Grid helpers

Status: Approved | 2025

Author: Victor Ma

Reviewer: Jonathan Blandford

Grid helpers aid the user in creating and filling the grid.

Grid helper	Description
Unch detector	Highlights unchecked cells.
Short clue detector	Highlights clues that are two-cells long.
Duplicate substring detector	Highlights duplicate substrings on the grid.

The following grid helpers require a grid-level word suggestion algorithm:

Grid helper	Description
Fillability indicator	Indicates whether or not the grid is fillable. If at least one clue is unfillable, then the grid is unfillable.
Cell constraint heat map	A heat map overlaid on top of the grid that indicates how constrained each cell is. A cell that can be any letter from A to Z is completely unconstrained. A cell that can only be a single letter is maximally constrained.
Most-constrained-clue button	A button that moves the cursor to the most constrained clue. The most constrained clue is the clue that has the smallest set of possible words—and that is not fully filled.