Picture Puzzle Users Guide
Version 1.2
Copyright 1990, 1991 by
Daniel Linton Jr.
PICTURE PUZZLE is a Shareware product. It is available through
Users
Groups, Bulletin Boards, and from Friends
etc.
You have
the
opportunity to try the program at no charge to see if it meets
your
needs. If you continue to use the program after evaluation,
please
complete the registration form that is on this disk (orderfrm.txt)
and
send it with the registration fee of $15.00 to:
Software Creations
26 Harris St.
Clinton, MA. 01510
You can also register by calling the Software Creations BBS at
(508)
365-2359 with your credit card. When you register, you will get a
copy
of the very latest version of the program and another diskette
filled
with different Puzzles. Your name will also be put into a database
of
registered users so that I can inform you of upgrades and other
new
program releases.
If you have suggestions for this program, please let me know. I can
be
reached in the following places:
Daniel Linton
"Picture Puzzle"
26 Harris St.
Clinton MA. 01510
Software Creations BBS (508) 365-2359
The following (RIME) conferences
SYSOPS - SHAREWARE - GAMES
CompuServe ID: 73230,3254
Shareware will continue to exist only as long as you, the
users, support it. Show us some of the enjoyment we have
brought you - Register !
PICTURE PUZZLE Users Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
What is a Puzzle Program ................................
3
What is Picture Puzzle
.................................
3
Requirements
Minimum Hardware Requirements
..................
Minimum Software Requirements
...................
3
3
Installation Registered Version
........................
4
UnRegistered Version
...................................
4
Mouse ...................................................
4
General Information
5
...................................
Puzzle Formats ..........................................
5
PUZ Files ..........................................
5
PCX Files ..........................................
6
GIF Files ..........................................
6
SAV Files
.........................................
7
Using The Menus
........................................
Loading Puzzles
.......................................
7
7
Saving Puzzles
.........................................
8
Resizing Puzzles
.......................................
9
Picture Recognition
...................................
9
MColors .................................................
10
Grid Options
Grid On/Off ........................................
10
Grid Colors ........................................
11
Grid Crosshair Selector ............................
11
Help Windows
Windowed Help ......................................
12
Full Screen Help ...................................
12
Find A Tile
.......................................
12
Function Keys
..........................................
13
Sound ...................................................
13
Viewing Your Statistics
...............................
14
Command Line Options
...................................
15
Title Screen
..........................................
Puzzle Screen
..........................................
15
16
Support
...............................................
16
Special Thanks
........................................
17
Helpful Hints
18
..........................................
Trademarks & Copyrights .................................
19
What is a Puzzle program ?
Puzzle programs are programs that load a graphics
picture
up
on
your computer screen and then scramble the picture for you to put
back
together.
Using
the
Mouse
or
the
keyboard,
you
will
have
an
assortment of scrambled tiles on your screen
that you must place
back
into
the
correct place to rebuild the Picture. There are currently
a
lot of programs on the
market
today
that
do
this and they are
all
pretty much the same in features, capabilities, and options.
After
looking at some of the features that where missing from all the
other
puzzle type programs I decided to create a puzzle program which
had
them.
What is Picture Puzzle ?
Picture Puzzle is not just another puzzle program. Picture
Puzzle
is different in many ways. Because I did not want the difficulty
of
the puzzle to be dependent on how complex the picture was I thought
it
would be nice to have you be able to select what size and shape
puzzle
you would like. So by using the arrow keys you can adjust the
number
of puzzle pieces from
4
all
the
way to 1400. When you build a
very
large puzzle some pictures will have pieces that are identical
(i.e.
Blue Sky, or Green Grass). Picture Puzzle has the ability to
recognize
this and will finish the puzzle as soon as you have the picture in
a
completed form, even if some of the pieces that are the same happen
to
be mixed. Picture Puzzle also recognizes when you have put a
piece
beside a piece it belongs next to and removes the grid between
them.
This will allow you to see the picture as it is being built.
There
are many many more features in Picture Puzzle so read on, and
enjoy
the program !
Requirements
Minimum Hardware Requirements:
EGA or VGA Color Monitor and Card
MicroSoft Compatible Mouse & Driver
640K Memory
Minimum Software Requirements:
Puzzle.exe
Puzzle.doc
grid.msg
title.msg
cover.pic
orderfrm.txt
larrow.cur
*.puz
(Main Picture Puzzle Program)
(Documentation For Picture Puzzle)
(Message for grid screen)
(Header for Title screen)
(Title Screen Puzzle)
(Registration order form)
(Picture Puzzle Cursor)
(A least 1 Puzzle File)
Picture Puzzle will make use of EMS memory if it finds it
available. It is not required however. The recommended
QEMM driver is QuarterDecks QEMM V5.11 or greater.
Installation
Registered Version
If you have purchased the registered version of
Picture
Puzzle
just
run
the
install program that
comes
on
the
program disk.
UnRegistered Version
To
install
the unregistered version of Picture
Puzzle
you will have a file called
PPuzz12.exe. Take the
following
steps.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Create a Directory Called Puzzle
Copy PPuzz12.exe to this directory
Type PPuzz12.exe
erase PPuzz12.exe
PPuzz12.exe
is
a
self-extracting
file
which
will
uncompress
all
of the files that are needed to run
Picture
Puzzle into this directory
for
you.
When you are
finished
you
can
erase the PPuzz12.exe program. (NOTE:
be
careful
that you erase PPuzz12.exe and NOT Puzzle.exe).
Mouse
The
only
Mouse
that
is
supported
by
Picture
Puzzle is
the
Microsoft Mouse and driver.
Any
Mouse
that
is 100% compatible
will
work, however, you must be using the MicroSoft driver or use a
mouse
driver that is 100% compatible with the MicroSoft Mouse.
Picture
Puzzle does not support the Mouse Systems mouse unless it is using
the
a MicroSoft Mouse driver. Problems with incompatible mouse
drivers
will show up with the cursor being inversed, or the screen
displaying
erratic behavior with the movement of the mouse.
General Information
Picture
Puzzle
was written
by
myself
(Dan
Linton)
and
the
graphics puzzles where drawn by a friend of mine
and
a member of
the
Software Creations BBS, Gary Sirois. The Program was written
using
Turbo C++ from Borland International and the graphics user
interface
was developed using Island Systems graphics-MENU.
Gary's Puzzles can all be recognized by the GLS logo that he
puts
on all his pictures. Gary developed all the puzzles using Deluxe
Paint
II and Deluxe Paint II Enhanced. The digitized pictures that
you
receive with more of Gary's Puzzles on the registered copy where
done
using my RCA video camera and the Computer Eyes Video Capture
board
from Digital Vision. These pictures where photographs that were
either
taken by Gary or my wife Ranele Linton.
Puzzle Formats
Picture Puzzle can load several types of Picture formats.
There
are four of them all together. (.PUZ .PCX .GIF .SAV). Currently
the
program only supports one resolution picture and that is
640x350x16.
That means any pictures that are 640 pixels wide by 350 pixels
high
with 16 colors, and are in one of the above formats, can be loaded
and
used by Picture Puzzle. In a later release to registered users I
will
incorporate VGA ability (320x200x256) and SuperVGA
(640x480x256,
800x600x256, and 1024x768x256). So be sure and get on the
registered
list !
PUZ Files
Filenames that end with
the suffix .PUZ are puzzles that
are
stored
in
Picture Puzzle's own format. These
files
have
more
information
in
them
than a standard PCX or GIF file would
have
and allow you to rescale
the picture into a small help window
in
the corner of the working puzzle screen. This
allows
you to
see
the
complete
picture
as well as what you are working on at
the
same time.
Kind of like
looking
at
the
picture on the
puzzle
box. You
will find that the PUZ files tend to be
a
bit
larger
than
the
standard
PCX
and
GIF
type
files
due to the
added
information.
These PUZ files are only
You
created
at Software Creations.
can
find
the
latest
ones on the Software
Creations
BBS
for
download. Or
write to us for the full list of available PUZ
file
libraries.
PCX Files (tm)
This is the most common
of
formats and was created by
Zsoft
corporation
for
use
with
their PC Paintbrush
program.
This
format
is
in
wide
use
today among many programs and is
also
supported by Picture Puzzle.
There
are at least 6 different
PCX
formats in use and there may be more. Picture Puzzle handles
most
of
these
and
will
recognize
the
format it needs to use
when
loading the picture. As
with
the
other
file
formats
Picture
Puzzle will check the resolution of the picture you are trying
to
load
to insure that it is one of the formats supported before
it
loads it.
GIF Files (tm)
This format pronounced
"JIF"
is
copyrighted
by
Compuserve
corporation
Of
and stands for the Graphics Interchange
Format.
all
the formats here this tends to take the least disk space
due
to a compression technique
known
as the LZW algorithm and
named
after
the people who developed it. Picture Puzzle
does
support
the
loading of GIF files, however, you must have another
program
in order to use it.
This
program
is
called
VPIC.exe
and
is
distributed as another shareware product by Bob
Montgomery.
VPIC
is
not
distributed
with
the Picture Puzzle program but can
be
downloaded
from
most
BBS
systems,
Compuserve
and
Software
Creations BBS. The minimum version should be Ver 2.1A. If
Picture
Puzzle
does not find a copy of Vpic.exe in the CURRENT
DIRECTORY
when you try to load a
GIF picture, then Picture Puzzle will
not
attempt to load the picture and will give you
a
warning that
it
could not find the vpic program.
As of this writing the latest version of the VPIC.exe
program
can
be
found
in
a file
called
vpic40.zip
on
the
Software
Creations BBS. You can register and obtain the
latest
from
the author Bob Montgomery at the following address:
Bob Montgomery
543 Via Fontana #203
Altamonte Springs, FL 32714-3172
copy
SAV Files
Because
Picture
Puzzle
has the ability to save the
puzzles
you are currently working
on
it
made sense to create a
special
format for saved puzzles. Not only can you
tell
that
it
is
a
saved
puzzle but it allowed us to save just the information
that
is required to put you back where you left off, instead of
saving
the whole picture again.
This provides us with a tremendous
disk
space savings. Puzzles that take almost 100k of disk space can
be
saved in as little as 2.2k
of
space. Because we are saving
just
the changes and not the picture, SAV files do
require
that
you
have
the
original picture still on the disk when you go to
save
it. So if you loaded a puzzle
called pooch.puz and then saved
it
as pooch.sav, when you go to load pooch.sav up
at
a later
time,
Picture
Puzzle
will still have to find pooch.puz on the disk
to
get the picture information that it did not save.
Using the Menus
There are three different ways of using the Menus in
Picture
Puzzle. You can select menu items with the Mouse by pointing at
the
item you would like. This will cause the item to either be selected
or
inversed depending on the function being accessed. You can also
use
the keyboard to select items in one of two ways.
Either using
Hot
Keys (Items which have the first letter of the name highlight) or
by
using the arrow keys to move a highlighted cursor bar over to the
item
you would like selected and hitting the enter key to select it.
Loading Puzzles
To load a Puzzle you must first select Load/Save on the Menu
Bar.
When this window drops down you will be presented with three
options,
Load Puzzle, Save Puzzle, View Stats. Select Load Puzzle on
the
vertical menu either with the mouse or the keyboard. Loading a
puzzle
takes two steps, you must first give it the path you want to load
from
(The default is your current directory), and then the filename
you
would like to load. This can all be done using the Mouse or
the
Keyboard.
A window
will
pop
up on the screen that asks you to enter
your
filespec. What is a filespec? Well
what
the
program
is looking
for
here is the path you want to load the puzzle from and any
wildcards
you may want to use in locating the puzzles names.
will
automatically put a default filespec in of "*.puz".
This means that you want
It
to see all the files that end in .puz
in
the current directory. If you put A:\*.pcx, you
would get on the
.pcx
files
on
drive
A:.
Picture
Puzzle supports the DOS convention
for
wildcards. (I.E. " *.*" means all files, "?an.*" this means ignore
the
first letter and the suffix). To find out more
wildcarding
refer to the a good DOS book.
If
about
DOS
the filespec entered cannot locate any files then you will
be
returned to the main menu. If it does locate the files, another
window
will pop up with the filename in it. This window is the file
window
and has three buttons located on it at the bottom. These are
Move,
Esc, and Enter.
Move - Will allow you
the
to
move
the
file
window
around on
screen while the left mouse button is being held down. The box
around the window will move until the button is released and then
the
rest of the contents will be drawn.
Esc - This will Escape you out to the main menu without
selecting
anything in the file selection window.
Enter - Enter is the same as hitting the return
key. If you
have
selected any of the files with the keyboard and it is highlighted
then
the enter key will cause this selection to be accepted.
If a filename is selected which is not supported by the
Picture
Puzzle Program then a window will pop up letting you know that
this
file is the wrong file type. You will then be brought back to
the
filespec window with your previous filespec still in tack. At
this
point, you can either change your filespec or select it
again.
(Hopefully this time selecting a different file.) Note: This type
of
problem would only occur if you were use a wildcard specification
that
allowed you to see none supported Picture Puzzle files, like *.*.
Saving Puzzles
Saving a Puzzle that you have been working on
is
very
easy
and
quick.
Because
Picture
Puzzle only saves the changes that have
been
made to the puzzle and
not
the
whole
picture
again
it takes
very
little disk space and is fast. To save the puzzle, just
select
Load/Save on the Menu Bar. When the vertical menu drops down
select
Save Puzzle. Picture Puzzle will pop up a window and try to guess
what
name you would like to save the puzzle to. If you had loaded a
Puzzle
called pooch.puz and then tried to save it, Picture Puzzle would
ask
you if you would like to save it as Pooch.sav. You can at this
point,
type in a different name or accept the one Picture Puzzle
selected.
All
Puzzles
that get saved will be saved as .sav files.
Even if
you
type in a different name the program will make sure it ends with
.sav.
Once you have chosen
a
filename
and
accepted
it,
either
by
hitting the enter key or hitting the left mouse
button
in
the
file
window, Picture Puzzle will check to see if that file already
exists.
If there is already a file by that name then a Yes/No window will
pop
up asking you if you would like to overwrite the file that is
already
there. Selecting Yes will write the current puzzle over that file
and
anything that was in the file previous to this will be lost! If
you
select No then Picture Puzzle will pop the filespec window back up
and
ask you for another path or name to save the Puzzle to.
Once
you have loaded up a Puzzle, the program will keep track
of
whether or not you have made any changes to the screen. If you
have,
and you try and quit out of the program or if you try to Select
a
different Puzzle Size, the program will ask if you would like to
save
the Puzzle first. Otherwise, if you select No, then all the
changes
made up to that point will be lost.
Resizing A Puzzle
This is one of the best features in Picture Puzzle.
You can
make
the Puzzle any size and shape you want by selecting Resize Grid on
the
Grid Options Menu. This
can
also
be
done after the Puzzle has
been
loaded,
but this is like starting over because
the
Puzzle
will
be
re-scrambled
from
scratch. If the program detects that you have
made
some moves and you are
attempting
to resize the Puzzle then you
will
be asked if you want to save the current Puzzle.
Once you have selected this Option the screen will be cleared
and
white Grid on a Blue background will appear. The grid will be the
size
of the current Puzzle
you
are
working
on or the default size if
no
Puzzle has been loaded. You must now use your arrow keys to change
the
size of the Puzzle pieces. The Left and Right arrow keys will
create
more or less pieces across the screen while the Up and Down arrow
keys
will create more or less pieces from the top to the bottom of
the
screen.
Once
you
have
selected
the
size Puzzle you want, just hit
the
enter key to accept the
current
grid. If you have done this from
the
title screen and there is no Puzzle loaded then
you will be asked
for
a filespec
and
name
so
the
program
can
load the Puzzle.
If
you
selected this option while
a
Puzzle
was
already
loaded,
then
the
current Puzzle will be loaded to the new grid size.
Picture Recognition
Another feature that is unique to Picture Puzzle is its
ability
to tell when you have the Puzzle done. Because you can resize
the
Puzzle to any size you want, and because you can load any .PCX
and
.GIF files that are around (As long as they have the
correct
resolution), you could end up creating a Puzzle that has tons of
tiles
that are all the same colors. For instance, what if you have put
all
the pieces together that are different and have only blue sky
tiles
left or lots of green grass tiles left. Well, Picture Puzzle can
tell
that these tiles are not in the correct place, but the pieces that
go
there are the same, so it will consider the Puzzle finished.
The
program will only do this for pieces that are identical, and we
do
mean identical. If the piece that belongs there and the current
piece
have only one dot that is different, Picture Puzzle will consider
them
as NOT being the same.
MColors
MColors
is going to need some explaining. Picture Puzzle has
the
unique ability to be able
to
have
the Menu Bar pop up while you
are
working on the Puzzle. This makes it really easy to select things
from
the
Puzzle.
Menu
Bar
with
the
Mouse while you are working on your
Picture Puzzle also lets you load any Puzzles with any
colors
whatsoever. Because each picture that is loaded can change the
color
palettes the Menu Bar uses, you could load a picture which uses
colors
that make it very hard to see the Menu Bars text, if at all. So
by
selecting Mcolors you can cycle the Menu Bars colors through
the
current Palette until you find colors that are to your liking.
These
colors will also be saved with the Puzzle if you save it to work on
at
a later time.
MColors can be selected in several ways. The
first
is
just
to
point to the Label MColors on the Menu Bar and click the left
Mouse
Button. Each time you click on the MColors label you will cycle
the
menu colors to the next set on the palette. This can also be
achieved
by using the M key on the Keyboard. Each time the M key is typed
the
colors will also change.
That is because M is the HOT KEY for
this
selection on the Menu Bar. The third and final method for
selection
would be to use the arrow keys to move the highlighted selector on
the
Menu Bar to the MColors Label.
Just passing over this label
will
cause it to change, so care should be taken not to pass through
this
selection unless you want to change your menu colors. You can
quickly
cycle through the possible menu colors by using the right and
left
arrow keys to toggle back and forth over this selection.
Grid Options
Grid On/Off
You
while
may
not
like using the grid in Picture
Puzzle
working
on
building your picture. If this is the case, then
you
can shut it off by selecting "Grid Off" on the Grid Options
menu.
You may also want to just turn it off to help you locate a
puzzle
piece
that was harder to find with the grid covering some of
the
pattern. In either case you can
turn the Puzzles grid on and
off
as you like.
If
you do not want to go to the bother of bringing
up
the
Menu
Bar
and selecting On or Off under Grid Options you can
use
the F8 Function key to turn the Grid On and Off.
Grid Colors
Because different graphics
Pictures
use different
palettes
from which their colors are chosen, it is hard
to tell what
grid
colors
will
be
best
for that picture. You can change the
grid
color to something that
would
be
easier on your eyes and
suits
you better. Use the Grid Options Menu and select
"Colors".
Once
you
have chosen this selection, each time you hit the left
Mouse
Button or type a key on the keyboard (other than the return
key),
the
Grid
color
will
cycle to the next color
in
the
current
palette. Once
you
have
a
color
that you are happy with,
just
click on the right mouse
button
or
hit
the return key to
keep
that grid color, and go back to working on the Puzzle.
If
you
do not want to go to the bother of bringing
up
the
Menu Bar and selecting colors from the grid menu you can just
use
the F7 function key to cycle to the grid color you like.
Grid CrossHair
Each time you select a
tile
on
the
Puzzle Screen with
the
Mouse,
the tile you have selected is indicated
by
a
crosshair
that
pops
up in that tile. If the piece you have selected is
in
the correct place then
the
tile
is
considered
locked and
the
program will not let you select it. So if you
select
a tile
and
do
not
get
the crosshair on it, that means you are not able
to
move that piece and must select another.
This can also happen
if
you have picked up a piece and are trying to
drop
it on a
piece
that
is
in the correct place. The program will not let you
drop
your tile on a piece that
is
in
the correct location. You
will
then have to select a different place to drop the tile.
If you have selected a tile, indicated by the
crosshair
being
present
on
that piece, and you decide that is not the piece
you
want to move, just click
on
that
piece again and the
crosshair
will disappear indicating that the piece has
been dropped.
There
is
no
penalty for doing this and stats screen will not
indicate
that a move has been made.
The Crosshair can also
be
made any color you like by
hitting
the F9 Function Key. Understand though that you
can
only
change
the
color of the Crosshair while it is visible, so you must
have
a tile selected to change
it.
This crosshair color will also
be
saved with the Puzzle if it is stored for later use.
Help Windows
There are two different modes of help in the program. This
makes
for a wide variety of ways in which you can figure out how to get
that
Puzzle built. One of these modes however, Windowed Help, can only
be
used with PUZ files because of the information those files have
that
allow you to use that mode.
Windowed Help
This mode, when selected, will scale the Puzzle into a
window
in one of the four corners of the Puzzle screen. It allows you
to
see the complete picture of the Puzzle while
you
are looking
at
the screen you are working on. The window will be one quarter
the
size of the full screen
and
when it opens it will locate
itself
in the opposite corner from which you are working. It can tell
by
the
last move you made where it should relocate itself.
Windowed
help can also be selected
with
the F1 function key while on
the
Puzzle screen, but not the title screen. Windowed help only
works
with Puz files.
Full Screen Help
The full screen help I call Cheat Mode. This is really a
give
away. The entire Puzzle screen will be redrawn with all the
tiles
in their correct place so that you can see where
they
go.
This
mode
I would suggest you use on only those real tough pieces.
To
use this mode just select
Help
on
the
Menu
Bar (While on
the
Puzzle Screen, NOT the Title Screen) and select Full Screen
Help.
Once
the
screen
has
been redrawn, just hit any key or a
mouse
button to continue. You
can
also
select
the
Full Screen
Help
using the F2 Function Key.
Finding A Tile
On some of the really big Puzzles it can be very hard
finding
a certain tile. Well, there is a way you can get help finding
it,
but it will cost you! If you select a tile and then hit the
SHIFT
F1, the tile that belongs where the tile you
have
selected
is,
will
be
moved
there.
You
will
hear two double beeps in
the
speaker and it will be
counted as an incorrect move. (After
all,
we can't let you have credit for that one!).
There is of course another variation to this. You can select
a
tile and hit ALT F1, and that will put the tile you have
selected
where it belongs. Again
you will get the double beep and
receive
NO credit for finding that tile. This can be
a
little
confusing
but once you get the hang of it, it is a very helpful feature
for
those tough ones. Just
remember,
once
you have selected a
tile
(the crosshair is on the tile), you are either going to move
that
tile where it belongs or move the tile that belongs there to
that
spot.
Function Keys
The function keys can be
used
in place of the menus or hot
keys
while working on the Puzzle. They allow you to select things a
little
faster than if you have to pop up the menu, scroll to that
function
and then select it. Not everything can be selected from the
function
keys, just options that would be used while in a Puzzle.
The function keys CANNOT be used while the Menu
Bars
are on
the
screen, simply because they have their own Hot Keys used to
select
items on the menu faster. (The first letter of each word on the
Menus
is highlighted for this purpose). The Function Keys for Picture
Puzzle
have the following definitions.
F1
F3
F5
F7
F9
-
Windowed Help
Sound Off/On
Save Picture
Grid Color
Crosshair Color
ALT F1 - Find Tile
F2 - Full Screen Help
F4 - Load Picture
F6 - Stats Window
F8 - Grid On/Off
F10 - Quit
SHIFT F1 - Place Tile
Sound
Sound in Picture Puzzle can be disabled or enabled. There will
be
one low beep that lets you know that you have disabled the sound.
When
the
the
sound
is
enabled
you
will get various
tones
throughout
building of a Puzzle. These tones will become more familiar as you
use
the program.
Scramble
Scrambling will sound just
like
scrambling.
For every
tile
that is being placed on the screen a random sound
will be
heard.
No matter how big or small the Puzzle or the pieces, the range
of
the sound will be adjusted.
Load
During a load you will
again get a sound for every tile
that
is being placed on the screen. This time however,
the tones
will
be incremented up the scale as the pieces are being saved.
Tile Correct
This
is a very distinctive sound that starts low and goes
to
a higher frequency very quickly to let you
have placed that tile in the correct place.
know
that you
Tile Locked
This is a very quick double click to let you
know
that
this
piece
cannot
be
picked up or moved by placing another piece
on
the
top
of it. You will
also
know
from
the
fact
that
the
crosshair will be visible in a tile that is in
the
proper
place
(Locked).
Tile Moved
This
is
a
single
click that lets you know the pieces
have
been moved or swapped
but
the
tile
that you picked up was
NOT
placed in the correct position. If the tile that
out
is
swapped
with the tile you selected lands in the proper place you will
not
get the Tile Correct
sound
because
it
was
not
the
tile
you
selected. It was just moved by the one you selected, and
happened
to move in the correct spot.
Find A Tile
Both
the
ALT F1 and the SHIFT F1 have a distinct sound.
It
is a double beep that
is
quickly
evident.
If you are going
to
cheat we might as well tell the world !
Viewing Your Stats
The stats screen is a real handy thing to have and can be
popped
up on the screen at any time, even before you load a Puzzle.
This
screen will always let you know where you are in the Building of
your
Puzzle. You get to the stats screen by selecting the Load/Save item
on
the Menu Bar at the top of the screen. You may have to use the
right
mouse button or the ESC key to pop the Menu Bar up. At the Bottom
of
the Load/Save vertical menu you will see View Stats (Sorry it was
an
afterthought!). When
the window comes up it will indicate
the
following statistics:
Puzzle Size:
The Puzzle size is the number of pieces across as well as
the
number of pieces down. The default grid size is 16 x 7 which
will
give you 16 pieces across the Puzzle and 7 down.
That is a
total
of 112 pieces. You can have a Puzzle that is as small as 2 x 2
or
as large as 40 x 35 which would give you a 1400 piece Puzzle.
Number of Pieces:
This will show you how many pieces are in your
The
Puzzle.
default
size
is
112 pieces. The grid can be adjusted to have
a
minimum of a 4 piece puzzle or a maximum of a 1400 piece
puzzle.
Moves to Finish:
Indicates how many pieces are in the wrong place, which
tells
you how many moves it would take to finish. This,
of course,
can
be beat because you could put a piece in the correct location
and
may bump the piece that was there into its correct spot also.
Total Moves:
This is the total number of moves you have made on the
Puzzle
so far, including both Correct and In-Correct
moves. If you
pick
a piece
up
however, and drop it in the same place you picked
it
up, it is NOT considered a move.
Correct Moves:
Indicates how many pieces you have picked up and then
dropped in the correct place.
Incorrect Moves:
Indicates how many pieces you have picked up and then
dropped in the wrong place.
Most times a single piece was moved:
Keep your eye on this
statistic
as
it
may
surprise you
!
This will keep track of how many times you have
moved any
single
piece. The
program
will keep track of how many times each
piece
has been moved.
It then
uses
the
value for the piece that
was
moved the most. This does not indicate how many times a piece
has
been
moved
in a row, it indicates the most times a single
piece
has been moved.
Number of times the help screen was used:
This will track the number
of
times
that you have used
the
help function. Whether you use Windowed Help
or
the Full
Screen
help,
it
will be counted. It will not however, count the
number
of times you use the SHIFT F1 or the ALT F1 (Find A Tile).
Number of times the Puzzle was saved:
This indicates how many
times you have saved the Puzzle.
It
is helpful when you work on the really large
Puzzles and want
to
know how many times you have come back to it.
Command Line Options
Picture
Puzzle
allows
you
to
select your Puzzle right on
the
command line if you prefer.
Just type the name of the Puzzle you
want
right after you type Puzzle to start the program.
Picture Puzzle
will
however,
bring
up
the
title screen first and then when you hit
the
return key it will proceed to load your Puzzle. The only limitation
is
that
it
will
be
the
default grid that is
used
unless
you
have
specified
a
.SAV
Puzzle
which
will load whatever grid size it
was
saved with. All formats
will work in this manner, but be sure to
give
a valid Puzzle filename or the program will just exit when it
finds
out that it cannot load the Puzzle. The following are a couple
of
examples for loading a Puzzle from the commandline.
Puzzle pooch.puz
Puzzle hplane.gif
Title Screen
- Load the Pooch.Puz Puzzle
- Load the HydroPlane Puzzle
The title screen is the first screen you will see when you
start
up Picture Puzzle. It will come up whether you have specified a
Puzzle
on the command line or not.
You
will
see the title box for Picture Puzzle at the top of
the
screen and then a window will pop up below the title box with a
scaled
down version of one of the Puzzles in it. The Puzzle will sit
there
and scramble itself randomly into all different sizes until you
hit
the return key to move on. REMEMBER however, once you do hit
the
return key, give the Puzzle a chance to finish scrambling the
screen
that it is on !
Next,
if
you
have
an
unregistered
copy
of Picture Puzzle
a
window, will pop up with
all
the
registration
information
in
it.
Along with this window, at the top of the screen
will
be
a Menu
Bar
that
will
allow
you
to
select
where to go from here. A couple
of
things are different on the title screen Menu Bar than on the
Puzzle
Screen Menu Bar. Those are the Info and Help Selections.
The
Info
Selection drops down a menu that has all kinds of information
screens
about how Picture Puzzle was written, by whom it was developed, how
to
register, how Picture Puzzle is supported, and a special
thanks
section. This same information is provided later in this manual
in
more detail. The Help selection drops a window down that will
allow
you to select help on most any features and modes in the
Picture
Puzzle program. This is the Online help section. If you have not
read
all of the sections in this manual, or just need a refresher on a
few
things, that is the place to look.
Puzzle Screen
The Puzzle screen is used after a Puzzle has been loaded into
the
system
and
is
ready to be worked on. Like the title screen, you
can
pop up the Menu Bar and
select items with the mouse just like you
did
on the title screen. However, two of the selections
on
the
Menu
Bar
are
different
when
you
are
located
on the Puzzle screen.
On
the
Puzzle screen's Menu Bar
"Info"
has been changed to MColors (See
the
MColors section) and the "Help" selection still says help, but
instead
of dropping a vertical menu down that has parts of the manual in
it,
it now is used for getting the Windowed or Full screen help.
Once you are on the Puzzle
screen
the Menu Bar can be popped
up
by clicking on the Right Mouse Button. Once
up,
a
selection
can
be
made or you can just point to pieces of the puzzle and start
moving
them. The Menu Bar will know when it is supposed to go away. If
you
click on the Menu Bar in a place that does not select any of
the
labels, the Menu Bar will disappear and the tile underneath will
be
selected. If you find that this was not what you intended to do
just
click on the selected tile again and the move will be cancelled.
Support
Software Creations BBS is the 24 hour, 7 day a week,
support
board for Picture Puzzle. Picture Puzzle can however, be found
on
other quality BBS systems such as Xevious and Channel 1.
Software
Creations carries more than 50 conferences, echo mail from all
over
the world, a Games Gallery with Online MultiPlayer games, and
Online
Order Door, and over 1 Gigabyte of great programs for download
and evaluation. For access to the Software Creations BBS use one
of
the following access lines:
(508) 365-2359 - USR HST 9600/14.4k
(508) 365-9668 - USR Dual Standard 9600/14.4k
(508) 365-9669 - 2400 MNP 5
Special Thanks
You can't write a program like Picture Puzzle without having
some
people to thank. Without these people this program would have
either
taken a lot longer or not existed at all. They are as follows:
Gary Sirois
(Pooch, Ski, Hplane, Swan, Lemond, etc, etc)
Gary has done more than a fantastic job on all
of the
Puzzle
Pictures. This
allowed
me to release Picture Puzzle to you
with
all of our own original Pictures. Gary drew these Pictures all
by
hand using Deluxe Paint II and Deluxe Paint II
Enhanced.
If
you
have
an
interest
in using some of Gary's Graphics or his
color
clipart collection, he
can
be
found
on the Software
Creations
BBS. Gary has also created several disks full of great Puzzles.
Nels Anderson
I can't
(Mah Jongg, Shooting Gallery, SuperFly, etc)
count
the
times
Nels
has
given
me
advice
and
encouragement.
In
writing
Shareware,
and with my own
Software
Creations BBS. Without
Nels
Software
Creations
would not
have
been where it is today. Nels is the Sysop of XEVIOUS, the
support
board
for his and Dick Olsen's software products. They have
been
producing quality software
now
for several years and
supporting
the
shareware
industry. You can try their programs
by
calling
Xevious
at
(508)
875-3618.
Or
get
them
from
the
Software
Creations BBS.
Dick Olsen
(BassTour, Tikler, etc)
Along with Nels, Dick gave
me
many tips, hints and
pointers
on putting out good Shareware. Dick's programs
are
of very
high
standards
and
are
among the first programs you should look
for
when trying to find quality software for your enjoyment.
Samatha Anderson
Samatha is the daughter
to
a very close friend of mine.
He
mentioned to me one day that she really liked
playing
with
the
mouse
on
his computer but didn't really have anything she
could
use it with that would
be
simple
for
her.
Thats
how
Picture
Puzzle got started.
Nels
!)
Helpful Hints
Thank-You Sammi ! (Note: No Relation to
What are valid paths ?
Here are some examples:
C:\PPuzzle\Puzzles\*.puz
Finds
all
the
puz files in the directory Puzzles from the
root
directory on drive C.
If you are already in the
directory
PPuzzles
you can just
type
\Puzzles\*.puz and it will find them also.
*.gif will locate all the gif files in the current
directory.
Resizing the Puzzle :
If
you
have
loaded
and already scrambled the
Puzzle
but
decided that you did not want that size, you can still change
it.
Before you make any moves
just
reselect
the Resize Grid
Option
again, select another size grid and reload the
puzzle.
This
can
be
done
as
many
times
as you want. It's better to reload
and
resize before you move any pieces on the screen, because you
will
just
loose those moves anyway unless you save
them
as
another
Puzzle.
Sometimes the grid can hide things
You may notice while you are building a Puzzle that you
think
the picture is all done
and
the tiles that are left are all
the
same. If the grid did not remove itself from the screen
then
the
Puzzle
is
not
complete
yet.
There
are still pieces that
are
different.
The difference may be hidden under the grid.
You
can
select
the grid OFF option and look at the
tiles
again.
This
will clearly indicate which of the pieces are different.
Trademarks & Copyrights
PUZ files are developed by
Dan Linton for Picture Puzzles
PCX files & PC Paintbrush are
developments of ZSoft corporation.
GIF and 'Graphics Interchange Format' are trademarks of
CompuServe, Incorporated.
an H&R Block Company
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines.
Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
Turbo C++ is a registered trademark of Borland International, Inc.
Graphics-Menu (tm) is a trademark of Island Systems.