|
The main board
|
This page describes the functions of the various parts of the main board pictured here.
Those parts are:
- The flip button
- The flip button flips the board along a line running from the top-left corner to the bottom-right
corner, making vertical words horizontal and vice-versa. Some folks find that this helps locate
moves more quickly.
- The values button
- The values button replaces letters on the board with their values.
It's required
because the squares are too small to display both at the same time. Tap it a second time to
reverse the effect.
- The hint button
- The hint button searches the dictionary using the tiles in your
tray and places the highest-scoring move on the board. Click it again to get the next-highest-scoring
move, and so on through every move that's possible with your current tiles.
- The juggle button
-
This button randomly scrambles the tiles in your tray. Try it a few times if you're having trouble
spotting any words there.
- The board
-
- Bonus squares
- Bonus squares
improve the score of the move that first places a tile on them. Hold
the pen on a bonus square for a half second to see a small window reminding you
of the value: double word, triple word, double letter or triple
letter.
- Arrow cursor
- The black arrow cursor (facing right in the picture on this page)
indicates where the next tile tapped in the tray will be placed. Tap
an empty square to place the arrow. Tap the arrow to change its
direction or to deactivate (hide) it. When you tap a tile in the tray,
it replaces the arrow cursor which then moves to the next empty square in
the direction it points. If you don't like the arrow cursor, you can
disable it by turning off the Enable cursor option in
the preferences dialog.
- Recent move
-
The most recent move is indicated by white letters on a black background. In this picture
it's the word HILUM.
- Blank tiles
- On PocketPC, blank tiles show up on the board with tiny black or
white vertical lines in their corners. On Palm, they are marked by
gaps in the frame around the tile. This is to help you distinguish
them from tiles that will have their expected value when incorporated
in new words. On the PocketPC board, the N in PETITION at the top,
and the A in NAPKIN at the bottom, are blanks. On the Palm board look
at the T near the lower left.
- Hint region
- To limit the region of the board searched by the hint feature,
first turn on the feature by checking the Local hints or
Hint limits option
in the Game preferences dialog. Then use
the pen to drag the rectangle on the board, and choose Hint from the
Move menu. To remove the rectangle, draw in an upward direction.
- The hint region does not effect robot players.
- The tray
- The tray, below the board, holds each player's current set of tiles.
You can drag the tiles to reposition them as you look for words, and can tap one to select it and
then tap a square on the the board to place it there. When the first
tile is moved from the tray, the points counter appears at the right
end. When additional tiles are gone empty space opens up that you can
tap to move all tiles back to the tray.
- Tile separator
- The tile separator (the tall thin line shown at the left edge
of the tray, black on PPC and red on Palm) can be dragged between any tiles. You can do this to
help you organize your tiles as you think about your move. But it has
a more important role if you're using the hint feature:
when searching the dictionary for a move, the hint robot ignores any tiles to the left of
the separator. So if, for example, you have a blank and don't want it used in your next move,
move it to the left of the separator and you'll only generate hints that don't use the blank.
- Points counter
- This counter, which is not visible unless at least one tile has
been moved from the tray to the board, gives the points that the
currently pending move will earn. If the move is illegal (e.g. includes tiles that aren't in
a straight line) the counter will show question marks.
- The scoreboard
- The scoreboard has one entry for each player in the game. While
there are still tiles in the pool, and each player must have seven
tiles, each player's current score is shown. Once the last tile has been drawn from the pool
the scores change to show the number of tiles the player has left following a colon. Hold the pen on a score for a half second to see the player's name and
a summary of his/her most recent move.
- Rem: counter
- The rem: counter shows the number of tiles left in the pool. Once that number
drops to zero the Rem: counter disappears (and players' scores change to show the number
of tiles they have left).
|
The main Crosswords board
