CPT4: Cryptogram Puzzle Tool for X / Linux

Cryptogram Puzzle Tool helps solve the simple cryptogram puzzles that appear in the daily newspapers. While these puzzles can often be solved almost by inspection, CPT4 provides a handy tool for the ones that turn out to be not quite so easy.

If you just want a little bookkeeping help, CPT4 will instantly update all occurrences of the new assignments as well as provide frequency and used/not-used letter lists as you drag-and-drop or key in suspected solution letters. But if you'd rather have the computer do the work, the automatic solution algorithm will usually come very close to a complete solution in just a few seconds.
Bonus: CPT4 can also create new puzzles: simply key in or load plaintext from a file, and select the 'Encrypt' item from the Options menu.

Screen Shots

HERE is a full screen shot of CPT4 in edit mode, with a puzzle already loaded (8 KB).
HERE is CPT4 in solve mode, with the a solution underway (15 KB).
HERE is a portion of my KDE desktop with the CPT4 icon and shortcut visible. (4 KB).

System Requirements

CPT4 runs on Linux / X-Window systems, with no special requirements beyond the availablity of compatible versions of the normal GTK+ suite of libraries. All distributions to date have been developed on my Pentium based PC under more or less standard RedHat and Slackware installations, so I expect that the source distributions, at least, should work on most similar installations.

The 4.2.0-1 binary shared library distribution was compiled from the 4.2.0 source distribution (see below), but on a vanilla Slackware 10.2 system using glib-2.6.6, Gtk+2.6.10, pango-1.8.2, atk-1.9.1, and so forth. It shows these dependencies:

  libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 	  libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 	 libatk-1.0.so.0
  libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0  libm.so.6    	         libpangoxft-1.0.so.0
  libpangox-1.0.so.0 	  libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 	 libpango-1.0.so.0
  libgobject-2.0.so.0 	  libgmodule-2.0.so.0 	 libdl.so.2
  libglib-2.0.so.0 	  libc.so.6       	 libX11.so.6
  libXrandr.so.2  	  libXi.so.6      	 libXinerama.so.1
  libXft.so.2     	  libfreetype.so.6  	 libfontconfig.so.1
  libXfixes.so.3  	  libXcursor.so.1 	 libXrender.so.1
  libXext.so.6    	  /lib/ld-linux.so.2  	 libz.so.1
  libexpat.so.0

  libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0     libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0    libatk-1.0.so.0
  libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0  libm.so.6              libpangoxft-1.0.so.0
  libpangox-1.0.so.0      libpango-1.0.so.0      libgobject-2.0.so.0
  libgmodule-2.0.so.0     libdl.so.2             libglib-2.0.so.0
  libc.so.6               libX11.so.6            libXrandr.so.2
  libXi.so.6              libXinerama.so.1       libXft.so.2
  libfreetype.so.6        libfontconfig.so.1     libXfixes.so.3
  libXcursor.so.1         libXrender.so.1        libXext.so.6
  /lib/ld-linux.so.2      libpangoft2-1.0.so.0   libexpat.so.0
  libz.so.1

   libgtk-1.2.so.0      libgdk-1.2.so.0    libgmodule-1.2.so.0
   libglib-1.2.so.0     libdl.so.2         libXext.so.6
   libX11.so.6          libm.so.6          libc.so.6
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2

   libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0     libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0    libatk-1.0.so.0
   libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0  libm.so.6              libpangox-1.0.so.0
   libpango-1.0.so.0       libgobject-2.0.so.0    libgmodule-2.0.so.0
   libdl.so.2              libglib-2.0.so.0       libc.so.6
   libX11.so.6             libXext.so.6           /lib/ld-linux.so.2

   libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0   libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0      libXext.so.6
   libatk-1.0.so.0       libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0   libm.so.6
   libpangox-1.0.so.0    libX11.so.6              libpango-1.0.so.0
   libgobject-2.0.so.0   libgmodule-2.0.so.0      libdl.so.2
   libglib-2.0.so.0      libc.so.6                /lib/ld-linux.so.2

   libgtk-1.2.so.0      libgdk-1.2.so.0    libgmodule-1.2.so.0
   libglib-1.2.so.0     libdl.so.2         libXext.so.6
   libX11.so.6          libm.so.6          libc.so.6
   /lib/ld-linux.so.2

Downloading

Since the currently available versions of 'cpt4' are nearly indistinguishable from the user's point of view, your best bet is probably to use the source distribution that was developed with libraries closest to those on your system. If you have the binary versions of the libraries but not the developer versions installed, try the closest shared binary distribution; and if you have none of the libraries and an older system, you might try the static distribution.

Installing / Building / Running

• Start by unpacking in a directory where you have write permissions; all tar files create and populate a cpt4/ directory and contain sample puzzles as well as various information.


• For the source distribution, change to the 'cpt4' directory and just type make. You may get a few warnings while compiling 'do_hart.c', but otherwise the executables 'cpt4' and 'do_hart' should be built after a short time and a few intermediate steps. If this does not happen and you are not knowledgeable about such things, you might try the shared library executable distribution instead.


• For the 4.1.x shared library executables, you may need to supply a font alias file in a location that the precompiled Pango routines can find; the easiest way to do this is to just copy the two files '.pangorc' and 'pangox.aliases' from the installation directory into to your $HOME directory. If you use the source distributions, of course, you will need to have a complete Pango installation before you start.


• Once you have the executables, try out the program by changing to the installation directory and issuing the command line:

            ./cpt4
  

  Use the File->Load menu item to load one of the samples (xxxxx.cpt) and play with the controls. Try the Options->Hart Solution menu item to see the automatic solution in action.
  


• If the puzzle text is uncomfortably small or large on your system, you can specify a different font on the command line like this:

            ./cpt4 -large
            ./cpt4 -small
  



• With the 4.0.x and 4.1.x versions (but not the 4.2.x versions) you can also specify a font by name like this:

            ./cpt4 -font="font-name"
  

  For the 4.0.1 versions (with GTK 1.2), the font MUST be monospaced and is expected to be iso8859-1; other characters sets may also work but might produce a different effect. The font-name for these versions of cpt4 must be an X logical font name such as "*clean-bold-r*--16*".
  
  For the 4.1.x versions (with Pango), monospaced fonts will generally produce more pleasing results, but proportional fonts of sufficiently small size may also work; the main requirement is that the ASCII characters '!' through '~' be portrayed as expected. Font-name for these versions must be a Pango font name, such as "courier bold 11", "sans 8", "Times 8", and so forth.


• If you want just want to run CPT4 from the command line, it is sufficient to put a soft link to 'cpt4' from somewhere in your PATH and leave both the 'cpt4' and 'do_hart' executables in the installation directory. For example, as root:

            cd /usr/bin
            ln -s /home/johndoe/cpt4/cpt4
  



• A 32x32 CPT4 icon in .xpm format is included in all distributions for use in desktop shortcuts.

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Acknowledgments

The automatic solution algorithm used in CPT was devised by George W. Hart and described in his article "To Decode Short Cryptograms", Communications of ACM, September, 1994. In this version of CPT, the solution algorithm is packaged as a separate executable, the 'C' code for which is largely an adaptation of the public domain demonstration program posted by Dr. Hart on his web site.

Author

Cryptogram Puzzle Tool was designed by Jeff Edwards, lge.aka.jeff@gmail.com. Comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcome.