                   X-word     v0.08 January 2001
                  ^^^^^^^^
                   
The original zipped archive of !X-Word is free to distribute,
i.e. with *no* modifications from how it is found on my
website http://www.alant.demon.co.uk/ and at:

   http://www.xword.riscos.org.uk

Note !X-word is *careware*. If you like using it send a fiver
to 'Shelter' or go and give a pint of blood! It would be nice
to get an e-mail from you too.

            mailto:alant@alant.demon.co.uk

How to play
^^^^^^^^^^^
Place the tiles from your rack on the board to make words.
Each letter has its own score. Make the best use of the
bonus squares on the board.

X-word looks and plays a bit like Scrabble, but in its
supplied state, the letter scores, the numbers of each letter
available, the board size and layout are all very different.

All these things just happen to be configurable by the user.


Playing X-word
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Click 'New Game' or select 'New Game' from the board's menu.
Each player gets a turn to place tiles from their rack onto
the board. By clicking the 'toggle size' icon on the rack's
title bar you can see previous moves and what they scored.

Drag with select to move a row of tiles, or with adjust to
move just one.

A row of tiles starts with the tile you are pointing at when
you drag and includes tiles to the right or directly below.

The rack menu lets you swap round the behaviour of select and
adjust dragging. The same menu lets you change the dragged
row's orientation, or you can use:

   * Horizontal - Up, Down, A, H
   * Vertical   - Left, Right, D, V

Double-click a blank space in the rack to randomly juggle your
rack tiles. (Key: SPACE)

Double-click the board to return all tiles to the rack.
(Key: HOME or ESC)

Click the 'End Turn' (or press RETURN) to finish your go.

Click the picture of the letter bag to see what's left.
Dragging tiles to the picture of the bag or the list of
remaining letters to throw letters away.

You can't play on the board and throw letters away. Only one
or the other is allowed per turn. You can still return all
your tiles back to the rack in the usual way.



Options
^^^^^^^
* Tiles
 
Select the typeface used by select-clicking the menu icon
at the top of the screen.

Toggle upper/lowercase with the 'Aa' icon.

Alter the letter size and position on the tile using the
arrow buttons.

Click a letter's image with select to increase its frequency.
Use adjust to decrease its frequency.
Click menu to select the score from the score menu.

Click 'Cancel' to forget all changes and return to the board.
Click OK (press RETURN) to finish.


* Board

Change the board's size using the arrows in the lower window,
or double-click in the main window to define the corner square.

Change the bonus squares by dragging a square from the lower
window on to the board. The board is horizontally and vertically
symmetric (2m to the crystallographers out there) and fills in
accordingly.

Click 'Save' to save these setting permanently.
Click OK (press RETURN) to finish.


* Game
PLAYERS
    Change the player's names as needed. Leave player's names
    blank to reduce the number of active players, though there
    must be at least two players.

    If a name ends in a digit, the player is a computer opponent
    and the background will turn gold. The player's ability is
    indicated by the final digit, from 0 (worst) to 9 (best).

LEXICONS
    Click the button/icon to open the folder of lexicons. Either
    double-click a lexicon in the filer window or drag it to the
    X-Word window.

    You can get a text dump of a lexicon by dragging the button/icon
    to a filer window, this produces a textfile called 'Lexicon'.

    The house lexicon is a 'custom' lexicon, but this feature does
    not yet work.

OPTIONS
     All-tile bonus        Awarded to players that play all 7 tiles
                            in one turn.
     Score unused tiles    When the game ends, the points on the
                            tiles in your rack are subtracted from your
                            score. The player that clears their rack
                            gets all those points added to his or her
                            score.
     Flash Acorn's moves   Helps to see where the computer opponent has
                            placed its tiles.
     Hide Acorn's racks    So that you can't see the computer's tiles
                            when it's considering it's move.
     Hide opponent racks   So that you can only see the score, and not
                            the tiles, of player's who are not taking
                            their turn.
     See in bag            Allows you to click on the bag icon to sneak
                            a peek at the remaining tiles.

Click 'Save' to save these setting permanently.
Click OK (press RETURN) to finish.



Lexicons
^^^^^^^^
If you want to compile your own lexicons, look in the 'Xtras' folder and
read how to use Hans Van Gink's extremely fast lexicon compiler. My thanks
to him for writing this. Alternatively, send me either a pound coin taped
into a cardboard sandwich, or a postcard with a foreign postmark and I'll
e-mail you any one of:

220,000 words	The so-called ENABLE word list
170,000 words	From an out-of-print version of the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary (OSPD)
168,000 words	From the TWL98 list (Tournament Word List)

My current address is:

Ground Floor Flat
15 Macroom Road
Maida Vale
London W9 3HY


