III. The Spider Program

The stack of cards in the upper left of the Spider window represents the undealt cards (initially the full deck; later the "Hand"). The eight outlines to the right mark where the eight suits will go as you remove them from the tableau. The rest of the window is initially empty until you start a game.

To start a game, press the [New Game] button or click either the left mouse button over the undealt cards. Playing the game is handled entirely within the main window; the control panel provides a few ancillary functions, described later. First, the main window:

If you press the left mouse button anywhere within or below a column of cards, it says you want to move as many cards as possible from that column. If you then move the mouse to another column and let up on the button, the program moves as many cards as it can from the first column to the second. (If there is no such legal move, the program says so.) Note that, unless the destination column is empty (i.e., a "space"), there is at most one choice for the number of cards to move.

If you instead use the second mouse button to select within a column, it says you want to move the card you're pointing at plus any cards covering it. If these cards cannot be moved as a unit (i.e., they are not a sequence within a suit), the program says so. Again, if you move the mouse to another column and release the button, the program moves as the selected cards to the destination. The only time you need to use this method (instead of using left) is if you're moving cards into a space AND you wish to move fewer than the maximum permitted.

If you click the left button over a single column, the program tries to move the specified cards to "the obvious place" by trying the following choices, in order: (1) remove them if they form a completed suit, else (2) move them onto a card of the same suit, else (3) move them onto a card of a different suit, else (4) move them into a space. If it can't do any of these, it complains.

You can also remove a completed suit by selecting all 13 cards (using the left button), moving the mouse into the region of outlines above the tableau, and releasing the button.

To deal a new round, click any button on the facedown stack in the upper left. The window footer shows you how many more deals remain. Remember that all spaces must be filled before you can deal a new round.

If you click with any mouse button in the outline region where the removed suits go, the program will tell you which suits (if any) have enough cards face-up to form a complete sequence of thirteen.

The game also has a control panel for performing some less frequent operations. Many of these also have keyboard accelerators:

• [New Game], N or n: Throws away the current game and start a new one.
• [Backup: One Move], U or u: Undo the last move. If you undo a move that revealed a previously unknown card, the program will chastise you.
• [Backup: Start Over], A or a: Play the same hand again. This will restart the game with the initial deck, discarding what you've already done.
• [Backup: Replay], R or r: Show all the moves made so far. This can take a while, so any key or button press will abort it.
• [Expand], E or e: Expand column. This prompts the user to select a column, which is then displayed in textual form. This is useful when the window cannot be made larger and the columns are very large.
• [Locate], F or f: tries to find a specified card or cards among the face-up cards in the tableau. First specify the name of the card to look for by putting the rank and suit in the Name item. (The ranks are A, 2, 3, ..., 10, J, Q, or K; you can also use T for 10. Suits are C, D, H, and S. Lower-case is permitted.) If you omit the suit, [Locate] will look for all cards of the specific rank that are not already covered by a card of the next lower rank. (Such cards are called "unused", "free", or "available".) For example, if you want to move a 9 out of some pile, you need either a space or a free 10 onto which to move it, so you could use [Locate] to find all free 10s.
• [Score], S or s: Shows the current score.
• [File] is a stack; the default is [Save in File], which writes a file containing the current state of the game, including the original deck and all the moves made so far. The name of the file is taken from the Name item. The file also includes a human-readable text representation of the current tableau, similar to those that appear in the examples below.
• [File: Resume from File] reads a file created by the [File: Save in File] command. The name of the file is taken from the Name item. It can also read various partial files; in particular, if all but the first line of the file has been deleted, it will restore the most recent position and, if possible, the original deck (in case you want to Start Over), but it will not be able to Back Up over the moves.
• [File: Resume from Selection] restores a position represented by the current text selection. This is useful for loading positions from section IV, below.

The window also understands these additional keyboard commands:

• D or d: Deals a new round.
• L or l: Loads a saved game from the current PRIMARY selection. If the selection is a file name, it will be loaded from that file. Otherwise it will attempt to load the selection as position. This is useful for loading positions from the examples in section IV.
• W or w: Saves the current position in the filename contained in the PRIMARY selection.
• ?: Gives a move suggestion. This isn't necessarily the best move, but may be helpful for beginners.
• #: Displays some game statatistics.

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