It is time: This release took longer than usual. This has several reasons: First, I, Mark, am back in regular employment and then, Thomas ‘TMZ’ and Mike, our two great new developers, needed the time to produce incredibly great tools after their extensive training period!

But first things first, the most important news is: We have now, mainly due to the great work of the two amazing guys, managed to rewrite every single function of the GCC and, therefore, make it coequal. Many thanks to both of them! (There is still a lot more of this in this post :D).

What are the highlights you had to wait so long for?

• GCC functions: The last missing tools were implemented: Homophone, RC4, Gade, Solitaire and Chao (Thanks, Thomas and Mike)
• Universal Code Breaker for monoalphabetic encryptions (i.e. 1:1 substitutions of letters, like Rotation or random letter replacements, like A to X, B to Q, …): If the text size is large enough, the tool finds the replacement key completely on its own, without the user having to know which encryption was used. The code from guballa.de, which was set OpenSource, served as a basis. Thanks for this and thanks to Mike for the implementation!
• Numeral Words: The requirement was: If numeral words (one, two or also eins, deux, quatre) appear in a text, they should be collected and converted into numbers, based on a small fixed list from 0 to 10. However, what does our Thomas do with it? For German and English he writes a parser that even displays words like eight hundred and twenty-three thousandsevenhundred and four correctly! Respect!
• Light Theme: Some slightly older users have given the very valuable hint that they cannot use the app because they cannot read white text on a black screen. There is now the possibility to select a light design under “Settings (click on the logo in the upper left corner) | General | Theme: Color”. Have fun!
• GPS Access (New Permission “GPS Access” required): We thought and discussed a lot about this. The GCC was popular, also because it did not require any device permissions. The GCW had already softened this with the access to the Internet for the MapView. We decided to follow this way further and let the GC Wizard use the possibilities of a smartphone, because it was frequently requested: As coordinates input, the current, own location coordinates can now be inserted with a button click. Also, your own position can now be displayed in the MapView.
• Save Symbol Tables encryptions (New Permission “Write Files” required): The decryption of the symbol tables already provides valuable services, but the encryption was a rather meaningless function until now, because the generated images could not be used any further. This is now possible: The generated codes can now be saved (we are not quite sure if this works properly on all devices, so we marked this feature as “experimental”). How many images can be saved in one row can be controlled by the zoom buttons. The current view is exactly what is saved.
  • Unfortunately the web version does not support this feature yet.
  • Storage location iOS: Default storage of the app (Open a file browser, open app directory of the GC Wizard, the file should be found right there)
  • Storage location Android: Also stored in the app’s default directory, which is a bit harder to find: Open a file browser: “Current device/Android/data/en.sman42.gc_wizard/files/“
• Download all Symbol Tables as a PDF file: Mike has written his very own tool that reads all symbol images and compiles them as a PDF file. This PDF document can be downloaded in the upper right corner of the Symbol Tables (currently about 15 MB)
• Cardinal points as direction input: In the coordinate calculations, you can now select directions like “North”, “East-Southeast” or “West by Southwest” without having to calculate the related degree value
• Nested Formulas: Suppose you have entered a formula: “A + B” or even more complicated. Now in the next formula you want to use the result of the previous one without copying it, e.g. “C * (A + B)“, where (A + B) is the first formula. This can now be done with the code {F1} (where the number indicates the number of the formula to be used): “C + {F1}“. Only previous formulas can be referenced, not the next ones.
• Copy button in multiline outputs: Until now, the copy button existed only on the normal outputs. But some tools have these multiline, detailed outputs (recognizable by the changing line colors). These lines now have their own copy button. However, only one value is copied, even if there are several columns. Which value has been copied is indicated by a short upcoming hint.

Changelog

The current changelog has no less than exactly 42 (!!!) entries, and we’re not even sure if we didn’t miss anything. Many small and medium tools have been added (final thanks again to the two restless helpers Thomas and Mike, but also to “TeamBirdy2404” for numerous new Symbol Tables), a few minor changes have been made and also several bugfixes: As usual, thanks to all who found and reported one! Of course you all have been immortalized as testers in the “About” section!

[new] Universal Code Breaker (Thanks, Mike, guballa.de)
[new] Numeral words (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Symbol Tables: Export Encryption as Image (EXPERIMENTAL)
[new] Theming: Light Theme
[new] Coords Input: Use GPS
[new] MapView: Show own position
[new] Formula Solver: Nested formulas
[new] Abaddon/Decabit: Input buttons (Thanks, Mike)
[new] License/Third party page
[new] Kenny Code: Case sensitivity (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Coords: Compass Rose for direction input
[new] Time Calculator
[new] Book cipher (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Coord Formats: Examples in DropDown list
[new] Chronogram
[new] Bacon: new output options (Thanks, Mike)
[new] BCD: new variants (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Enclosed Areas (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Chao Cipher (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Humidex (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Summer Simmer (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Solitaire (Thanks, Mike)
[new] RC4 (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Symbol Tables: Download all as PDF (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Roman Numbers: Subtraction rule also for decoding
[new] Homophone (Thanks, Mike)
[new] AMSCO Cipher (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Gade (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Copy button in multiline output
[new] A lot of Symbol Tables (Thanks, ‘teambirdy2404’, Mike, Thomas)
[fix] Symbol Tables: Not all symbols were displayed (Thanks, Mike)
[fix] Cross sum range: Freeze on big numbers (Thanks, Mike)
[fix] Day Calculator: Problems with crossing daylight saving days (Thanks, ‘Freakyfinder’)
[fix] Alphabet Values: Input handling (Thanks, ‘Vyrembi’)
[fix] Periodic System data (Thanks, Mike)
[fix] Enigma: Input freeze when numbers entered
[fix] CCITT-1 (Thanks, Thomas)
[chg] Alphabet Values: Removed pipe character as output delimiter
[chg] Alphabet Values: Removed crosstotal switch
[chg] More robust against wrong inputs (e.g. Playfair Key, Enigma input)
[chg] Tool ‘Substitution’ renamed to ‘Replacements’
[chg] Upgraded internals for new Android versions