here are some tips for version 1.06 and later
Shift plus arrow keys moves the selection.
You can copy the selection by moving it using the mouse
with the control key down.
You change the keys the program uses by editing options.txt
click here
for some of the options you can edit.
also see tutorial 4 editing the options
You can change the transition rules in 2 ways.
1. Editing the rule table
there should be a window that's says "rule table window"
next chose a color from the color box
and edit the rule table by clicking on the squares in the rule table
window.
2. Editing saved text files
this lets you change more rule options than editing the rule table,
Go to the file menu then click on save,
now open the same file with notepad.
in version 1.09 and later,
you can edit the states and change a state's value or
color. just go to edit->edit state.
you can also add new states too
just go to edit->add state.
click here
for some of the commands you can edit.
also see tutorial 3 editing the rules
You can extract a rule from a pattern in any of pattern sets.
just open the file that has the pattern.
go to file->new.
if you want to clear the pattern then just click on the clear button
on the dialog box that says new universe.
save that extracted rule under a new file name.
You can paste the selection in the same place it was copied from it.
go to file->options.
in the options dailog box select the option that saids
"save x and y offsets of selection".
you can try a random rule just go to
edit->randomize rule table
then you can try changing the rule table to find a new rule.
in version 1.2 or later,
you can choose the spareness of the random rule table
go to file->options.
Type in a number where it saids "random rule table sparseness" then click ok.
There is also option that is named "clear rule table first"
that lets you choose if you would like the rule table cleared before
random entries are add to it.
You can choose to keep or drop the selection before running the pattern.
just go to file->options then click the "drop the selection before running"
option.
You can make your own list of patterns that can be load by the file browser.
Just make a text file with a list of file names.
Be sure to add the keyword cell_auto_list on the first line.
You can view the patternlist.lst file in any of the
pattern sets in a text editor as a example.
If you version 1.3 or later then there is a another way of doing it
add your patterns to a new zip file
then open that zip file using the file browser
you can get a rule where side neighbors count as 5 and corner neighbors count as 1,
just open a file in the rules2 directory.
the cell_auto_1d rule family lets you change it's neighbor weights.
just go to edit->rule family options and enter the new neighbor weights.
you can have any number of neighbor weights or any neighborhood size.
for example you can enter 1,1,0,1,1 so that each cell counts its 4 neighbors.
you can save a generation so you can go back to it.
press x the save_to_stack_key to save the generation press the space bar then
press z the undo_key to go back to he last generation saved.
you can also press v the redo_key to go back to the current generation.
in version 1.2 or later you can see the keys if you go to view->show the keys
or look at your options.txt file.
you can also click here to view the keys
you can press the select_tool_key to select the selection tool.
you can press the pencil_tool_key to select the pencil tool.
in version 1.3 or later
You can open zip files and browse the patterns inside it with the file browser.
in version 1.3 or later
view->edit neighborhood values lets you change the neighborhood weights
also view->enter neighborhood size lets you change the neighborhood size
in version 1.2 or later
You can try the new keys by running
java cellautoapp -o options2.txt
in version 1.5 or later
you can make it save compressed gz files by adding this line to options.txt
enable_file_compression,1