Cryptogram Puzzle Tool for X / Linux, Version 4.2<br>
Copyright (C) 1993-2006 by Jeff Edwards<br>
<br>
CPT is intended to help solve the simple cryptogram puzzles that appear in the
daily newspapers. Manual solution is facilitated by providing character counts
and by instantly updating ALL occurances of operator entered letter
assignments, and an automatic solution algorithm is provided to help get
started with the really hard ones.<br>
<br>
SCREEN DESCRIPTION:<br>
The main program screen consists of a menubar, a puzzle text area,
a solution summary area, a statistics area, and the command button
area. The puzzle, solution summary, and statistics areas appear in 
a dark blue color with ciphertext displayed in bright blue-green and
plaintext displayed in white; ciphertext and plaintest letters that
would normally appear in these areas but currently "unassigned"
are represented by "the mask character", a homemade character with 
every other pixel turned on.<br>
<br>
The puzzle area occupies the largest part of the screen and provides
space for roughly 75 words of puzzle data. The puzzle area is arranged in
double rows; in edit mode only the entered cipher text appears, but in
solution mode the current plaintext translation of the puzzle is displayed
just below the encrypted version.<br>
<br>
The solution summary area, which appears in the center of the menubar,
displays all 26 plaintext letters of the alphabet with the
corresponding ciphertext letters, if any, appearing immediately above.
The solution summary area provides a means of determining at a glance which
plaintext characters are 'free'.<br> 
<br>
The statistics area displays the number of occurances of each of the 26
possible ciphertext letters in the puzzle, sorted by decreasing frequency of
occurance. The current plaintext assignment for each ciphertext is also
displayed in this area, providing a quick check of rule-of-thumb frequency
expectations in the evolving solution.<br>
<br>
EDIT MODE:<br>
Edit mode is used to key in new cipher text or to load data from a disk file.
The text cursor, which marks the point where text entered from the
keyboard will appear, and can be positioned with the usual keyboard keys or
by left-clicking the mouse.<br>
<br>
SOLUTION MODE:<br>
Manual solution is the process of assigning a plaintext character to each of
the ciphertext characters in the puzzle. For a given ciphertext character 
this can be accomplished in any of several ways:<br>
 - positioning the text cursor on a plaintext position corresponding to any
occurance of the ciphertext character in the puzzle area and keying in an
assignment A through Z;<br>
 - positioning the text cursor as above and clicking the "Next Free Letter"
or "Next Not In Word" button;<br>
 - using the mouse to drag a letter A through Z to a plaintext position in
the puzzle area from anywhere in the summary, puzzle, or statistics area; or<br>
 - using the mouse to drag a letter A through Z to a plaintext position in
the statistics area corresponding to a ciphertext character that occurs
at least once in the puzzle.<br>
<br>
AUTOMATIC SOLUTION:<br>
An ingenious algorithm invented by George W. Hart is available for making a
first cut at the solution automatically. The "Hart Solution" item on the
Options menu calculates and displays a best guess solution; if multiple
solutions are found, the "Other Hart" button will subsequently display up
to nine (possibly inferior) alternate solutions in rotation with the 'best'.<br>
<br>
ENCRYPTING:<br>
CPT edit mode may also be used to prepare NEW cryptograms; simply key in plain
text instead of ciphered text (or read it from a file!), click the Encrypt
item on the Options menu, and save the new puzzle to disk.<br>
<br>
Note: in keeping with the convention used in most simple cryptograms,
CPT's encryption algorithm will not allow any letter to represent itself.
To insure that your results follow this convention, be careful to
encrypt only plaintext!<br>
<br>
(End of CPT Help)
