README for REALbasic versions of Acrostic (Updated 2 June 2003)
NEW IN THIS RELEASE (1.2 - 2 June 2003)
HELP - The Window that describes the steps required to load an Acrostic now allows printing of the text. The instructions have been made easier to follow.
GOOGLE LINK -- The clue displayed under the pattern now underlines when the mouse hovers over it . The 'hot' area of the clue that takes you to Google when clicked is now limited to the clue text.
INSTALLATION
MAC — the program is distributed in Disk Image Files. Extract the program from these files and run it. Once the program and the README have been moved or copied from the Disk Image it can be moved to the trash.
WINDOWS — the program is distributed in a self-extracting archive. This is an EXE file, which when run will extract another EXE file, which is the program. Click it to run it. No further setup is required. Once the program and the README have been moved or copied from the archive it can be moved to the Recycle Bin.
REMOVAL
Delete the program file, and the ACROSTIC.INI preferences file. (See below for the location of this file). No Registry entries are used. No DLL files are installed or used.
FILES
The program creates a file ‘ACROSTIC.INI’ to keep your program and printer settings. The file location depends on the operating system:
WinXP — \Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\
Other Windows — if the above directory is not available it uses \Windows
Mac — Preferences Directory. On OSX this is Home:Library:Preferences. I don’t know if this is true for earlier versions of the Apple OS, but in any case it goes wherever Apple defines the Preferences location to be.
SUMMARY
NOTE — You won't get much out of this program if you do not subscribe to the NYT Crossword Puzzles on their web site.
This program allows the New York Times Acrostic to be solved off-line. It is able to parse the clues and the puzzle structure from the 'Printed Version' web page of the Acrostic that is published by the NYT for subscribers to their Crossword Puzzle pages.
The diagram is loaded into the program by clicking the spaces into the grid.
Once the puzzle has been loaded from the HTML it can be saved in the program's native format, and easily recalled.
DETAILS
To load a new Acrostic published by the New York Times you need to first 'download' the puzzle from the NYT web site.
The Times charges a fee for access to the on-line puzzles, and you will have to be a subscriber to be able to get to the web page that you need.
To get to the Acrostic Puzzles on line go to:
and from there select "Crossword/Games" which is listed in the "Features" section of the menu on the left side of the page. From there, select "Subscribers' Entrance".
The route from here to the page that you need may change. What you need is the "Printed Version". Look for "Second Sunday Puzzle" which will have a link to an Acrostic. That will probably get you to the Java Version, which will have a link to the printed version. That link will take you to a page that lists the clues, with numbered spaces for the letters in each clue. While viewing this page, select the menu item in your browser to 'Save' the page 'As' HTML. Note that HTML may not be the default format in which to save the file. I'd suggest that you name the file using the date - '20021215' for example. The default file type will be '.htm' or '.html'. The name is not terribly important, but you will need to find the file to be able to load it into Acrostic. The name used for the HTML file will be used by default when you save the Acrostic that you load.
The "Printed Version" page has a link to the pattern. You will need to know the pattern to load the puzzle into Acrostic. Print the pattern from this link if you do not have the New York Times Magazine.
FEATURES
Printing — go to Page Setup, reduce the margins all round and set to landscape. The program should save your settings, but I’m not sure that this works well in Windows. Long clues may overprint. I don’t know enough yet to prevent this.
Cheating — Click the clue displayed under the pattern to see what Google knows. (You will need to be connected for this to work).
Voices — On OSX you can have the program speak the numbers of the spaces as you click them in.
HISTORY
The program was originally designed for MSDOS using GWBASIC and then translated to WINDOWS with Microsoft Visual Basic. Originally each number for each word had to be entered manually. Only diehards liked to do this.
When the NYT published the Acrostic on the web the program was made to read the HTML which can be easily downloaded from the web page. This made it much more useful, and it went through several revisions, each to accommodate a change made by the Times in the formatting of their web pages. Things have settled down now and it has been some time since changes have been necessary.
There have always been requests for an Apple version. The subscribers to the puzzle pages seem to have more Macs than most populations.
Last Fall I first saw the 17" iMac and took one home that day. Not much later I found REALbasic which resembles Visual Basic, runs on the Mac, and produces programs to run on Windows and the Mac from the same code.
The REALbasic versions are rewritten from scratch (well, from copy and paste, and scratch). The ability to load the Acrostic by typing in the numbers is not in these versions.