5 ms·

Cursewords, a crossword puzzle-solving interface for the terminal

62 points by rishabhd 8y ago

zem 8y ago
very neat indeed. relatedly, if anyone is interested in creating puz files from the command line, i have a tool to do it: https://github.com/martindemello/pangrid https://github.com/martindemello/pangrid. it can read the acrosslite text format [https://www.litsoft.com/across/docs/AcrossTextFormat.pdf https://www.litsoft.com/across/docs/AcrossTextFormat.pdf] and generate a .puz file from it.
- thisisparker 8y ago
  This is very cool!
semitext 8y ago
Very cool. Are there any public repositories of puz files, or at least some sample puz file to test this out?
- zem 8y ago
  a few of the download links here work (try the washington post e.g.): https://crosswordfiend.com/download/ https://crosswordfiend.com/download/
- andy_wrote 8y ago
  There are a lot of crossword constructors who publish/sell their puzzles independently on the Internet, and often they create both puz and pdf files. Some sources of free ones: - Brendan Emmett Quigley: https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com/ https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com/ - Paolo Pasco: http://gridsthesedays.blogspot.com/ http://gridsthesedays.blogspot.com/ - and see the sidebar of Paolo's blog for links to many more constructors - They stopped publishing these online, but the Chronicle of Higher Education has several old crosswords here: https://www.chronicle.com/section/Crosswords/43 https://www.chronicle.com/section/Crosswords/43
- thisisparker 8y ago
  I wanted to ship it with an original demo puzzle but construction is really hard! That's on the roadmap for the future.
  - thisisparker 8y ago
    Oh also: if you're an NY Times crossword subscriber, you can download any of their puzzles as .puz files.
  - raphlinus 8y ago
    Feel free to include http://levien.com/Social%20rule.puz http://levien.com/Social%20rule.puz , which has a Recurse theme. It's not top quality but I've had a number of people tell me they enjoy it.
    - thisisparker 8y ago
      Raph! I loved that puzzle (and I've solved it in cursewords)! I may try to get together a collection of freely licensed demo puzzles, and I'd be honored to include this.
rcar 8y ago
There's a great web-based tool for making your own puzzles available here: http://www.keiranking.com/phil/ http://www.keiranking.com/phil/ (with export to the .puz format). Really useful for both creating an initial grid and for suggesting possible fill based on existing crossing words.
- thisisparker 8y ago
  Huge fan of Phil! Keiran and I are both alumni of the Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/ https://www.recurse.com/) from around the same time. It's become a real crossword programmer powerhouse.
- raphlinus 8y ago
  It also has a SAT based-solver telling you when you get stuck (ie when there is no completion of the grid using words from its dictionary), but I'm not sure whether the WASM integration for it still works.
ericsoderstrom 8y ago
This is great! Looks much sleeker than Across Lite. Is there any way to change the keyboard shortcuts? Or even list what the current shortcuts are? Both `space` and `return` toggle between across and down. It would be nice if I could make `return` advanced to the next clue instead, which is the default behavior in the NYT app.
- thisisparker 8y ago
  There isn't such a way yet, but I want to do that in the future. (This 1.0 version doesn't have any kind of persistent settings, so there's not yet a place to store custom key-mappings.) In case you want to try out my defaults: `tab` and `shift+tab` advance/retreat words to the next blank, and `page up` and `page down` (on a Mac, `fn` + `up` or `down`) do blank-agnostic word advance/retreat. (I also haven't documented this yet, but `[`/`]` and `{`/`}` do cursor-perpendicular box-wise movement in blank-agnostic and blank-aware steps, respectively. One of the hardest parts of this is just describing these kinds of movement.)
ouryummydino 8y ago
I think you've done a great job with the terminal interface/rendering. Here's my own pet unfinished terminal .puz player: https://github.com/rparrett/puzterm https://github.com/rparrett/puzterm Next to Cursewords, mine looks super clunky.
- thisisparker 8y ago
  Oh man! I didn't know there was prior art. I think yours looks great, Rob, and I'm very eager to get it installed and compare notes. I'm impressed that you got all the clues displayed at once.
iooi 8y ago
This is awesome! I had no idea .puz files were a thing. I wrote a "replica" of the NYTimes Crosswords while I was learning React [1]. https://github.com/gzzo/crosswords https://github.com/gzzo/crosswords Demo: https://shopkeeper-capacity-56747.netlify.com/puzzle/oscar https://shopkeeper-capacity-56747.netlify.com/puzzle/oscar
bb88 8y ago
Now we just need to hook this to the cloud so I can save the state of any puzzle, and add new puzzles to my personal puzzle repo easier.
- Hackbraten 8y ago
  A locally mounted cloud storage directory may be all you need since the state seems to be kept inside the .puz file itself.
  - thisisparker 8y ago
    This is correct. Also, since it's a terminal app, you can probably just ssh into your puzzle box from wherever :)
zem 8y ago
putting the clue numbers in the middle of the grid lines is a brilliant touch
pwinn 8y ago
Where do I file bug reports? Any attempt to save results in: AttributeError: 'bytes' object has no attribute 'encode' on line 273. Still, this is really, really good.

62 points by rishabhd 8y ago

zem 8y ago

very neat indeed. relatedly, if anyone is interested in creating puz files from the command line, i have a tool to do it: https://github.com/martindemello/pangrid https://github.com/martindemello/pangrid. it can read the acrosslite text format [https://www.litsoft.com/across/docs/AcrossTextFormat.pdf https://www.litsoft.com/across/docs/AcrossTextFormat.pdf] and generate a .puz file from it.

thisisparker 8y ago
This is very cool!

semitext 8y ago

Very cool. Are there any public repositories of puz files, or at least some sample puz file to test this out?

zem 8y ago
a few of the download links here work (try the washington post e.g.): https://crosswordfiend.com/download/ https://crosswordfiend.com/download/
andy_wrote 8y ago
There are a lot of crossword constructors who publish/sell their puzzles independently on the Internet, and often they create both puz and pdf files. Some sources of free ones: - Brendan Emmett Quigley: https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com/ https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com/ - Paolo Pasco: http://gridsthesedays.blogspot.com/ http://gridsthesedays.blogspot.com/ - and see the sidebar of Paolo's blog for links to many more constructors - They stopped publishing these online, but the Chronicle of Higher Education has several old crosswords here: https://www.chronicle.com/section/Crosswords/43 https://www.chronicle.com/section/Crosswords/43
thisisparker 8y ago
I wanted to ship it with an original demo puzzle but construction is really hard! That's on the roadmap for the future.
- thisisparker 8y ago
  Oh also: if you're an NY Times crossword subscriber, you can download any of their puzzles as .puz files.
- raphlinus 8y ago
  Feel free to include http://levien.com/Social%20rule.puz http://levien.com/Social%20rule.puz , which has a Recurse theme. It's not top quality but I've had a number of people tell me they enjoy it.
  - thisisparker 8y ago
    Raph! I loved that puzzle (and I've solved it in cursewords)! I may try to get together a collection of freely licensed demo puzzles, and I'd be honored to include this.

rcar 8y ago

There's a great web-based tool for making your own puzzles available here: http://www.keiranking.com/phil/ http://www.keiranking.com/phil/ (with export to the .puz format). Really useful for both creating an initial grid and for suggesting possible fill based on existing crossing words.

thisisparker 8y ago
Huge fan of Phil! Keiran and I are both alumni of the Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/ https://www.recurse.com/) from around the same time. It's become a real crossword programmer powerhouse.
raphlinus 8y ago
It also has a SAT based-solver telling you when you get stuck (ie when there is no completion of the grid using words from its dictionary), but I'm not sure whether the WASM integration for it still works.

ericsoderstrom 8y ago

This is great! Looks much sleeker than Across Lite. Is there any way to change the keyboard shortcuts? Or even list what the current shortcuts are? Both `space` and `return` toggle between across and down. It would be nice if I could make `return` advanced to the next clue instead, which is the default behavior in the NYT app.

thisisparker 8y ago
There isn't such a way yet, but I want to do that in the future. (This 1.0 version doesn't have any kind of persistent settings, so there's not yet a place to store custom key-mappings.) In case you want to try out my defaults: `tab` and `shift+tab` advance/retreat words to the next blank, and `page up` and `page down` (on a Mac, `fn` + `up` or `down`) do blank-agnostic word advance/retreat. (I also haven't documented this yet, but `[`/`]` and `{`/`}` do cursor-perpendicular box-wise movement in blank-agnostic and blank-aware steps, respectively. One of the hardest parts of this is just describing these kinds of movement.)

ouryummydino 8y ago

I think you've done a great job with the terminal interface/rendering. Here's my own pet unfinished terminal .puz player: https://github.com/rparrett/puzterm https://github.com/rparrett/puzterm Next to Cursewords, mine looks super clunky.

thisisparker 8y ago
Oh man! I didn't know there was prior art. I think yours looks great, Rob, and I'm very eager to get it installed and compare notes. I'm impressed that you got all the clues displayed at once.

iooi 8y ago

This is awesome! I had no idea .puz files were a thing. I wrote a "replica" of the NYTimes Crosswords while I was learning React [1]. https://github.com/gzzo/crosswords https://github.com/gzzo/crosswords Demo: https://shopkeeper-capacity-56747.netlify.com/puzzle/oscar https://shopkeeper-capacity-56747.netlify.com/puzzle/oscar

bb88 8y ago

Now we just need to hook this to the cloud so I can save the state of any puzzle, and add new puzzles to my personal puzzle repo easier.

Hackbraten 8y ago
A locally mounted cloud storage directory may be all you need since the state seems to be kept inside the .puz file itself.
- thisisparker 8y ago
  This is correct. Also, since it's a terminal app, you can probably just ssh into your puzzle box from wherever :)

zem 8y ago

putting the clue numbers in the middle of the grid lines is a brilliant touch

pwinn 8y ago

Where do I file bug reports? Any attempt to save results in: AttributeError: 'bytes' object has no attribute 'encode' on line 273. Still, this is really, really good.