Main Menu Welcome to the Word Search Designer Help system. {[00402,7,5] Using the Help system } {[02984,7,5] Basic instructions for this program } {[01887,7,5] About WordPuz Pro } {[14697,7,5] About Installing or moving the program } {[19083,7,5] Licenced and future updates } Using Help Welcome to the WordPuz Pro Help System. Everything you need to know about the program is available from here. So if you get stuck,help will only be a key press away! You call up the Help by clicking on the 'Help' icon, this is always present on the main control bar. When the Help button has been clicked on and is 'down' you then need to click on an area of the screen that you need help with. You'll know that help is available when the mouse pointer starts to animate - this indicates you are over a zone which has help available. Once you've clicked on the zone for help the Help display file will be loaded from disc and a screen will appear detailing the Help you requested. Clicking on the control panel without an animating pointer will bring up the main menu. If the Help text is longer than the Help window you can move through it by clicking on the arrow icons locate at the top right of the Help window. To move through the text quicker, just drag the slider bar on the right border of the window. Across the top of the Help window there are four icons: 1 The small icon at the extreme top left closes the help window and returns you to the main program. Help is still active though until you press the help button again. 2 Prev.Menu reverts you back to the help screen you had just been viewing. 3 Main Menu takes you to the main help menu. 4 Print creates a hardcopy of the current help text onto paper for future reference. About WordPuz Pro The WordPuz Pro was made by me, Raymond Smith in 1994. This program was made as the result of a local football club asking me to copy and print out a hand written word Search. This then inspired me to write this program. If there are any bugs or suggestions you would like to tell me about then please write to me. Please remember that this program is Shareware. The football club to which I gave this program to on completion paid me £60. This then allowed them to put a Word Search competition to raise funds, very quickly and easily into the local community each month. All I ask from you is a mere £10, for which you will receive an enhanced version of the WordPuz Pro and a few other programs written by me. You will also receive a demo version of a very advanced Resource Designer for AMOS Professional. {[15666,7,5] Information on Resource Designer } Please send your £10 cheques or Postal orders to the following address. Raymond Smith 12 Somerville Road Leven Fife Scotland KY8 4EB The Programs Main Screen The main screen of WordPuz Pro contains the main options which enable you to design your puzzles quickly and easily. The screen is split into two main sections. On loading the program there is a control panel at the top and a large section at the bottom, an empty grid is drawn in the bottom section. The screen is manipulated by you as you use all the controls. From now on we will refer to this part of the screen as the main screen. The control panel actually 'floats' on top of the main screen and can be moved to any position on your TV by clicking and dragging on the message bar (to the right of the quit button). The Main screen is also much larger than the TV screen and can be moved using the two 'Up','Down' buttons on the extreme right of the control panel, or pressing the up/down keys on the keyboard. This feature is actually essential to positioning anything on parts of the main screen which are hidden from view. You will notice that as the pointer passes over the grid that a small red square ,or black if in Crossword mode, follows the pointer. These are the individual spaces in the grid which hold a single letter. The size of these spaces can be changed from the preferences panel. In word search design mode. If you click the left mouse button as a square is highlighted you will be allowed to change this square manually. The square will turn green and the pointer will disappear. Type your letter and it will be put into the grid. Note: This is only allowed if the current space isn't occupied by part of a word which has been inserted from the word editor. If you would like to put letters in continuously then toggle the 'Type continuously' button. {[09080,7,5] Instructions on Type Continuously } Preferences button This button takes you to the preferences panel. {[04924,7,5] View Preferences panel help } Preferences setup panel From this panel you can choose a pattern for the border of the grid. Change the thickness of this border. Change the spacing of the letters in the grid (the size of the square each letter is in.), Change the font used by the grid ( please note that only font heights under 17 are allowed.). You can change the font used by the words column ( if you wish to print it) and change the amount of columns you wish to split the words into. You can choose the highlighting mode. Obviously it's up to you to make sure that everything is positioned correctly and the right font is chosen to make a sensible looking screen. Quit Click on this icon to end using the program. A requester will ask you to confirm your actions. Load a file This button invokes a file requester to allow a puzzle file to be loaded from disk. If you are currently editing a puzzle then you are asked to confirm. Please note that only files with the suffix '.puz' are acceptable. Save a puzzle file This button invokes a file requester to allow a puzzle file to be saved to disk. You are asked to name this file so please make sure you add '.puz' to the end of your filename. Print a puzzle file This button sends a graphic dump of your main screen to the printer using the settings from the workbench prefs file. It makes sense to check that everything is positioned as you want it before you do this. The program prints black and white only. Note: You will be warned by the program if all the words in the words list have not been placed into the grid. It's up to you to make sure that everything is placed as you want it and that all words have been inserted before committing to paper. Remember that whats on the screen is what you'll get on paper. *************IMPORTANT************** It is important to know that the WordPuz Pro only caters for A4 sized print outs. A feature may be added in future updates to cater for different sizes. Search for a word On pressing this button a requester appears, waiting for you to enter a word into its edit zone. On pressing the enter key, an attempt is made to find this word in the grid. If successful then this word is highlighted and a report is made. Because the same word can exist as part of another word then you are asked if you want to search again. This feature can be used to solve word searches, if you have the patience. Toggle the 'Insert continuously' button and carefully copy the puzzle (not easy) from your mag, book etc., and use the search feature to find the words. I've found that copying a puzzle is made much easier by placing a ruler under the line that you are copying. Also make sure to set the correct number of columns. Fill grid This feature toggles all blank spaces in the grid to a random letter, or a blank space if there is already a letter there which doesn't form part of a word. Only use this feature to fill the blank spaces after you have entered all the words from the word list. Clear all This button clears everything and leaves you with a clean slate. A requester asks you to confirm this if your file has changed. Move elements This button allows you to position everything as you want it on the main screen. Click on the arrowed icon which appears on the top left corner of the grid and drag it to your desired position. Be sure that the grids border is drawn inside the main screen or it will be missing when printed. The words column is dragged by clicking on the words 'MOVE TEXT' which appears on the first word position. Use the arrow keys to choose the column you wish to move. The amount of words for each column is entered into the edit zone which appears in the main control panel. If you wish to remove the column then enter 0 into the zone. The columns before and after the deleted column will be joined together. When you are happy with the positions then press the right mouse button. Use the screen position buttons on the right of the control panel to position anywhere on screen. All text blocks are moved from the text editor panel. {[13679,7,5] View Text Editor panel help } Type continuously This button toggles your ability to type continuously as you manually insert letters into the grid. After typing in a letter, the square to the right will then become highlighted, or moved down one and moved to xcolumn one if there are none to the right. Three things will stop you typing. 1: The next highlighted square is already occupied by part of a word. 2: You press the Enter key. 3: You have just entered into the last square. (Bottom right square.) Note: It makes sense to be careful when typing in manually so as not to make up words which are already in the word list. {[02984,7,5] Instructions for typing manually into grid } Note: This feature is handy for copying word search puzzles from magazines and then using the search mode for finding the words. {[06900h,7,5] Instructions for search mode } Resize Grid This button allows the resizing of the grid as 'Grid size= Xcolumn (letters across) x Ycolumn (letters high)' Note: This feature is disabled in the Shareware version of this program. Most puzzles in mags and books are 18 Xcolumns x 18 Ycolumns. This therefore is the size of the standard grid on starting the program. Note: You will only be allowed to change the size of the grid if it is completely empty. Minimum Xcolumns is 8 : Maximum Xcolumns is 40 Minimum Ycolumns is 8 : Maximum Ycolumns is 40 Note: It makes sense to choose a small font for the grid if a large number of ycolumns are used. Also if the grid is wide then you may have to put any text or word columns underneath the grid. Remember to split the word column into two or three seperate columns to make them fit. Text Editor This button summons up the Text editor Panel. {[13679,7,5] View Text Editor panel help } Draw Column This is a toggle button which draws (or not) the words at the position defined by you. There are three different ways to do a puzzle though, and these are as follows. If the 'Write words' toggle in the preferences panel is set, then all words are numbered, printed and underlined in the amount of columns defined in preferences. If not set then a number and a line are printed only. The third way to do a puzzle is to switch off the 'Draw words' feature altogether and use the text editor to make cryptic clues or whatever. Words Editor This button summons up the powerful words editor, which allows editing and insertion of your words. {[12760,7,5] View Words Editor panel help } Save Screen This button allows you to save the main screen as a black and white .iff file. This feature has been added for four reasons. 1: You may want to print the puzzle using a printout enhancer program. 2: It allows (some) compatibility with other computer formats. (The TIMES might use this program to complement their D.T.P Mac)....Not! 3: More usefully, you can load the file into your art programs and tart it up with clip art or your own drawings. You can even colour it in if you like. 4: It allows you to transport the file to somebody elses printer if you don't have one. Highlight words On clicking this button, all words which have been entered from the words editor are highlighted in the grid This feature has been added to let you print solutions to your puzzles. There are three modes of highlighting and they are set from the preferences panel. These are; 1: Circled; Each letter of each word is circled. 2: Lined; A line is drawn through each word. 3: Boxed; Each letter of each word is boxed. File Info This button shows some information about the current puzzle file and the origins and author of this program. Using the Words editor The word list can be positioned to any part of the screen if you drag the bar at the top of the panel. This position is remembered for the duration of the program. From here you insert words by clicking on a space in the words list. On doing this a message is printed in the space (message bar) at the top left of the control panel saying which word number you are editing. Enter your word into the edit zone and press enter.All the usual editing features are at your disposal. i.e. Backspace to delete to left of cursor and delete key to delete to right of cursor. If you wish to change any word then just click on the chosen word in the list and it will appear in the edit zone for editing. In the main panel there are a bank of buttons for manipulating the grid. These buttons have help available if you activate help mode. Click on 'EXIT' to go back to the main program. Text editor panel This panel is for changing the font and style of any text. On the left of the panel is the style toggle flags of underlined, bold or italics. These flags can be set at any time. In the middle is a font requester. Click on your desired font for the current text. At the top is a small edit zone with an arrow either side of it. Use the buttons to move through your texts to the string you wish to edit one at a time or type a number into the edit zone and press return. Underneath this is a large text edit zone. This is where you type in your text. All the usuall editing features apply. On pressing return the panel disappears and a box of the size of your text will follow the pointer. Use the box as a guideline for positioning your text and press the left mouse button when you are happy with the position. Press the right mouse button if you wish to cancel this action. Squared Grid Mode This button toggles a feature which draws (or not) a box around each letter space in the grid. Installing or moving the program It is important to mention that if you wish to install this program to Hard Disk or move it to another disk that you move some other files as well. If you want this instruction file to be available to the main program then please put the file named 'WSD_HELP.txt' into the 's directory'of your 'system' drive/directory. The actual program and its icon can be anywhere you like but please make sure that a 'FONTS' drawer is available. Also, the Crossword designer needs the dictionary in WFdict to be on the Sys or assigned disk. Redrawing the screen This button redraws everything on screen. It is recommended that you use this before printing or saveing the screen. This feature is also usefull to refresh the screen if graphics have corrupted the display through badly placed text etc. In Crossword mode this is essential to number the possible Acrosses and downs in readiness for entering the answers into the grid. Information on Resource Designer (Appendage) If you own AMOS Professional then this program is for you. 'Appendage' as this program likes to be called, is an accessory for helping to write and design the interface strings for your programs. When run as an accessory the program grabs your programs interface resource bank(s) and allows easy manipulation of the banks. Appendage is NOT a rewritten resource designer as supplied with AMOS Pro. Appendage is for helping to write the actual interface, not for grabbing the graphics as the supplied program does. There are two main modes and these are; A normal text editor geared for writing interface strings direct. No 'A$=A$+interface string' as you do directly into your listing. This editor has cut, paste, clear, clone, print and many other features. Each interface program is edited individually as is each sub routine and User Instruction. At the press of a button the interface program is tested and is run. This takes place in the second (graphical) mode of operation. Any mistakes are immediately detected, and if so the edit mode is entered again with the the cursor at the offending instruction. (just like the main Amos Editor.) The beauty of this is that each program panel is available for your inspection to see that everything works and is in the right position. In graphic mode there is a control panel with about 50 buttons. Most buttons access a powerful console for automatic interface string writing. ALL interface graphic commands and some optional user commands can be drawn using the mouse. Text commands with full intuitive style, font and colour control are available. Choose from the resource message list. Buttons control panel with many different types to choose, all chosen, placed and linked with the mouse. Look and choose an interface graphic instantly from the Resource Graphic browser. The default resource graphics are available if none are in your bank. All XB,YB,XA,YA,SX,SY etc. instructions can be inserted automatically with any graphic or button instruction. Active or Inactive Lists can be added with sliders and buttons attached with one key press. Any kind of edit zone can be added with a varied choice of borders with one key press. Remember that all colour and pattern parameters etc.are added to each command automatically. These are taken from a permanently on screen palette bar, which has a pattern requester available. All sizes and positions (including LIne,BOx etc.) are defined using the mouse. All of the above and many more, are writing the interface string for you, but remember that the conventional editing mode is available for writing more complex strings as well as direct editing. There are much more features, (to many to go into detail) including Hyper Text. (I'me working on a Hyper Text file editor) A full help system (like this one) is available to all features. This program is huge and thus a lot of work has been put into its development. At the moment, Appendage is undergoing some improvements (It's already a very capable and useful program). Obviously I'm not going to give away over 8 months of work so I expect a small fee for this program. Please send £10 cheques or postal orders to the address in the 'About this program' help file for a full working version of Appendage. {[01887,7,5] Go Back to About WordPuz Pro } What to expect in future (Licenced) updates There are a few extra features available in the licenced version of The WordPuz Pro. On paying your licence fee you will receive updates as and when they are finished free of charge. (As well as renabled features.) Extra features in the current version (1.00) are as follows: Splittable word column. The words column can be split into a maximum of 12 separate chunks all at different coordinates and all different sizes. User definable border patterns. What to expect in future: Suggest mode will eventually have an option to place whole word lists into the puzzle. If enough people register for WordPuz Pro, then I will endeavour to enhance the program even further. I need your response and support to do this so please send me your suggestions, ideas and bug reports. Inserting words into the grid The direction is always set 'left to right' on starting this feature. To insert a word, click on the chosen word, the word is shown in the message bar and the the words list disappears. Click on your desired direction button and place the pointer in the grid. If the word fits from the start square which is at the pointers position in the grid then it is highlighted. The first square is coloured to let you know the start square (first letter). If the word fits then the coloured square is green for go. If the word passes through an already placed word and the letter(s) it passes through is (are) different then it is red for no way. If you are determined to place a word at your desired position then you will have to remove the existing word(s) from the grid. (explained later) When you are happy with your position press the left mouse button. If you wish to go back to the words editor without placing then press the right mouse button. When you go back to words editor you will notice that the word has been highlighted in the words list with a '*' character. This is your assurance that the word is in the grid. Remove a word from the grid This button toggles remove mode. When the button is down and you click on a word in the list and the word is highlighted (*), the word will be removed from the grid. Highlighting a word in the grid This button is 'Find in grid'. This simply finds and highlights the word chosen from the list. Clearing the grid This button is Clear grid. It clears the grid completely but keeps the word list intact. Clearing everything This button is clear all. This clears the word list.If you clear the word list then it is obvious that the grid has to be cleared as well. Removing a word from the list This button removes a word from the list. All words above it in the list are moved down a space. Note: You will only be allowed to do this if the word HAS NOT been put into the grid. Suggesting a space for a word This button has three actions. On the first press it searches the grid for ALL possible locations for the word. It finishes by placing the pointer at the best place with the appropriate direction set. The best place is the one which uses the most already placed letters. Further pressing of the suggest button will find the next best position until it finally suggests the places which have only spaces. It does this in order it finds them from the start of the grid. (Top left working left to right.) NOTE: When in the third action 'all spaces' then it is also highlighting used letter positions as well. Designing the pattern of your crossword This button is a toggle button which allows you to toggle each space in the grid to either a black square or a blank square. When the screen is redrawn, all the downs and acrosses will be numbered correctly in the grid and marked for your entry when in the Clues and answers editor. Columns editor This button envokes a small requester to allow you to manually enter the position of each clues column. Remember you can still go into the 'move elements' mode to move everything with the mouse. In crossword mode, columns 1-6 are the allowable Across clues columns, and 7 to 12 being the down columns. The size edit zone is used to size each column. For instance if there were 23 Across entries in the puzzle you could enter 6 into columns 1-3 and 5 into column 4 to get the size of the columns as you wish. Same goes for all the downs useing 7-12. Show Crossword Answers This button toggles the showing of all the entries into the grid. This feature has been added to let you show solutions to your puzzle. When in the editor for the first time, the 'ACROSS' answers will be active, as indicated by the 'ACROSS' button being depressed. The first ACROSS will be ready for entry. To move about the ACROSS entrys you can press the arrow buttons either side of the zone. They go to the next valid ACROSS entry in the list (if there is one to go to). If you press the button below this zone with the question mark in it, an ACROSS answers list will appear. You can move through this list to choose the clue number you wish to edit. (just click on it) Do exactly the same for the DOWNS with the DOWN button depressed. To edit an answer, click into the answer zone. Type your answer and press enter. To place the answer into the grid, press the first button in the bank of buttons. The pointer will automatically be placed at the relevent number in the grid. As long as the first square is green you can place. If the square is red then you have moved the pointer from the correct place, made the word too big to fit or the word passes through incompatible letters. You can cancel place mode by pressing the right mouse button. Multiple word answers are allowed. Put a space between each word to let WORDPUZ PRO recognize this. You can now enter the clue if you like but you may have to change your answer later to allow other words to fit. As long as you remember PRESS ENTER TO PUT YOUR ENTRIES INTO MEMORY. This goes for ALL edit zones. I usually put my clues in AFTER all my answers are placed into the grid. This way you'll know that you wont have to change anything. You can remove an already placed word by pressing the 'pincers' button. You can clear a whole entry by press the 'clr' button. You can clear the grid by pressing the 'cross' button. You can clear the grid AND the clues and answers by pressing the 'double cross' button. There is a small 'to back' gadget at the end of the button bar. Use this to hide the main panel to allow you to study the grid. Press any mouse button to go back. Find word mode This feature allows access to WordPuz Pro's dictionary to aid you in designing Crosswords. When designing crosswords you may need some help to think of a word to not only fit a space , but to fit a space AND fit through already placed words. WORDPUZ PRO has a powerful feature which does all the thinking for you. If you wish help for a particular entry, go to it as explained earlier, but you can use this feature at any time. Press the 'FIND' button. The 'FIND WORD' panel will appear. On the left of the panel is an edit zone. This edit zone will initially be filled with the relevent amount of letter spaces for the current answer. The pointer will be placed in the grid at the relevent place for the current answer. You can move it as you wish though. If you move it , you will notice the edit zone being updated with the relevent spaces and letters. The edit zone is filled with question marks for the spaces, and any letters which are passed through are automatically inserted. When you want the word finder to do its stuff, press the left mouse button on the square in the grid you wish help from. (Just press the mouse button when the pointer is automatically placed to get a word for the current entry.) If you wish to filter out some suggestions then you can edit the zone directly using the normal editing keys. Say the edit zone has the following in it. '???d?' If you wish to get the words to fit that pattern but only those begginning with 'A' then simply change the first question mark with an 'A' and PRESS ENTER. Note: If you delete any question marks or change the letters then you obviously won't be allowed to use the suggestions in the current entry. The find feature now goes through a database of about 65000 words to find ALL matching words. The search feature will stop when all three columns are full. Press more when you ready to see more. You can leave the panel without choosing by pressing the small close button on the extreme top left. To choose a word simply click on it. If you had launched this feature from the current entries placing in the grid, then the chosen word will automatically be put into the current entry. You will still have to place it though. HINTS AND TIPS As you are designing your Crossword, use the 'to back' gadget to look for answers that are part filled with letters. Go to the relevent answers and use the 'find words' feature to fill them. This way you wont be asking the 'Find word' feature to match with too little possibilities.