Sliding Puzzle

Take a Break · ribbon tool with its own window · by Jeff Jenness

Works at every ArcGIS Pro license level

Summary

Turns a picture of your own map or layout into a sliding-tile puzzle. The tool takes a snapshot of the active view, cuts it into tiles, removes the one in the lower right corner, and scrambles the rest. Slide the tiles back into place to rebuild the picture. Every scramble can be solved.

ArcGIS Pro with a map of Arizona in the map view: the state in a hypsometric tint from tan lowlands to blue-green highlands, outlined in dark red with a soft shadow, the neighboring states in gray hillshade with their names in a red script, and the Gulf of California in blue at the bottom — The map in the active view.

The Sliding Puzzle window: fifteen square tiles cut from the middle of the Arizona map, scrambled, with the bottom right space empty. New Snapshot, Tiles 4, 5 and 6, Shuffle, Peek, a Numbers check box and a help button across the top; 4 x 4 tiles, Moves: 0 and a Solve (90) button along the bottom — The puzzle made from it: the largest square in the middle of the map view, cut into 4 by 4 tiles, the lower right tile removed and the rest scrambled. The Solve button says its solver needs 90 moves from here.

Where the picture comes from

The snapshot is taken from whichever view is active when the window opens. If the active view is neither a map nor a layout, the window says so: make one active and click New Snapshot.

The Take a Break group of the ribbon, with the Sliding Puzzle button outlined in blue — Where to find it: **Sliding Puzzle** is in the *Take a Break* group of the *Wildlife and Forestry* tab.

A map. The picture is the largest square that fits in the middle of the map view, cut into 4-by-4, 5-by-5 or 6-by-6 tiles.
A layout. The picture is the whole page. You choose 4, 5 or 6 tiles along the short edge, and the number along the long edge is worked out to match. The tiles are exactly square, so a thin strip along the edges of the page can be left out of the picture.

The window does not block ArcGIS Pro and can be resized. The puzzle scales to fit. Clicking the ribbon button while the window is open brings it to the front with the same puzzle. It does not take a new picture.

The controls

Control	Explanation
New Snapshot	Takes a fresh picture of the current map or layout view and starts over.
Tiles: 4, 5, 6	The number of tiles along the short edge. The label reads Tiles for a map and Tiles (short edge) for a layout. More tiles make a harder puzzle. Choosing a different number cuts the same picture again and scrambles it.
Shuffle	Scrambles the tiles again and sets the count of moves back to zero.
Peek	Shows the finished picture over the board. The button then reads Hide; click it to go back to the puzzle.
Numbers	An easier mode: a number in the lower right corner of each tile shows where it belongs, counting across each row from 1 at the top left.
Solve	In the lower right corner. It shows how many moves its solver needs from the current position, and each click makes one of those moves, so clicking until the count runs out finishes the puzzle for you. The solver's route is a sound one but not necessarily the shortest. Its moves are counted along with your own. When the puzzle is finished the button reads Solved.

The same scrambled puzzle with Numbers checked: each tile now carries a large white number in its lower right corner, showing the place it belongs, from 1 at the top left across each row to 15 — The same puzzle with **Numbers** checked. Each tile shows where it belongs, counting across each row from 1 at the top left.

Click a tile beside the empty space to slide it. The line under the board counts the moves as you go. When the last tile is home, the missing piece fades back in and the window reports how many moves it took.

Recommended citation

Jenness, J. 2026. Sliding Puzzle. Wildlife and Forestry Tools add-in for ArcGIS Pro, v. 1.113.62.1 (October 2026). Jenness Enterprises. Available at: https://github.com/JeffJenness/Wildlife_Tools.

Credits

By Jeff Jenness, Jenness Enterprises (www.jennessent.com).

Licensing information

Works at every ArcGIS Pro license level (Basic, Standard, Advanced). No extension licenses are required.

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