Caution

MOVED! see https://git.alifeee.net/ringram/about/

Ringram puzzles

https://ringram.alifeee.co.uk/

See ./website/ and ./generation/

Nice features

• UI
  • "show solution" button - currently each page does not know the solution - could either
    • send solution to page (hidden?)
    • request the solution from the server
    • send the word list and algorithmically solve the puzzle in JS (this is worth writing anyway to check if puzzles have a unique solution, or more than one)
  • "check solution" button - this can either do:
    • simple: check if the expected dots/dashes match used dots/dashes (might get nonsense/wrong solution)
    • complex: checek against solution (see above for how to get solution)
  • "clear" button
  • press up/down arrow keys to move box (if cursor is in reasonable place) logic: if a key is pressed (up), collect a list of inputs which are reasonable and (e.g., with a function which turns flat inputs into a list of "0, 3, and 6 are above you!". Then, filter for "disabled", and if there's one left...) focus it!
• hashing & generating
  • think of puzzle hash (type (4x4, 3x3), number of dots/dashes plus starting letters)
  • think of solution hash (just the 12 letters)
  • make a validator to check solution hash against puzzle hash
  • make a base 64 encoder so you can share custom puzzles
• difficulty
  • make "easy" puzzle (with N letters revealed)
  • make "medium" puzzle (with M letters revealed)
  • make "hard" puzzle (with O letters revealed)
• usability features
  • save state (entered letters) in local storage (but only for specific puzzle hash)
  • add statistics
• style
  • wrap dots when more than X
  • make style a bit cooler
  • add how to play guide
  • add footer with references
  • check on different device sizes
  • check on different browsers
• add new puzzle every day with CRON CI

Other sizes

Any size is reasonably possible. Larger ones will start to have LOTS of dots/dashes, so these should be very wrappable by this stage.

Notes on puzzle difficulty

What makes puzzles easier or harder? I'm not sure. Here are some which could, or they might not.

• Double letters (if two opposite letters are the same letter)
• Middle-filled in letter. If a letter is filled in, in the middle, it makes its opposite side twin easier to guess
• Rare letters?
• If there is a row/column with no/few dots (and few dashes), or no/few dashes (and few dots)
• If there is a combination of starting letters which, grammatically, can not result in many words which would fit there

Notes on swappability

Some words are idempotent under "count the dots/dashes of each letter".

For example, FAD == FAR as D = -.. and R=.-., so ignoring the per-letter order of dots/dashes results in the same count.

These letters can be swapped:

ONE DOT
E

ONE DASH
T

TWO DOTS
I

TWO DASHES
M

THREE DOTS
S

THREE DASHES
O

ONE DOT ONE DASH
A N

TWO DOTS ONE DASH
D R U

ONE DOT TWO DASHES
G K W

TWO DOTS TWO DASHES
C P X Z

THREE DOTS ONE DASH
B L V F

ONE DOT THREE DASHES
J Q Y

FOUR DOTS
H

Installation on a server

Copy code

mkdir -p /var/www/
git clone git@github.com:alifeee/ringram.git /var/www/ringram
cp /var/www/ringram/website/_data/puzzles.yaml.example /var/www/ringram/website/_data/puzzles.yaml

Generate puzzles

See generation for more

cd /var/www/ringran/generation
python puzzlegen.py -n 3
python puzzlegen.py -n 4
python puzzlerank -i puzzles_3x3.txt -o unique > puzzles_3x3_sorted.txt
python puzzlerank -i puzzles_4x4.txt -o unique > puzzles_4x4_sorted.txt

Get Telegram API token

• message @BotFather to create a bot
• POST to https://api.telegram.org/bot<api_token>/getMe to check API token
• message bot, then to find the chat id POST to https://api.telegram.org/bot<api_token>/getUpdates
• send a message: POST to https://api.telegram.org/bot<api_token>/sendMessage?chat_id=<chat_id>&text=hello+world

cd /var/www/ringram
cp .env.example .env
nano .env

Install modules for website

cd /var/www/ringram/website
npm install
npm run build

Install nvm globally

# install nvm to /usr/alifeee/nvm
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="/usr/alifeee"
# install nvm, see https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.1/install.sh | bash
# install node
source ~/.bashrc
nvm install 20
nvm use 20

Install crontab

There are two: one to generate new words, which runs 12 hours before the one which updates the website (so words can be changed)

crontab -e

then put in these cron tasks:

0 12 * * * /var/www/ringram/next.sh >> /var/www/ringram/cron.log 2>&1
0 0 * * * /var/www/ringram/update.sh >> /var/www/ringram/cron.log 2>&1