XWord Muggles Forum

This is a tiny (4x4) meta I made primarily to test/showcase Crosshare's new meta submission/leaderboard features:
https://crosshare.org/crosswords/5Fv0HOT1RYRkIJjfJSC1

If you have any suggestions for or issues with the submission process please let me know! I just enabled it for other constructors as well (there is now a contest mode checkbox when you upload or construct a puzzle on Crosshare) so give it a shot the next time you want to share a puzzle and LMK how it can be improved.

EDIT: special thanks to Will of Pandora's Blocks for suggesting this feature!

Fun puzzle, but I don't see the leaderboard feature you're testing. I'm sure it's operator error!

Thanks @Joe Ross! Once you finish solving the grid you should see a big popup fill the screen that has instructions for how to submit your answer - after submitting the leaderboard appears. I definitely can work on making this more intuitive so I appreciate the feedback!

miked wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 10:50 am Thanks @Joe Ross! Once you finish solving the grid you should see a big popup fill the screen that has instructions for how to submit your answer - after submitting the leaderboard appears. I definitely can work on making this more intuitive so I appreciate the feedback!

Experienced the pop-up and that my submission was correct & received, but not the leaderboard. It's possible I have a pop-up blocker in effect, but I don't think I've enacted those settings on the browser used (MS Edge).

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 11:03 am Experienced the pop-up and that my submission was correct & received, but not the leaderboard. It's possible I have a pop-up blocker in effect, but I don't think I've enacted those settings on the browser used (MS Edge).

Hmm interesting - thank you for the help figuring this out! It should show up after submitting just above the "Comments" section: What does it look like for you? Might be something I overlooked related to MS Edge - I've only tested on FF + chrome.

I'm seeing it, now! Dunno what my issue was. TY & very nice!

Proof that even a mini-meta can make you smile! I got it at first, and I was like, "What is the connection? Oh...haha. That's good."

Love Crosshare - keep it up!

@Joe Ross glad to hear it's showing up for you now!
@MikeyG thank you!

I solved it and was told I was correct but somehow either I did not appear on the leaderboard or am listed as anonymous. I may have missed the place to put my screen name in.

Ah bummer @oldjudge I think you must be one of the "Anonymous Crossharers" listed - usually when folks log in with google the name gets set correctly but sometimes it doesn't get included and I just list them as anonymous. There's a link to change it before submitting but I must need to make it a bit more prominent!

Cool! I haven't looked to see whether / how Crosshare puzzles can be embedded in other sites, but I am interested in this functionality.

A couple things:

1) I wasn't clear on how to revisit the puzzle grid without losing the window in which to enter the meta, so I had to recreate the grid in my memory before answering, which was kinda hard.

2) Users would, I think, need some sort of prompt to log in to a Crosshare account before starting the puzzle, and also a way to log in and link their solve to their ID after solving, but before submitting their meta answer.

3) A user panel in which users could see their past entries and rankings against other solvers for particular puzzles would be GREAT. You can see this, for instance, on Matt Gaffney's site week by week, but you have to back week by week using a nonintuitive interface to do so.

I am the king of solving 4x4 test metas! Yowzah!

ricky wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 2:23 pm Cool! I haven't looked to see whether / how Crosshare puzzles can be embedded in other sites, but I am interested in this functionality.

A couple things:

1) I wasn't clear on how to revisit the puzzle grid without losing the window in which to enter the meta, so I had to recreate the grid in my memory before answering, which was kinda hard.

2) Users would, I think, need some sort of prompt to log in to a Crosshare account before starting the puzzle, and also a way to log in and link their solve to their ID after solving, but before submitting their meta answer.

3) A user panel in which users could see their past entries and rankings against other solvers for particular puzzles would be GREAT. You can see this, for instance, on Matt Gaffney's site week by week, but you have to back week by week using a nonintuitive interface to do so.

Sorry @ricky I just saw this! Puzzles are easy to embed - after publishing a puzzle click "More" > "Embed" from the top bar. All of the meta features should work with embedding too.

1) There is a circled X in the top right corner of the meta submission overlay that you can click to see the grid again, and then a button in the top bar to show the meta submission again after closing it. I do think I need to figure out a way to make this more obvious as you're not the only person who has told me they missed it.

2) You can log in (via google) either before solving by clicking on the account button in the top right, or after solving but before submitting - in fact you need to log in with google before Crosshare will let you submit an answer.

3) This is a great idea! I'd like to add more stats across puzzles like that for both solvers and constructors. Right now constructors get stats on a per-puzzle basis but it would be very helpful to see at a glance e.g. what is the trickiest of all the metas I've constructed or what is the fastest grid I constructed for solvers.