Theme Editing - Step 1
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Above is the first screen encountered when building a theme in Sparkling Fill. First, add 3-5 theme words. Typically these words (unless they are in the middle row) will need a corresponding word of the same length so symmetry can be maintained. For help entering words that will produce valid theme layouts, see Valid Theme Word Sets.
Once you have entered your theme words, you will see each word presented and its length. On the right, there are two options, "Set Middle Row", and "Remove". Remove simply removes the word. "Set Middle Row" tells Sparkling Fill that you intend this word to be in the middle row of the grid. Sparkling Fill is often smart enough to determine when a word belongs in the middle row (it's the only one of it's length), but it can be helpful to identify a word belonging in the middle row especially if there are other words of the same length.
Next, click "Get Word Layout Options" and you'll see a screen similar to below.
For this combination of words, Sparkling Fill has identified 4 potential layouts (see "2. Word Layouts - 1 of 4"). You can use the "Previous Layout" and "Next Layout" buttons to cycle through the available options. You'll also see a button to "Invert" the layout. Any theme layout can be inverted, which simply takes left justified words and makes them right justified and vice versa. See the above theme inverted below:
You'll notice the "Invert" button becomes an "Undo Invert" button so you can go back to the regular layout. Changing layouts always defaults to the "normal" layout, but can be inverted if desired.
You'll notice that Sparkling Fill has also added blocks from the top and side of the screen. These are simply useful default positions, but can be changed in two ways. First, you'll notice each "bar" has a pink slider along the edge of the puzzle. These can be used to move the sliders back and forth (see below). The symmetric squares will be moved in concert so they don't have separate sliders. The top blocks default to being long enough to reach to the first theme word. The side blocks usually start at a length of two. The length of the side blocks can be adjusted by clicking the radio buttons to switch to a length 1, 2, or 3 (see below).
The second method for editing these blocks is simply clicking on the grid to toggle the squares black or white.
The final step in creating the initial layout is to swap word positions (if desired). Sparkling Fill will insert words into the puzzle in roughly the order you entered them. If you would like to change their position, or swap their position with another word, use the "Swap Inner Words", "Swap Outer Words", or "Swap Both Words". Once you're happy with the setup, you can click the arrow, or the blue circle to step 2 (see below). You can always come back and make changes.
