Easy website thing

[NotAllThere]

I want to produce a website with crosswords on it, with links to solutions. Something simple for an 'umble programmer who just wants to get something useful up quick.

Any tips?

ta

[Spacecadet]

crosswords you can fill in online or just a printable jpg?

REQUIREMENTS!!

[crack_ho]

http://www.crossword-compiler.com/java.html

Most of the crossword websites I have seen use this java app.

[NotAllThere]

crosswords you can fill in online or just a printable jpg?

REQUIREMENTS!!

Stop it - I enjoy it too much!

Just a printable jpeg. I've never met a crossword solver (or any other similar puzzle) who actually fills them in online. I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise. I do know that many solvers skip straight over puzzle sites that don't allow for printing. If you want to know the type of thing I'm publishing, try here: http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...ight=crossword

The solutions will be text with explanations, and the jpeg.

So, the front page should have this month's puzzle, with links to last month etc. Each prior crossword will be linked to a solution (jpeg) with explanatory solutions. This isn't a commercial venture, as you might suspect. But it could become that...

[RSoles]

Perhaps I've misunderstood, but here's an example of (my favourite) interactive crossword.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/servic...les/crosswords

Ah. I have misunderstood. And yes I do print them off and do them with a pencil.

[RichardCranium]

My wife does Puzzler magazine's online crossword. It can only be done online.

[dang65]

The best thing about crosswords is reading the solutions and seeing what interesting word combinations you get. Looking at a couple of solutions on that Herald Scotland site, for example:

Spacebar Mozart
Niece Inspector
Used Lemongrass
Nips Irridescent
Elastic Zillion
Rabbi Sweepings
Marital Tempest
Dorset Crackers
Jelly Yeti

...yeah, well, it's quite addictive once you start looking. Sometimes you get some really surreal stuff, of which those aren't good examples. I quite like "Spacebar Mozart" though. No idea what or who it describes, but it describes them very accurately, I know that.

[NickFitz]

What precisely are you looking for? The extremely vague specification of requirements so far allows me to deduce that one of the deliverables will be an HTML template suitable for marking up crosswords:

• The grid should be marked up using <table> and associated elements;
  
  
• Each numbered square should be identified by an id attribute so it can be targeted from hyperlinks in the clues, and should itself contain a link back to the associated clue;
  
  
• Corollary of the above point: each clue should have an id attribute;
  
  
• The two lists of clues ("Across" and "Down") should each be represented by an ordered list (<ol>) element, with each clue as a list item (<li>) therein;
  
  
• The grid and each of the two lists of clues should be preceded by a heading element at the appropriate level (e.g. if <h1> is the main heading such as "Crossword No. 2271" then the grid and clues should be immediately preceded by "<h2>Grid</h2>", "<h2>Across</h2>", "<h2>Down</h2>") where "1" and "2" should be the correct values to maintain the nested priorities of the headings within the context of the overall document (so if, say, "<h1>" is devoted to branding then "<h2>" should be used for the title of the crossword and "<h3>" for the grid and clues).

That's as far as I'm willing to go at three in the morning, but I would add that the relevant CSS stylesheets for the document should include a special media="print" stylesheet which allows people to print it off excluding irrelevancies such as site navigation, which will thus only be seen when the page is viewed onscreen. Also, because we live in a wicked world where IE exists, font sizes in CSS should not be specified in pixels. Best of all, leave the font size at the browser default for all media.

It will be noted that the above suggestions for marking up the document offer the following benefits:

• Use of semantic markup (such as marking up lists of clues as ordered lists) allows machines to make sense of the page: said machines might be assistive technologies used by disabled readers, or hitherto-undreamt-of crossword-specific search engines, but whatever the future may hold, it's a good thing for the present (ask any blind verbicrucialist);
  
  
• Use of appropriate heading levels and in-document hyperlinks further bolsters the semantics of the document, as well as allowing for easy navigation: for example, a blind verbicrucialist would be able to use the inbuilt capabilities of their assistive technology to easily navigate at certain heading levels (thereby moving smoothly between the grid and the two sets of clues), and by having the links between the clues and the answers working both ways it would be easy for them to flick back and forth between the grid and the clue.

One case to consider is when a numbered box is at the start of both an across and a down answer. In that case, I would suggest repeating the number as two separate links, one to across and one to down, with a rel attribute having the value across for the first and down for the second; the duplication can be easily concealed via CSS for those who can see such things, or it can be left in place so that even the sighted can easily click on the links to jump between clue and position in grid.

Of course if you don't care about those who might like the challenge of doing a crossword when blind, then the most important points out of this lot are the print stylesheet, and the stuff about using default font sizes: if somebody with poor sight has their browser set to use 36pt fonts by default, they can print it out and still have a chance of reading it if you don't mess with the browser defaults.

Of course, there's a lot more to the project than that... but with sound HTML and CSS you're off to a good start - after all, that's the finished product

[NotAllThere]

I mean something like this: http://crosswords.yireh.ch/index.html

[Sysman]

As a crossword fan myself, this is one area where an interactive session is useless and will never replace paper and pen(cil).

I want to print a crossword off on a single sheet of A4 paper in the format you would see in a printed version of a newspaper, preferably with with a decent amount of blank space for scribbling potential solutions, working out anagrams and doodling.

Just as much care should be taken over the print layout as the screen layout.