DeScramble - UI Overview
November 3rd, 2008
About a month ago I wrote an introduction to DeScramble an application I wrote this summer to cheat at the Facebook game Scramble. In this installment I will introduce the UI and the basic functionality of the application. Below is a screenshot of the main UI and a description of what each element does:
- Game window finder - drag this target to the browser window that is running the Scramble game. This allows the program to grab the window handle that is later used to interpret the game board. In a future version I may attempt to try and find the window handle automagically but this works fine for now.
- Send Answers toggle - checking this option tells the program to send the answers to the game.
- Answer Speed slider - use this slider to change how fast the program sends the answers to the game. From my testing anything lower than about 40ms tends to choke the game UI.
- Auto Stop/Start toggle (bot mode) - checking this option tells the program to automatically start and stop the solver during live games.
- Burst Mode toggle - checking this option tells the program to send the first 3 answers to the game immediately and then send answers based on the indicated answer speed. This option is to ensure that when the scores are first posted that you have some points. This eliminates the “cheaters lag” effect that is noticed when people have to type the board into a solver.
- Solve/Stop Solve button - this button starts and stops the solver.
You hacker!
How can I get this program?
This is great! Can you give more details of how you wrote it?
Language ( I assume C#) and the logic behind the algorithms etc.
I’m particularly impressed with how it automatically can get the letters from the scramble web page. How is this done? Please show some of the source code.
I hope to have 2 more posts about some of the internals on how it works… I have been really distracted by another project I have been working on lately. But I will get them done!