Copyright: Copyright © 1995 Everett Kaser
Citation: Copyright © 1995 Everett Kaser


About command (Help menu)
WHAT???

You want help on the ABOUT  BOX???  What are you, nuts???

Oh, all right. (Grumble, grumble...)

Urhmmm.  "The About Box is a dialog box that is displayed when the curious User..."

Just kidding.

You see, I'm really not sure what you were hoping to find here.  This is a copyrighted program, at least one version of which is distributed via the "shareware" method.  The program was conceived, designed, implemented, etc, etc by Everett Kaser (that's me).  Should you have any questions, qualms, queries, or quixotic behavior patterns, please feel free to call or write.  The address and phone number are in the About Box (which you should  be reading instead of this HELP on the About Box!).


All About Clues

Playing Board Clues

At the beginning of most games, some locations on the playing board will have only one large image displayed (rather than some number of half-sized images).  This is the "is located" clue, and it means that the game is "giving" you that location, telling you that the image displayed is located at that spot.  You cannot move, remove, or otherwise change these "given" clues.  All of the other locations (containing the small, half-sized images) are "unknowns".  You don't know which image is located at those locations, just that it's one of the small images displayed there.  Any time an image is enlarged (by the game "giving" you that location or by you clicking the left mouse button on one of the half-sized images) that image is automatically removed as a possibility from all of the other columns.  (We don't want you to have to do all of the work!)

Vertical Clues

The vertical clues are shown across the bottom of the game display.  There are two types of vertical clues, "is in same column"  (shown below on the left) and "is not in same column" (shown below on the right).  The only difference in the appearance of these two clue types is the red "NOT" symbol (a circle with a slash through it).

Several different deductions can be made from the vertical clues.  With the above clues, if you knew where the White House was located (it was a single large image on the game board), then you would also know where the Banana was located, as the clue on the left is telling us that the White House and the Banana are in the same column (and the houses are always in one row and the fruits are always in one row).  Conversely, if you knew where the Banana was located, then you would also know where the White House was located.  Once you know where both of them are located, then this clue becomes useless, and it can be moved to the "Other Clues" area by pointing at it and clicking the right mouse button.

Another type of deduction that can be made from that clue is if you know where any other house is located (say the Blue House, for example), then you can remove the Banana as a possibility from that column (the column containing the Blue House).  You can do that because obviously the White House can not be located where the Blue House is, so the Banana can't be located in that column either, since it has to be in the same column as the White House.  Of course, the other case is eqally true: if you know where any other fruit is located, then you can remove the White House as a possibility from that column.  A similar deduction is that if the White House or Banana is removed as a possibility from anywhere (because of another clue), then the other one can also be removed from that same column (because of this clue).

With the "is not in same column" clue (the Two and the letter S above with the NOT symbol over them), you can make fewer deductions.  In order to make any deductions from this clue, you must know where at least one of the images is located.  Then, you can remove the other image as a possibility from that column (because they can't be in the same column).  This is a much less useful clue than the "is in same column" clue, but still useful at least once in solving the puzzle.

Horizontal clues

The Horizontal Clues are shown in the upper right portion of the display, in three columns of seven clues each.  Each clue consists of three images side by side which show relative positions of images based upon their column positions.  There are four of these horizontal clue types.  The first is the "is next to" clue:

Notice that this clue has the same image on the left and right sides and a different image in the middle.  This means that the One image is immediately to the left or right of the Blue House (column-wise), but you don't know which.  For example, if the Blue House were located in column 6, then the One would have to be located in column 5, as that is the only column next to the column containing the Blue House.  But if the Blue House were located in columnn 5, then the One could be located in either column 4 or column 6 (and has to be in one of those columns.  Similarly, if the One was known to be located in column 3, then the Blue House would have to be located in column 2 or column 4.

You can also use this clue to remove possibilities.  If the Blue House cannot be in either column 1 or column 2, then the One cannot be in column 1 (since, if it were, the Blue House would not then be able to be next to it).

The next clue type is the "is left of" clue:

The three dots in the center of this clue are "ellipses", and are used here to denote that the distance between the two outer images is unknown.  They could be next to each other (in adjacent columns), or they could be clear across the board from each other (in columns 1 and 6).  Regardless of how far apart or close together they are, this clue tells you that the Six is somewhere to the left of the 55-Speed sign.  (A corollary of this is that the Six is also not in the same column as the 55-Speed sign.)  So, as soon as you start a puzzle with a clue like this, you could remove the Six from column 6 (since if it were in the right-most column on the board, the 55-Speed sign would have no way of being to the right of it), and you could remove the 55-Speed sign from column 1 (since if it were in the left-most column, the Six would have no way of being to the left of it).

The next clue type is the "is between" clue:

This clue tells us that these three images are all in adjacent columns, and that the middle image is between the outer two.  The arrow across the top of the clue means that the outer two images (the Orange and the Red house, in this example) could be the way they're shown, or reversed.  This clue puts great limits upon the possible locations of these three images.  In this example, the Railroad sign cannot be in column 1 or column 6, since we know that it has an image on both it's left and right sides.  Additionally, if the Orange is not possibile in the columns adjacent to (left or right of) a particular column, then the Railroad is not possible in that particular column.  For example, if the Orange is not possible in column 2 or column 4, then the Railroad sign cannot be located in column 3.  The reverse is also true.  Similar logic can be applied to the Railroad sign and the Red House.  Another aspect of this clue is that the Orange is two columns away from the Red House.  Therefore, if the Orange is known to be located in columns 1, 2, 5, or 6, then the locations of the Railroad and the Red House are also known, since they can only be located towards the middle of the board from the Orange.  But if the Orange is located in column 3 or column 4, then the Railroad and the Red House could be to its left or right.

The last clue type is called "is not between":

This clue is very similar to the "is between" clue, except that in this case it's saying that the middle image is not between the outer two images (but the outer two images still have one column in between them).  You can make fewer deductions with this clue than with "is between", but it's still very useful for locating images (and removing possibilities).  The thing to do is to ignore the middle image until you know where both of the outer two images are, and then you can remove the middle image from in between them.  Other than that, this clue basically says that the left image is two columns away from the right image, either to the left or the right.  One of the subtle ways this is useful is (using the above images as an example) if the Apple is not possible in column 1 or column 5, then the Six is not possible in column 3.

"No" clues

Usually, each puzzle will have a few images for which there are no clues.  These images are placed by themselves at the end of the vertical clues area (all the way to the right) or, if there's not enough room there, at the end of the horizontal clues space.  These "no clues" clues are just a single image, and are there primarily to make it easy for you to know that there are no clues involving that image.

Managing Clues

The clues can be moved and regrouped (within the vertical clues area and within the horizontal clues area) by pointing at the clue you wish to move, holding down the left mouse button, and dragging the clue to its new location, then releasing the left mouse button.  If necessary, the

other clues will be moved about (shifted) to make room for the "moved clue."

Also, once a clue has been "used up" (all of the deductions that can ever possibly be made from it have been made), then the clue is just a distraction, and should be moved to the "Other Clues" area by pointing at the clue and clicking the right mouse button.  Be very careful before doing this, though, to make sure that the clue will never be of any further use to you in solving the puzzle.  Here's an example of when a clue is "all used up" is this.  Suppose a horizontal clue tells you that the Stop Sign is in a column next to the Red House, and you know that the Red House is in column 5.  You can remove the Stop Sign from all columns except 4 and 6 (and let's suppose that it's still possible in both columns 4 and 6).  Once you've removed the Stop Sign from all columns except 4 and 6, this clue has been "used up" because no matter where the Stop Sign is located, it's next to the Red House (both columns 4 and 6 are next to column 5), so this clue will never tell you any more about the location of the Stop Sign (and you already know where the Red House is located).  So, off to the "Other Clues" area it goes.

Now, occassionally you will send a clue off to the Other Clues area before its time.  You can recover these clues by clicking on the Other Clues button.  This swaps the clues that are currently visible with those in the Other Clues area.  (It's a toggle, if you click Other Clues again, they get swapped back.)  While viewing the Other Clues, you could "right click" on one of the clues and send it to the Other Clues area (which now contains the "still useful" clues) and then click on Other Clues again.  You will have now recovered that clue which you discarded too soon.

Final Words of Wisdom:

Always remember: when learning the game, it is not a mortal sin to use the HINT button, which will find a deduction for you and explain why.


All About The Game

INTRODUCTION

Sherlock was based upon a puzzle that I fondly remembered from my high school days.  In that puzzle you were told that there were five different colored houses side-by-side, in a row.  A person of a different nationality lived in each house, and each person had a different pet, drank a different drink, drove a different car, etc.  Then you were given a list of clues to help you figure out where everything was.  I had long since lost my copy of that puzzle (that was around 1969, for those of you wondering just how far I am down the garden path), so I mis-remembered the puzzle, thinking there were six houses.  About a week after I released the original version of Sherlock for DOS (in 1991), I stopped by the magazine rack in the grocery store, thinking that maybe I'd find a puzzle magazine that might give me an idea for a new puzzle type game.  I was quite surprised to find that there were regularly published magazines with nothing but these kinds of puzzles, and they were called "logic puzzles."  (Yes, it had been a long time since I'd looked closely at these puzzle magazines!  So, sue me.  On second thought, don't...)  Anyway, I've since come across a reasonably close facsimile of that original puzzle, and I've included it here for those who are interested.  Just click on Who Drinks Water and Who Owns the Zebra.

Sherlock implements basically the same thing, but done in a graphical environment where you use the mouse to organize the clues, keep track of possibilities and impossibilities, and mark the deduced locations of objects.  The licensed version of the game contains over 131,000 different puzzles, enough to keep you occupied for at least a few years.

THE REAL INFORMATION

The main game display is organized into three main areas (aside from the normal Windows stuff):  the playing board in the upper left, the horizontal clues in the upper right, and the vertical clues across the bottom.

The Playing Board consists of six rows, with each row containing six related pictures (six people, six numbers, six different fruits, etc).  Initially, each location in a row shows all six possibilities for that row as half-sized images.  The half-size image indicates that they are only possibilities.  When a row/column location is inhabited by a single full-sized image, that indicates that the block is (or, at least, is believed to be) located there.  As you deduce that an item can't be in a given square, the right mouse button can be used to remove that possibility from that location.  When you've deduced that a specific item has to be at a specific location, the left mouse button can be used to signify it.  The game is "over" when you have (correctly or incorrectly) specified locations for all 36 items.  There is a checkbox in the Player Setup Dialog ("Notify on wrong deductions") which controls whether the game will notify you or not when you make an incorrect deduction.

The Horizontal Clues area is to the right of the playing board.  These clues show relationships between items that are in different columns.  See All About Clues for more information about these.

The Vertical Clues area is across the bottom of the Sherlock window (beneath both the playing board and the horizontal clues).  The vertical clues show relationships between items that are in the same columns.  See All About Clues for more information about these.

Additionally, there is a non-displayed area called Other Clues.  As you work on a puzzle, you will find that some clues become useless to you (if a clue tells you that two items are in the same column, and you already know in which column they are both located, then the clue holds no more useful information for you).  At that point, it's just cluttering up the display and distracting you.  If you point at the clue and click the right mouse button, the clue will be sent to the non-displayed Other Clues area.  However, occassionally you might send a clue to the Other Clues are by mistake, before you've really used all of the information which it presents.  The Other Clues pushbutton at the top-left of the window swaps all of the clues that are visibly displayed with all of those that are in the Other Clues area, allowing you access to them once again.  The Other Clues pushbutton is a "toggle", alternately displaying the two groups of clues.  The right mouse button can be used at any time to send a clue from the currently visible set of clues to the set that is in the Other Clues area.  Initially, at the beginning of each puzzle, all of the clues are always visible, and there are no clues in the Other Clues area.

The whole Object of the Game is to correctly locate all 36 blocks.  This is done through a process of deduction and elimination, using the clues as a guide.  When a clue tells you that a particular image can not possibly be located at a particular square on the board, point to the half-sized image at that location with the mouse and then click the right mouse button.  The image at which you pointed will disappear.  When there's only one small image left, it MUST be the one that is located at that square.  When that happens, point to it with the mouse and click the left mouse button.  The block will be made full-sized and all other half-sized images of that block in the row will disappear.

Also, watch for situations where a particular block exists as a possibility at only one location.  This means that it HAS to be located there, so it can be enlarged.

In order to solve the puzzle, you must repeatedly scan through the clues, testing each clue to see if it will eliminate any more possibilities in each column and row.  Each time you remove one possibility from the board, that may cause other clues to become useful in removing further possibilities.  Remember, all boards are guaranteed to be solvable with the provided clues.  (No, I haven't played all of the puzzles myself.  I'm trusting to my programming abilities and the accuracy of my algorithms, a chancy thing at best, but no one has yet found a Sherlock puzzle that's not solvable!)

When you locate the last of the 36 blocks the game is over, and the program will tell you whether your deductions were correct or not.

When the program is run, if there are no players currently configured, you will see the Player Setup Dialog, with the player name set to "Set Your Name Here."  You should type in your "game name" at this point, although it's recommended that you retain the other default settings until you're familiar with the game and how it operates.  If there is exactly one player setup when the program is run, then the game bypasses the Player Setup Dialog and goes straight to the game display.  You can bring up the Player Setup Dialog at anytime during the game by clicking on the status bar at the bottom of the window, or by clicking on File-Player Setup in the menu.  If there is more than one player setup when the program is run, then the Player Setup Dialog is displayed automatically in order to allow you to select the desired player name before the game starts.

Popup Tips: when you first run Sherlock, there should be some annoying little "popup windows" that show up each time you stop moving the mouse.  These little "popup tips" are intended to help you learn how to play the game, what the clues mean, and so on.  After you've learned these things, you can turn of the popup tips in the Player Setup Dialog.

See also: All About Clues, Hints and Tips.


BMP Files and Sherlock

Sherlock for Windows stores its image sets in .BMP files.  The following is "sort of technical" information for those people wishing to edit the .BMP files, whether using the Image Editor built into Sherlock or using a stand-alone graphics editor of choice.

The Sherlock .BMP files are 256 color bitmaps, and their width is EXACTLY 3/4 of their height.  This is because the individual "block images" within the image set are square, exactly as wide as they are tall, and measured in this individual "block images", the entire bitmap is six wide and 8 high, thus giving us a constant ratio of 3 to 4, regardless of the size of the bitmap.  (Isn't math fun!?!)  If the ratio of 3 to 4 (or 6 to 8) is not maintained, Sherlock may not operate correctly.  With freedom comes responsibility.

There is no size restriction on the actual size of the bitmap, because Sherlock will stretch (or shrink) it to fit the available display space.  However, when the images are stretched (or shrunk), they can get kind of ugly, which is why the primary image set comes in four different resolutions, each one optimized for a particular display resolution.  When first started, Sherlock tries to pick the best one for your display, but it expects to find the file names SHER640.BMP, SHER800.BMP, SHER1024.BMP, and SHER1280.BMP, so if they're not there, it may not do such a hot job, if you know what I mean.

The first six rows of block images in the .BMP file are the actual game images, grouped quite naturally by row.  The seventh and eighth rows contain some additional images that are needed by the game to properly display the clues.  They are:

Row 7   Col 1	Background tile, goes behind clues and game board locations.

Row 7   Col 2	AND mask for drawing the NOT symbol.

Row 7   Col 3	OR mask for drawing the NOT symbol.

Row 7   Col 4	AND mask for drawing left-pointing arrowhead.

Row 7   Col 5	OR mask for drawing left-pointing arrowhead.

Row 7   Col 6	AND mask for drawing middle of arrow.

Row 8   Col 1	OR mask for drawing middle of arrow.

Row 8   Col 2	AND mask for drawing right-pointing arrowhead.

Row 8   Col 3	OR mask for drawing right-pointing arrowhead.

Row 8   Col 4	The "...is somewhere to the left of..." symbol (ellipses).

Row 8   Col 5	Unused.

Row 8   Col 6	Unused.

The background tile is just that: a background "place-holder" to provide a grid-like framework for when there are no clues in a particular area.  This image can be anything.

The "Unused" tiles in Row 8, Cols 5 & 6 are not used in any way by Sherlock.  Therefore, these two locations are nice "scratch" storage areas while you're developing your image set (to store alternate versions of an image, or to try something without risking messing up your original version).  Another thing you can do with these is to place your name there.  Remember, though, that you can't just modify someone else's images and then claim them as your own.  It's in violation of copyright laws, morally reprehensible, and besides all that, it's just not right!

The drawing of complex clues (ones involving a NOT symbol or the left/right ARROW) are drawn in this fashion:

1) Draw the normal clue images

2) Draw the "overlayed" images (NOT symbol and/or ARROW) by:

a) combining the AND mask with the display image using a bitwise logical AND.

b) combining the OR mask with the display image using a bitwise logical OR.

If you modify these images, in the AND mask, you MUST use WHITE (top-right corner of the palette in the Sherlock image editor, full intensity of Red, Green, and Blue in other editors) for those areas where you wish the underlying image to remain unchanged.  Also in the AND mask, you MUST use BLACK (top-left corner of the palette in the Sherlock image editor, zero intensity of Red, Green, and Blue in other editors) for those areas where you wish the underlying image to be cleared (in preparation for the OR operation).  In the OR mask, you MUST use BLACK for those areas where you wish the underlying image to remain unchanged.  In the other areas (those corresponding to the areas cleared by BLACK in the AND mask) you can use whatever colors you wish.  Whew!

Although you are free to edit and change any of the images until your heart's content, remember that if you're planning on sharing your images with anyone else, you should probably maintain some semblance to the original NOT, ARROW, and ELLIPSES symbols, so that others can understand the meaning of the clues when using your image set.


Best Times Dialog

The Best Times dialog is either very boring, or very interesting, depending upon how much you eat, sleep, drink, and do other messy things with statistics.  (Myself, I've got things to do that are much more fun than statistics.  Unfortunately, I rarely find the time to do them!)

On the left side of the Best Times dialog you will find a list of the all-around best times, including all players, sorted by time.  On the right side of the dialog you will find the best times for just the current player, again sorted by time.  Both lists show the time, the puzzle number, the handicap that was used when that puzzle was solved, and name of the player.  The game tries to keep track of every puzzle that gets solved, which could add to quite a few puzzles for some of you.  Hopefully, the program won't self-destruct or slow down too much after you've played your 10,000th game!

Oh.  Also, at the top of the dialog box, are some average times for both All Players and for the current player.  Average is just that: the average time for all puzzles that have been completed.  Last 100 is the average of the last 100 puzzles solved.

These times may be printed from the File-Print Times menu item.


Close command (Control menus)

Use this command to close the active window or dialog box.

Double-clicking a Control-menu box is the same as choosing the Close command.

Shortcuts

Keys: 	ALT+F4 closes the Sherlock window or dialog box


Contents

All About The Game

All About Clues

BMP Files and Sherlock

Hints And Tips

Image Editing

Music and Sound

Popup Tips

Printing

Best Times Dialog

Puzzle Times Dialog

Player Setup Dialog

Who Drinks Water and Who Owns the Zebra?

Sherlock for Windows is Copyrighted 1995 Everett Kaser.  All rights reserved.

Contact information:

Everett Kaser Software

Sherlock for Windows

PO Box 403

Albany, OR  97321-0117

Phone: (541) 928-5259

internet: everett@teleport.com

compuserve: 70673,1547

aol: EverettK


Copy command (Edit menu)

Use this command to copy selected data onto the clipboard.  This command is unavailable if there is no data currently selected.

Copying data to the clipboard replaces the contents previously stored there.

Shortcuts

Keys:	CTRL+C


Current Color
Current Color  A window displaying a sample of the currently selected color.


Edit menu commands

The Edit menu offers the following commands:

Undo	Reverse previous editing operation.
Copy	Copies data from the document to the clipboard.
Paste	Pastes data from the clipboard into the document.
Resize	Resizes the current images for a new screen size.


File Exit command
Exit command (File menu)

Use this command to end your Sherlock session.  You can also use the Close command on the application Control menu.  If in the Image Editor, Sherlock prompts you to save the edited images with unsaved changes.

Shortcuts

Mouse:	Double-click the application's Control menu button.

Keys:	ALT+F4


File Open dialog box

The following options allow you to specify which file to open:

File Name

Type or select the filename you want to open.  This box lists files with the extension you select in the List Files of Type box.

List Files of Type

Select the type of file you want to open:

Sorry, .BMP is the only supported file type.

Drives

Select the drive in which Sherlock stores the file that you want to open.

Directories

Select the directory in which Sherlock stores the file that you want to open.

Network...

Choose this button to connect to a network location, assigning it a new drive letter.


File Save As dialog box

The following options allow you to specify the name and location of the file you're about to save:

File Name

Type a new filename to save a document with a different name.  A filename can contain up to eight characters and an extension of up to three characters.  Sherlock adds the extension you specify in the Save File As Type box.

Drives

Select the drive in which you want to store the document.

Directories

Select the directory in which you want to store the document.

Network...

Choose this button to connect to a network location, assigning it a new drive letter.


File menu commands

The File menu offers the following commands:

Restore Game	Restores a previously saved game.
Save Game	Saves the current game to disk.
Player Setup...	Opens the Player Setup Dialog.
Image Editor	Opens the Image Editor to allow you to modify the images.
Print Puzzle...	Prints a puzzle.
Print Times...	Prints puzzle times list
Print Setup	Selects a printer and printer connection.
Exit	Exits Sherlock.


Full-sized and Half-sized images
Full-sized and Half-sized images  Sample "game-sized" images of what you're editing.


Help menu commands

The Help menu offers the following commands, which provide you assistance with this application:

Index	Offers you an index to topics on which you can get help.
Using Help	Provides general instructions on using help.
About	Displays the version number of this application.


Hints and Tips

You want some hints, huh?  Well, let's see...

1) Always look both ways before crossing the street.

2) The first thing to do at the beginning of the game is to look for any clues containing an image who's location is already known (on the playing board).  Usually, you'll be able to make some real good deductions from these.

3) Once you've run out of things to do from number 2), look for horizontal clues of the "is between" type (three different images with an arrow across the top).  The middle image can never be in column 1 or column 6.

4) Next, look for horizontal clues of the "is left of" type (with the three "dots" between the outer two images).  The left-most image can never be in column 6 and the right-most image can never be in column 1.

5) Any time that you figure out where an image is definitely located (you make it bigger on the playing board), immediately scan all of the clues for any other clues that refer to that image.  This save a LOT of time.

6) When doing number 5), don't forget what you were working on before that.  Forgetting costs a LOT of time.

7) Clean up your plate.

Here's a list of the "tips" that are displayed in some of the pop-up tip windows:

Click UNDO when you make a mistake on the solution.

Click right button to send a clue to OTHER CLUES bin.

OTHER CLUES is a good place to store useless clues.

OTHER CLUES is a 'toggle' between two groups of clues.

OTHER CLUES is always empty at the start of a game.

HINT helps you learn to play the game, but costs 30 seconds.

Wrong deduction notification costs 60 seconds of game time.

Click on the status bar at bottom to bring up Player Setup.

You can turn off these PopUp Tips in Player Setup.

These PopUp Tips don't pop up when you're pointing at an empty clue spot.

You can save a partially played game using File/Save.

You can edit the images in File/Image Editor.

Load different images using IMAGES button in Player Setup.

Clues can be re-arranged by dragging them to a new position.

Make sure you don't send useful clues to the OTHER CLUES bin.

Pull down the view menu to see your game time statistics.

Reduce your handicap (in Player Setup) as you get better at the game.

Sound effects and music can be disabled in Player Setup.

One final hint: The Surgeon General has found playing Sherlock to be an addictive habit, and should be avoided during times of work hours, cooking hours, and other dutiful moments.  Remember to talk to your family members, and don't forget to sleep.


I Give Up, Who Wants To Own A Zebra, Anyway?

You didn't really think I was going to give away the answer, now did you???

Of course not!  I wouldn't dream of taking the fun away from you.  I do guarantee, however, that it is solvable.

Oh, ok.  I'll give you a clue:  it's not the Ukrainian who drinks the water, and it's not the Spaniard who own's the Zebra.

Ha, ha, ha, ha!!! (Maniacal, cackling laughter echoes off into the distance...)

Return To Frustration...


Image Editing

The Image Editor allows you to modify the images used within Sherlock, and to create entirely new sets of images.  The Image Editor screen looks vaguely like this:

In the upper left corner is the palette.  These are the colors from which you can select for drawing the images.  You select a color by pointing at it and clicking the left mouse button.

Beneath the palette is a window displaying a sample of the currently selected color.

Beneath the sample color window are fifteen pushbuttons which control the current operation being performed upon the image that you're editing.  Those are described in more detail below.

The largest area (in the center of the display) is the actual editing area, or Zoom, for the current image.  Centered beneath the zoom is a full-sized image of what you're editing and a half-sized image of what you're editing.

On the right is a copy of the entire .BMP file, showing all of the images used by the game.  You cannot draw or edit these directly.  You must first select one of them (by pointing at it with the cursor and then clicking the left mouse button), which will automatically copy it into the zoom area for editing.  These images (on the right) may not look completely "right".  This is because they're usually "squeezed" to fit onto the display (the Zoom is more important when it comes to allocating screen space), and are there primarily for reference and ease of selection.  The full-sized and half-sized images beneath the zoom area should be used for accurate perception of what the image will look like during the game.  For more details on what the individual images in the .BMP are used for, see BMP Files and Sherlock.  The filename of the current image set is displayed beneath the .BMP images.

The tool pushbuttons available in the Image Editor are:

  MARK AREA  Point at one corner of the desired area in the Zoom, hold down the left mouse button, drag to the opposite corner of the desired area, and then release the left button.  This area is now marked, and may be dragged elsewhere, copied to the clipboard, the clipboard can be pasted into that area (getting automatically compressed or stretched to fit the area), flipped horizontally or vertically, or a specific color within that area can be replaced.

 COPY  If an area of the Zoom is marked, just the marked area is copied to the clipboard.  Otherwise, the entire Zoom image is copied to the clipboard.

 PASTE  The clipboard is pasted into the Zoom area.  Once pasted, it's not actually "stuck" to the image, but can be dragged to it's final resting place (at least, until you click one of the other buttons or do some other silly thing).  If an area is marked when the paste is done, then the clipboard is stretched or compressed to fit exactly into that marked area.  Otherwise, the clipboard is pasted at the top-left corner of the Zoom with no stretching or compressing.  If you want the clipboard to be stretched or compressed to fit exactly into the entire Zoom image, then first mark the entire Zoom image.  (Elementary, my dear Watson.)

 REPLACE COLOR  When you click the left mouse button upon a pixel of the Zoom area, all instances of pixels with that color will be changed to have the "current" color (shown beneath the Palette).  So, let's say that you want to change the blue house to be a gray house.  Select the Replace Color button, select the shade of gray that you wish from the Palette, then point at one of the blue pixels on the house (in the Zoom area) and click the left mouse button.  Magic presto.

 VERTICAL FLIP  This button is an "instant action" button, as opposed to a "mode" button.  As soon as you click on this button, the marked area of the Zoom (or the entire Zoom image if no area is marked) will be flipped top-to-bottom.

 HORIZONTAL FLIP  This button is an "instant action" button.  As soon as you click on this button, the marked area of the Zoom (or the entire Zoom image if no area is marked) will be flipped left-to-right.

 SPRAY CAN  This button makes your drawing tool be a "spray" of pixels.  The size of the spray is controlled by the TOOL SIZE control.  The color is specified by the Palette.  Click the left mouse button on the Zoom to spray the current color at that location.  Hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse to spray continuously.

 TOOL SIZE  This button controls the size of your drawing tool (spray can, pencil, outline rectangle and oval, and line).  Click in one of the four corners of the Tool Size button to select tool widths of 1, 2, 3, or 4 pixels.  (Be sure to keep the mouse pointing at the desired corner of the button until you RELEASE the left mouse button, as that's when the selection is determined.)

 PENCIL  This selects the pencil as your drawing tool.  Pretty standard stuff.  Click the left mouse button on the Zoom to plot a single pixel of the current color, or hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse to drag ...er... draw onto the Zoom area.  If you're trying to draw a straight line, try using the Line tool instead of the Pencil.

 OUTLINE RECTANGLE  This draws the outline of a rectangle using the current color.  Point at one corner, hold down the left mouse button, drag to the opposite corner, and release the mouse button.

 SOLID RECTANGLE  This draws a solid rectangle using the current color.

 OUTLINE OVAL  This draws the outline of an oval.  Exciting stuff, huh?

 SOLID OVAL  This draws a solid oval.  Have you really never used a computer drawing program before?

 LINE  Let's see... What does this do, again???

 COLOR SAMPLE  With this selected, point at a pixel on the Zoom and click the left mouse button.  The "current color" selected in the Palette will be changed to match the color of the pixel which you selected.  This is a pretty worthless button, because at ANY time, you can point at a pixel on the Zoom and click the RIGHT mouse button to do the same thing.  Pretty handy, huh?  You see, it does pay to read all of these inane help screens, so that you can find out these kinds of handy facts.

THE FILE MENU

If you Open (using the File menu) an image set, that image set becomes the default set for the current player.  This is the equivalent of entering the Player Setup Dialog, clicking on the Images pushbutton, and selecting the image set there.

Also in the File menu is Import .SHI File.  This will convert a Sherlock for DOS .SHI image set into a .BMP file (and load it into the image editor) for you.

You can return to playing the game by selecting Play Game from the File menu.  What a concept.

THE EDIT MENU

The first item of utmost interest is the Undo entry.  This will save your button many times if you do much image editing.  Don't depend upon it (because it will probably fail you just when you need it the most), but it will usually be able to lend a helping hand.

The other item in the Edit menu that requires comment is the Resize entry.  This allows you to take an image set that is designed for one screen resolution, and convert it to a different screen resolution.  Now, the result will be a bit crude, since the computer has to stretch or compress the image, and quite a bit of touch-up will be required.  But, it's frequently better than starting over from scratch.  The widths and heights that are mentioned in the dialog box are the width and height in pixels of each individual image.  The screen resolutions in parentheses is the screen size that the image size would best work with when the game is maximized on the display.  When you click on OK, a "file save as..." type of file dialog box will appear, letting you specify the filename to which you wish the resized images to be written.  The original .BMP file will not be modified.

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

Let's see.  You can't bring up the Player Setup Dialog while in the Image Editor, so clicking on the status bar won't do you any good.

Remember to read the BMP Files and Sherlock section if you're really serious about editing images.

If you wish to import graphic images from elsewhere into a Sherlock BMP image set, one way to do it is to use another program to load that graphic image and copy the appropriate portion to the Windows clipboard.  Then, in the Sherlock for Windows Image Editor, do a paste.  Voila.

Time stops for no one, so if you Play Game after spending some time in the Image Editor, remember to Restart Game also, or you may find that a game took MUCH longer than it seemed.


Image selection
Image selection  The entire .BMP file, showing all of the images used by the game.  Individual images must be selected into the Zoom before they can be edited.  These images are usually not "game-sized", but compressed to best fit within the display area.


Index command (Help menu)

Use this command to display the opening screen of Help.  From the opening screen, you can jump to step-by-step instructions for using Sherlock and various types of reference information.

Once you open Help, you can click the Contents button whenever you want to return to the opening screen.


Music and Sound

This is another one of those "techie" discussions, so feel free to skip it if you just enjoy playing the game.

The music files are called SHERLOCK.MID and SHERWIN.MID.  These are MIDI files, and if you have MIDI files of music that you would prefer to these, merely copy your MIDI files over SHERLOCK.MID (the "theme" music) and/or SHERWIN.MID (the "win" music).

The sound effects are standard .WAV ("wave") files, and you can also replace these (should you want to) with .WAV files of your choice.  The files (and their purposes) are:

REMOVE.WAV	when you move a clue to the OTHER CLUES area.

DROPOSS.WAV	when you drag (with the right button) an image to a column of the playing board.

ILLCLICK.WAV	when you click somewhere that makes absolutely no sense.

NOTPOSS.WAV	when you remove an image as a possibility from the playing board.

MOVECLUE.WAV	when you drag a (horizontal or vertical) clue to a new location.

KNOWN.WAV	when you enlarge an image on the playing board because you know (or think you know) where it's located.

EXP1.WAV	used during the Fireworks "win" display

EXP2.WAV	ditto

EXP3.WAV	ditto some more

EXP4.WAV	what do you think?

MISTAKE.WAV	when you make an incorrect deduction on the playing board (and have "notify on wrong deduction" turned on).


No Help Available

No help is available for this area of the window.


No Help Available_1
No Help Available

No help is available for this message box.


Palette
Palette  These are the colors from which you can select for drawing the images.  You select a color by pointing at it and clicking the left mouse button.


Paste command (Edit menu)

Use this command to insert a copy of the clipboard contents at the insertion point.  This command is unavailable if the clipboard is empty.

Shortcuts

Keys:	CTRL+V


Player Setup Dialog

The Player Setup Dialog is where each player customizes the game to best suit his, her, or its tastes.  The various fields are:

Current Player: Shows the name of the current player.  This name must be no more than 31 characters.  Entering a new name in this field adds a new player to the game.  To change a players name, use the Rename pushbutton.

Rename: This pushbutton brings up the Rename Player dialog which allows you to change the name associated with a particular player.  All time statistics and other player configuration information is retained, only the name is changed to protect the guilty.

Delete: This pushbutton is used to delete the current player (well, the data for the current player, anyway), removing the player name from the player list, and removing all time statistics from the database.

Puzzle #: This is the current puzzle number being worked on by the current player.  Puzzles numbered 0 through 65535 almost always have at least one "given" location on the playing board.  Puzzles 65536 through 131071 never have any "given" locations on the playing board (except for those given away by a non-zero Handicap setting).

Handicap: Speaking of Handicap, the Handicap setting controls how many additional locations on the playing board are "given away" at the beginning of the puzzle.  True aspirants to the name "Sherlock" will, of course, always set this to 0.  However, it's understandable that some of us must fill the role of Watson, so it's okay to set this to non-zero values while you're first learning the game.

Sound effects: If checked, sound effects will be heard through your sound system when various actions are taken (moving clues, removing possibilities, removing clues, enlarging possibilities, making mistakes, etc).  If you subscribe to the belief that "Silence is Golden", remove the check from this item.

Music: This controls whether "theme" music and "win" music plays or not.  When checked, a background tune will play while you play the game, and a different one will be played when you successfully complete a puzzle.  (Note:  I said "when", not "if".)

Random puzzle sequence: This check box (when checked) will cause a random puzzle number to be chosen each time a new puzzle is started.  Otherwise, the puzzles will be encountered sequentially.

Notify on wrong deductions: When checked, you will be notified when you make an incorrect deduction on the playing board.  It is strongly recommended that you keep this item checked until you become very proficient at the game.  However, you should realize that each time you are notified that you've made an incorrect deduction, 60 seconds are added to your elapsed time for the current puzzle.

Pop-up tips: When checked, small "hint" windows will popup anytime the cursor pauses over a clue for more than about a second.  These pop-up tips are intended to help you learn how to play the game (especially what the various clues mean), and you will probably want to turn this feature off as soon as you've learned the clue types.

Images: This pushbutton opens a file dialog so that you can specify a different .BMP file from which to load images for the game.  Whatever file is specified in this dialog becomes the default imageset for the current player, and it will automatically be reloaded the next time you run the game.

"Win" display effects:  When you solve a puzzle, you will see a fun little display and (assuming you have Music enabled and have a sound card in your computer) hear a congratulatory piece of music.  The type of "display" that you see is controlled by this set of radio-buttons.

Random Win display: randomly chooses one of the "win" displays.

Fireworks: looks like.......fireworks.

Quilt:  makes a .....quilt-like...... pattern.


Popup Tips

These annoying little popup help windows are designed to help you learn to play the game more quickly.  Any time the cursor stops over a clue for a second, the popup window appears to explain the meaning of that clue, along with another brief tip (tip: american slang referring to a wide range of subjects, from taxis and restaurants to the subject at hand: a helpful hint honed to heinous heights of hearty helping hands)...as I was saying, along with another brief tip regarding the use of the program.

When these popup hints become more annoying than helpful, they can be turned off quite easily with a checkbox in the Player Setup Dialog.

For a list of the various "helpful hints", see Hints and Tips.


Printing

Sherlock puzzles can be printed on your printer, but probably aren't "worth your while" unless you have a color printer.  A black and white LaserJet type printer can print them reasonably well, but they can be very difficult to play (in monochrome) unless you have an image set that is particularly well adapted to this.  Also, the time that it takes to print a puzzle is VERY dependant upon the printer driver.  It takes around 5 or 6 minutes for my LaserJet to print one puzzle (because it's having to convert all of the 256 color images to monochrome dithered images), whereas my color inkjet printer prints a puzzle in less than a minute.  Strange but true.

The Best Times and Puzzle Times lists can be printed quite well on most printers, although older impact printers (non-graphic capable) might experience some difficulties.  Again, the printer driver will have some impact upon this.

What else is there to say?  Sherlock is meant to be played on the screen, not on paper.  What are you doing killing trees?


Puzzle Times Dialog

The Puzzle Times dialog is closely related to the Best Times Dialog.  They both display lists of solved puzzles.  However, while the lists in the Best Times dialog are sorted by "best time" (what else?), the list in the Puzzle Times dialog is sorted according to puzzle number.  This allows you to easily discover how fast you (or a competitor) solved a particular puzzle.  This list contains the times for all of the puzzles solved by all of the players.

The Puzzle Times dialog makes it reasonably easy to run a "tournament", where everyone (who's anyone) tries to solve the same puzzle number the fastest.  Of course, you'll have to keep one eye on the screen and one eye on your competitors to make sure they're not looking over your shoulder!


Resize

The Resize dialog allows you to take an image set that is designed for one screen resolution, and convert it to a different screen resolution.  Now, the result will be a bit crude, since the computer has to stretch or compress the image, and quite a bit of touch-up will be required.  But, it's frequently better than starting over from scratch.  The widths and heights that are mentioned in the dialog box are the width and height in pixels of each individual image.  The screen resolutions in parentheses is the screen size that the image size would best work with when the game is maximized on the display.  When you click on OK, a "file save as..." type of file dialog box will appear, letting you specify the filename to which you wish the resized images to be written.  The original .BMP file will not be modified.


The Horizontal Clues

The Horizontal Clues area is to the right of the playing board.  These clues show relationships between items that are in different columns.


The Playing Board

The Playing Board consists of six rows, with each row containing six related pictures (six people, six numbers, six different fruits, etc).  Initially, each location in a row shows all six possibilities for that row as half-sized images.  The half-size image indicates that they are only possibilities.  When a row/column location is inhabited by a single full-sized image, that indicates that the block is (or, at least, is believed to be) located there.  As you deduce that an item can't be in a given square, the right mouse button can be used to remove that possibility from that location.  When you've deduced that a specific item has to be at a specific location, the left mouse button can be used to signify it.


The Vertical Clues

The Vertical Clues area is across the bottom of the Sherlock window (beneath both the playing board and the horizontal clues).  The vertical clues show relationships between items that are in the same columns.


Tool Buttons
Tool Buttons  Fifteen pushbuttons which control the current operation being performed upon the image that you're editing.


Undo command (Edit menu)

Use this command to reverse the last editing action, if possible.  The Undo command grayed out on the menu if you cannot reverse your last action.

Shortcuts

Keys:	CTRL+Z or

ALT-BACKSPACE


Using Help command (Help menu)

Use this command for instructions about using Help.


View menu commands

The View menu offers the following commands:

Best Times	View All and Personal puzzle times sorted by increasing time.
Puzzle Times	View All puzzle times sorted by puzzle number.


Who Drinks Water and Who Owns the Zebra

So, you'd rather do one of these the hard way, huh?  Actually, this one is harder than the Sherlock puzzles (as are most of the ones in the magazines), because eventually you get to the point where you have to say, "Ok, what if this item were here....then, would there be any contradictions, or would that work?"  With Sherlock, you never have to make a what if supposition...just keep making logical deductions from the presented information.  One of these days, I may make an advanced version of Sherlock which requires these suppositions, for the really hard-core fans.  Anyway, on with the puzzle:

1. There are five houses, each a different color and inhabited by men (this is a sexist puzzle) of different nationalities, with different pets, drinks, and cars.

2. The Englishman lives in the red house.

3. The Spaniard owns the dog.

4. Cocoa is drunk in the green house.

5. The Ukrainian drinks eggnog.

6. The green house is immediately to the right (your right) of the ivory house.

7. The Oldsmobile owner owns snails.

8. The owner of the Ford lives in the yellow house.

9. Milk is drunk in the middle house.

10. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.

11. The man who owns the Chevrolet lives in the house next to the house where the man owns the fox.

12. The Ford owner's house is next to the house where the horse is kept.

13. The Mercedes owner drinks orange juice.

14. The Japanese man drives a Volkswagen.

15. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

Who drinks water?  Who owns the zebra?

If you get stuck, click here: I Give Up, Who Wants To Own A Zebra, Anyway?


Zoom
Zoom  The actual editing area, live and up-close, for the current image.