Copyright: Help Pre-Compiler v3.0 (C) Antonio Cordero


Spaces can be filled with any card
This space can be filled with any available card.

This allows for great flexability in some games.


Other aspects of solitaire
Other aspects of solitaire.

Besides building cards and types piles, there are several other aspects one needs to know.

Here is a list of these other rules.

1. Spaces made by emptying a pile.

2. The redeal.

3. Pile size limitations.

4. Moving cards in groups.

5. Emptying piles before playing cards to other piles.

6. Dealing out cards.

7. Removing pairs of cards.

8. Automatic removal of full straights and suites.

9. Sorted piles.

10. Re-arranging cards after the deal.

11. Different ranks can be high.


Auto menu
The auto menu allows the player to autoplay cards to foundations.

All cards possible will be played to the foundations.

This could lead to completion of the game.


Book
Here is a great book.

You may want to get a solitaire book to get pointers on the games.  More

detailed rules would also be available.  It would take an entire book to

write the detailed rules to all the games.  Suggestion:

The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games

By Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith

Copyright 1949 by Longman's Green and Company, Inc.

Copyright 1977 by Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith

A Bantam Book / Published by arrangement with David McKay Company, Inc.


Types of building
Types of building.

Piles can be built in several different ways.

The two main components of building is by rank and by suit (or color).

1. Building up by rank.

2. Building down by rank.

3. Building by same suit.

4. Building by different suit.

5. Building by opposite color.


Card back
The card back design can be chosen here.

The card back shows up whenever a face down (non visible) card is displayed.


Card count stock
The card counter can either keep track of the stock or the tableau


Card Counter
The card counter displays all cards in the Tableau or Stock that are still face down (not visible).

The cards are displayed in sorted order so the actual locations of the cards are unknown.

A grid is used with rank being displayed horizontally and suit vertically.

Card counter grid:

  A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 J Q K

S|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

H|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

D|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

C|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

There is a menu attached to this window that allows one to count the stock instead of the tableau.


Database
This menu opens the Funsol database.  The currently select game's database is shown.  All attempts and completions can be scrolled through in chronological order.  A description can be entered for each game.

The seed, description and status are shown.


Dealing out cards
In almost all games, the computer deals out all the cards for each game.

In some games, the player deals out cards from a stock one at a time to a waste pile.

In other games, several cards are dealt from a stock to each tableau.

All possible plays are made between these deals.

Sometimes when the stock is exhausted, the player can redeal the stock.


Building by different suit
Building by different suit means the next suit in sequence cannot match.


Left button double click
Double clicking the left mouse button on a pile will attempt to play the top card of that pile to a foundation.

This allows the player to avoid dragging the card all the way to the foundation pile.


Building down by suit
Building down by rank means building in descending numerical order.

Building down by rank: K,Q,J,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,A


Left button click and drag
Clicking the left mouse button on a pile and holding the button down while moving the mouse is called dragging.

This technique is used to move cards around from pile to pile.

The card can be dropped at any time by letting go of the left mouse button.

If the card is not over a valid pile, it will move back to where it came from.

The last card in a pile will darken if a valid move is possible.


Spaces are kept empty
No cards can be played to this space.

It is basically a "dead" spot in the layout for the rest of the game.


Exit game
Exit game allows the player to exit Funsol once and for all.

Hopefully this does not happen until several hours of enjoyment have occured.


File menu
File menu.

The file menu handles all game selection, loading and saving.

Many of these actions can have verification prompts.

1. New game.

2. Open game.

3. Save game.

4. Save As.

5. Restart game.

6. Select game.

7. Exit Funsol.


Foundation Piles
Foundation piles are where the game is won.  Cards are usually built in ascending rank.

The goal of all the solitaire games is to fill all foundations up to capacity.


Game play
Game play.

The game play section allows the player to adjust how a game is played.

Error messages and sounds are controlled here too.

1. Allow deal three.

2. Allow unlimited redeals.

3. Enable sounds.


Graph
This opens a graph window.  The completion percentages of the currently selected game is shown.  If more than 25 games have been tried, then only the last 25 games are graphed.


Removing group of cards
Some games require selecting a group of cards and discarding them to a waste pile.

Undo is disabled until all cards in the group are done being selected.

1. Two of a kind.

2. Four of a kind.

3. Any King, Queen and Jack combination.

4. Any pair of cards whose total ranks add up to a specific total.  Usually eleven, thirteen or fourteen are used.

5. Any groups of cards whose total ranks add up to fifteen.


High
The high card is usually a king, but can vary depending on rules of the game.

Other high cards can be aces or queens or it can vary each time the game is played.


Using the Keyboard
The up arrow key will step the game seed up and redeal.

The down arrow key will step the game seed down and redeal.


Left button click
Clicking the left mouse button is used to flip over top cards that are face down (not visible) in piles.

This action is also used to deal cards or redeal piles in some games.

Most commonly, dealing from the Stock to the Waste pile.


Log
This will reset the log file.  All logs are lost, so use this command with caution!


Using the menus
Using the menus.

The Funsol menus are fairly self explanitory.

Each item is explained below.

1. File menu.

2. Options menu.

3. Classic games menu.

4. Unique games menu.

5. Undo menu.

6. Auto menu.

7. Step menu.


Using the mouse
Using the mouse.

Using the mouse in funsol is fairly simple.

There are only four ways to be concerned with.

1. Left button click.

2. Left button double click.

3. Left button click and drag.

4. Right button click.


New game
New game allows the player to deal out a new game with a randomly selected seed.

The deck is reshuffled and a new combination of cards is dealt out.

The randomly selected seed is actually determined by the length of time Windows has been running.


Open game
Open game allows the player to open any previously saved game.

All moves are stored, so the player will still be able to undo as if the game had never been saved and reopened at all.


Building by opposite color
Building by opposite color means the suits must be the opposite color.

Building by opposite color: Red,Black,Red,Black,Red...

Red suits are Hearts and Diamonds.

Black suits are Spades and Clubs.


Options menu
Options menu.

The options menu allows the user to configure the game.

All configurations are saved in funsol.ini.

1. Show all cards.

2. Preferences.

3. Card counter.

4. Graph

5. Database

6. Reset log file


The different pile types in solitaire
The different pile types in solitaire.

Piles come in five basic types.

Not all games have all types of piles, but games can contain several of one type of pile.

1. Foundation Piles

2. Tableau Piles

3. Waste Piles

4. Stock Piles

5. Reserve Piles


Preferences
Preferences.

The preferences box allows plenty of flexability for the player.

There are a few "cheat" options too.

1. Display prompt.

2. Game play.

3. Card movement rate.

4. Card back.

5. Table back.


Display prompt
Display prompt allows the player to enable prompts on different actions.

These prompts ask the player if they really want to perform certain actions.

These actions include loading, saving, exiting, restarting, selecting and starting a new game.


Card movement rate
The card movement rate determines how fast the cards move around the screen.

This occurs during dealing, alignment of cards and error corrections.

1. 286  Very fast!

2. 386 Fairly fast.

3. 486 Average.

4. 586 (Pentium) Slow.


Rearranging cards after the deal.
In some games the cards may undergo some rearranging immediatly after they are dealt.

In these cases, the kings of each pile will be brought to the bottom (lowest card) of its pile.


The Redeal
The player can sometimes redeal parts of the layout when all possible plays have been completed or when a stock pile  is exhausted.

If an empty pile says REDEAL on it, then pressing the left mouse button on it will redeal the pile.

The amount of redeals depends on the game and preferences settings.

Most games allow two redeals.


Reserve Piles
Reserve piles are usually a temporary holding place for cards.

There are usually no build restrictions on reserves.


Restart game
Restart game allows the player to restart the same game from scratch with the same seed.

This is like replaying the game with the exact same shuffle or order of cards.


Right mouse button
How about the rules?  This has been a common question.

1. Right click on the individual piles to get the rules for each pile.

2. Right click on the background to get special game rules.

3. Here is a great book.


Building by same suit
Building by same suit means the next suit in sequence must match.


Save game
The game can be saved at any time, even if the game has been completed.

The positions of all cards and ALL moves made are also saved.

This allows the player to continue a game at a later time and still use the undo feature.


Save As
Save As is identical to save except the player will be able to select a filename for this saved game.

Save game uses the current filename if it exists.


Select game
Select game allows the player to choose any one of four billion game seeds.

The seed can be entered directly with the numeric entry box.

The up and down buttons allow the player to step through games one at a time and view the layout.

A "preferred" game can be selected this way.


Show all cards
Show all cards allows the player to see all the cards in the layout.

The face down cards are grayed, so the player can distinguish between face up and face down cards.

This is cheating however, but can be helpful if the game gets difficult.


Pile size limitations
Some piles have a limitation on their size.

Some size limitations come naturally when a build is complete, such as a foundation.

Others are part of the game, and will be indicated in the pile rules box.


Sorted piles
Some large face up piles are sorted by rank, so the cards will be easier to find.

This may be in ascending or descending rank.


Enable sounds
Enable sounds allows the player to enable and disable the game sounds.

Each time the cards are shuffled, or a card is dropped a sound is played.

A sound card and MCI drivers are required for these sounds to be heard.

The PC speaker is not used.


Spaces made by emptying a pile
Spaces made by emptying a pile.

There are several ways to handle an empty space.

1. Spaces are kept empty.

2. Spaces can be filled with any card.

3. Spaces can be filled by the high card.

4. Spaces are filled automatically from the stock.


Step menu
The step menu allows the player to play one card at a time to the foundations.

This differs from auto which plays ALL possible cards to the foundations.


Stock Piles
Stock piles are where the undealt cards go.

Cards are usually drawn from the stock either one or three cards at a time.

The cards drawn from the stock end up either in a waste pile, reserve or tableau.


Suite
A suite is a group of thirteen cards built in rank and in suit from A-K.

A full straight is a group of thirteen of cards built in rank, but not ncessarily in suit, from A-K.


Table back
The table back design can be chosen here.

The table back is the playing surface.


Tableau Piles
Tableau piles are usually built on in descending rank.

Cards are usually played from a tableau to a foundation.


Allow deal three
Allow deal three lets the player enable or disable the deal three option.

Some games deal three cards at a time from the Stock to the Waste Pile.

This option can disable this, so only one card at a time is always dealt.

This is a form of cheating, but can save an already lost game.


Tips on playing solitare games.
Tips on playing solitaire games.

Playing solitaire games is actually very simple.

Getting adept at it is the hard (but fun) part.

1. The different pile types in solitaire

2. Types of building.

3. Other aspects of solitaire.


Undo menu
The undo menu allows the player to undo the last move.

Undo is unlimited.

The player can undo all the way back to the beginning of the game, if they so wish.


Moving cards in units
In most cases, only the top card in a pile can be moved at a time.

However, in some cases a group of cards can be moved as a unit to another pile.

These groups can only be picked up if the cards in the group are in the proper build sequence.


Allow unlimited redeals
Allow unlimited redeals lets the player enable or disable unlimited redeals.

Some games only allow a set amount of redeals.

With unlimited redeals enabled, this restriction is overidden and an unlimited amount of redeals is allowed.

This is a form of cheating, but can save an already lost game.


Building up by rank
Building up by rank means building in ascending numerical order.

Building up by rank: A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K


Using the Funsol Program.

Funsol is easy to learn and use.

No tricks here.  Just click, drag, press and enjoy.

1. Using the menus.

2. Using the mouse.

3. Using the keyboard.


Valid move indicator.
The top card of a pile will turn dark if a valid move is possible.

This is helpful in learning a new game.


Verification telephone call.


Waste Piles
Waste piles receive any cards that are dealt from a stock.

Usually only the top card is available for play.


Welcome to Funsol solitaire
WELCOME TO FUNSOL (TM).

I hope you enjoy Funsol solitaire.

This help menu should answer most questions about this card game.

1. Information on using Funsol.

2. Tips on playing solitaire games.

3. How to get the rules.