by mapasj on 6/30/2023, 5:00:40 AM
by gaazoh on 6/30/2023, 7:35:33 AM
Very cool! The speed at which it auto-fills a grid is mesmerizing. Is this done server-side or client-side?
I sometimes build crosswords for fun, and I have tried some native building apps, but I didn't find one that's good for building French rule crosswords. The best I have so far is [this one](https://casevide.fr/creation/outil/), that's basically just a dictionary lookup and it's very slow (pure client-side JS), but still allowed me to build a handful of puzzles.
How hard do you reckon would it be to adapt your solver to work with French rules (no symmetry, 2-letter words allowed, minimizing black squares)? Or any other crossword style (French "arrow-words", British cryptic crosswords, Italian puzzles with no black squares but delimiters between squares...)?
Maybe I'll give it a try myself. What resources did you use for figuring out the algorithm? Is your source code available?
by userundefined on 6/30/2023, 3:12:40 AM
Heya, here's a crossword builder I am working on as a hobby project. Backend is pure Go, frontend is in Typescript. I have a personal backlog of features to add (like allowing users to create custom grids), and I'm glad to take any feedback on what I've got so far.
TL;DR: pick a grid, add some words, auto-fill, add some clues. Submit to NYT and make $$$ (good luck with that step though).
by justanotherjoe on 6/30/2023, 7:37:50 AM
This is really cool. Do you use any machine learning model behind the scene?
As someone who frequently does the full and mini NYT crosswords, I really like this idea. I’ve wondered what it’d be like trying to make my own. This seems like a useful tool for giving it a try.
Some feedback: - The chart showing the distribution of word length is very cool. - Maybe you could educate newbies about how can choose a grid. I’m wondering if the predefined ones you provide are commonly seen in NYT. Does NYT prefer certain grids? Are you more likely to be accepted by NYT with a unique grid? - Custom grids sounds like a great feature. I’m guessing there are some rules about symmetry and no two-letter words that you can help users with. - Auto filling on an empty grid basically does all the work except clue writing? Maybe that’s intensive for your back-end? I noticed the page hang when submitting that. Maybe you can require some percentage for the user to first fill in on their own? As a user I think I’d only want the grid to highlight areas where I have an invalid word.