------------------------------- CROSSWORD PUZZLE MAKER 2.0 © 1990, 1991 By Frans Pretorius 782 Park St., Ashland, OR 97520 ------------------------------- Crossword puzzle maker is a program which helps you design and play crossword puzzles. This is version 2 of Crossword Puzzle Maker, which originally appeared on the February 1991 issue of JUMPDISK. If you are familiar with the operation of the first version, you will find this one easy to operate. Read "What's New" and some of the new menu items at the end of these documents and you should be on your way. If all you wish to do right now is play the demonstration puzzles, read the section on "Play Mode" then double-click on a puzzle in the Crossword drawer. Here's a quick description of the demo puzzles: Astronomy - A puzzle about the solar system and beyond. Weather - See how many atmospheric phenomena you can guess. Elements - Test your knowledge on many of the 103 elements. Games - See how many of these games you can guess based on clues from popular Amiga games. To load the programs from the Shell or CLI you will first need to CD to the Crossword2.0 directory or the programs won't be able to find their necessary support files. WHAT'S NEW Here is a list of the more significant additions with version 2.0 -- A standard file requester for easier loading and saving operations. -- A palette requester to customize on-screen colors. -- A new load/save mode for editing a word and clue list in your favorite ASCII-compatible word processing program. -- Additional saving options for saving ASCII answer lists, clue lists and the finished puzzle as an ILBM file for import into desktop publishing and word processing programs. -- The ability to print the above formats from within the program. Also, printing the puzzle is no longer dependent on "GraphicDump" and ASCII lists can be formatted to variable line width in single or double columns for printing or saving. -- An improved Build. The building function is now much faster than in version 1.0 .In comparable situations builds are often completed in a seventh the time, and with the new Depth option in up 40 times faster. The build function has been moved to Edit Grid so its progress can be monitored. Build can now also build unplaced words around already placed words. The new build is not compatible with the old build function. In other words a puzzle built with the old function will get laid out differently with the new function, and the new function may get more or less words placed. In general the number of words placed by either version will be the same, but I think the speed increase is well worth the incompatibility. -- A stand-alone freely distributable player version is included for playing finished puzzles. -- A few minor bug fixes. MAIN DOCUMENTS There are two modes of operation: Create and Play. In Create mode you enter the words and clues for the puzzle, then construct the puzzle with these words. In Play mode, someone can attempt to solve the puzzle. Following is a more detailed description of the modes and a description of the menu items of the program. CREATE MODE Create mode can be divided into two parts: Edit List and Edit Grid. With Edit List you can add to, delete from or edit the list of words and clues for the puzzle. Edit Grid allows you to place the words on a crossword grid. CREATE MODE-EDIT LIST The edit list screen has several gadgets and a word list in the lower part of the screen. The word list displays the words with clues you've entered so far. Only seven words and clues are displayed at a time, so the slider and arrow gadgets to the right of the word list can be used to scroll through the list. At first there is only one word in the list, but more can be added using the Add Word gadget. The selected word is the word in the list with a highlight box. A word and clue for the selected word can be typed in using the two string gadgets located above the list. To edit a different word, click in its box in the word list, assuming the word exists (with Add Word). You can delete the selected word by clicking on Delete Word. A maximum of 99 words are allowed. You can alphabetize the list of words by clicking on the Alphabetize List by Word gadget. After you have entered the words for your crossword, you can either manually construct the puzzle or let the computer attempt to construct it for you. Edit Crossword Grid will send you to the editing screen to building the puzzle grid. The size of the grid to build is selected from the Edit List screen though, and can range from 5 by 5 to 20 by 20 squares. Use the slider gadget in the upper right hand corner of the screen to set the size. If you change the size of the grid, any previous building and editing will be erased. CREATE MODE - EDIT GRID When you click on the Edit Crossword Grid gadget, the Edit Grid screen appears. This is made of a few gadgets and the crossword grid, which should be a black square if you haven't built anything yet. To place a word on the grid, find the word by flipping through the list of words using the up and down arrow gadgets, then click on Place Word. If you then move the mouse pointer onto the crossword grid and the word will fit at that location, a red box representing the word will highlight the grid. If there is not a highlight at the location of the mouse pointer it means either the word is too long to fit at that location or it overlaps another word so two different letters are on top of one another, which isn't allowed. To place the word after you have found a location where the word fits, click the left mouse button. The direction, Down or Across, in which you want the word placed, can be selected by clicking on the Down or Across gadgets. This should be done before placing the word on the grid. After a word has been placed, you can select the word by clicking on the first letter of the word in the grid. A selected word is highlighted in the grid. To remove a selected word after it has been placed, click on Remove Word. For convenience an Add word gadget has been added to Edit Grid. To add a word to the list, type it in the Add Word string gadget and press Return. Editing and deleting words must still be performed using Edit List. To return to the edit list screen, click on Edit Word List. You can also let the computer attempt to create a puzzle from the list of words by using the building gadgets in the lower right portion of the screen. The builder is invoked by clicking on GO. Only words which fit into the crossword size you have selected are used, and there must be at least two of these. If you have manually placed some words on the grid, the computer will fit the new words in conjunction with the old ones. While the build takes place, some information is printed below the Depth slider gadget showing the progress of build. Count is roughly how far it still needs to go, and if the grid is blank the value where count starts is equal to the number of words the computer is trying to place . If you have already manually placed some words, count always starts at one, which means much faster building. The number of words the computer has successfully placed is printed beneath Count. Three events can stop the build: -- Count reaches 0. -- All the words have been placed. -- You click on the Cancel or OK gadgets. Cancel stops the build and undoes everything build did to the grid. OK stops the build and keeps the puzzle build created. Cancel will also undo the build if it stops due to the first two events. Pause will temporarily halt the build till Pause is again selected. Due to the amount of CPU time used for building, on unaccelerated Amigas there may be a small delay before these buttons take effect. The Depth value, which can be changed with the slider below it, selects how "deep" the builder should search to try to place the most words. This value ranges from 1 to 10, the lower number being the quicker search and having a slightly lower chance of placing all words in some situations. The depth of version 1.0 of Crossword Puzzle Maker was 3. As the building proceeds the puzzle grid will be redrawn each time a new maximum of words has been placed, so you can get some idea of how the build is getting on. In memory, new combinations are being tested hundreds of times per second, but only if that combination results in a higher placed count than previous will the grid be redrawn. In fact, only a very small fraction of possible combinations are tested even in memory since I doubt anyone would like to sit for days waiting for the puzzle to build. The redrawing can be turned off for slightly faster operation by accessing the Prefs menu item discussed later. Depending on the depth, whether the grid is blank to start, and the number of words the computer attempts to place, building may take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to complete. The Build function is limited in that it can't construct a puzzle where across words are directly next to other across words or down words are directly above or below other down words. In these types of puzzles if for example you have three words across stacked on top of one another, then the three letters (one from each word) in every down direction should also form words. Such types of word combinations you will have to construct manually with Edit Grid. A hint when using build: In many cases, the only differences between a depth of 1 and 10 will be the amount of time each takes to complete. If depth 1 can't place all the words most likely depth 10 will only place 1 or 2 more. I suggest you almost exclusively use a depth of 1, unless you are building around already placed words, since in that case the build operates fast enough for the little added wait to be worth the 1 or 2 extra words. Why is it so much faster? When you manually place some words before building, the computer knows exactly where to start building: around the words you have already placed. If not, the computer will in turn place every word in the top left across position and proceed from there. That's where Count originates; as each word is given its chance in the top position Count decreases. Building around already placed words has one disadvantage in that the more words that have been manually placed the fewer new words the computer is likely to place. PLAY MODE AND CROSSWORD PUZZLE PLAYER In play mode, you attempt to solve a puzzle which has been constructed in create mode. You can reach play mode through the Mode menu, discussed further below. The play mode screen is made of the puzzle and some gadgets to the right of the puzzle to enter your guesses. To select a word to guess, you must enter its down/across number from the puzzle in the Select Word string gadget. You can also select a word by using the two arrow gadgets or clicking on the square in the puzzle containing the down/across number identifying the word. You can then type the word in the string gadget labeled "guess word". The clue for the word is printed below this gadget. If there is a down word and an across word at the same location in the puzzle, you can choose which to guess by clicking on either the Down or Across gadgets. When you have entered a word, the letters of the word are printed in the puzzle to reflect your guess. Any previous letters which might have occupied the puzzle at that location are overwritten. If you can't figure out a word, you can click on the Give Up gadget, which will reveal the selected word. When you have guessed all the words correctly, a message will inform you the puzzle is complete. The Show Incorrect gadget below the Give Up gadget will if selected print the word "Incorrect" if the selected word on the grid is wrong. This is a milder alternative than giving up. 3]STAND-ALONE Crossword Puzzle Player is the stand-alone version that operates and looks exactly like Play Mode, with the exception that Create Mode and saving/ loading word and clue lists is unavailable. Also, depending on various Prefs when the puzzle was originally saved, Give Up and Show Incorrect may also be unavailable. See the discussion in the Menu section under Prefs... for more details. If you double-click from Workbench on a saved puzzle Crossword Puzzle Player is automatically loaded. MENUS Here is a description of the menus available with the right mouse button. Project Menu New - Clears everything and returns to create mode to build a new puzzle. Load » Puzzle - Loads a saved puzzle from disk. A file requester will appear prompting you to enter the filename of the previously saved puzzle in a string gadget. The file requester is similar to such requesters used in other programs. It displays a listing of available devices and assignments in the upper box, and a listing of the current directory in the lower box. You can scroll through the listings with the slider and arrow gadgets to the right of the boxes. To view a directory, type its name in the Directory string gadget or click on a device or assignment or a subdirectory in the directory box. The directory listing will then load into the directory box. To select a file, click on its name in the directory box or type it in the File string gadget. Click on OK to accept the name or CANCEL to cancel the operation. When a directory is being loaded you can click on files and directories appearing in the directory box. Because of this, no sorting is done on the listing until you click on either an arrow gadget or slider gadget. Directory names are placed below all file names in the sort process. Once the puzzle is loaded, the program automatically goes to play mode if a puzzle has been built. Puzzles saved under version 2 of the software will not load under version 1. Version 2 will load either version's saved puzzles. Word&Clue List - Loads a word and clue list from disk and goes to Create Mode. A word and clue list is an ASCII file in the following format: (for every word in list, maximum 99) Word (max 20 characters) Clue (max 145 characters) A word and clue list is useful if you don't like the editing provided by Crossword Puzzle Maker and would like to make the list using a word processor, text editor, etc. Because of the format, no puzzle grid info can be loaded or saved, and the program will load everything, even if it isn't a real word and clue list. Also, watch out for missing or extra many Returns. This would cause the whole list to be shifted when loaded: words will become clues, clues will become words and both would be chopped off to some extent. For example, if your word processing program automatically goes to a new line when you reach the end of the screen, the maximum number of characters you can have for a clue will be 80 if you're using the standard hi-res screen. Save » Puzzle - Saves a puzzle to disk. All words and clues, the puzzle grid, and any guesses you might have made are saved. Puzzles saved under version 2 of the software will not load under version 1. Version 2 will load either version's saved puzzles. » Word&Clue List - Makes a word and clue list and saves it disk in the above discussed format. » Puzzle Picture - Saves the puzzle grid as an IFF ILBM picture file for import into other programs. Only selectable from Play Mode. » Clues - Saves an ASCII list of the clues to disk for import into other programs. The format of the list can be changed from Prefs below. Only selectable from Play Mode. » Answers - Saves an ASCII list of the answers to disk for import into other programs. The format of the list can be changed from Prefs below. Only selectable from Play Mode. All printing is only selectable from Play Mode ) Print » Puzzle&Clues - Does a graphic dump of the puzzle followed by a text dump of the clues. See Prefs below for format changing. » Puzzle Only - Does a graphic dump of the puzzle . See Prefs below for format changing. » Clues Only - Does a text dump of the clues . See Prefs below for format changing. » Answers - Does a text dump of the answers . See Prefs below for format changing. Prefs... - This menu brings up a requester allowing you to change some of the default settings of the program as follows. Formatting options: For saving or printing Clues and Answers. Line Width is the line or page width for text formatting. Single Columns outputs 'Across' followed by 'Down' in a single column. Double Columns places Across on the left side of the output page and Down on the right side in a column each. Graphic Dumping: How the output of a graphic dump looks is almost entirely defined by your workbench preferences. The only flag available from within Crossword Puzzle Maker is Dump Entire Area flag. By default it is set and would be used if you want to print a specific width but proportional height on paper. If you want to print to an absolute width and height area deselect this flag. Save Options for Player Version: These two flags determine whether a user playing a finished puzzle with the player version will be allowed to save/print Answers and have the Give Up and Show Incorrect gadgets available. If Allow Give Up Word is not selected, playing a saved puzzle with the Player version won't include the save/print Answers or Give Up on a word. Allow Show Incorrect when not selected forbids the user from knowing incorrect words until they complete the puzzle. Building Options: The only building option allows you to turn on or off the drawing of a puzzle as the build progresses. About- Gives the credits, version number, etc. Quit - Exits program. Mode Menu Play - Puts you in play mode. Create - Puts you in create mode. A warning: If you are in play mode and select this item to go to create mode, all your guesses in the current puzzle are erased. A requester will ask you if you really wish to go to create mode. Colors Menu Default - Switches the color palette of the screen to default palette. Interlace - For those of you don't own a flickerFixer or the A3000, this option switches the palette to a set of colors designed to minimize the interlace flicker. The flicker isn't entirely removed, but the screen will be easier to view. Printer - This option switches the colors to a black-and-white palette to improve printing results with certain printers. Custom - Brings up a palette requester with which you can change the screen colors. Click on a color in the requester and change it with the Red, Green and Blue sliders. You can create a spread of colors by clicking on Range, then on the first and then last color in the spread. To cancel a range make the first color the same as the last color. MOVING THE PROGRAM TO OTHER DISKS AND DRAWERS If you wish to copy Crossword Puzzle Maker or Player to another directory, you will need to copy two files, "numbers" and "letters", to the same directory or neither program will load. If you do not have WorkBench 2.0 you will need the Shell or CLI to do this. STRING GADGET SUMMARY Here is a summary of string gadget editing functions. If you aren't familiar with these commands I suggest learning them. You'll find them useful in any program which makes use of Intuition string gadgets. Key(s) Function Left or right Moves the cursor around the current string. arrow keys SHIFT + left or Moves the cursor to the beginning or end of the current right arrow string. keys DEL Deletes the character under the cursor. BACKSPACE Deletes the character to the left of the cursor. RETURN Terminates input. Right AMIGA-Q Undoes the last editing change to the string. Right AMIGA-X Clears the string. COPYRIGHT NOTICE THIS PROGRAM AND ITS SUPPORT FILES AND DOCUMENTS ARE © COPYRIGHT 1990,1991 BY FRANS PRETORIUS. Any comments and suggestions are welcome: Frans Pretorius, 782 Park St., Ashland OR 97520. END OF TEXT