[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
My "Crosswords" app from Standalone recently died. No more puzzle downloads from any sources. To my knowledge that was the only crossword app that would run on the NST/G without pieces of the onscreen keyboard disappearing during use (and leaving the lower part of your screen a mess, to boot). @pinguy1982 commented on this in the past, noting that the NookClearScreen app would "fix" the problem. The trouble is, you spend more time "clearing" the screen than entering clues.

I searched through the forum for other possibilities but they all had the same issue. One app, Shortyz, was touted very early in the forum history, but although I managed to find a long list of versions to download and try, none would get past the opening changelog screen. I could not figure this out but eventually checked a logcat and found that a funny encoding method was being used by the app (Cp1252). I could only find this once in all the smali files after taking the app apart and a little sleuthing (with confirmation from @Renate) suggested that I might just replace that with "utf-8" or even "iso-8859-1". I tried that and voilà! Very weird. Perhaps early firmwares for the NST had the capability to deal with Cp1252. But this solved the problem and Shortyz worked! It even downloaded some puzzles!

Shortyz is da bomb

But it's not perfect. It, too, has a soft keyboard that plays a vanishing act and leaves your screen messed up. Here's what the screen looks like before you use the keyboard:

View attachment 5748967

And here is what it looks like after filling in the first clue (and I had to guess at some buttons which disappeared as groups!):

View attachment 5748969

BUT, there is a setting to use the "native" (i.e., stock or currently installed) keyboard! Yay! The theme may not match and you may lose some extra navigational keys, but it works.

Of all the versions that would run on Eclair, I picked the one with the most working downloads. There may be minor issues which were fixed later on (I'm sure I'll either hear about them or discover them myself), but this seemed a good place to start. Of course, eventually the downloads will fail. The fact that they still work is actually shocking given the state of the SSL on the device. Still, this story does not end like my late, great "Crosswords" app, and this is where Shortyz "stands alone" (just a tiny pun there):

As long as there are .puz files out there somewhere, Shortyz will continue to work for you because it is, in essence, an Android Across Lite player. All you have to do is download a .puz file on your own (some sources to follow), place it in the folder /sdcard/crosswords, and Shortyz will do the rest. So thank you, Robert Cooper, wherever you are!

What I did

While I had the app decompiled I tried to do a little modifying. Here's a quick list:

1. Change character encoding from Cp1252 to iso-8859-1

(note, there is not a direct correspondence of all characters, so some punctuation in puzzle titles or clues does not always display properly--like the apostrophe; same result with utf-8)

2. Change all "help" screens to black text on white background

3. Change puzzle listing to black text on white background

(recurring theme: I do not like white text on a black background for the NST/G)

4. Uncheck non-working puzzles for download

What I wanted to do, but could not

1. Force keyboard choice to system default (I made the change in the preferences xml but the app ignores it--you must set this yourself, but only once)

2. Change other white text/black background instances (layouts strongly influenced by smali actions proved too much of a challenge for my modest talents)

Things to know

1. The help screens are context driven, so there is probably a help screen for each different view. Status-bar menu button, bottom of screen "Help".

2. Very little is gained by running the app full-screen as you need the back and menu buttons now and then (see #1) and this places the clue bar right up against the bezel (in portrait) which can make it harder to read and access.

3. This must be somewhere but it's worth mentioning anyway: a tap on the clue bar at the top of the screen opens a listing of clues, both Across and Down. The back arrow, twice, returns you to the main play view.

4. The most important context menu, IMO, is found by long pressing on the play view (the grid). There you can increase the size of the clue in the top bar (large!) and change the zoom size.

5. Navigational settings may not work with all keyboards. The back and forward arrows on the stock keyboard work, but only to the end of a line. You must tap on a new line to proceed to the next clue. Directional arrows in my usual keyboard (AIType) had no effect. Your mileage may vary.

6. The view in landscape is significantly different:

View attachment 5748979

More clues always visible but more panning is required on the play grid.

7. Do not try to use the "force keyboard" visibility setting. It makes it nearly impossible to exit the app, and if you manage to get out, the keyboard is still there, no matter where you go!

8. If you add puzzles of your own, they will be placed under the date when you added them, so there's no point in renaming the file excessively. You can rename to clean up the display (the file name will be the display name in the list).

Installing and setting up

Download the modded app from below and install as you would any other app. If you are connected to WiFi when you first start the app it will download the puzzles for that day while you peruse the changelog. Puzzle downloads that still work are:

Mon-Sat--LA Times, Newsday, USA Today, Universal

Sun--Newsday, Universal

This is the only version for Eclair that gets the daily LA Times. Additional sources below.

After you dismiss the changelog if the app closes, open it again and you will see the puzzle listing. Tap on the status bar "menu" button and go to Settings. "Select Puzzle Settings" is effectively useless. Nothing works there except what I listed above. Checking anything else will just waste bandwidth. "Application Settings" contains some stuff which may suit the way you use the app in terms of moving around on the screen or having the play grid move by itself. I haven't done a lot of testing there. Some keyboard effects may or may not work with the stock or your favorite keyboard. You just have to try.

Keep scrolling down the list of settings until you find "Keyboard Style" (just about at the end). Tap that and select "Native". Exit Settings and return to the puzzle listing. Have fun!

Additional .puz sources

I am not claiming this list is exhaustive. Unfortunately a lot of the quicker and smaller puzzles like Joseph and Sheffer are now obscured behind real-time player applications and can't be downloaded by mere mortals. Such puzzles must be "scraped" from the host sites and fixing this sort of thing is not within my realm of expertise. However, here are a few additional sources for puzzles that once could be downloaded using Shortyz (and might be again in a current version):

Jonesin' (Thursdays) [archive] 2022 through 2014 (change year digits in URL)

Universal Daily Crossword (Daily) [archive] 2022 through 2019 (change year digits in URL)

Chronicle of Higher Education (Fridays--

now dead

) [archive] 2020 and 2019 (change year digits in URL)

Wall Street Journal (Monday-Saturday) [archive] 2022 through 2014 (change year digits in URL)

*Washington Post (Sunday magazine, Evan Birnholz) [archive] 2022 and 2021 (change year digits in URL)

*these are what Shortyz calls "large format" puzzles and may present additional panning challenges on the NST/G screen

I have tried downloading some of these directly on the NST/G with Opera Mini and have been successful. They can go straight to the /sdcard/crosswords folder. A quick file rename and you're good to go!