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Author Topic: Palabra, a free crossword editor - call for developers  (Read 10768 times)

Simeon

  • Guest
Palabra, a free crossword editor - call for developers
« on: June 12, 2010, 11:19:23 PM »
Hello everyone, I'm hereby announcing Palabra 0.1.4, a free crossword editor! Features include: grid editor, undo/redo, grid transformations, grid symmetry options, inserting words using wordlists, cell styling, grid pattern generation, adding clues, a statistics window, pattern files, etc. The software is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

I'm looking for people who are want to help me in making the software better. In doing so, you're contributing to a free crossword editor that can be used by everyone on multiple platforms. If you like crosswords and you are interested in crossword software, then I would love to hear from you to improve Palabra. In many ways, Palabra can be improved so your input is quite valuable to make it better. It doesn't matter if you're a user or a software developer, all feedback is welcome!

Proper recognition will be given for your contributions.

- If you're running Linux, please try the software and tell me what you think. If something doesn't work, do let me know, although I'm aware of certain speed issues.
- If you're running something other than Linux and you can lend a hand to get it running there, great! Once again, just let me know.
- If you can program and you want to help, please send me an email (see Help > About or the README) and we'll get started. The software is written in Python/C using GTK+. Development is currently easiest on Linux but the underlying technologies are portable, we can provide installers for other platforms later on. A test suite exists to verify parts of the code. Whole areas of the program are not available yet, like management of word/clue/pattern files, web integration, automated and/or assisted filling of the grid. You're free to design and develop them as you wish and we'll work together to integrate it into the rest. If you have any questions or suggestions about the current code base, just let me know - we can rewrite any part if that is desirable.
- If you can do graphical design, we can work on an icon for the software and for buttons/menuitems.
- If you can write, we can write a manual for the software.
- If you can help in other ways, just let me know.

Palabra can be found at http://bitbucket.org/svisser/palabra/ and development also takes place there. Go to Downloads and under Tags & Snapshots, use one of the links for version 0.1.4. You should also install python-lxml from a repository and then follow the instructions in the README. Software developers should install Mercurial and use the clone command at the top to get the latest code.

Bugs or feature requests? Please add them here: http://bitbucket.org/svisser/palabra/issues so we can keep track of them.

Short manual

- Click a cell to select it and the word
- Placing blocks, press . or hold shift and click a cell
- Removing blocks, hold shift and right-click a cell
- Use tab to change typing direction or double-click the selected cell

Cheers,
Simeon Visser
« Last Edit: June 12, 2010, 11:21:24 PM by Simeon »

fungi1995

  • Guest
Re: Palabra, a free crossword editor - call for developers
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2010, 03:41:47 AM »
This sounds like a great idea! I'm always a fan of anything free, especially when it comes to crosswords. Unfortunately, I don't know how to program (yet). I'm running Windows and a Mac with Parallels installed, so if you could direct me to a free version of Linux (if there are any available) I would be happy to install it as a virtual machine to try out the program.

On a side note, do you think you could bring this program to mobile platforms as well? I'd love the ability to construct on the go.

Ben Pall

Simeon

  • Guest
Re: Palabra, a free crossword editor - call for developers
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2010, 04:30:58 AM »
Yes, there are many free versions of Linux.. I'm running Ubuntu Linux 9.10 but it should also work in the latest (Ubuntu Linux 10.04). It would be great if you could try it to see if it works in there. Other Linux distributions should work too, although it depends on what they support.

The program is intended for the major desktop platforms like Windows, Linux and Mac - I'm confident that it can run there, if installers are made for those platforms. Regarding the mobile platforms, it depends. If Python can run on the mobile platform, then we can work on creating a special mobile version of the crossword editor (only the part that the user interacts with would need to be developed, the underlying management of crosswords etc could be reused). I'm not very familiar with it but if someone wants to volunteer to help with that, that would be great!

Simeon

  • Guest
Re: Palabra, a free crossword editor - call for developers
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2010, 07:45:47 AM »
I'm pleased to say that it also works on Ubuntu 10.04! For those with other Linux distributions, please let me know if you were able to get it running there!

I have also placed some screenshots of Palabra 0.1.4 on the wiki page which show the main window, the new puzzle window and the puzzle properties window.

 


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