You can create your own layouts, save them, and use them in Solitaire or Challenge Shanghai.
Choose “Layout Construction Set” from the Layout menu. A template grid appears on the screen, with 16 rows of 30 spaces. Each tile occupies four of these spaces. Tiles must be placed within the limits of the grid, up to six layers high. (You can hide or show the grid by choosing “Show Grid” in the Manipulate menu.)
The floating Layout Tools palette tells how many tiles are left to place. All complete layouts must contain 144 tiles. The three tools in the palette are the Adder tool (+), the Deleter tool (-), and the Selector tool.
Gravity
The layouts you build must obey certain rules. As you add, delete and move tiles around, you may not be allowed to do certain things. There are reasons for this!
1) You can never add a tile where it would physically intersect or collide with an existing tile. This rule is enforced when you add or move multiple tiles.
2) You can’t add a tile that hangs in space—even partially—unless you turn gravity off.
3) You can’t delete a tile if it would leave another tile hanging in space—even partially—unless you turn gravity off.
4) You can turn gravity off (lucky you)! Uncheck “Gravity On” in the Manipulate menu. This option lets you break rules 2 and 3, but should be used carefully. Without gravity, you can create some bizarre-looking layouts. Since they’re physically impossible, these layouts may be hard to “read” visually. Blocked tiles may look free and vice versa. It’s therefore best to leave gravity on unless you’re feeling adventurous. Loading any gravity-defying layouts for play or editing will display a warning message.
Adding Tiles
When the cursor is inside the game window with the Adder tool chosen, it changes to a blank tile. To add a tile to the layout, just click where you want the tile to be.
To add several tiles, click to add the first one, and drag in any direction. A scaffold of tile outlines appears to show where tiles will be added. The scaffold indicates two things:
1) Outlines are not shown (and tiles won’t be added) where they would break the rules under Gravity above—unless gravity is off, of course, and even then you can’t break rule 1.
2) If you begin dragging from a second- or higher-level tile, the scaffold will stretch down to the board, so your tiles aren’t hanging in space.
Deleting Tiles
To delete a tile, choose the Deleter tool, and click on any tile. Gravity may prevent you from deleting certain tiles. You can also select several tiles (see below) and press the Delete or Clear keys to delete them.
Selecting Tiles
To select a tile, choose the Selector tool, and click on any tile. If it’s not selected, it will become so, and vice versa. You can select several tiles by dragging a rectangle to surround them (start the drag on the board, not on a tile). If they’re not selected, they will become so, and vice versa. If you click on the board without dragging, all tiles will be deselected. You can also use “Select All” and “Select None” in the Manipulate menu.
Selected tiles can be deleted or moved.
Moving Tiles
To move a tile, choose the Selector tool, and drag any tile—all selected tiles will move with it. As you drag, a dotted outline will show where the tiles would be if you dropped them. Position them carefully, and release the mouse button. If their new positions break any of the rules under Gravity above, an error message will describe the problem, and your layout will not change.
You can reposition all the tiles on the board with “Nudge Layout Up,” “Nudge Layout Down,” “Nudge Layout Left” and “Nudge Layout Right” in the Manipulate menu, or with the arrow keys on the keyboard.
Saving, Opening and Using Layouts
When you enter the Layout Construction Set, the layout you’re currently using will be displayed, ready to edit. To start over with an empty Layout, choose “New Layout” from the File menu. To load a layout for editing, choose “Open Layout...” from the File menu, or choose any of the layouts in the Layout menu. You cannot change any of the built-in layouts, but you can use them as a starting point for your own layouts.
Any layouts in the “Layouts & Tilesets” folder will appear at the bottom of the Layout menu when you start Shanghai II (see Other Features). The “Layouts & Tilesets” folder must be in the same place on your disk as the Shanghai II application.
To save a layout, choose “Save Layout” or “Save Layout As...” from the File menu. If you save it in the “Layouts & Tilesets” folder, it will appear at the bottom of the Layout menu. To play a game with it, just choose it from the Layout menu. You can only play games with layouts that contain a full 144 tiles.
To leave the Layout Construction Set, choose “Play With This Layout” from the Manipulate menu.
Tips
•The Layout Construction Set works faster in black and white than in color. If you’re going to do serious editing, set your monitor to black and white and choose “Black and White” from the Settings menu. Any layouts you edit can be used in color or black and white.
•If you’re having trouble moving groups of tiles, look carefully at which tiles are selected. It’s easy to select several tiles that won’t stand up by themselves (i.e., obey gravity). You can’t move such a set with gravity on.
•Remember that moving a group of tiles cannot leave other tiles defying gravity (unless gravity is off).
•If moving tiles gives you unexpected results, be more careful when you select them. The selection rectangle can and will select tiles you can’t even see, because they’re buried inside a pile. If the border of a tile falls within the selection rectangle, that tile will be selected, visible or not.
•Moving tall gravity-defying piles may sometimes give you unexpected results. This is a limitation of representing weird three-dimensional relationships on a two-dimensional screen. Try moving the tiles a few at a time.
