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Written by jrb on 2025-01-22 at 18:30

If you've ever been interested in writing crosswords, please give it a try! I'd love feedback on what works well and what doesn't.

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Written by jrb on 2025-01-22 at 18:29

This release also adds a built-in dictionary to the application with definitions to assist writing clues. There is substring selection too, to help cryptic authors build clues from components. This video shows that in action.

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Written by jrb on 2025-01-22 at 18:29

This release features significantly faster autofill solver. That's been a challenge for a couple years now, and a new contributor showed up with a better algorithm for filling grids. There's still more room for optimization, but it already is a dramatic increase in the utility of the editor.

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Written by jrb on 2025-01-22 at 18:27

I did a new release of #GNOME #Crosswords. Almost all the changes were in the underlying code and the editor. It's the first version that I'm not embarrassed putting in front of crossword authors. You can read more in the release notes: https://blogs.gnome.org/jrb/2025/01/22/crosswords-0-3-14/

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Written by jrb on 2024-12-05 at 00:59

@chergert I used the GVariant approach you suggested to store the definitions. It ended up being quite fast —though the GVariant API was weirdly unsuited for it. It feels like it shouldn't take multiple allocations to parse three uints from a buffer.

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Written by jrb on 2024-12-04 at 18:42

I've been refining the word list code for the #Crossword Editor and recently added definition support (from Wiktionary). Paired with @alice 's excellent AdwWrapBox work, I was finally able to land some changes I've wanted for a long time. This is a big improvement on the old aids for cryptic hints, though it still has a long way to go. I'd love any feedback from #crossword authors out there.

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