It is always difficult to find the best time for a release. Especially when you work in a team. Someone has always started the next really cool feature. And then the question always arises: Should we wait for it?

Or the other way around: It’s only natural (and absolutely okay!) that someone from the team doesn’t feel like working on the project, even if you might need some help. Here, too, you have to decide whether you’d rather wait with the release or whether you can cut back somewhere.

We have both cases right now. Actually, the status doesn’t really feel like a final state right now, simply because, for example, three very cool features are in progress, actually quite advanced. But the necessary intensive testing will still take some time, so we decided to make the other, also very interesting, features available to you in the meantime.

The highlights of 2.1.0

Extensions of the formula solver:

• Colored formulas: Programmers may know the word “syntax highlighting”, which actually describes Mike’s feature pretty well. For all non-programmers: The new feature highlights certain parts of the entered formulas in color:
  • blue: Everything that has to do with mathematics: operation signs like plus, times, minus, brackets or also names of functions like sine (sin) or logarithm (log)
  • green: Fixed values, e.g. normal numbers (or text, see below)
  • orange: Variables
  • red: Variables that are still missing a value or, e.g., bracket errors
  • Default text color: In case a formula contains several subformulas (separated by blocks with square brackets) the areas that are not affected by formulas remain in the normal text color
  • E.g.: N 52° [AB].[1 + C][D * (A + B)]5
    • N 52° is outside the square brackets, as is the trailing 5 and the dot after the first block: default color
    • [ ], ( ), +, * are mathematical symbols or define the mathematical areas: blue
    • 1 is a fixed number: green
    • A and D are variables that have already been given a value: orange
    • B and C still waiting for values: red
  • Troubleshooting can be significantly simplified by the additional information
• In addition to the standard mathematics formulas already available, the following new functions are now available:
  • cs() – Calculates the cross sum of a number
  • csi() – Calculates the iterated cross sum (digital root) of a number
  • max(), min() – Calculates the greatest or least value of multiple values.
  • round() – Rounds a value. You can also specify that it should round, for example, to 2 decimal places
  • sinDeg(), cosDeg(), … – The current trigonometric functions sin(), cos(), … all required a radian value. The new functions can now also interpret degree values.
  • For more explanations, see here
• Text-based functions:
  • The formula solver can now interpret texts:
    • bww(), av() – (German: BuchstabenWortWert or English: Alphabet Values) Calculates the alphabet values of a given text
    • len() – (Length) Calculates the number of characters in a text.
  • Text can not only be entered directly in the formulas, but variables can now also have texts: To do this, simply set the variable type to text for the variables.
• Variable Interpolation:
  • Until now, this was exclusively a function in the “Variable Coordinates” tool, where it was possible to interpolate missing values by possible values or range specifications. This is now also possible directly in the Formula Solver
  • E.g.: Formula A + B
    • We have already obtained A = 1, but unfortunately we have not found B
    • We set the variable type to interpolation and enter possible values, e.g. 3-5, because we assume that only the numbers 3, 4, or 5 are plausible.
    • The Formula Solver now displays an expandable list with three possible results:
      • 1 + 3 = 4
      • 1 + 4 = 5
      • 1 + 5 = 6

Find correct Symbol Table with sample texts

The use case: You have an unknown symbol cipher. It consists of a series of strange lines. What have you done so far? You scroll through the list and look at the example images. When you find an image where you think it might fit, you open this table and see if it really is the right one. Because this usually didn’t work the first time, you repeat this a few times until (ideally) the right table is found.

Now there is a tool that may reduce this effort a little. With “Search by Example” several tables can be compared directly with each other. In the first step you look for the possible candidates in an overview. In the second step you simply enter any text. This text will be translated into symbols for all selected candidates. For example, if you think that the word “NORTH” is hidden in your puzzle, then you just enter “NORTH” as an example text and can directly see several symbol tables at once, whether there is something suitable, without having to click through all the tables individually.

Telegraphs

Thomas has made an incredible effort to provide a large collection of telegraph encoders and decoders. It all started when he noticed an error with the Schilling Canstatt telegraph, but couldn’t find any source online that got it right. So he started to communicate with several universities and book archives around the world to dig up some old, dusty, long forgotten writings. These writings are now gathered in the form of an extensive Telegraph Section in the GC Wizard. So if you ever wanted to simulate obscure Norwegian telegraphs: You’re welcome! 🙂

Multi-decoder now with password input

Previously, the Multi Decoder could only handle tools that did not require a password, such as Rotation or Reverse or Conversion to Binary. Mike has now (besides integrating many more tools into the multi-decoder) created the option to enter a password in a second field. This means that the Multi Decoder can now be applied to tools like Vigenère or Playfair.

New Language: Dutch

What definitely needs to be mentioned is the tireless work of “Henrike71” and Paul Z., who translated the app completely into ?? Dutch in record time. Many thanks for that!

Preview

Currently, of course, we continue to work on a lot of new ideas.

Mike is currently working on an automatic replacement of symbols directly from images, so that an annoying typing of the symbols may be spared now and then (that will depend significantly on the source quality of the input image).

Thomas has set himself the goal of completely disassemble Wherigo cartridges. Again, the first previews are already very promising. Small supporting tools, like the Urwigo Hash Breaker and the Urwigo Text Deobfuscator, are already integrated into the current version and will unleash their full function in the future.

Furthermore, we have always missed “checkered paper”, if one had to paint any grids in a Multi Cache again – for whatever reason (Fill in boxes, Paint a chess board, …). There will be a very flexible solution here, which we are currently working on.

Also the great work of “j_janus” and Paweł, who drive the translations ?? Polish (currently >45%) with great strides, must be mentioned here. Many thanks also to these contributors and all other translators on Crowdin!

… and so it goes on and on 🙂 As usual, many thanks to the team, all external contributors and supporters!

Changelog

[new] Language: Dutch (Thanks, ‘Henrike71’ & Paul Z.)
[new] Formula Solver: Colored formulas (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Formula Solver: Interpolate Values
[new] Formula Solver: Text-based functions
[new] Telegraph Section: Edelcrantz, Chappe, Canstatt, … (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Symbol Tables by Example
[new] Multi Decoder: Password based tools (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Predator (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Homophone: Custom Key-Value Pairs (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Clipboard: Key-Value Copy/Paste (Thanks, Mike)
[new] ASCII: Advanced Section
[new] Urwigo Tools
[new] Prime Alphabet
[new] IP Codes (Thanks, Andreas)
[new] Compound Interest
[new] Duck Speak: Only Digits
[new] Weather Symbols (Thanks, Andreas)
[new] Numeral Words: Bulgarian (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Symbol Tables (Thanks, Andreas & Thomas)
[chg] Search: Enhanced Performance
[fix] GPX/KML: Name (Thanks, Mike)
[fix] Three Circle Intersect: Copy Results