International Crosswords 1.5

International Crosswords is a free and useful utility that can create online crosswords in any language. Its primary purpose is to allow educators to create crosswords for students learning another language. It is a useful tool for creating challenging and fun exercises to help re-inforce each lesson. Remembering word lists can be a little easier when you make it into a game.

It can also be used to create crosswords just for fun. For an example please take a look at this crossword created using the English alphabet. Included with the package are files to allow you to use the Greek and Esperanto alphabet as well. Custom language alphabet files can be easily created, instructions are included.

INSTALLATION:

1. Open the file "config.pl". Here you will be able to set a number
of key factors necessary to run the program. Most of it is already
explained in the file. A couple of points:

- The $config{alphabet} variable points to the default alphabet file.
Only 3 alphabets are included with the Mongwell International Crosswords
package: Greek, English, and Esperanto. You may create your own alphabet
file easily. All you need to do is create a list of the HTML codes necessary to display the languages alphabet.

The lines of the file need to be set into a key=value format. The key
is an alphanumeric representation of the letter (it doesnt matter what
you use here, just as long as you dont use the same one twice). The
value is the HTML code that displays that character. For example, here
are a few lines from the Greek alphabet:

Alpha=Α
Beta=Β
Gamma=Γ

- The $config{docpath} variable can usually be left as is unless you
either make it so that the name of the directory is not "crosswords" right underneath the base HTML directory, or your server is set up in such a way that the cgi-bin directory is not directly underneath the base HTML
directory. You can either change it to point to the absolute path to
the directory or modify the relative directory to fit your directory
structure.

2. Upload viewer.cgi, maker.cgi, config.pl, and the alphabet file that
you will be using to your directory under cgi-bin. We recommend using
cgi-bin/cwords, however you may use any directory name you wish. Make
sure to set the attributes of maker.cgi and viewer.cgi to 755.

3. Create your document path directory structure under the base HTML
directory. We recommend using the directory "/crosswords". The name
may be whatever you like, however, its path must be properly set in
the config.pl file.