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1992-02-29
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<<< CROSSWORD CREATOR II >>>
<<< by John Hutchinson >>>
Reviewed by
Phillip White
Creating crossword puzzles has never been easier thanks to Hutchs latest
version of his popular crossword program.
John Hutchinson, who coded the InfoDisk program for ACE's Inside Info disk
magazine will be well remembered by regular attendees at ACE meetings.
Before continuing however, I must confess that I am hindered by two biased
attitudes.
1) I know John Hutchinson personally and regard him as a real swell guy.
2) I utterly loathe crossword puzzles.
Aah what would life be without contradiction and noble attempts to tread
the middle path!
Hutch is a great guy, he lives in Los Alamos now and while he worked in
Australia, was a welcome presence at ACE club meetings. In addition to
Infodisk and Crossword creator, he has also written Battleships and
Wordsearch Creator for the ST. Hutch has formed his own software company
called, wait for it, "Fair Dinkum Technologies" and we look forward to
more creations from him.
Crossword puzzles I do not like, especially cryptic ones. I would rather
do the dishes than a crossword. They conjure up images of work canteens
for some reason and it always seems to be the cleaner who is able to whip
through a cryptic in 15 minutes. I have never managed to solve one clue
of a cryptic crossword, never.
And so torn between being nice to Hutch and condemnation prior to
investigation, here is an impartial review!
Crossword Creator 2 comes on a non protected disk and requires that a
registration program be run before it can be used. It runs in colour and
monochrome, is ST, STe and TT compatible.
The manual is well written, witty, informative and can be used as a
reference while the new user leaps straight into the program which is
indeed what I did on receiving the package, (real men don't need manuals!).
The program itself is intuitive and one can follow the menus and buttons
around on the screen to get to grips with the thing. Most of the mouse
buttons have a keyboard equivalent and this makes the program very quick
to use after a bit of practice, although there are times when one has to
switch between the two, which I find to be a bit of a nuisance.
On running the program, one can load, save and create a puzzle. Creating a
new puzzle gives the option of making either a word list or a
brand new puzzle. A word list can be used to place the puzzle words
automatically into a puzzle and a list can be created or edited by using a
text editor.
Spec's n' Defaults n' Things
Words may be placed in the puzzle by one, or a combination of three
methods.
First is by the automatic word list.
Second, by typing a word and manually positioning it.
Third, by typing a word and the program automatically places it.
The third method is the default and in practice, crossword creation
relies heavily on this and the second method.
The default crossword size is 20 spaces across, 17 down for medium and 30
across, 20 down for monochrome. The maximum word size is of 15 letters and
no funny characters are permitted. A puzzle may be resized by using
mouse buttons and the keyboard arrow keys. A minor bug surfaced here as
I found that the mouse very rarely worked at resizing, but the arrow keys
functioned normally.
A useful option is to include a template. This allows the construction of
crosswords identical to the magazine style of crossword with symmetrical
patterns of black squares. Four way, two way and non symmetrical templates
can be created.
Action Stations
OK, our grid is sized up and we have a word list. Lets go! By selecting
the auto word list method, the computer tries to fit the list in to the
grid, both across and down. The sheer speed of this is breathtaking and
when I first saw this happen I expected a fully fledged crossword to pop
up in no time at all.
Silly me, computers are only human after all and CC 2 can only fit in a
percentage of words from the list. How many, depends on the size of the
words, the words themselves and whether a template has been use.
A template sure looks pretty, but severely restricts the ability of
CC 2 to place words in the grid.
Now we have to assist. All unused words are stored for later retrieval,
should a space become vacant, new words can now be typed in and placed
either automatically or using your own nouse. CC2 does not allow what it
considers to be nonsense words, even though there are occasions where we
must absolutely fit "ROG" into a space where it will become FROG. A
query will result if a nonsense word is detected and you can abort or
proceed as you wish.
This phase of the construction process can become quite tedious and is in
itself a bit of a puzzle as your imagination is stretched to include
suitable words. A dictionary is indispensable, as is a rhyming
dictionary, for how many words do we find that end in IGA? Easy, look up
a word that rhymes with Tiger (Taiga)coniferous forests). CC2 will tell
you if a word has previously been used, actually it forbids it's use
again.
Many Hours Later
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So now we have our crossword puzzle and we have thoughtfully saved it. It
is time to create some clues. The clues are easily devised by invoking
the Edit Clues option which displays all words used in the puzzle, along
with a space where a clue to the word can be entered. At this point,
one can decide whether to be cruel and sadistic and make a cryptic
crossword or be nice to the commuters on the inter-urban trains. There is
no computer assisted clues function, you have to do it all yourself!
All done! good. Now lets print it. Hutch has included the printer
drivers for Epson compatible 9 pin printers and the puzzle, clues or the
solution can be printed on one of these printers. Also the crossword may
be saved as a Degas picture and the clues as a text file.
The Final Analysis
Well now, how does it rate? Crossword Creator 2 is a very slick program
that is well written and tackles a complex task such as crossword
creation very competently. I cannot say how well it performs against other
applications as I have never seen any but it would have to compare very
favourably.
I imagine that this application would appeal to someone who enjoys puzzles
and games of this nature. I feel that the casual user who expects instant
results will soon move on, as a considerable degree of skill and
imagination is still required. My feeble attempt at creating a "Mr Wisdoms
Whopper" fell far short of the ideal after combing my brain for hours for
words which would fit.
Nonetheless it is very good and fast and apart from the minor bug and
mouse/key action I give it top marks.
In addition to giving enjoyment to those who like creating crosswords,
CC 2 has potential as an educational tool, both for the creator and the
solver.
I would like to see included some more printer drivers to cater for higher
resolution devices such as 24 pin, inkjet and laser printers. Failing
that, the ability to save the crossword grid as a GEM Metafile or
Postscript would be handy for incorporating the puzzle into publications
which require high quality copy.
These small failings aside, Crossword Creator 2 represents a fine
contribution from John Hutchinson for the Atari community.
Crossword creator 2 is available from Paragon Computers in Perth WA
I can only quote the US price of $39.95 so give Paragon a call.
Also included on the Crossword Creator disk is Wordsearch Creator which will
be reviewed in a future issue of Inside Info.
Readers wishing to try their hand at a crossword, can print the example
crossword in the art folder. The clues are provided in the article
following this one (CLUES).