,40 ,38)(34 ,37 ,39 ,36)(3 ,9 ,46 ,32)(2 ,12 ,47 ,29)(1 ,14 ,48 ,27) ")
print(R*U)   #(1,3,38,43,11,35,27,32,30,17,9,33,48,24,6)(2,5,36,45,21,7,4)(8,25,19)(10,34,26,29,31,28,18)
print(R*U*U^-1*R^-1)   #()
#(FRUR'U'F') (FRUR'U'F')'
(F*R*U*R^-1*U^-1*F^-1)*(F*R*U*R^-1*U^-1*F^-1)^-1   #()
#(FRUR'U'F')'
print((F*R*U*R^-1*U^-1*F^-1)^-1)   #(1,3,9,33,35,27)(2,5,18)(6,8,11,19,17,25)(7,34,26)
#(FURU'R'F')
print((F*U*R*U^-1*R^-1*F^-1))      #(1,3,9,33,35,27)(2,5,18)(6,8,11,19,17,25)(7,34,26)
print(((F*R*U*R^-1*U^-1*F^-1)^-1)==(F*U*R*U^-1*R^-1*F^-1))  #True
```

OK, now I found a way to verify my assumptions. Being new to this topic I need do check, wether my understanding of the newly learned things is correct. The sage code above contains the results too and should be self explaining.

EDIT: Thanks to qwr for the second confirmation down there in the next posting.


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## qwr (Oct 10, 2021)

CubeExplorer said:


> Are my assumptions correct, when I wrote the following?
> "Now I thought, the inverse of FRUR'U'F' can be written as
> (FRUR'U'F')' and this would be the same as FURU'R'F'.
> and (FRUR'U'F') (FRUR'U'F')' should yield Identity"


Yes I think this matches with the definition of inverse.




CubeExplorer said:


> The last apostrophe does NOT nothing in CE.
> (FRUR'U'F')'
> does the same as (FRUR'U'F')3
> which is the same as (FRUR'U'F')(FRUR'U'F')(FRUR'U'F')



Maybe this is a bug. F R U R' U' F' has order 6 so this is like a "square root" or order 3 version of that.


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## Lucas Garron (Oct 10, 2021)

A lot of software makes assumptions about algs that tend to fall over in cases like this.

You might find it useful to try the "Expand", "Simplify"', and "Invert" alg tools at https://alpha.twizzle.net/edit/?alg=(F+R+U+R'+U'+F')+(F+R+U+R'+U'+F')'


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## xyzzy (Oct 10, 2021)

CubeExplorer said:


> The last apostrophe does NOT nothing in CE.
> (FRUR'U'F')'
> does the same as (FRUR'U'F')3
> which is the same as (FRUR'U'F')(FRUR'U'F')(FRUR'U'F')


Ah, interesting. I stand corrected.

CE does seem to support bracketing (so e.g. "(R y)1260" works as you'd expect), but the apostrophe is being parsed as equivalent to 3. Probably because _for normal moves_ inverting and power-3 are the same thing, an assumption that breaks down for arbitrary sequences.


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## CubeExplorer (Oct 10, 2021)

Thank you, Lucas for your suggestion.

Alg does not work on this old windows xp machine wihout java, im operating here. So I can not say much. I will try it later on another machine.


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## qwr (Oct 10, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> Ah, interesting. I stand corrected.
> 
> CE does seem to support bracketing (so e.g. "(R y)1260" works as you'd expect), but the apostrophe is being parsed as equivalent to 3. Probably because _for normal moves_ inverting and power-3 are the same thing, an assumption that breaks down for arbitrary sequences.


oh yeah that makes a lot more sense.


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## Lucas Garron (Oct 10, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> Ah, interesting. I stand corrected.
> 
> CE does seem to support bracketing (so e.g. "(R y)1260" works as you'd expect), but the apostrophe is being parsed as equivalent to 3. Probably because _for normal moves_ inverting and power-3 are the same thing, an assumption that breaks down for arbitrary sequences.


What an interesting find! Glad @CubeExplorer posted about the confusion. :-D

Cube Explorer handles such algs in these two files, but I can't easily find the bug:









CubeExplorer/FaceCube.pas at b759a797655bb14e952555add0167ee541ce30d0 · hkociemba/CubeExplorer


A program about Rubik's Cube with a lot of features. - CubeExplorer/FaceCube.pas at b759a797655bb14e952555add0167ee541ce30d0 · hkociemba/CubeExplorer




github.com






https://github.com/hkociemba/CubeExplorer/blob/ee7772e2da38d6538dedd3b158b6277ae3eb144e/RubikMain.pas



This line (and a similar one on line 949) looks like an obvious culprit, except that it's guarded by a check that only applies it to moves.
It might be worth telling Kociemba: https://github.com/hkociemba/CubeExplorer/issues




CubeExplorer said:


> Thank you, Lucas for your suggestion.
> 
> Alg does not work on this old windows xp machine wihout java, im operating here. So I can not say much. I will try it later on another machine.


Hmm, neither alg.cubing.net nor Twizzle have ever used Java. But Twizzle especially (which I linked to) relies on newer browser features, so unfortunately breaking in Windows XP is pretty expected. :-/
Let me know if you're find issues on something new!


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## xyzzy (Oct 11, 2021)

Lucas Garron said:


> CubeExplorer/FaceCube.pas at b759a797655bb14e952555add0167ee541ce30d0 · hkociemba/CubeExplorer
> 
> 
> A program about Rubik's Cube with a lot of features. - CubeExplorer/FaceCube.pas at b759a797655bb14e952555add0167ee541ce30d0 · hkociemba/CubeExplorer
> ...





https://github.com/hkociemba/CubeExplorer/blob/ee7772e2da38d6538dedd3b158b6277ae3eb144e/RubikMain.pas#L4350



Should be this. Replaces apostrophe and hyphen with the digit '3', then later parses it as an integer. So e.g. `(R U' F B2 D)2'1'` gets preprocessed into `(R U3 F B2 D)2313`.


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## qwr (Oct 11, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> https://github.com/hkociemba/CubeExplorer/blob/ee7772e2da38d6538dedd3b158b6277ae3eb144e/RubikMain.pas#L4350
> 
> 
> 
> Should be this. Replaces apostrophe and hyphen with the digit '3', then later parses it as an integer. So e.g. `(R U' F B2 D)2'1'` gets preprocessed into `(R U3 F B2 D)2313`.


It would be great if CubeExplorer weren't written in... Pascal and PHP


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## CubeExplorer (Oct 11, 2021)

Lucas Garron said:


> ... neither alg.cubing.net nor Twizzle have ever used Java. But Twizzle especially (which I linked to) relies on newer browser features, so unfortunately breaking in Windows XP is pretty expected. :-/


Thank you again, Lucas. Its interesting background info to me.

Anyway my original confusion concerning the inversion of a maneuver ist cleared now. The using of sage did help a lot.

Looking for a visual representation of the algebraic output of sage I put this into Cube Explorer Program and I found a surprising result again.

```
print('(F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2*(F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2 ==',(F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2*(F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2)   
#   (F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2*(F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2 == (4,7,26)(5,10,18)
print(((F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2*(F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi)*U^2) == (F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi *U^2* F*R*U*Ri*Ui*Fi *U^2))   
#   True

CE wrong:
(FRUR'U'F')U2(FRUR'U'F')U2
CE OK:
 FRUR'U'F' U2 FRUR'U'F' U2
```
Maybe the brackets have a different meaning in CE, but I could not find Info to this point.

I post it here, because I will notify Herbert Kociemba with a link to this thread.


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## qwr (Oct 11, 2021)

CubeExplorer said:


> Thank you again, Lucas. Its interesting background info to me.
> 
> Anyway my original confusion concerning the inversion of a maneuver ist cleared now. The using of sage did help a lot.
> 
> ...


Did you try putting spaces in between moves? I think it's customary to put a space in between every move.


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## CubeExplorer (Oct 11, 2021)

qwr said:


> Did you try putting spaces in between moves? I think it's customary to put a space in between every move.


Thanks for the hint. Could not find anything like this in the help file.

The Program normally works correctly without spaces BUT after the closing Brackets there is a space needed.

```
(FRUR'U'F') U2(FRUR'U'F') U2
FRUR'U'F'U2FRUR'U'F'U2
Both lines work well.
```

Anyway the issue with the apostrophe remains unsolved.


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## Herbert Kociemba (Oct 11, 2021)

My program does not support bracketing at all. The only brackets it is intended not get confused with are the eventually existing brackets at the end of a maneuver which include the maneuver length.


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## CubeExplorer (Oct 11, 2021)

Herbert Kociemba said:


> My program does not support bracketing at all.


Thank you for the answer. Its good to know this.


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## Sentonox (Oct 7, 2022)

PeterNewton said:


> Try http://chodecircus.com/area51/.


I have the same problem but the article just doesnt appear


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## nbwzx (Oct 10, 2022)

qwr said:


> It would be great if CubeExplorer weren't written in... Pascal and PHP


Yes, CubeExplorer doesn't use a mainstream programming language. And it is a pity that we cannot compile CubeExplorer so that we cannot contribute to this project. https://github.com/hkociemba/CubeExplorer/issues/1


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