game-like view of the pattern field

After I added a small help to include special squares into the pattern field for the different word game solvers a few days ago, I already uploaded another new feature to help you with patterns. Writing the pattern might confuse some of you and to make it easier to check if a pattern in the word generator is the same as on your game board, I added a visualization of the pattern field. Some of you also requested this feature some time ago, so I am happy to introduce it now.

This feature is still in development, but introducing it now might help me to figure out how to optimize its usability. Please give me feedback using the comment function and participating in the poll below.

like on the board

Below all word generators with a pattern field there will be a visualization of the pattern. It is only displayed when you entered something into the form. The visualization displays empty squares and bonus squares like you would expect them on most of the word game boards. So empty squares, represented with a dot in the pattern field, will be blank squares in the visualization. Bonus squares will be highlighted by background colors. These are the same colors that I use to highlight the position of a letter in the result list. There will also be some labeling of these squares in the near future depending on whether or not you like this feature.

The following is an example for the visualization of the pattern  .2.to4.p3.

some improvements are comming

I am still not happy with the choice of colors, but didn’t want to just copy them from a specific word game since some of you plan Scrabble, some Words With Friends, Wordfeud or other word games. If you like this new feature, I will think about some improvements here. Labeling the bonus squares and enabling resp. disabling the visualization are some more improvements I would add here depending on your feedback. I might also move the visualization directly under the pattern input field.

not on mobile devices

I didn’t activate the visualization on small devices with a width below 768px. These are mostly smartphones. On these devices the keyboard normally overlaps the visualization so it wouldn’t really make sense there. It should work on tablets though, but if you experience any problems in usability I would be glad to read from you.

poll

To improve the usability of the new visualization I would like to read your feedback. Please use the comment form to help me find bugs or improvements. Also use the following poll to tell me if you like this new feature at all. Thank you.

The visualization of the pattern field is…

Update: I just finished the poll. A great number of 198 visitors voted and a vast majority of 89% is happy with the new visualization of the pattern in our word searches. This is far more than I expected, so I have to think about making the visualization look even better on your screens.