jTans (http://jtans.sourceforge.net)
©2002 Philippe Banwarth (bwt@altern.org)
Rules of the game
Help
 Show a piece
 Show outline
Menus
 Figure status
Preferences
 Game's parameters
 Main area's graphics
 Silhouette's graphics
 Rendering
Licensing

Rules of the game

Move the pieces until they match the figure drawn on the right window (the silhouette). You must always use the seven pieces and they should not be laid on top of one another.
To move a piece, click and drag it with left mouse button, for rotation click around it. You can flip the selected piece by right-clicking. This is usefull for the parallelogram piece (all positions can not be reached by rotating only).
If you are a beginner to Tangram you should try the first 10 figures of the default figure file. The other ones are not sorted, some of them are very difficult (to my taste).
When a figure has been solved the background color of the silhouette area changes. The solved figures are remembered but you may reset the status to unsolved.

Help

Show a piece

This button shows the position of a piece. Each further click will display an other piece.

Show outline

Draw the figure in the main area. This makes the game much easier.

Menus

Figure status

Every time you the solution, the figure's status is set to "solved" in the configuration. This menu allows you to reset this status for the current figure, for all the figures of the current file, or for all the figures.

Preferences

There are a lot of preferences (probably too much). When started as an application jTans load and saves them in a file called .jTansConfig.gz in the user's home directory. As WebStart application it uses the persistent service. The applet version don't save the config.

Game's parameters

Pieces size : changes the size of the pieces (relative the the main area's size).
Solution accuracy : Changes the precision of the comparison between actual position of the pieces and the solution. A lower accuracy makes the game more easy.
Pieces rotation : Stepped allows only rotation by increment of 11.5 degrees.
Continuous rotation makes the game more difficult and you probably shouldn't use it unless you really dislike step by step rotation.
Automatic (not yet implemented) is a kind of stepped rotation where the step is the biggest one that allows to solve the figure.
Figures : change the figure file. You may choose from the files 'embeded' in the application ('from jar') or from the local filesystem ('from file').
The file format is compatible with gTans (the GTK version of jTans).
Unsigned applet/WebStart applications are not allowed to access the filesystem.

Main area's graphics

You may choose the color and width of the lines drawed in the main area.
The surfaces can be filled with a plain color, or with a texture, wich is simply a picture file. Sun's JRE recognizes JPEG, GIF and (since version 1.4) PNG files.
As with figure files they can be loaded from the local filesystem (for the applet/WebStart application versions, security restriction may apply) or from jTans resources (i.e. from jTans's jar file).
Textures are more CPU intensive. If your machine is not powerfull, you should probably avoid them (specially for the background).
Note : unfortunately I don't remember where I found the files I've put in the archive. Transparency : this apply to the selected piece.

Silhouette's graphics

This tab is similar to previous one, but apply to the little figure area.

Rendering

This tab allow you to 'tune' the Java2D's rendering. Basically you have to choose between speed and quality. I think the only interesting option is antialiasing.

Licensing

Copyright (©) 2002 Philippe Banwarth (bwt@altern.org)
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.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA