CrosswordEditor : manual
CrosswordEditor is a Java application for creating, editing and solving crosswords.
CrosswordEditor has the following features:
A glossary of some of the terms used in CrosswordEditor and in this manual can be found in an appendix.
CrosswordEditor is made available under two licences:
uk.blankaspect.crosswordeditor package (including
resources) may be used under the terms of version 3 of the GNU General Public License.
The author of CrosswordEditor gratefully remembers Neil Shepherd (Alberich/Klingsor) for permitting two of his crosswords (number 15 and number 76) to be used as examples on the project's website.
This section assumes that you have some experience of building and running a Java application.
A Java Development Kit (JDK) that supports Java 17, such as Eclipse Temurin from Adoptium, is required to build CrosswordEditor.
The src directory of the repository contains all the source code and
resources that constitute the application; there are no external dependencies. The
directory conforms to the Maven standard directory layout: the source code is in
src/main/java and the resources are in src/main/resources.
The supplied Kotlin-DSL-based Gradle
build script, build.gradle.kts, modifies the compileJava and
jar tasks (provided by the java plug-in) to compile the
application and to create an executable JAR file for it.
The supplied Kotlin-DSL-based Gradle build script, build.gradle.kts,
defines two tasks that may be used to run CrosswordEditor:
compileJava task.
jar task.
Both tasks extend the JavaExec task.
To prevent a new instance of the application from being run each time a file that is associated with CrosswordEditor is opened from, for example, a file browser, only one instance of CrosswordEditor may be run at any one time. When CrosswordEditor starts up, it checks whether another instance of the program is running; if it finds one, it terminates after informing the the other instance of any files that should be opened.
CrosswordEditor may be run indirectly by associating file types with its JAR file and opening a file of one of those types. A file association can be created on Windows with the Options > Manage file association command. You can use the same command to remove the file association when you no longer want it.
When it starts up, CrosswordEditor is configured with configuration properties that are read from two sources: the command line of the Java launcher and a configuration file whose location may be explicitly specified. If the same property is specified on the command line and in a configuration file, the value from the configuration file takes precedence.
The recommended method of setting the properties in a configuration file is with the Options > Preferences command. For command-line properties, which must be edited manually, the form of the property values is given in an appendix, and it can also be inferred by generating a configuration file with the desired values and inspecting the contents of the file.
When CrosswordEditor is run, configuration properties may be passed to the
java launcher on the command line as system properties; eg,
-Dapp.general.mainWindowLocation="100, 0".
CrosswordEditor's command-line configuration properties all have the prefix
app. . A list of all the properties that are recognised by CrosswordEditor
is given in an appendix.
System properties can be added to the two supplied Gradle
tasks, runMain and runJar, with the
systemProperties(Map<String, ?>) method.
One particular property, app.configDir, is used to specify the directory that contains a configuration file, as described below.
The configuration file is named crosswordEditor-config.xml.
CrosswordEditor doesn't require a configuration file: it uses a default value for
any configuration property that is missing from the source(s) of configuration.
Similarly, if it finds a property value to be invalid, CrosswordEditor will display a
message to this effect and use the default value of the property. If the configuration
file contains a property that was specified on the command line, the value from the
configuration file is used.
If the configuration has changed when you exit the application normally (ie, using the File > Exit command or an equivalent), CrosswordEditor will save its configuration to a configuration file. If a configuration file was read on startup, it will overwrite that file; otherwise, it will write a configuration file to the default directory described above, unless the value of the app.configDir property was an empty string.
A configuration file can be written explicitly with the Save configuration command within the Preferences dialog.
When it starts up, CrosswordEditor is informed of the location of the configuration file with the app.configDir property. The value of the property may contain special constructs for system properties, environment variables and the user's home directory.
The app.configDir property may be set in two ways:
java launcher, or
crosswordEditor-properties.xml that resides in the same
directory as the crosswordEditor.jar JAR file.
The crosswordEditor-properties.xml file is a legacy from the time when
CrosswordEditor was distributed as a JAR file with an installer; the properties file was
written by the installer. If you create a properties file, it should have the following
form, with the example pathname replaced by the actual pathname:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE properties SYSTEM "http://java.sun.com/dtd/properties.dtd"> <properties> <entry key="app.configDir">/home/slothrop/.blankaspect/crosswordEditor</entry> </properties>
If the app.configDir property is set both on the command line and in the properties file, the value in the properties file takes precedence.
The existence and value of the app.configDir property determines the locations that are searched for a configuration file:
$PWD on Linux/UNIX systems, depends on the system and the way in
which CrosswordEditor was run.
$HOME/.blankaspect/crosswordEditor, where $HOME is the
environment variable that denotes the user's home directory. On Windows
systems, the default directory is
%APPDATA%\blankaspect\crosswordEditor, where %APPDATA%
is an environment variable.
CrosswordEditor's documents are called crossword documents in this manual.
They are XML documents
with a filename suffix that defaults to .xword but that can be configured
with the file.filenameSuffix property.
A crossword document consists of several components:
All the components are optional except for the grid.
All crossword documents have a grid. CrosswordEditor supports only rectangular, orthogonal grids: two-dimensional arrays of cells, with fields of contiguous cells that run across the rows of the grid from left to right and down its columns from top to bottom.
The parameters of the grid — separator, size and symmetry — are specified when you create a document with the File > New document command. After the document is created, the separator and size of the grid are fixed, but the symmetry can be changed by editing the grid.
If a row or column of a grid contains more than one field, the fields in the row or column are separated from one another by separators. CrosswordEditor supports two kinds of separator: blocks and bars. A block occupies the cell of a grid; a bar divides two contiguous cells along their common border. A grid may have only one kind of separator.
A grid can have between 2 and 99 rows and columns. The number of rows and the number of columns are independent of one another.
The separators of a grid are often arranged symmetrically, presumably for aesthetic reasons or because it is customary to do so. (In the UK, crossword grids commonly have 2-fold or 4-fold rotational symmetry.) In CrosswordEditor, a grid may have no symmetry or one of the kinds of rotational or reflectional symmetry listed below:
The clues of a crossword document are associated with fields of the grid; each clue must have at least one field ID — a field number and direction. (CrosswordEditor does not currently support crosswords that have a list of unnumbered and directionless clues for which the solver is required to discover the field number and direction.)
A crossword document may have three indications: a clue-reference keyword, an answer-length pattern and substitutions, and a line-break sequence. A document's indications can be editied with the Edit > Edit indications command.
A clue-reference keyword is a specific word, phrase or symbol in the text of a clue that indicates that the clue contains a reference to another clue instead of a definition. The clue containing the reference is associated with a secondary field of a multiple-field clue that contains a definition. In the UK, the clue-reference keyword is usually the word "See", which is the default for CrosswordEditor. For example, if the clue for 5 across were
5, 23 A Malaysian city (5,6) ,
the clue for 23 across would be the reference
23 See 5a
in which the word "See" is the clue-reference keyword.
A clue-reference keyword is stored with a document only if the lists of clues contain at least one reference. Conversely, if you open a document that contains no clue references, it will have no clue-reference keyword, so you will need to specify one if you add a reference to the clue lists.
An answer-length pattern and substitutions are used to find and process answer-length expressions in the document's clues. An answer-length expression is an optional component of a clue that indicates the length of its answer. If it is present, it must come at the end of a defined clue (ie, a clue that is not a reference). It usually consists of one or more numbers separated by punctuation and enclosed in parentheses. For example, in the clue
5, 23 A Malaysian city (5,6) ,
the answer-length expression is "(5,6)".
An answer-length expression is processed in two stages: a pattern (a regular expression) is used to search for an answer-length expression in the text of a defined clue, then a list of substitutions is applied to any text that matches the pattern. The substitutions, whose target can be either literal text or a regular expression, are intended to remove numbers that don't contribute to the answer length (eg, the 2 in "(9, 2 words)"). After any substitutions are applied, numbers are extracted from the resulting text and added together to give the answer length.
A document's default answer-length pattern should be suitable in many cases. It
matches a pair of parentheses, ( (U+0028) and ) (U+0029), at
the end of a clue, with a decimal digit immediately after the opening parenthesis and
zero or more characters, excluding a (, between the digit and the closing
parenthesis; for example, "(6)", "(3,7)", "(10-4)" or
"(12, two words)".
If the clues of a crossword don't have answer-length expressions, is is recommended that you specify an empty answer-length pattern to avoid the possibility that part of a clue will be interpreted as the answer length.
A line-break sequence (usually referred to as a line break) is used in a prologue or epilogue to start a new line without starting a new
paragraph. Its default value is specified by the textSection.lineBreak configuration property, which
itself defaults to $$.
A line-break sequence is stored with a document only if there is at least one line break in the document's prologue or epilogue. If you edit the prologue or epilogue of a crossword document that was created by someone else, be aware that the document's line-break sequence might be different from the default value.
A crossword document may have three text sections: a title, a prologue and an epilogue. The title and prologue are displayed above the grid; the epilogue is displayed below the grid and clues. (In the UK, the text above a grid is usually called a preamble, but the word does not have a counterpart that means "text that comes after", so prologue and epilogue were chosen instead.) The title is a single line of text whereas the prologue and epilogue may consists of multiple lines of text divided into paragraphs.
The prologue and epilogue support some basic text styles: bold, italic, superscript,
subscript, underline and strikethrough. When a crossword document is exported as HTML,
each paragraph of a prologue or epilogue has its own <p> element.
You can edit the text sections with the Edit > Edit text sections command.
Any entries that you make in the grid of a crossword will be saved with the crossword document, allowing you to solve a crossword over several sessions. If you want to restore the crossword to its original state after you've completed it, you can clear all the grid entries with the Edit > Clear all grid entries command.
If a crossword has a full set of grid entries, it is said to be complete, and the word "Complete" will be displayed in the status panel of the main window. When you've completed a crossword, you can set the document's solution to the grid entries with the Solution > Set solution to current entries command.
The solution is the set of correct answers to all the clues of a crossword. A crossword document may contain a solution or it may have a URL reference to another document containing a solution; in both cases, the solution may be protected by a passphrase. The passphrase facility is intended for use in crossword competitions.
If a document contains a solution, the word "Solution" will be displayed in the status panel of the main window. The solution is encrypted in the XML file of the document using the Salsa20 cipher with either a passphrase chosen by the crossword's author or, if no passphrase was specified, an empty passphrase that gives unrestricted access to the solution from within CrosswordEditor.
If a document contains a solution that is protected with a passphrase, you must enter the passphrase when you open the document. If you cannot supply the passphrase, you will still be able to open the document but the solution won't be loaded, and the document won't contain the solution if you subsequently save it.
If a document (called a public document) contains a URL reference to a separate solution (in a solution document), the external solution can be loaded from the location specified in the public document with the Solution > Load solution command. If the solution is protected with a passphrase, you must enter the passphrase in order to load the solution. CrosswordEditor checks that the external solution belongs to the crossword by comparing an authentication code in the public document with one in the solution document. When you create a linked pair of public document and solution document, you must ensure that the two documents have the same authentication code; a procedure for achieving this is described below.
There are four ways in which a crossword may be published with a solution: the document may either contain a solution (internal solution) or a URL reference to a separate solution (external solution), and the solution may or may not be protected with a passphrase.
If you use CrosswordEditor to publish a crossword competition, it is recommended that you use option 2 if you are able to make a solution document publicly accessible on a server, or option 3 otherwise. If it is available to you, option 4 gives most control over access to the solution.
You can use CrosswordEditor to publish a crossword in several ways, as discussed above. If you choose to do so by distributing a crossword document that contains a URL reference to a separate solution, you must ensure that the two documents have the same authentication code. One way of achieving this is to create the two documents from the same master document by following the procedure described below, in which the following terms are used:
Here is the procedure:
CrosswordEditor uses a tabbed document interface to display multiple documents. This kind of interface has a single tabbed window in which only one document — referred to as the current document — is visible at any one time. Each open document has its own view in a tab of the main window. A maximum of 64 documents may be open simultaneously.
You can select a document by clicking on its tab, or you can select a document from the alphabetically ordered list that is displayed by clicking on the down-arrow button at the right of the tab bar. You can move between documents by pressing Ctrl+PageUp and Ctrl+PageDown.
The main window can be moved and resized in a platform-dependent manner (for example, it may be possible to change the size by dragging a corner of the window). It can also be resized to the size of the current crossword view with the View > Resize window to view command.
The location of the main window can be saved between CrosswordEditor sessions according to the preference for saving the main window location. The size of the main window is saved when CrosswordEditor exits normally, and the size of the main window is set to the saved value when the program is next run.
A crossword document is displayed in a crossword view, which contains several components that correspond to the components of the document, some of which are optional. A view always has a grid and two lists of clues, although the lists may be empty. The width of the view can be controlled indirectly with the view.selectedClueNumColumns property. The colours of many of the components and subcomponents of a crossword view are configurable.
The topmost component of a crossword view is an optional title, which is drawn in a bold variant of the main font, if one is available, and in a configurable colour (Text) that is shared with the other text sections. The title can be edited with the Edit > Edit text sections command or by double-clicking the left mouse button on it.
If a title is present, a horizontal line is drawn below it in a configurable colour (Title separator).
Below the title is an optional prologue that may comprise multiple lines of text with some basic styling. The paragraphs of a prologue are separated by extra vertical space.
The text of the prologue is drawn in the main font and in a configurable colour (Text) that is shared with the other text sections. The prologue can be edited with the Edit > Edit text sections command or by double-clicking the left mouse button on it.
The grid is drawn below the prologue, on the left side of the view. The size of a cell of the grid can be configured with the grid.cellSize.block property for a blocked grid and the grid.cellSize.bar property for a barred grid. Grid lines and separators (blocks or bars) are drawn in a configurable colour (Grid line and separator).
Within the grid, the background of the fields of the currently selected clue are drawn in configurable colours: Background, focused selected field if the view has focus, Background, selected field otherwise. Field numbers are drawn in their own font (Field number) and configurable colour (Text, field number). Grid entries, too, are drawn in their own font (Grid entry) and configurable colour (Text, grid entry).
When a crossword view has keyboard focus, a blinking caret is drawn in a cell of the selected field to indicate the position of the next grid entry. The caret, which is drawn in a configurable colour (Caret), can be moved around the fields of the grid with the following keys:
| Left | Move left by one column |
| Right | Move right by one column |
| Up | Move up by one row |
| Down | Move down by one row |
| Home | Move to the first cell of the field |
| End | Move to the last cell of the field |
Depending on the setting of the grid.navigateOverSeparators configuration property, the caret may either stop when you try to move it beyond a separator or it may move over the separator to the next field in the row or column.
You can select a field and its corresponding clue by left-clicking on the field. If you click at an intersection of fields in the grid, the selection switches between the across and down fields. When the caret is at an intersection of fields, you can switch between the across and down fields with the following keys:
| Ctrl+Left | Select the down field |
| Ctrl+Right | Select the down field |
| Ctrl+Up | Select the across field |
| Ctrl+Down | Select the across field |
To the right of the grid is an area in which the currently selected clue is displayed. The width of this area can be configured with the view.selectedClueNumColumns property.
Below the grid are the lists of clues for each of the directions, across and down. The clues are drawn in their own font (Clue) and configurable colours: Text, clue if the clue exists, Text, empty clue otherwise. The field IDs of each clue and the headings of the clue lists are drawn in a bold variant of the clue font, if one is available. The selected clue (including any references) has a highlighted background, drawn in configurable colours: Background, selected clue if the clue exists, Background, selected empty clue otherwise.
When a crossword view has keyboard focus, you can change the clue selection with the following keys:
| Tab | Select the next clue |
| Shift+Tab | Select the previous clue |
The bottommost component of a crossword view is an optional epilogue that, like the prologue, may comprise multiple lines of text with some basic styling. The paragraphs of an epilogue are separated by extra vertical space.
The text of the epilogue is drawn in the main font and in a configurable colour (Text) that is shared with the other text sections. The epilogue can be edited with the Edit > Edit text sections command or by double-clicking the left mouse button on it.
At the bottom of the main window, below the tabbed document panel, is a status panel comprising two fields, which may be empty. The fields have the following contents:
The colour of the text of the status panel is configurable.
If your system supports the dragging and dropping of files (for example, from a file manager such as GNOME Nautilus or Windows Explorer), you can open multiple files by dragging and dropping them onto the main window. A file is opened only if its filename has the suffix specified by the file.filenameSuffix configuration property.
Dialog boxes are displayed in response to some of CrosswordEditor's commands. Some of the dialogs contain non-standard graphical components or standard components that have unusual features.
A spinner is a graphical component for editing a numerical value. It consists of a text field adjacent to a pair of small buttons. The value in the text field may be edited manually, or it may be incremented and decremented by one of the following methods:
Using the last two methods, the amount by which the value is incremented or decremented can be modified by holding down the Ctrl, Shift or Ctrl+Shift keys, which correspond to increments of 10, 100 and 1000 respectively.
A single-selection list box contains a list from which only one item can be selected. The position of an item in the list can be changed by dragging it up or down the list with the left mouse button, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Up or Ctrl+Shift+Down when the list box has keyboard focus.
A list box appears in a panel with a set of buttons, some of which issue commands that apply to the selected item in the list.
A pathname field is a text field that is intended to hold the pathname of a file or directory. The browse button (…) adjacent to the field brings up a file-selection dialog whose selection will be displayed in the field if the dialog is accepted. If the field is not empty, its background colour is different from when the field is empty.
The pathname in the field may contain special constructs for system properties, environment variables and the user's home directory.
You can transfer a file or directory to a pathname field by drag-and-drop or by copy-and-paste from a file manager.
A text panel is a text area that supports multiple lines of text and some basic text styles, along with a set of buttons for issuing commands to apply the styles to selected text. The buttons of a text panel are disabled if no text is selected.
Text panels are used for editing the clues, prologue and epilogue of a crossword. The text of a clue is treated as a single, indivisible paragraph whereas the text of a prologue and epilogue may be divided into multiple paragraphs, with paragraphs separated by one or more empty lines.
In addition to multiple paragraphs, a prologue and epilogue may contain line breaks,
which have the effect of starting a new line without starting a new paragraph, like a
<br> element in HTML. A line break is denoted by a line-break
sequence, which must come at the end of a line, with no space after it. The
line-break sequence of a document can be set with the Edit > Edit indications command. By default, it is set to
the value of the textSection.lineBreak configuration property, which
itself defaults to $$.
Edits made in a text panel may be undone and redone with Undo and Redo commands, which can be issued from the keyboard (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y respectively) or from a context menu.
Markup is used for styles within the text area. A sequence of characters to which one or more styles is applied is called a span. Spans may be nested (ie, one span may contain another). A span cannot extend across paragraphs in a prologue or epilogue.
A span has the form
{@<keys><separator><text>} . The
prefix {@ must be followed immediately by one or more keys:
lower-case alphabetic characters in the range a to z. The
first non-key character after the keys is a separator; it is ignored. The text of the
span follows the separator, and the span ends with the suffix }.
The characters { (U+007B), } (U+007D) and \
(U+005C) are metacharacters; that is, they have a special meaning within the
text. If you want the corresponding literal characters, you must escape the
metacharacters by prefixing \ to them: \{, \} or
\\.
CrosswordEditor recognises only the keys in the following table; any others will result in an error message.
| Style | Key | Command |
|---|---|---|
| Bold | b |
Ctrl+B |
| Italic | i |
Ctrl+I |
| Superscript | h (for high) |
Ctrl+H |
| Subscript | l (for low) |
Ctrl+L |
| Underline | u |
Ctrl+U |
| Strikethrough | s |
Ctrl+S |
The keys h (superscript) and l (subscript) are mutually
exclusive: they cannot both appear in the same span.
Here are some examples of style markup:
A style can be applied to a sequence of characters in a text area by selecting the characters and issuing the appropriate command, either by using a button below the text area or by a keyboard shortcut from the Command column in the table above. The command will apply style markup to the selected text, taking any paragraph breaks into account, but it will not consolidate multiple styles into a single span.
CrosswordEditor allows you to create a crossword document from an external source (eg, a crossword on a web page or in a PDF file), by "capturing" the grid and clues of the external crossword. The capturing process is controlled from the Capture crossword dialog, which is displayed in response to the Crossword > Capture crossword command.
The grid of a crossword is captured by processing an image that contains the grid. The grid may be detected within the image automatically, or it may be selected manually if the automatic detection algorithm cannot be made to work with a particular grid. CrosswordEditor gets the image from the system clipboard; the way in which you can copy an image containing the grid to the clipboard will depend on the source and on the tools available on your system. For example, if the grid is an image in a web page, the image could be copied to the clipboard with the Copy Image command from the context menu of the Firefox web browser, or it could be saved as a separate file, loaded into an image viewer and copied to the clipboard. Alternatively, your system might have a means of taking a screenshot of the window of an application (eg, a web browser or PDF viewer) in which the grid is displayed. (In Windows and in the GNOME desktop environment for Linux, this can be done by pressing Alt+PrtSc.)
The clues of a crossword are captured by processing separate lists of across clues and down clues. CrosswordEditor gets each list of clues from the clipboard as plain text; the way in which you can copy a list of clues to the clipboard will depend on the source and on the tools available on your system. For example, you could select the text of the clues from a web page or PDF document, and copy them to the clipboard with the standard Copy command of a browser or PDF viewer. If the clues that you copy to the clipboard are not formatted in a way that is acceptable to CrosswordEditor, you may need to paste them into an intermediate document (eg, in a text editor), perhaps edit them, then copy them to the clipboard again.
The parameters that govern the process of capturing a crossword are controlled from the tabbed panels of the Capture crossword dialog. To avoid the need to set all the parameters each time you want to capture a crossword, most of them can be saved together as a parameter set that can be loaded, edited and applied when you next want to capture a similar crossword.
At the bottom of the dialog is a status panel comprising three fields, which may be empty. The fields have the following contents:
The colour of the text of the status panel is configurable.
The Auto grid detection tab controls the parameters that apply to the automatic detection of a grid in an image that is imported from the system clipboard with the dialog's Get grid command. The grid-detection algorithm is crude: it looks for sets of horizontal and vertical lines that occupy the same area of the image. You are expected to tune its parameters so that it can distinguish a grid from other sets of horizontal and vertical lines in the image. Some trial and error may be required to set the parameters for crosswords from a particular source.
The algorithm detects a grid line (more properly, a line segment) when it encounters a sequence of "dark" pixels: pixels whose brightness lies below the value specified by the Brightness threshold spinner. To allow for lines that are more than one pixel wide, adjacent lines of dark pixels are treated as a single line. A pixel's brightness can vary from 0 (black) to 100 (white), and the brightness threshold for grid lines can vary between 1 and 99. A grid with light grey lines, for example, would a need a fairly high brightness threshold. Grid lines must be continuous, so that, for example, lines that have shadows to make them appear ridged or grooved would be problematic if orthogonal lines intersected in a way that made one or both lines discontinuous for all brightness thresholds.
The Minimum length spinner specifies the minimum length (in pixels) of a grid line. It could be used, for example, to distinguish the grid of interest from a small grid containing the solution to a previous puzzle.
The Minimum separation spinner specifies the minimum distance (in pixels) between successive grid lines of the same orientation.
The Endpoint tolerance spinner specifies the amount (in pixels) by which the endpoint of a line can vary and still be considered to belong to a set of grid lines. It is, in effect, the width of a border around the grid that the endpoints of all grid lines must lie within.
The Grid tab controls the parameters that apply to the detection of separators in an image of the grid. The way in which separators are detected differs according to the kind of separator:
The Grid separator drop-down list allows you to choose the separator of the grid.
The Grid size spinners specify the dimensions of the grid. If the grid-detection algorithm was successful, you can choose to set the dimensions to those detected by the algorithm; otherwise, you'll have to count the columns and rows of the source crossword. The button to the right of the spinners links and unlinks the values of the two spinners.
The Automatic grid detection check box enables and disables the grid-detection algorithm.
The Grid size spinners specify the dimensions of the grid. If the grid-detection algorithm was successful, you can choose to set the dimensions to those detected by the algorithm; otherwise, you'll have to count the columns and rows of the source crossword. The button to the right of the spinners links and unlinks the values of the two spinners.
The X offset and Y offset spinners specify the offset of the sample point (blocked grid) or start of the sample line (barred grid) from the centre of the cell. For the x offset, the value is a percentage of the cell width, and the positive direction is right; for the y offset, the value is a percentage of the cell height, and the positive direction is down.
For a blocked grid, the Sample size spinner specifies the dimension of the square of pixels that will be sampled to determine the presence of a block. A single pixel will be sufficient if the block is of a solid colour.
For a barred grid, the Bar-width threshold spinner specifies the minimum width of a sampled cell border that will be deemed to be a bar.
The Brightness threshold spinner specifies the threshold below which a pixel is deemed to belong to a separator.
The Clue indications tab controls the clue-reference keyword and the answer-length pattern and substitutions that are applied to the clues that are imported from the external crossword.
The Default button adjacent to the Pattern field sets the answer-length pattern to a default value that should be suitable for UK crosswords.
If you are importing clues that do not have an answer-length expression, or if you cannot specify a suitable answer-length pattern, you should leave the Pattern field empty. In this case, each clue must be on a separate line of text.
The answer-length substitution list can be edited with
commands issued from the three buttons to the right of the list. In the dialog that is
displayed in response to the Add and Edit commands, the target is the text that is searched for
in the answer-length expression and the replacement is the text that will replace
all occurrences of the target. You should select the Regular
expression check box if the target is a regular expression rather
than literal text. In the list box, regular-expression substitutions are indicated by
RE in the first column.
The Clue substitutions tab controls the substitutions that are applied to the text of defined clues. Clue substitutions are described in the section on the Edit > Import clues from clipboard command.
The Text tab allows the text sections of the captured crossword to be reproduced. The Number field isn't used directly; it is intended to contain a serial number or the least significant digits of a serial number, which can be substituted in the crossword's title and the three fields of the File tab.
The Title field and the Prologue and Epilogue areas
provide the text sections of the document that will be created
for the captured crossword. All occurrences of the number placeholder, %n,
in the text of the Title field will be replaced by the
contents of the Number field. The Prologue and Epilogue areas are
described in the section on text panels.
The File tab facilitates the consistent naming of files and directories relating to a document that is created from a captured crossword. The fields in this tab provide initial values for pathnames, but you are not bound to use the pathnames: you may change them when you save the crossword document or export an HTML from it.
The Filename stem field specifies the filename stem of
both the crossword document and an HTML document that is exported from it. The filename
stem is a filename without a suffix (ie, the filename up to but not including to the
first .). For the crossword document, the suffix specified by the file.filenameSuffix
configuration property is appended to the filename stem; for the HTML document, the
suffix .html is appended to the filename stem. The Document directory and HTML
directory fields specify, respectively, the pathname of the directory of the
crossword document and the pathname of the directory of the HTML document.
All occurrences of the number placeholder, %n, in the text of the three
fields in this tab will be replaced by the contents of the Number field of the Text tab.
With the exception of the Number field and the Prologue and Epilogue areas in the Text tab, all the parameters that correspond to controls in the tabs of the Capture crossword dialog constitute a parameter set that can be given a name and saved to the file specified by the path.parameterSetFile configuration property. A parameter set saved in this way can subsequently be loaded, avoiding the need to specify the values of the parameters again when capturing a similar crossword. An existing parameter set can be updated with the current values of the parameters.
The Manage parameter set command brings up a dialog box in which you can manage the parameter sets of CrosswordEditor's parameter-set file. If no parameter-set file is specified by the path.parameterSetFile configuration property, you will be asked to choose one. Any changes that you make to the parameter-set file from within the dialog won't take effect until you close the dialog with OK.
On the left of the dialog is a list box that shows the names of the parameter sets in the parameter-set file. If you double-click the left mouse button on a name in the list, the corresponding parameter set is loaded and the dialog is accepted as though you selected OK.
To add the current parameters as a new parameter set, enter the name in the Name field and issue the Add command. If the named set already exists, you will be prompted to replace it, which is equivalent to issuing the Update command.
The Delete command removes the selected parameter set from the list after prompting for confirmation. The command can also be issued by pressing the Delete key when the parameter-set list has keyboard focus.
The Load command sets the parameters to the values of the selected parameter set.
The Update command updates the selected parameter set with the current parameter values.
The Reset command resets the parameters to their default values.
If you close the dialog with OK, any changes that you made to the parameter-set file will be saved, and any changes that you made to the parameters of the Capture crossword dialog will be applied. If you close the parameter-set dialog with Cancel, any changes that you made will be cancelled.
The Clear command removes a captured grid and clues, and it clears the controls that don't correspond to elements of the parameter set: the Number field and the Prologue and Epilogue areas.
The Get grid image command first reads an image from the system clipboard. If the Automatic grid detection check box of the Grid tab is selected, the grid-detection algorithm is applied to the image. If it finds something that appears to be a grid in the image, a message is displayed to this effect, asking if you want to set the numbers of columns and rows of the grid to those found by the algorithm; otherwise, an error message is displayed.
Next, a dialog box is displayed in which you can select the grid from the image that was read from the clipboard. If automatic grid detection was successful, the region of the grid containing the grid is already selected; if the region is incorrect, you can make a new selection. You make a selection in the Select grid in image dialog by clicking the left mouse button on a corner of the grid in the image, dragging the mouse so that the rubber-band box roughly coincides with the boundary of the grid, then releasing the button. To proceed with the selected region, close the dialog with OK.
A grid will be created from the selected region of the image by applying the parameters in the Grid tab to detect the grid separators, and the text "Grid" will be displayed in the first field of the status panel. The grid might not be correct, but you won't discover this until a crossword document is created and displayed. If you are tuning the parameters in the Grid tab, you can skip the capture of clues (and the error message about missing clues) to view the result of the grid capture.
The command is enabled only if there is an image on the system clipboard.
The Get clues command has two subcommands, one for each grid direction, across and down; select the appropriate subcommand. The command reads text from the system clipboard and processes it. The clue parser expects to find a list of clues, and it expects each clue to have a certain format: a list of comma-separated field IDs, followed either by a clue definition and an optional answer-length expression or by a clue reference.
The direction keywords specified by the clue.directionKeywords.across and clue.directionKeywords.down configuration properties are used when parsing the field IDs of a clue.
The clue-reference keyword and the answer-length pattern and substitutions that you specified in the Clue indications tab will be used to process each clue and to determine its end. If the clues do not have an answer-length expression, each clue must be on a separate line of text; otherwise, a clue can extend over multiple lines. You might need to edit the list of clues that you copy from an external crossword to ensure that the format of the clues is acceptable to CrosswordEditor.
If a list of clues is processed successfully, an indication is displayed in the relevant field of the status panel. The Get clues subcommands parse a list of clues but they don't check the clues for consistency: the clues are validated only when the dialog is accepted with OK.
The command is enabled only if there is text on the system clipboard.
When the Capture crossword dialog is accepted with OK, a crossword document is created from the grid and any lists of clues that were imported. The clue indications, text sections, filename stem and directories of the document are set to the values specified in the relevant tabs of the dialog. Before the clues of the document are set to the imported lists, the clues are validated by checking that they are consistent with each other and with the fields of the grid. If errors are found, a dialog box is displayed in which the erroneous clues are listed, grouped by error kind, field direction and field number. Some possible causes of errors are an incorrect field ID in the source crossword, corruption of text when the clues were copied to the clipboard, incorrect direction keywords or incorrect clue indications. You might be able to fix the errors by examining and editing a problematic list of clues in a text editor before importing it again with the Get clues command.
If you accept the error-list dialog with OK, the clue lists are modified in the following ways:
A file in the CrosswordEditor repository contains sets of parameters for capturing the following free cryptic crosswords published by British newspapers on their websites:
The parameter sets for the four crosswords provide examples of the automatic grid-detection parameters for various crosswords. They may become out of date if the publishers change the appearance of the crosswords.
The examples illustrate the use of a placeholder for a crossword number. In all four
examples, the number placeholder, %n, appears in the Title field of the Text tab and the Filename stem
field of the File tab of the Capture crossword dialog. It takes the place of the two least
significant digits of the crossword's serial number, which you would enter in the
Number field of the Text tab. When the two-digit number rolled over to zero, you
would need to increment the 100s' digit in the Title
and Filename stem fields, then update the parameter set.
You can load the parameter sets in the Capture crossword
dialog by setting the path.parameterSetFile configuration property to the
pathname of the example captureParams.xml file on your system.
CrosswordEditor does not have the ability to print crossword documents: if you want to print a crossword, you will need to export the document as an HTML file and print the file from a web browser. Exported HTML files can also be used as a means of distributing crosswords created with CrosswordEditor in a widely accessible — although non-interactive — form.
An HTML file is exported with the File > Export HTML file command. Most of the parameters that apply to an exported HTML file are configuration properties that can be set in the HTML tab of the Preferences dialog.
An exported HTML file may require one or two auxiliary files: an external stylesheet and, if a crossword has a blocked grid, a block-image file. These auxiliary files are described below. Both kinds of auxiliary file are specific to the size of the grid cell: if the same crossword is exported with different cell sizes, it will need different auxiliary files. Auxiliary files are shared by all the exported HTML files in a directory that have the same cell size, while the size-specific names of auxiliary files allow crosswords with different cell sizes to coexist in the same directory.
Exported HTML files conform to the XHTML 1.1 specification. Because they are XML files, they can be transformed by XSLT processors.
Content and presentation are clearly separated in an exported HTML document.
Presentation is controlled by a CSS stylesheet, which
may be either internal (within a <style> element of the HTML file) or
external (in a separate CSS file). An external stylesheet can be shared by a set of
similar crosswords, whereas an internal stylesheet reduces the number of auxiliary
files, allowing the HTML file of a barred grid to be self-contained. (The HTML file of
a blocked grid cannot be self-contained because it requires an auxiliary file for the
block image.)
The stylesheet for a blocked grid is different from that for a barred grid. The stylesheets for both kinds of grid have configurable content such as cell size, font and grid colour. If you have some knowledge of CSS, you can customise the appearance of the exported crossword by editing the stylesheet.
If the stylesheet is in a separate CSS file, the HTML file expects to find it in a
directory named style. The CSS file may be created along with the HTML
file, or the HTML file can use an existing CSS file. The name of the CSS file is
size-specific; it has the form
crossword‑<separator>‑<size>.png,
where <separator> is either block or bar and
<size> is the size of a cell in pixels.
The exported HTML file for a crossword with a blocked grid requires a separate image file for the block. The block-image file is intended primarily to allow a crossword to be printed economically by reducing the amount of ink or toner that is required to print a block. A block image may be a square of solid colour or it may be composed from diagonal hatching — a set of parallel diagonal lines of the same colour. The block image is always used when printing an exported HTML file, but an HTML file may use either the block image or a solid block of the same colour as the grid when it is displayed on a screen, depending on the value of the html.blockImage.printOnly configuration property.
The HTML file expects to find the block-image file in a directory named
images. The block-image file may be created along with the HTML file, or
the HTML file can use an existing image file. The name of the image file is
size-specific; it has the form block‑<size>.png, where
<size> is the size of a cell in pixels.
CrosswordEditor's main commands are accessible from its main menu. Some of the commands are also accessible from context menus that are activated in a system-dependent manner (eg, by pressing or releasing the right mouse button) while the mouse cursor is over the main window.
The New document command (Ctrl+N) creates a new crossword document. It brings up a dialog box in which you can select the parameters of the crossword's grid: the separator, size and symmetry. Once they are set, the separator and size of a grid cannot be changed.
The command is disabled if the maximum number of documents are open in the application.
The Open document command (Ctrl+O) brings up a file-selection dialog in which you can choose the crossword document that you want to open.
If the document has a solution that was encrypted with a passphrase, a dialog will be displayed in which you can enter the passphrase. If you skip the passphrase, or if you continue after entering an incorrect passphrase, the document will be opened without the solution.
The command is disabled if the maximum number of documents are open in the application.
The Revert document command reads the current crossword document again from the file system, replacing the modified document in CrosswordEditor. Any changes that you have made to the current document will be lost.
The command is disabled if the current document has not changed from when it was last opened or saved.
The Close document command (Ctrl+W) closes the current crossword document. If the document has unsaved changes, you will be prompted to save the document before it is closed.
The Close all documents command closes all open crossword documents. You will be prompted to save any documents that have unsaved changes.
The Save document command (Ctrl+S) writes the current crossword document to the file from which it was last read or to which which it was last written.
The command is disabled if the current document has not changed from when it was last opened or saved.
The Save document as command writes the current crossword document to a file. The command brings up a file-selection dialog in which you can select the pathname of the file to which the document will be written. A warning is displayed if the selected file already exists.
The Export HTML file command exports the current document as an HTML file. There is more information on exporting HTML files elsewhere in the manual.
The appearance of the HTML page is controlled by several configuration properties; most of them are set in the HTML tab of the Preferences dialog, but a couple of them are set from the Export HTML dialog that is displayed when you issue the Export HTML file command. Within the dialog, you can control the following parameters that affect the HTML file and its auxiliary files:
If you have chosen an external stylesheet, the Write stylesheet
file check box determines whether a stylesheet file will be written along with
the HTML file. If the check box is selected, a CSS file will be written to a directory
named style in the same directory as the HTML file.
The HTML file for a blocked grid requires an auxiliary image file for the block. The
Write block-image file check box determines whether an
image file will be written along with the HTML file. If the check box is selected, an
image file will be written to a directory named images in the same
directory as the HTML file.
The external stylesheet and, if relevant, the block-image file are specific to the cell size. If you export the same crossword again with a different cell size, you will need a new stylesheet and block-image file to go with it.
The Write grid entries check box determines whether grid entries will be written to the HTML file.
Following the Export HTML dialog, a file-selection dialog is displayed in which you can select the pathname of the HTML file that will be written. If you accept the dialog, the selected HTML file will be written, along with any auxiliary files. A warning will be displayed if the selected file already exists, but existing auxiliary files will be overwritten without warning.
After an HTML file has been written, a dialog is displayed in which you are asked whether or not you want to view the file. If you choose to view the file, the operating-system command specified by the html.viewerCommand configuration property will be executed. The command will typically open the HTML file in a web browser. (The location of the HTML file is substituted for a placeholder in the command line.) If you select the Do not show this dialog again check box, your choice of whether or not to view an exported HTML file will be used automatically for the remainder of the current session.
The Exit command terminates the application. Before the program shuts down, you will be prompted to save any open documents that have unsaved changes.
The edits that you make to a document can be undone and redone with the complementary Undo and Redo commands (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y respectively). The edits to a document are stored in a list whose length is limited by the general.maxEditListLength configuration property.
The Undo command reverses the last change to the current document. If an edit is undone with the Undo command, it can subsequently be restored with the Redo command provided that no other edits have been made since it was undone.
The Clear edit history command clears the history of edits to the current text document. The command may be used to make more memory available if a "Not enough memory" error occurs.
The Edit clue command (F2) brings up a dialog in which the currently selected clue can be edited. The command can also be issued by double-clicking the left mouse button on a clue in the crossword view.
The command is disabled if no clue is selected.
At the top of the Clue dialog is a row of one or more boxes containing the IDs and lengths of the fields that are associated with the clue. The first box, which represents the primary field, is always present and cannot be changed. An asterisk (*) in front of a field ID indicates that the field is the primary field of a defined clue (ie, not a clue reference) other than the current clue.
When you add, edit or remove a field, a grid of field IDs is displayed from which you can make a selection. The grid is actually a modal dialog box, which must be closed by selecting one of its cells. You can use the arrow keys to change the selection, and the Esc key closes the dialog without a selection.
The row at the top of the grid contains two cells: "None", which removes the field, and a cell containing an X, which closes the grid without making a selection. The remaining rows are populated with field IDs according to the clue.allowMultipleFieldUse configuration property: if a field may be used by more than one clue, all fields except those of the current clue are available for selection; otherwise, only unused fields are available for selection. If the field ID has a leading asterisk, the field is used by another clue.
Although it is possible to set a reference to a defined clue by setting the text of the referring clue (to, for example, "See 12d"), the recommended method of setting a reference is to add a secondary field to the list of fields of the referent clue.
Below the row of fields in the Clue dialog is a text panel in which the text of the clue can be edited. The text panel supports some styling markup.
The Edit grid command brings up a dialog in which the grid of the current document can be edited. The dialog doesn't allow you to change the dimensions of the grid or the kind of separator; if you want to change either of these parameters, you will have to create a new document.
The Edit grid command is enabled only if the clue lists are empty. If you want to edit the grid of a crossword for which clues have been defined, you could preserve the clues by following these steps:
The Symmetry drop-down list at the top of the Grid dialog allows you to select the symmetry of the grid.
Symmetry settings other than None have a notional primary region,
which is shown as a shaded area in the images that illustrate the different kinds of symmetry. If you change the symmetry, the separators
in the primary region are applied to the remainder of the grid.
When the Highlight fully intersecting fields check box is selected, fields are highlighted if all their cells are also cells of intersecting fields. (Such fields may be undesirable because they can be filled without solving their clues.) A fully intersecting field is highlighted by drawing the background of its cells in a configurable colour (Background, fully intersecting field).
A grid may contain isolated cells: single cells that are surrounded by the sides of the grid or separators. Such cells do not belong to any field and are highlighted by drawing their background in a configurable colour (Background, isolated cell).
The grid in the Grid dialog is drawn without field numbers. One cell — the active cell — has an internal border called the editing box. The editing box is drawn in a configurable colour: Editing box, focused if the grid has focus, Editing box otherwise.
When the grid has keyboard focus, the position of the active cell may be moved with the arrow keys:
| Left | Move left by one column |
| Right | Move right by one column |
| Up | Move up by one row |
| Down | Move down by one row |
| Home | Move to the first column |
| End | Move to the last column |
| PageUp | Move to the first row |
| PageDown | Move to the last row |
The separator(s) of a cell can be toggled on and off by left-clicking on the cell (blocked grid) or the borders of the cell (barred grid). When the grid has keyboard focus, the separators of the active cell can be toggled with the following keys:
| Blocked grid | |
|---|---|
| Space | Toggle the block |
| Barred grid | |
|---|---|
| Alt+Left | Toggle the left bar |
| Alt+Right | Toggle the right bar |
| Alt+Up | Toggle the top bar |
| Alt+Down | Toggle the bottom bar |
Changes that you make to the grid's symmetry and separators can be undone and redone with commands that can be issued from a context menu or with the following keys:
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Y | Redo |
The maximum length of the list of edits is controlled by the general.maxEditListLength configuration property, which also controls the length of a document's list of edits.
The two boxes below the grid show the number of across and down fields in the grid.
The Edit text sections command (Ctrl+T) brings up a dialog in which you can edit the three text sections of the current document: title, prologue and epilogue. The command can also be issued by double-clicking the left mouse button on a text section in the crossword view.
In the Text sections dialog, the Title field is a simple text field and the Prologue and Epilogue text areas are text panels.
In a prologue or epilogue, paragraphs must be separated by one or more empty lines. You
can start a new line without starting a new paragraph by ending a line with a line-break
sequence, which defaults to $$.
The Edit indications command brings up a dialog in which you can edit the clue-reference keyword, the answer-length pattern and substitutions and the line-break sequence of the current document.
At the top of the Indications dialog are fields for the clue-reference keyword and the line-break sequence. Below them are a field for the pattern of the answer-length expression and a list box of substitutions that will be applied to an answer-length expression.
The Default button adjacent to the Pattern field sets the answer-length pattern to a default value that should be suitable for UK crosswords.
If you are importing clues that do not have an answer-length expression, or if you cannot specify a suitable answer-length pattern, you should leave the Pattern field empty. In this case, each clue must be on a separate line of text.
The answer-length substitution list can be edited with commands issued from the three
buttons to the right of the list. In the dialog that is displayed in response to the
Add and Edit commands, the
target is the text that is searched for in the answer-length expression and the
replacement is the text that will replace all occurrences of the target. You
should select the Regular expression check box if the
target is a regular expression rather
than literal text. In the list box, regular-expression substitutions are indicated by
RE in the first column.
The Copy clues to clipboard command copies all the clues of the current document to the system clipboard. The clues are exported as plain text, in conventional clue order (ie, ordered by direction (across before down) and field number), with one clue per line and an empty line between the lists of across clues and down clues. Clues copied to the clipboard can be imported as separate lists of across clues and down clues with the Edit > Import clues from clipboard command.
The command is disabled if the current document has no defined clues.
The Import clues from clipboard command imports lists of clues into the current document from the system clipboard. The command brings up a dialog in which you can import clues for one or both clue lists, across and down.
The clues will be imported using the clue-reference keyword and the answer-length pattern and substitutions of the document, which can be edited with the Edit > Edit indications command. If the clues do not have an answer-length expression, the answer-length pattern should be empty. In this case, each clue on the clipboard must be on a separate line of text because the clue processor cannot otherwise determine the end of a clue that has no answer-length expression.
At the top of the Import clues dialog is a list of substitutions that will be applied to the text of imported clues. (You can define a substitution, for example, to replace three dots with an ellipsis character, U+2026.) Substitutions are applied only to defined clues, not to clue references, and they are applied as the penultimate stage of processing a clue, after an answer-length expression is processed and any line breaks are removed but before style markup is parsed. The list box and its associated commands are similar to those of the answer-length substitution list described in the preceding paragraph.
The substitution list can be edited with commands issued from the three buttons to the
right of the list. In the dialog that is displayed in response to the Add and Edit commands, the
target is the text that is searched for in the text of the clue and the
replacement is the text that will replace all occurrences of the target. You
should select the Regular expression check box if the
target is a regular expression rather
than literal text. In the list box, regular-expression substitutions are indicated by
RE in the first column.
The Get clues button in the Import clues dialog has a menu from which you can select a subcommand corresponding to the direction of the clues that you want to import. Selecting the Across or Down subcommand will read the clues for the selected direction from the clipboard. The expected format of the clues on the clipboard is described elsewhere in the manual.
When you select OK, the clues are validated, and an error-list dialog is displayed if there are any errors in the clues.
The Clear all clues command clears all the clues of the current document. The command displays a dialog box in which you can select the way in which the clues will be cleared:
Clearing the text of the clues (ie, selecting empty clue in the dialog) may be useful when editing crosswords that don't have numbered clues (eg, an "alphabetical jigsaw"). In such cases, the text of the clues can be placed in the epilogue section, the clues cleared with empty clue, and the empty clue lists hidden with the Show clues command.
The Copy grid entries to clipboard command copies all the
grid entries of the current document to the system clipboard. The entries are exported
as plain text, in conventional clue order (ie, ordered by direction (across before down)
and field number), with one field per line. Cells without an entry are indicated by a
? character (U+003F). Entries copied to the clipboard can be imported with
the Edit > Import grid entries from
clipboard command.
The command is disabled the current document has no grid entries.
The Import grid entries from clipboard command imports grid entries into the current document from the system clipboard. The command is enabled only if there is text on the clipboard.
The command expects the entries on the clipboard to be in conventional clue order (ie,
ordered by direction (across before down) and field number), with whitespace (spaces,
tabs or newlines) between fields and a ? character in the place of a cell
with no entry. Entries that were exported by the Edit > Copy grid entries to clipboard command may be
imported with the Import grid entries from clipboard
command.
The command is disabled if there is no text on the system clipboard.
The Clear all grid entries command removes all the entries from the grid of the current document.
The Copy field numbers to clipboard command copies the numbers of all the fields of the current document to the system clipboard. The lists of field numbers could be used as a starting point when composing clues in a text editor for subsequent import into CrosswordEditor.
The field numbers are exported as plain text, in conventional clue order (ie, ordered by direction (across before down) and field number), with one field per line and an empty line between the lists of across fields and down fields.
The Copy field IDs to clipboard command copies the IDs of
all the fields of the current document to the system clipboard. The exported text is
identical to that exported by the Edit >
Copy field numbers to clipboard command except that each field number has a
direction suffix, a or d.
The Capture crossword command (F9) allows you to import an external crossword into CrosswordEditor in a procedure that consists of a few steps. The procedure is controlled from a dialog box that is displayed in response to the command. If it is successful, a new crossword document will be created.
The command is disabled if the maximum number of documents are open in the application.
The Highlight incorrect grid entries command (F5) highlights all open cells of the grid of the current document whose entry differs from the solution to the crossword, including cells for which there is no entry. The highlighting is temporary; it is removed when a grid entry is edited. A cell is highlighted by drawing its background with the same configurable colour (Background, isolated cell) as that of isolated cells in the Grid dialog.
The command is enabled only if the current document contains a solution and there is at least one grid entry.
The Show solution command replaces the grid entries of the current document with the crossword's solution.
The command is disabled if the current document does not contain a solution.
The Set solution to current entries command sets the solution of the current document to the current grid entries.
The command is enabled only if the grid entries of the current document are complete.
The Import solution from clipboard command imports a solution into the current document from the system clipboard. The command expects the answers that constitute the solution to be in conventional clue order (ie, ordered by direction (across before down) and field number), with whitespace (spaces, tabs or newlines) between fields. A solution that was exported by the Edit > Copy solution to clipboard command may be imported with the Import solution from clipboard command.
The command is disabled if there is no text on the system clipboard.
The Load solution command sets the solution of the current document to the solution in another document — the solution document — whose location is specified in the current document's solution properties. The solution document, which may be on a remote server, is read over a network connection.
If the solution of the solution document was encrypted with a passphrase, a dialog will be displayed in which you can enter the passphrase.
The command is disabled if the current document's solution properties do not specify the location of a solution.
The Clear solution command removes the solution from the current document.
The command is disabled if the current document does not contain a solution.
The Copy solution to clipboard command copies the solution of the current document to the system clipboard. The answers that constitute the solution are exported as plain text, in conventional clue order (ie, ordered by direction (across before down) and field number), with one field per line. Answers copied to the clipboard can be imported with the Edit > Import solution from clipboard command.
The command is disabled if the current document does not contain a solution.
The Create document containing solution command creates a new document from the current document; the new document — called a solution document — contains only a grid (required of all crossword documents) and a solution, both of which are copied from the current document. If a passphrase has been set in the solution properties of the current document, the solution document will have the same passphrase.
The solution from a solution document may be loaded into a public document (a document containing a link to its solution) with the Edit > Load solution command if the correct passphrase is supplied and the hash values of the two documents are identical. To ensure that a public document and its corresponding solution document have the same hash value, it is recommended that the two documents be created from the same master document.
The command is disabled if the current document does not contain a solution or the maximum number of documents are open in the application.
The Edit solution properties command brings up a dialog box in which you can edit two properties of the solution of the current document: the location of an external solution and the passphrase through which a solution may be accessed.
If the current document has a solution (indicated by the presence of "Solution" in the status panel at the bottom of the main window), the Save solution with document check box at the top of the Solution properties dialog controls whether the solution will be saved with the document when the document is written with the File > Save document command or File > Save document as command.
If the Save solution with document check box is not
selected, the Location field is enabled, allowing you to
specify the location of an external solution document. The location must be a valid
URL, which will typically start with http: if the solution document is on a
remote server, but it could start with file: if the solution document can
be found on the local file system.
If you want to protect the solution with a passphrase, you should enter it in the Passphrase field; otherwise, leave the field empty. (A non-empty field has a different background colour from that of an empty field to indicate the presence of a passphrase.) When the dialog is displayed, the characters that you enter in the field are hidden; you can make them visible by issuing the Show command from the button adjacent to the field or from the dialog's context menu. The text of the button changes to Hide when the contents of the passphrase field are visible. The Show and Hide commands are also available through the Passphrase field's context menu, along with a Paste command, which can also be issued by pressing Ctrl+V when the field has keyboard focus. The command pastes text from the system clipboard into the passphrase field, then clears the clipboard.
The Show field numbers command toggles the visibility of field numbers in the crossword grid. Field numbers are displayed in the grid by default when a document is created or opened; this command allows the field numbers to be hidden. The command also controls the visibility of the field numbers in an HTML document that is exported with the File > Export HTML file command.
This command can be used in conjunction with the View > Show clues command to hide the field numbers of a crossword that doesn't have numbered clues.
The Show clues command toggles the visibility of the clue lists. Lists of clues are displayed below the grid by default when a document is created or opened; this command allows the clues to be hidden. The command also controls the visibility of clues in an HTML document that is exported with the File > Export HTML file command.
In some kinds of crossword, clues are not numbered; in addition to solving the clues,
the solver must work out the correspondence between clues and fields in the grid. (One
such kind of crossword is an "alphabetical jigsaw", in which each answer
starts with a different letter of the alphabet, and the clues are listed by this initial
letter.) Unnumbered clues may be listed — with some effort, and extensive use of
the line-break sequence — in the epilogue that is displayed below the clues. Clues entered in
this way will be displayed as a single-column list both on the screen and in any
exported HTML document. If you wanted to split the list into two columns in an HTML
document, you would have to edit the HTML <table> element manually.
This command can be used in conjunction with the View > Show field numbers command to hide the clues of a crossword that doesn't have numbered clues.
The Resize window to view command (F12) sets the size of the main window so that its viewport is the same size of the current view.
The Show full pathnames option controls whether the full pathname of the current document or only its filename is displayed in the title bar of the main window.
The Manage file association command provides, on Windows, a means of adding or removing an association between the CrosswordEditor application and files with the filename suffix of crossword documents. A file association will allow you, for example, to open a crossword document in CrosswordEditor by double-clicking on its filename in Windows Explorer. If CrosswordEditor is already running, the document will be opened in it; otherwise, the document will be opened in a new instance of CrosswordEditor.
The command creates a file association by modifying entries in the Windows Registry, which it does by generating and executing a Windows PowerShell script. You may execute the script automatically after it is generated, or you can create a script file that you can use outside CrosswordEditor. In order to run the script, you must have PowerShell 2.0 or later installed on your system.
The command is enabled only if the application is run on Windows.
The command brings up a dialog box that controls the content of the PowerShell script
and the way in which it is used. At the top of the dialog is a drop-down list from
which you can select the action that you want to perform: Add creates a new file
association or modifies an existing one; Remove removes a file association that
was created with the Add option. (If you add a file association, you will
probably want to remove it before you change the filename suffix.) The same script is used for both
adding and removing a file association; the difference in behaviour is achieved by
adding a switch (the argument -remove) to the command line when the script
is used to remove a file association.
Below the Action drop-down list are fields in which you specify the locations of three files that are required to create the file association. The fields are disabled if the selected action is Remove because the locations of the files aren't required when removing a file association, but the content of the fields is always included in the script in case you want to retain a single script for dual purposes.
The pathnames of the three files may contain special constructs
for system properties and environment variables. If a specified system property exists,
the construct that denotes the property key (eg, ${java.home}) will be
replaced by the property value. Environment variables, however, will not be expanded
but will be converted to their Windows form (eg, ${JAVA_HOME} will be
converted to %JAVA_HOME%) before they are included in the script. The
environment variables will be set in Registry values and expanded by the operating
system.
Environment variables of the form %name% may appear in a pathname,
but they don't have a special significance in CrosswordEditor and are treated as
literal text. If a pathname contains environment variables of this form, you should
ensure that the Files must exist check box is not
selected to avoid an error when the pathnames are resolved.
To add a file association, the files whose locations you must specify are:
javaw.exe (no console) or
java.exe (console). The corresponding Default command sets the pathname to that of the file
bin\javaw.exe in the directory specified by the java.home
system property, which is the directory that contains the launcher of the running
CrosswordEditor application. If you install another version of Java, the Java
launcher might be at a different location; if so, you will need to update the file
association accordingly.
app.ico, which
can be found in the uk.blankaspect.crosswordeditor.images package of the
application's resources, is provided for this purpose, but you may choose any
suitable icon file to associate with CrosswordEditor documents.
The Files must exist check box below the pathname fields should be selected if you want CrosswordEditor to check that the three files exist before it generates a script. You should not select the check box if any of the pathnames contain Windows-form environment variables, but environment variables in the form of special constructs will be expanded when a pathname is resolved.
The Script life cycle drop-down list controls what
happens to the PowerShell script after it is generated. For all options, a script file
named crosswordEditorAssociations.ps1 is written to a subdirectory of the
system's temporary directory, which is typically AppData\Local\Temp
within the user's home directory. The subdirectory has the prefix
crosswordEditor_ , and the full pathname is displayed when the script file
is written. After the file has been written, it may be executed and optionally deleted
after execution, according to selection from the Script life
cycle drop-down list. If you don't want to preserve the script, the default
option of Write, execute and delete will add or remove a file association without
leaving a residue on the file system.
When you select OK, the pathnames are validated if the action is Add and the Files must exist check box is selected. If there is no error, a further dialog box is displayed in which the progress of script operations is reported, along with any error messages from CrosswordEditor or the operating system. The pathname of the script file appears in the first message. When the script operations have finished, you can copy the contents of the text area to the system clipboard with the dialog's Copy command.
The Preferences command brings up a tabbed dialog box in which the configuration properties of CrosswordEditor can be edited. The properties on the various tabbed pages are described below.
Yes, pathnames are displayed in a reduced
"UNIX style" in some parts of the GUI. A pathname is converted from its
platform-specific form in two steps:
~.
\ on Windows systems) is replaced
by /.
No.
Yes, all the text in a text field will be
automatically selected when the field gains keyboard focus, regardless of how
the focus is transferred.
Yes.
Yes, the location of the main window on the screen
will be saved to the configuration file when you exit the application. The next
time that CrosswordEditor is run, its main window will be positioned at the
previously saved location.
No.
Yes, a document's history of edits (see Edit > Undo/Redo) is cleared when
the document is saved.
No.
awt.useSystemAAFontSettings.
Default.
A to
Z, of the ISO basic Latin alphabet.
a or d.
across. Note, however, that the start of a clue may be
mistaken for a keyword with a leading space. For example, if you specify the
keyword A to denote an across field, the clue
a or d
to indicate the direction (across or down) if the field number is ambiguous. If
you select Yes, the direction will be omitted from the ID of a
secondary field or referent if the direction is the same as that of the primary
field. If you select No, the field ID will have a direction suffix
if the field number does not uniquely identify the field.
No.
Yes, a single field may be used by more than one
clue. This property is used only to control the available fields when editing a
clue in the Clue dialog.
No.
<br> element in HTML. The sequence
is interpreted as a line break only if it is at the very end of a line (ie, with
no trailing spaces).
% (U+0025) acts as an escape character. %f is a
placeholder for the pathname of the HTML file that is to be opened. All other
characters that follow % are treated as themselves; thus, a literal
space is represented by % (ie, U+0025, U+0020), and a literal
% is represented by %%.
ProgramFiles, the escaping of the space character and the
presence of the placeholder, %f.
true, it is also used as the colour of blocks in a blocked grid
when the HTML document is displayed on a screen.
Yes, the block image is used only when the HTML
document is printed; blocks are drawn as solid squares when the document is
displayed on a screen. If you select No, the block image is used
both on the screen and when the HTML document is printed.
No.
.xword.
Some of the configuration properties will take effect when the Preferences dialog is accepted (by closing it with OK); other properties (eg, the look-and-feel and fonts) will not take effect until the next time that CrosswordEditor is run.
The configuration file is normally saved automatically when CrosswordEditor exits, if the configuration has changed. The Save configuration command in the Preferences dialog can be used to save a configuration file explicitly.
Crosswords have their own jargon. Most of the terms that are defined in the following
list are conventional ones, though some are used in a particular way in the
CrosswordEditor program and in this manual. The terms marked with an asterisk, *, are unlikely to be found outside of CrosswordEditor, and
they have been employed to give a precise meaning to elements of a crossword.
*(
(U+0028) and ) (U+0029). By convention, the length of a compound answer
may be indicated either by a single number to denote the total length or by multiple
numbers separated by characters that indicate the structure of the answer (for
example, a comma to indicate separate words or a hyphen to indicate a hyphenated
compound word).
**14d#1 and
14d#2.
**a and d respectively in
a field ID.
**5a and 23 down is 23d. In a clue, the direction is omitted from the field ID of a secondary field or a clue reference when it can be
inferred unambiguously by applying the following rules, in order:
true and the secondary
field or reference has the same direction as the primary field.
****Where indicated elsewhere in this document, pathname parameters and properties in CrosswordEditor can contain special constructs for system properties, environment variables and the user's home directory. The special constructs are expanded when the pathname is used.
user.home)
and environment variables (eg, PATH) are referenced by enclosing them
between ${ and }; that is, they must have the form
${<name>}. A Java system property takes precedence over an
environment variable with the same name.
${user.home}/projects
${HOME}/projects
sys. to it.
${sys.user.home}/projects
env. to it.
${env.HOME}/projects
~ in a pathname is expanded into the user's home directory
using the user.home system property, which is usually equivalent to the
environment variable $HOME on Linux/UNIX systems or
%USERPROFILE% on Windows systems.
~/projects
The table below lists the configuration properties of CrosswordEditor. Apart from the app.configDir property, which, for obvious reasons, cannot be used within a configuration file, all properties can be used in the two configuration locations: command-line properties and configuration file.
When used in a -D command-line property, app. must be prefixed
to the property key (eg, app.general.mainWindowLocation).
Any spaces (U+0020), commas (,, U+002C), or backslash characters
(\, U+005C) in a direction keyword or an HTML font name must be escaped by
prefixing a \ character to them.
Any commas (,) or backslash characters (\) in the name of a
font must be escaped by prefixing a \ character to them.
In the table below, the initial character of an italicised component of a property value denotes its data type according to the following convention:
| f | floating-point number |
| i | integer |
| p | platform-specific pathname, which may contain special constructs |
| s | string |
| Property key | Property value |
|---|---|
| configDir | pPathname |
| appearance.lookAndFeel | sName |
| appearance.statusTextColour | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| appearance.textAntialiasing | default | none | normal | subpixelHRgb | subpixelHBgr | subpixelVRgb | subpixelVBgr |
| clue.allowMultipleFieldUse | false | true |
| clue.directionKeywords.across | sKeyword [, sKeyword …] |
| clue.directionKeywords.down | sKeyword [, sKeyword …] |
| clue.implicitFieldDirection | false | true |
| clue.referenceKeyword | sKeyword |
| file.filenameSuffix | sSuffix |
| font.clue | sName, plain | bold | italic | boldItalic, iSize |
| font.comboBox | sName, plain | bold | italic | boldItalic, iSize |
| font.fieldNumber | sName, plain | bold | italic | boldItalic, iSize |
| font.gridEntry | sName, plain | bold | italic | boldItalic, iSize |
| font.main | sName, plain | bold | italic | boldItalic, iSize |
| font.textField | sName, plain | bold | italic | boldItalic, iSize |
| general.clearEditListOnSave | false | true |
| general.mainWindowLocation | iX, iY |
| general.mainWindowSize | iWidth, iHeight |
| general.maxEditListLength | iLength |
| general.selectTextOnFocusGained | false | true |
| general.showFullPathnames | false | true |
| general.showUnixPathnames | false | true |
| grid.bar.barWidth | iWidth |
| grid.cellSize.bar | iSize |
| grid.cellSize.block | iSize |
| grid.entryCharacters | sCharacters |
| grid.imageViewportSize | iWidth, iHeight |
| grid.navigateOverSeparators | false | true |
| html.barGrid.barColour | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| html.barGrid.barWidth | iWidth |
| html.blockImage.colour | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| html.blockImage.lineWidth | iWidth |
| html.blockImage.numLines | iNumLines |
| html.blockImage.printOnly | false | true |
| html.cellOffsetLeft | iOffset |
| html.cellOffsetTop | iOffset |
| html.cellSize.bar | iSize |
| html.cellSize.block | iSize |
| html.entryColour | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| html.fieldNumberFontSizeFactor | fFactor |
| html.fieldNumberOffsetLeft | iOffset |
| html.fieldNumberOffsetTop | iOffset |
| html.fontNames | sName [, sName …] |
| html.fontSize | iSize |
| html.gridColour | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| html.stylesheetKind | internal | external |
| html.viewerCommand | sCommand |
| path.exportHtmlDirectory | pPathname |
| path.openCrosswordDirectory | pPathname |
| path.parameterSetFile | pPathname |
| path.saveCrosswordDirectory | pPathname |
| textSection.lineBreak | sSequence |
| view.colour.background | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.caret | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.clueText | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.editingBox | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.emptyClueText | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.fieldNumberText | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.focusedEditingBox | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.focusedSelectedFieldBackground | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.fullyIntersectingFieldBackground | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.gridEntryText | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.gridLine | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.isolatedCellBackground | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.selectedClueBackground | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.selectedEmptyClueBackground | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.selectedFieldBackground | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.text | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.colour.titleSeparator | iRed, iGreen, iBlue |
| view.selectedClueNumColumns | iNumColumns |
