øThe object of the Tangram puzzle is to move the tiles from the left of the screen into the shape at the right.The tiles may be dragged, rotated, flipped, nudged, or dragged as a group. In order to complete the puzzle you must get all the tiles inside the puzzle outline with no tile overlapping another tile and no part of any tile outside of the puzzle outline.The program will randomly choose a puzzle when it starts up. At any time you may choose a different puzzle from the "Choose a puzzle" item of the "Options" menu. Some puzzles are easy and some are hard. If they prove too hard to figure out an answer is available in the "Options" menu. Its an answer because some the puzzles can be completed in more than one way. Any combination of tiles that fits inside the outline is a correct answer.The number of moves taken to complete a puzzle are counted and displayed when the puzzle is completed. Flipping or rotating tiles do not count as moves. Moving a single tile or a group of tiles both count as one move. When tiles are moved and they bounce back to there original position because they were on top of another tile or outside the window it is not counted as a move.To Drag a tile click on the Hand in the tools window. Place the arrow over the tile to be moved. Click on the tile to select it. To move the tile click and hold down the mouse and drag the shape where you want it then release the mouse button. If the tile is on top of another tile it will "boing" or bounce back to its starting position. The tile will also bounce back if you drop it outside the window. To Rotate a tile click on the Triangle in the tools window. Place the triangle over the tile to be rotated. One click will rotate the tile 22.5 degrees. 16 clicks will rotate the tile back to its starting point. If more than one tile is selected all the selected tiles will rotate around its own center. If the mouse button is held down the tile will continue to rotate until it is released. Hold down the Shift key and the mouse button and tile will rotate in the opposite direction. To Flip a tile click on the Parallelogram in the tools window. Place the parallelogram over the tile to be flipped and click the mouse (this will select the tile) or click anywhere else and all the currently selected tiles will flip.To Select a group of tiles, do one of the following;Select the Hand tool, hold down the Shift key and click on the tiles. Each tile clicked on will be added to the group of selected tiles. Select the Hand tool, place the arrow outside of all tiles and the puzzle outline, then click and drag a selection box around the tiles to be selected. All tiles that have at least some part of them within the box will be selected.Select the Lasso in the tools window. Click and drag a line around the tiles to be moved. The tiles must be entirely within the line to be selected. Release the mouse and the tiles will be selected. To Drag the tiles, place the cursor inside one of the selected tiles (it should turn into a hand). Click and hold the mouse button and drag the tiles to their new location. If any of the tiles overlaps another tile or if any of the tiles are outside the window they will bounce back to their starting position. To Nudge a selected tile or tiles one pixel (one dot on the screen), press the arrow key of the direction you want the tile to move. The 4,8,6,and 2 keys on the number keypad will also nudge the tiles. To Move the puzzle outline, place the Hand tool inside the puzzle outline (it should turn into a hand) then click and drag to a new position. Each new puzzle will be centered on this new location.ShortcutsTo move quickly between the different tools the press the Tab key to cycle through the tools.Pressing the letter "R" will rotate the selected tiles clockwise. Pressing the letter "L" will rotate the selected tiles counterclockwise.Pressing the "F" key will flip all the selected tilesThe File menu:The Open... item will search for other sets of puzzles designed to run with this program. Double Tangrams, Tangrams ABCs and Tangram People are examples included with the this program. Columbus' Egg, The Sphinx and many others will be available soon or may be by the time you read this.The Save Puzzle... item is available during Create a Puzzle mode. You can create your own Tangram puzzles and save them by choosing this item. You will be asked the name of the puzzle. This name will appear as the title of the window when the puzzle is chosen. Puzzles will be added to the currently open puzzle file. You may want to make a copy of the Blank Tangram file, change its name and add your own puzzles to this file.The Page Setup... allows you to choose paper direction and other printer settings. When using the ImageWriter printer check the Tall Adjusted box in the page setup dialog box so the proportions of the puzzles printed will be correct.The Print Options... item allows you to choose a number of things. You may print any of the following; The pattern of this Tangram, The Outline of the current puzzle, a Shaded outline of the current puzzle, or the Answer to the puzzle.In addition the size of the puzzle on the page may also be chosen. The puzzle size will be scaled to the percentage you set. The default is 100%, the same size as the puzzles on the screen.The Quit item will allow you to safely quit the program.The Edit menu;The Copy Tiles item allows you to copy any tiles that are selected. You may then switch to another program or the Scrapbook and paste a picture of the tiles.The Copy Puzzle item allows the current puzzle to be copied to the clipboard as a picture. It may then be pasted to another program or to the Scrapboard.The Paste Fancy Puzzle item. Be careful with this item. Use a copy of the puzzle file, not the original. This item will take a picture from the clipboard and replace the current fancy puzzle shape. The outline of the picture you are pasting should match the outline of the current puzzle. Check out the file on creating fancy puzzles that came with Tangrams for more information.The Options menu;The Instructions... item has gotten you here. Click on the close box in the upper left hand corner of the screen to close the window and get back to the puzzle.The History... item gives a brief history of Tangrams and references for books on the subject. (With hundreds of more puzzles)The Hide Tools, or Show Tools item will make the tool palette appear or disappear.The Any New Puzzle item will randomly pick one of the puzzles for you.The Next Puzzle item will get the next puzzle in the file. If this item is gray you are on the last puzzle.The Choose a Puzzle item will open a window full of puzzles to choose from. Scroll through the puzzle and either double click on a puzzle or click on a puzzle and click on the OK button to get that puzzle.The Create a Puzzle item will erase the current puzzle if any and will allow you to make your own puzzles to add to the current puzzle file. When you are satisfied with your new puzzle choose Save Puzzle form the File menu to save it. It will now appear in the Choose a Puzzle window at the end of the list of puzzles and may show up sometimes when Any New Puzzle is chosen.The Show an Answer item will open a window with an answer to the current puzzle. The very young and beginner will find the answer very helpful. Don't give up too fast, really try to solve the puzzle without looking. The Answer window is automatically closed when a new puzzle is started so you don't peek.The Sound menu will turn the sound on or off for the tiles when they bounce back.The Color menu is available when a color or gray scale monitor is avaiable. All selected tile will change to the color picked on the color chart.Good Luck and have fun puzzling. [
