This mini-forum is here for me to post notices to you on problems I may have posting the answer key, and for you to leave feedback on the service. Happy puzzling. -- EarlyBird
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Date: 7-8-2010 Author: EarlyBird JPG... Wow! I'm proud of you. I don't know if that's more a testimony to your brilliance or my expository writing skill, but it's no doubt a combination of both. I tried to explain the whole thing as clearly as possible and anticipate as many potential problems as possible but, frankly, it is not an easily understood process. In fact, it's damned complicated and potentially very confusing. I damned near went nuts before I finally got it. But you've actually made it work, so you've obviously got at least some working understanding of the whole process. The more you work with it, the more you'll gradually come to understand how everything works. Working from a printed copy of that tutorial page is virtually an absolute necessity. Your questions: "When you are finding the location of the Unlock button in Across Lite, the Across Lite window better be in a known location, yes? I moved it to the upper left of my screen." Manually moving the Across Lite program interface around on the computer screen will quickly cause you to lose the Unlock button coordinates, which are extremely precise. By default, the Across Lite program should automatically consume the entire computer screen and the puzzle should be left where the program automatically loads it according to how you've configured Across Lite's display. In Across Lite, click on Options and set those in the Display tab exactly like these:  That's the configuration that works best. According to the resolution at which your monitor is set, the Unlock button will appear at exactly the same coordinates every time the program loads. You can move the macro program's interface anywhere so it doesn't block the puzzle. Put the cursor in the puzzle at the beginning of the longest word, so if it jumps around some it may still have room to record the four digits. If it misses some digits, you'll have to refer to the last number in the AnswerKey.txt file. Once established, the coordinates should remain stable unless you or some newly installed program drastically or even slightly change the monitor's resolution. If that happens, you'll have to go through the entire process for finding the new coordinates. "When it finds the solution, the Unlock button stops working, then the next number in the list is written into the crossword puzzle, the next-next number is written in Answer[Key].txt and then the klaxon sounds, no?" Yes, that's pretty much exactly what happens. When the macro program enters the correct answer key in the dialogue box the Unlock button immediately turns gray, signalling the macro to jump to the next steps in the script — writing the numbers to the puzzle and AnswerKey.txt and sounding the horn. "Plus you get those "clunks" every time the answer is wrong!" Those "clunks" are an error sound file generated internally by Across Lite every time a wrong key is entered, which will be two or three times per second until the macro enters the correct number. Inevitably, you'll occasionally get those false positives, immediately recognizable by the gibberish they produce throughout the puzzle. You can make a backup of the numbers.txt file as explained in the tutorial, save an altered version of it for another try on the current puzzle, then overwrite that with the original file for the next puzzle. That can get complicated, confusing and time consuming. There's a better way, which I'll explain in another post here later today, because I've got to go to town right now. I'll leave this page here indefinitely, until there appears to be no further interest in it. Rijkstra... So far as I know, I'm the only one who has consistently and publicly posted the answer keys.
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Date: 7-8-2010 Author: JPG EarlyBird, So I really don't quite know what I'm doing with these Macros, but I gave it a try anyway. Well, I got it to work! When you are finding the location of the Unlock button in Across Lite, the Across Lite window better be in a known location, yes? I moved it to the upper left of my screen. When it finds the solution, the Unlock button stops working, then the next number in the list is written into the crossword puzzle, the next-next number is written in Answer.txt and then the klaxon sounds, no? Plus you get those "clunks" every time the answer is wrong! -- jpgaskell PS How often do "false" positives occur? Seems like - if it does occur - I could delete all the numbers in Numbers.txt from the beginning up to the false positive and try again from there. |
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Date: 7-7-2010 Author: Rijkstra EB> ... this page will disappear soon, probably by Tuesday. Thanks for the short reprieve. Would you consider leaving this little app up for a possible changing of the guard? Is there anyone else out there who has cracked the code? Thanks again for all the solutions. 
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Date: 7-7-2010 Author: Rijkstra EB, Thanks especially for all those second Sunday puzzles that few others seem to express an interest for. 
Dan F, When you lefties finally do destroy America, I'm sure you'll blame us righties! 
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Date: 7-5-2010 Author: Dan F Hey, thanks for the years of service... I've been using your code since I quit solving on the NYT applet a year or more ago. Best of luck, and I hope you eventually learn that us lefties aren't going to destroy America! ;) |
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Date: 7-5-2010 Author: JPG EarlyBird, Someone on the Times blog put up your address (A year ago now?) and it's been great. I love it when, when - just as I enter my last letter - I get the "Congratulations!" banner. OK, I've copied off your directions. Maybe I'll finally figure out how those Macros work! I want to thank you for all the times you've let your routine run, in order to help me out. -- jpgaskell |
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Date: 11-5-2007 Author: EarlyBird My subscription is expiring and I don't intend to renew it. I also need to do some traveling, which puts cracking this puzzle key every day out of the question. The tutorial and files for cracking the key still exist and, as usual, can be accessed from the link in the item below. If you think there's any possibility you'd ever like to try cracking the puzzles yourself you'd better bookmark that link right now because this page will disappear soon, probably by Tuesday. Goodbye and good luck. Cajoling a puzzle into revealing its answer's unlock number is actually not an arcane technique comprehensible only to software programmers or other geeks, nor does it involve reverse engineering algorithms or peering into unintelligible computer binaries. If it were, I'd be the last one able to accomplish it. It's a relatively simple matter of using the moderately mild brute force of a macro program to enter possible numbers into the puzzle's Unlock dialogue box, then stop and give you the number when it hits. If you're interested in trying to crack the code yourself or just curious about how it's done, click HERE for the details.
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