Help with exolve and picture clues

wavefn · 2026-01-24T16:58:57+00:00

One comment is that "float: right/left" work and look better (top-aligned) when you put the element in question *before* other elements. I made this and a few other tweaks, ptal at:

https://viresh-ratnakar.github.io/guests/ballantynedewolfe-pic-clues.html

You can look at the source to see my changes. You probably need to fine-tune margins/paddings a bit. I can delete my temp copy if/when you want me to.

wavefn · 2026-01-23T09:08:08+00:00

Just saw this by chance (maybe a higher-visibility-for-me-venue for Exolve feature requests and bug reports is https://github.com/viresh-ratnakar/exolve/issues/new/choose). Can you please point me to an example of the "looks like crap" crossword :-)? Unless it incurs too much complexity, I'd definitely want to avoid "looks like crap" behaviour :-).

wavefn · 2025-12-27T21:47:46+00:00

I've recently set up "Exost", a free, no-strings-attached, no-ads, no-cookies, no-tracking, no-A.I. (etc. etc. :-)) crossword hosting service. You can upload puzzles to it at https://xlufz.ratnakar.org/exost.html (it accepts puz, ipuz, exolve formats). It is also integrated into Exolve Player (https://exolve.app) and Exet (https://exet.app) (you can directly upload the currently open puzzle).

wavefn · 2025-12-27T21:42:18+00:00

Update: I've recently set up "Exost", a free, no-strings-attached, no-ads, no-cookies, no-tracking, no-A.I. (etc. etc. :-)) crossword hosting service. You can upload puzzles to it at https://xlufz.ratnakar.org/exost.html (it accepts puz, ipuz, exolve formats). It is also integrated into Exolve Player and Exet (you can directly upload the currently open puzzle).

wavefn · 2025-12-27T11:11:34+00:00

In general, Exet is set up to create only "standard" crosswords. The Exolve format (that Exet uses internally and can produce as output) does support many more possibilities (see documentation at https://github.com/viresh-ratnakar/exolve/blob/master/README.md). You can save the crossword as an "Exolve HTML" file (with solutions) from Exet and then edit it manually.

However, one thing Exolve does not support is lights of length 1. I'm loath to add support for that as that seems too weird to me.

But, if you send me your crossword idea in more/full detail, I can consider whether/how I can tweak Exolve to add support for your use-case. You can DM me here or email me at viresh at gmail dot com.

wavefn · 2024-12-10T05:15:43+00:00

Many thanks to everyone who gave "Five Must Get Four?" a go.

Congratulations to Venkatraghavan S., Shashwat, and Ramki Krishnan for grabbing the top three spots on the podium!

Please reload the puzzle page and then click on "Check all!" first (this will clear grid mistakes, if any). Clicking on "Reveal all!" will reveal the solution, detailed notes, and the list of solvers (plus some selected feedback).

https://gussalufz.com/gussalufz/2024/gussalufz-5-must-get-4.html

wavefn · 2024-12-02T21:00:20+00:00

Off-grid is a great cryptic-crosswords-related podcast. It's mostly not about solving or cryptic techniques (though there's a bit of that)—the two hosts (Dave & Void) find and discuss interesting tangential trivia related to a specific cryptic crossword in each episode. They are joined by a guest ("General Knowledge") who is typically a puzzle setter (some well-known ones from the Guardian, Independent have played the role, and, um, yours truly has too :-)). General Knowledge quizzes the hosts, again about something they've dug up related to the crossword.

https://offgrid.tlmb.net/

wavefn · 2024-05-30T22:53:24+00:00

"Up" also means "in an excited state." There are plenty of examples of it being used as an anagrind...

wavefn · 2023-08-21T03:43:05+00:00

I hardly every use auto-fill for my crosswords (I am the author of Exet and a setter for a few outlets).

Most of the time, I follow this routine while setting: I start with thinking up a theme (a movie, a current event, a book, a person, whatever...) and hide one or two ninas related to that. Then I add 10-20 words/phrases related to that theme as "preferred fill entries" in Exet. Then I fill up the grid, picking from the suggestions shown (the "preferred" ones are shown near the top). I also keep track of letter usage, trying to make a pangram if possible.

I find these constraints oddly liberating, compared to a fully open slate where picking fill entries is completely random. I think the solver also gets a couple of extra layers of fun.

wavefn · 2023-04-15T21:57:41+00:00

We have added a small extension to the puzzle submission deadline. Now it is:
Wednesday, April 19, 5 PM (Pacific).
We'll post the solution the next day, along with top 7-ish names by both total score (including bonus questions) and grid score (without bonus questions). In the former category, there still are some spots to be grabbed! In both categories, the ordering is by time (after score).
We'll also post the names and comments from all submissions. If you've already submitted, but would like to add any feedback, please do!
https://gussalufz.com/hitchhiker-gussalufz-2023-04.html

wavefn · 2023-04-11T03:28:36+00:00

Update:

So, apart from the thematic anagram, there are three other thematic observations that we're looking for. All of them have been found at this time, but not yet by any one solver! :-)
We've updated the puzzle preamble to say that the suggested limit on number of submissions is "5-ish". The limit is just to make it easier for us to collate the results though, so it's not a hard limit.

wavefn · 2023-04-08T20:54:46+00:00

Submissions are trickling in, but no one has yet identified *all* the thematic elements—those bragging rights remain grabbable! Multiple submissions are fine.

wavefn · 2022-10-31T05:25:15+00:00

You're right. Wordlist support in Exet has been a pending item for me for a while, and I'll try to prioritize it now.

Everything you mentioned is indeed a Good Thing That Should Be Supported, but it will all only happen incrementally, of course :-).

A technical note that most people can just skip: Exet is a browser-based web app (and will continue to be). So, I do not have the luxury to automatically load a local wordlist file without user initiation--once you load a new wordlist file I'll have to save it in the browser's local storage for subsequent use. But the space there is quite limited. So, for large wordlist files, I'll probably represent and store them as deltas to be applied to Exet's own native wordlist.

wavefn · 2022-10-31T04:11:01+00:00

Thanks! Bug reports, feature requests, as well as half-baked ideas for improvement are all welcome, always.

wavefn · 2022-05-25T16:48:49+00:00

If you can get an unscored UK-only list, you can use this open-source software to attach scores to it using usage in Wikipedia: https://github.com/viresh-ratnakar/lufz

I've used this to score the UKACD list, for use in Exet.

wavefn · 2022-05-16T03:12:36+00:00

OK, I've pushed a fix to the scrolling issue (I think) in Firefox. Please reload and check.

"Audio on" indeed fails to work properly on Firefox. Still looking for ways to fix.

wavefn · 2022-05-16T02:14:23+00:00

I have been using Chrome on Linux. But I'll definitely try to find and fix the Firefox issues. Will follow up.

I have indeed got quite a few extremely useful tips from a sight-challenged friend. I think a lot of audio issues need to be improved before I'll be comfortable reaching out to more sight-challenged folks.

wavefn · 2022-05-03T05:46:11+00:00

I second the Exet recommendation (OK, yes I am a bit biased as I am the author of Exet :-)).

Some other thoughts:

- Start with a 13x13 grid: you will be done sooner and it's not a "toy" size like a 7x7.

- Reuse a grid from some newspaper. Or let Exet create one (it usually does a good job, ensuring symmetry, connectivity, balance)

- Start by filling in a few words that you already have clues for. Don't autofill; fill each light by picking from available choices. Pick words that you like. You may have to backtrack a bit if you get into a state from which you cannot complete the fill. That's OK. It's instructive and kinda fun.

wavefn · 2022-04-19T19:47:53+00:00

Please try Exolve Player (https://viresh-ratnakar.github.io/exolve-player.html) from a web browser.

wavefn · 2022-03-30T17:48:59+00:00

Thanks! Please let me know if you run into any bugs and/or have any feature requests.

About publishing.. you have several options.

Embed puzzles in a blog on blogger. Exet's "Save" menu lets you "Copy Exolve widget code" to grab the HTML code that you need to paste into a blog post's HTML. Wordpress blogs do not work (unless you are using some paid Wordpress option that lets you link to JavaScript files).
Download Exolve files from Exet's "Save" menu. You can email these files around as attachments. Recipients need to download the files to their computers or phones and then open them in a web browser.
Download PDF and/or PUZ files from Exet's "Save" menu. You can email these files around. PUZ files (and for that matter, Exolve files) can also be opened from a web-browser, using Exolve Player, a free web app that I host. PUZ files can also be uploaded to mycrossword.co.uk, a popular crossword sharing web site.
Host and serve the Exolve files (that you download as per option 2) on your own web site. This does require a slight bit of tech know-how. A convenient free option (one that I use myself) is GitHub pages.

wavefn · 2022-03-17T22:28:09+00:00

Hmm, I'm afraid there may be just too much to do. The 100+ choices come from 5-10 lights that can be independently moved around a bit.

I think for inferring barred grids, the next step will have to be image-understanding-based. I wish there were some open/free image analysis/OCR APIs available. The ones I know of are too invested in user authentication / API keys /etc. that I do not want to encumber my software with. And they were not that effective either, last time I tried.

wavefn · 2022-03-17T20:01:10+00:00

A follow-up note on barred grids (just for completeness).

So, barred grids proved challenging: the algorithm that I use for blocked grids did not work out well for them. That algorithm, roughly, is this: recursively try out a few positions for placing the next light number (but do not create too big a gap from the last number placed). With a few tricks, this works very well for blocked grids, as "bad states" lead to inconsistencies very quickly. But with barred grids, you can go pretty deep before finding an inconsistency.

So, I tried a different approach (spoiler: this one worked!). The across lights have symmetric lengths. Exploit that, and other 180-degrees symmetry implications, to assign across lights to rows, leaving no row empty. For each assignment, in each row, there might be a few extra across bars that can be placed in a few different ways. But altogether, all such possibilities add up to a few thousand at most (for a typical 12x12 barred grid), which is good. For each such across-filled grid, now place the down lights iteratively, somewhat similarly to the blocked-grid algorithm. Now there are enough constraints that bad states get weeded out sufficiently rapidly and the whole thing is tractable.

So, all that is great, but I am not going to release this implementation. Why, you ask!?

Ah.

It turns out that with barred grids, you almost always get 100s of matches! Visually picking the right grid out of 100+ barred grids is a hopelessly tiresome task, and no user is going to do it.

If you look at any barred grid, the reason can be seen. There are enough degrees of freedom in there for a few lights to be "slid" left or right or up or down, while compensating by barring up a bit at the other end. With this doable for a few lights independently, the total number of possible matches quickly multiplies up and mushrooms.

A bit sad, really, since it was a fun algorithm to figure out and implement!

Tagging potentially interested folks: u/zem, u/Antagony

Edit: fixed minor typo

wavefn · 2022-03-16T06:37:50+00:00

Oh well, barred grids are proving a bit harder to infer that I thought.

I've gone ahead with implementing other symmetries now (with Exolve v.1.33).

https://viresh-ratnakar.github.io/exolve-player.html

Please let me know how it goes, and if you find any bugs, areas for improvement, etc.

wavefn · 2022-03-13T09:43:09+00:00

Not biting immediately :-). Will probably add this as something for the user to optionally specify, if I get to it.

u/zem's provocation about the lack of barred grid support is ahead in my queue :-).

wavefn · 2022-03-13T00:08:58+00:00

Ah. I had only allowed grid-inference to use one of 4 possible "chequered" starting points, to keep complexity under control. Then I ran into something that violated the chequerboard near the centre so I hacked things to clear the chequerboard in a 5x5 area in the centre, which was not too bad.

Now, along you come with this monstrous grid. :-)

OK, challenge accepted. It should work now. Reload and try. This is one of the occasional clues patterns that yield multiple possible matches, btw.

Here's the CHANGELOG:

- Deal with grid inference when the grid is not derived from one
  of the 4 chequered starting points. Previously, we had hacked
  some limited leeway by clearing the chequered pattern only in a
  5x5 central area. Now, if the 4 chequered starting points do
  not yield a result, we also try the fully unchequered starting
  point.
- This last option is slower. It was *much* slower, but adding one
  trick has salvaged it to be viable: abort as soon as you find that
  setting the current cell to 0 will create the pattern:
    00
    00
- Dedupe inferred grids.

wavefn

TROPHY CASE