WHAT Features

WHAT, Wolfberg's Helpful Anagramming Tool, is really a toolbox of powerful tools, with many facilities. This is a list of the major features of this program:

• After offering this program for sale for about 10 years, it is now free as of Version 2.0 produced in late January, 2015. It is usable only on MS Windows computers, but it may be ported to hand-held devices. It is available via downloading.
  
  
• Control is via a command language, with the help of a GUI to formulate the commands and to provide an indication of the meaning of commands.
  
  
• Support unlimited command history, including the getting of a previous command from the history. History can be exported and imported.
  
  
• You can specify a primary lexicon to use as the word source. A secondary lexicon may optionally be used as the basis of marking words either also in or missing from that secondary source. You can also use another lexicon as the basis for challenge adjudication.
  
  
• There are English, French, and Spanish lexicons, and there is support for the tiles of a Spanish SCRABBLE® set, including the digram tiles.
  
  
• The operations of performing queries (yielding output to a virtual slate) and the presentation of items on the slate are separately controlled.
  
  
• Provide for short-term (per-command) and long-term settings.
  
  
• Queries can include individual letters, individual blanks, and individual set specs. Each of these may have a repetition count, where zero means any number (zero or more).
  • Repetition counts, such as 4A3? to mean find all words with four A's and three other letters - the one answer is ATALAYA.
  • Asterisk to mean any number of any characters.
  • As a generalization of the asterisk, a repetition count or zero to mean any number of a specific character or set - B0R (with the digit zero in the middle) finds BRR and BRRR
    
    
• Although typically the word source for queries is a particular lexicon, it may be a particular wordlist.
  
  
• Queries may include references to words or their subwords, perhaps in reverse order, which are typically on the slate as a result of performing an earlier query. The source for these word references can be any particular wordlist.
  
  
• These are the 11 basic kinds of queries:
  • anagramming - find the 10 5-letter words using AELST
  • pattern matching - find the words beginning and ending with V, namely VAV, or what words have the pattern .I.A.I., such as TITANIC; a rack may be supplied for such queries
  • circulate a blank for each given letter and anagram - for QUIXOTE, find EQUINOX, QUIXOTE, and QUOITED
  • circulate a blank for each given letter through a pattern - for BABOON, find BABOOL, BABOON, BABOOS, and GABOON
  • circulate an added blank through a pattern - for TALER, find STALER, TAILER, TALERS, TALKER, TALLER, THALER
  • circulate an inserted blank through a pattern - for TALER, find TAILER, TALKER, TALLER, THALER
  • find all imbedded words - for THEATER, find AT, ATE, EAT, EATER, ER, HE, HEAT, HEATER, THE, THEATER
  • Find anagram steals, namely shortest words including the given letters plus others - for WOLFBERG, find BEFLOWERING, FURBELOWING, and GLOBEFLOWER
  • Find rearrangement anagram steals - for MAQUI, find UMIAQS
  • Find all words formable in a 5 x 5 grid of cubes
  • Find all two-word anagrams - for WOLFBERG, find BERG-FLOW, BERG-FOWL, BERG-WOLF, BLEW-FROG, BREW-FLOG, BREW-GOLF
  • Find all two-word patterns - for MANSLAUGHTER, find MAN-SLAUGHTER and MANS-LAUGHTER
    
    
• Support letter sets of various kinds:
  • Built-in sets, such as vowels, consonants, letters with certain scores, letters with certain counts;
  • There is a set which represents the bag of 98 letters, and this is user-modifiable.
  • There is a set which represents the super bag of 196 letters, and this is user-modifiable.
  • There is a set which represents scores for the 26 individual letters, and this is user-modifiable.
  • Word-based sets - the set of middle letters for a 3-letter word beginning with T and ending in N, or the set of letters which can anagram with ZOA to form a 4-letter word;
  • Specified sets - explicit list of letters, perhaps with ranges, or a list of letters which are not in the set;
  • User-defined sets - you define your own, either explicitly or by computation;
  • Query-based sets, such as a repeated letter, a first-time letter, etc.
    
    
• Query Filtering, based upon:
  • word score, flat or based on board placement (on either a 15x15 board or a 21x21 board), optional bingo bonus
  • word length,
  • word probability (number of ways to draw from 98 letters),
  • number of anagrams,
  • specific to word reference queries, the number of answers for each referenced word,
  • specific to word reference queries in which there is also one blank, the set of letters the blank can be
  • the set of front hooks
  • the set of back hooks
  • text included in definitions
    
    
• Control of Query Results - replace or augment the slate (where results go) with either words from the lexicon or strings, perhaps canonically-ordered based on your choice for ordering.
  
  
• Facilities for creation, labelling, copying, modification, deletion, import, export, and processing of lists of words (or strings in general), including logical operations of union, intersection, difference, and cross-product.
  
  
• The placing of results onto the slate as a result of perfoming a query is often then followed by the presentation of the slate, but these are distinct operations, which you can control separately. You may place results onto the slate and then perform various presentations, without changing the slate contents.
  
  
• WHAT can work with a file of definitions of a particular format. Although it does not come with such a file, you can find such files on the web. If you choose to get such a file, you can have definitions included as part of slate presentation. You can also ask for the definitions of specific words to be shown in a window dedicated to this purpose.
  
  
• Slate presentation controls include:
  • A choice of how much of the slate is shown:
    • nothing (especially useful when flashcarding),
    • merely whether there are any words,
    • whether there is a given number of words,
    • just the count of the number of words,
    • when the previous query had one or two blanks, you can see the letters or letter pairs that those blanks matched,
    • when the previous query had one or two blanks, you can see the number of letters or letter pairs that those blanks matched,
    • you can be shown one particular letter of one particular word,
    • you can be shown one particular letter of all words (within reason),
    • you can be shown one particular word,
    • a certain limited number of words,
    • all words, which is the typical, default choice.
  • Each word can be presented with your choice of:
    • ordered as it appears on the slate,
    • ordered in your choice of canonical order,
    • hidden, presented merely as empty square brackets.
  • Layout format choices:
    • one word per line,
    • packed rows, with your choice of spacing and an optional comma,
    • columnated rows,
    • columns.
    The last two choices allow for control of column spacing:
    • mimimal, with your choice of the minimum,
    • fixed-width, with your choice of that width,
    • expandable, with your choice of a minimum.
  • You can control the presentation width in one of three ways:
    • It can depend upon the workspace window width,
    • It can be a specific number of characters,
    • It can be a specific number number of columns of words.
  • You can control the number of rows per page, which applies only to presentations in columns.
  • You can present words according to up to seven sort keys, ordered according to your choice. The order can be increasing or decreasing. These are the criteria:
    • alphabetical order,
    • canonical alphabetical order,
    • blank alphabetical order,
    • word score,
    • word length,
    • word probability,
    • anagram count.
    
    
• Print the workspace, with controls for number of copies, order of printed pages, page orientation, page layout (margins, title, and line spacing), printer font. You can inhibit the showing of any command in the printed output by prefixing the command with at least one space.
  
  
• Create personal study lists.
  
  
• Create hand-tailored flashcards, and support flashcarding in two different modes: sequential and randomized.
  
  
• Generate random racks to quiz yourself, with control over the probability of there being words in a rack. Rack ordering can be random or a canonical order of your choosing.
  
  
• Generate random throws and support the hand-inputting of throws (25 cube arrangements) for the 5 x 5 grid game, and present them in large letters as a quiz. Save these throws, and support their export and import. The somewhat new 6-digram cube is supported.
  
  
• Especially for the 5 x 5 Grid Game and for results on the slate in general, you can make probes of words and find out immediately or later which of these are acceptable.
  
  
• Generate random grids and support the hand-inputting of grids (96 tile arrangements) for the Word-Building Game. Support the playing of this game. Support the saving of games and grids in history, and provide importing and exporting of solutions and grids. You can make a computer-solve for a good answer, with different levels of solving. You can also ask for a best-scoring word at any stage during solving.
  
  
• There a timer, especially for use when playing the 5 x 5 grid game. It has an early warning alarm and a times-up alarm. You can set durations and sounds.
  
  
• You can set up a 15 x 15 board or a 21 x 21 board with tiles, and you can find out all possible plays from a rack of seven tiles. Games on this board can be recoded and played back. This is especially helpful to postmortem already played games.
  
  
• Adjudicate challenges based on one or more words to be checked as as a group. Record challenged words in a file. Recording periods can be set up based on days of the week and times.
  
  
• There is an optional mode for adjudicating challenges at a time when there is a transition of lexicons. WHAT can report that a challenge has no penalty when a new or old word is among the challenged words.
  
  
• You can have WHAT revert to the challenge adjudication dialog after a certain amount of time has passed since any WHAT commands have been entered. This is of use mainly in a club setting.
  
  
• You can hand-tailor the initialization file which is read when the program starts which sets various options.
  
  
• You can define character sequences to be inserted into a command when various function keys are pressed. You also have the option of whether the command is then performed.
  
  
• When too many words are to be presented, you are warned and then given control to see partial answers.
  
  
• A query which proves to be taking too much time can be stopped before it is complete.
  
  
• A presentation which is too large can be stopped before it is complete.
  
  
• Commands can be executed from an imported command file.
  
  
• As a stopgap measure, when you request on-line help, you are led to browsing the "WHAT User Guide", either on your computer or from the WHAT web site.
  
  
• When your computer is attached to the web, the program can be used to check whether there are new updates available for downloading.