Web Paint-by-Number Forum
Topic #154: That new little button...
By Joseph Jessen (gijoex2)

#1: Joseph Jessen (gijoex2) on Mar 12, 2009

Jan, what's that new little button at the top of the "tower" below the puzzle grid? Also, I'm seeing a difference in the way the row/column of numbers is shading in. Yesterday, the numbers did not shade in automatically, this morning, they shaded in when I pressed one square. Thanks for your time.
#2: Shae (shaekin) on Mar 12, 2009
As soon as I fill in a square it shades all of the numbers and won't let me unshade them. Thanks Jan!
#3: Jan Wolter (jan) on Mar 12, 2009
To quote from the FAQ:

What does the weird button with the three icons on it do?

Web paint-by-number lets you customize the functions assigned to three different mouse buttons.

Mice with three actual buttons are getting more common these days. The middle button is often a scroll wheel between the two mouse buttons. You can click it like a regular mouse button. However many browsers don't support the middle mouse button. IE, Safari, Chrome and Konqueror do. Firefox and Opera do not.

So in most cases the three different mouse buttons that you have are "Click", "Shift-Click" and "Control-Click", the latter two being accomplished by holding the shift key or control key down while clicking the mouse. "Alt-Click" is an alternative to "Control-Click", which is useful for those browers where that doesn't work.

In any case, the three icons on the mouse function button represent the functions for the three mouse buttons. Clicking on the icons changes them.

  1. Cycle - Each click changes the color of the cell, cycling through all the possible colors, changing unknown cells to white, then black, then whatever other colors are in the puzzle, then back to unknown again. This is the default for the left button.
  2. Cycle Backwards - Same as cycling, only in reverse order. This is the default for the right button.
  3. Paint This Color - If you click on a cell, paint it the current color, except that when you click on a cell that is already that color, it will switch it back to unknown.
  4. Color Picker - The eyedropper can be assigned to the middle or right buttons, not the first. If you click on something, a cell, or a clue number, it assigns the first mouse button to paint that color. Clicking on an unknown cell or on a blank space from among the clue numbers sets it to paint white, not unknown.
  5. Color Menu - This is another function lets you use the right or middle mouse button to assign a paint color to the first mouse button, except the button pops up a menu of colors to choose from instead of picking whatever color you click on.

If you want to set different default functions for your mouse buttons, you can do that with the "Options" button.

#4: Jan Wolter (jan) on Mar 12, 2009
I haven't done anything to fix the auto-shading problem yet. In fact, I haven't been able to reproduce it yet, but so far as I can tell all the people reporting it are using IE 6 or IE 7, so I probably have to go find a windows computer and test from there.
#5: Robert Nessen (pnessen) on Mar 12, 2009
I'm having the same shading problem. I also can't seem to set any mouse button to be just a white square. Is there a way to allow that?
#6: Jennifer Jones (geekess) on Mar 12, 2009
Robert I was going to ask the same thing! I can use cycle for that right now, but an option of going back to white would be great!
#7: Jennifer Jones (geekess) on Mar 12, 2009
Actually I think I answered my own question after I played for a bit! If you put the reverse arrow on a button it will "undo" what you have and go back to white IF it was white before your mistake....might not work as well on multiple color puzzles, but good on B&W.
Jan I absolutely LOVE that you can set your preferences for buttons. Thanks for all th work it looks great!
#8: Jan Wolter (jan) on Mar 12, 2009
I assume you mean "white" the unknown state, not "white" the dotted state.

If you have a button set to paint any color, it will turn a cell to the unknown state if it was already that color. So any color button will turn any cell unknown with a click or two.

In the old version it was possible to dedicate a button to going back to the unknown state. It seemed like a rarely useful function, since people don't usually do that very much, so I lost it in the redesign of this part of the interface. I could probably find a way to add it back in if people really want it.
#9: Robert Nessen (pnessen) on Mar 12, 2009
I used it all the time. Maybe I just make more mistakes than everyone else.
#10: Pamppampaa Joopajoo (jotainjotain) on Mar 12, 2009
I used to set the left button to paint colors, middle to blank and the right to empty square. It's not possible now, because of the missing blank-choise..
#11: Jan Wolter (jan) on Mar 13, 2009
I'll see about putting a blank choice back in.
#12: Jan Wolter (jan) on Mar 24, 2009
The blank choice is now in again.
#13: Jennifer Jones (geekess) on Mar 26, 2009
Thank you!

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