~ Arctan Computer Ventures'  WordPuzzle Pro ~

Autofilling the Puzzle Grid

However, there are times where you may wish the computer to take the legwork out of fitting words into a grid. In this case, you may wish to try the AutoFill facility, which takes a shot at trying to fill the remaining spaces on a crossword grid by taking words at random from the dictionary.

There are a number of options available in this process to enable you to state preferences on how words should be filled, and what they should be filled with.

You can either attempt to fill a complete puzzle - for example by opening a template, and using the AutoFill facility, or alternatively partly complete a puzzle, and have the computer attempt filling in the remaining space. In this case, it is worth saving your work before you start using this facility, in case you wish to revert back to the state you left it in.

It is important that you have opened a word list file prior to use this facility, as it draws its words from the currently active word list. The supplied templates are all automatically linked to the full 113,000-word strong word-list, so opening one of these templates will implicitly open the full word list.

The AutoFill facility is fairly new, and as such is in its early stages of development. Future versions will introduce a more systematic approach to filling the squares. The user will be able to use this approach in conjunction with, or instead of the current method of working.

 

Sections	Basic Process Clear Grid Filling remaining spaces with outs Fill remaining spaces with random letters Step-by-Step viewing Update Frequency Alternating Vowels and consonants Allow duplicate words Long Word Bias Letter Weighting Fall-back timers
Basic Process	To view the AutoFill screen, click on the Grid menu, and choose the AutoFill... menu option. You will see a simplified representation of the grid, showing only letters, spaces, outs, and bars. If you do not want to customize how the computer is to perform its filling, click on the Start button, and the computer will commence its attempts at filling the blank spaces on the puzzle. To stop the process again, click the Stop key, and the computer's best attempt so far will be shown on the grid. To reset the grid back to its previous state to try again, click on the Reset button. Note that if the computer manages to successfully fill all spaces on the grid, the process will automatically stop and show the filled crossword. If you are happy to use the new version of the grid, click on the Copy to Grid... button. If you do not like the results that have been produced and wish to quit Autofill without changing your puzzle, just click on the Close button.
Clear Grid	If you really are getting fed up, and you want to clear ALL letters from the grid - even those that you may have put in yourself BEFORE starting the AutoFill facility, you can click on the Clear Grid button. This will leave only the pattern of outs and bars (if applicable).
Filling remaining spaces with outs	If you find that the results are acceptable, but that not all spaces have been filled, you may wish to fill the remaining spaces with outs. You can do this automatically by clicking on the Options tab at the top of the screen, look in the Actions section at the top of the screen, and click on the Out Fill button.
Fill remaining spaces with random letters	With some puzzles, you may wish to hide the words amongst other (random) letters. To fill all empty spaces with letters, click on the Random Letter Fill button.
Step-by-Step viewing	If you wish to see how the computer is filling the grid step-by-step, then click on the Iterate check-box to check it. Now each click of the Start button shows a single step that the computer is taking in its AutoFill process. If the computer cannot fill a word space, it will attempt to remove an adjoining clue or clues in order to increase the likelihood of finding a word for the square the next time around. It will only remove an adjoining clue if it has been inserted during the current AutoFill process, leaving any existing words you may have put in in place.
Update Frequency	Note that it takes time for the computer to update the display to show you its current working state. You can increase or decrease the number of seconds between each screen update. In general, the slower your computer, or the more complex the puzzle is to solve, the higher you should set this value. Every 10 seconds is not unreasonable. Fill the required value into the Update Frequency text box, or use the up and down arrows to increase or decrease the number of seconds in 1 second intervals.
Alternating Vowels and consonants	There are a number of ways you can influence or 'tweak' how the computer performs its search. The options are all available by clicking on the Options tab at the top of the screen. Click on the Pref to Alternating Cons/Vowel to make the computer try to find a word with alternating consonants and vowels before attempting to find any other word. This type of word is easier for those solving your puzzle to work through, and can sometimes make it easier for the computer to fill in all the spaces. Alternating consonants and vowels means an A/E/I/O/U followed by any other letter, repeated until the end of the word - some example words might be: ADAM, REPEL, AT, UNIVERSE etc.
Allow duplicate words	AutoFill will normally automatically prevent duplicate words being placed in a puzzle. To turn duplicate word prevention off, you will need to disable the appropriate Puzzle Property. Do this by clicking on the Puzzle menu, choosing the Properties... option, clicking on the Other tab, and clicking on the Check for duplicate words on refresh check-box to ensure it has the check taken out of it. This is the same option that controls the automatic checking for duplicate words when a puzzle is constructed manually.
Long Word Bias	Choose a long word bias if you wish to increase the likelihood that a longer word is filled before a shorter word. The higher the bias, the more likely a longer word will be filled first. A bias of 50 gives all words roughly the same chance. A bias less than 50 means that a shorter word is more likely to be filled first. In general, filling larger words first can give the fill process a good head start. You can always turn the process off half-way through the fill process if you think that it is no longer fulfilling its purpose. After choosing your bias value (1 to 99 - about 70 is right normally), you should ensure that the check next to the Long Word Bias heading is checked.
Letter Weighting	You can also put weighting on different letters of the alphabet to increase or decrease the likelihood that the letters will be used in a word. For example, you might not be too keen on using words with an X or Q in, in which case you could give all other letters a large bias, and these two a small bias. To customize the letter biases, click on the Letter Biases button. You will see the Letters tab of the Puzzle Properties dialog box. You can set all  letters' bias to 1 (maximum - 100% chance of being noticed by the search engine) by clicking on the Max  Bias button.  Alternatively, you can start by setting all  letters' bias to 0 (minimum - NO chance of being noticed by the search engine) by clicking on the Min Bias button. Otherwise, just click on the Bias column next to the appropriate letter, and type in the new value for that letter's bias. The value can be any decimal number between 0 and 1 - e.g .0.5 would give a 50% chance of the letter being noticed. In order to enable the use of Letter Biases, which does slow down the search process somewhat, ensure the AutoFill with Biases check-box is checked. You can base the likelihood of a letter being used on a plain text file if you wish. Click on the Letter probs from file... button and select the text file you wish to scan. The computer will count the number of times each letter is used within the document, and automatically fill in the biases according to the probability that each letter in the document will be that letter. If you wish, you can click on the Ave with current values option to average these bias values with the values already held against each letter (assuming that average is not zero, in which case the new value is taken). I'll be honest, going to this level of detail on a regular basis implies you should seek psychiatric attention ASAP. Click on the OK button to accept the changes and exit the screen back to the AutoFill screen. Note,  there is really no need to use the Apply button in this context.
Fall-back timers	The AutoFill facility works by taking random samples of words (the randomness can be 'tweaked' using the various facilities described above) and trying to change the grid to get as many words as possible to fit in. Sometimes, the computer gets stuck in a rut trying to 'bang away' at a certain combination of words. There are three options you can do to alter how the computer approaches this. All are found under the Fall-back section under the Options tab:- Reset to best option - this is the number of seconds in time to continue trying to find a best fit before going back to the last 'best fit' and trying more combinations from this point - typically set this to about 5 seconds or so. Rest to blank option - this is the number of seconds in time to continue trying to find a best fit before going back to the original grid you started with. You would normally set this to a much higher value than the Reset to best option, as you would want to retry that a few times first before resorting back to your original (possibly blank) grid - typically set this to 30 seconds or over (depending on how long you are willing to allow the process to run) Max Recursion option - If no words fit into a space, the computer will try clearing one or more connecting words in order to allow another word to fit in. It will also try to find a different word to fit the adjoining word, and if it cannot find one that fits will recurse to other adjoining words. To set the level of recursion, set this option. A reasonable number is about 5, but surprisingly, setting this lower often helps, as it causes less destruction of previously fitting words.

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This Page was last updated: 06 July 2001 23:37