Random Text

This applet allows you to 'descramble' a message (or messages) in a way that appears that the applet is decoding the message a few characters at a time, randomly choosing combinations until the remaining letters in the message are finalized.

Downloading

The applet may be downloaded for free by clicking on the TAR-file link below (read the FAQ if you're not sure what to do with a TAR file). The FAQ also has step by step instructions on how to embed an applet into your own webpage.

RandomText2.tar

Once unTARed, you should find the following classes (plus a '.jar' file if you want to use the archive= attribute in the <applet> tag):

Parameters

Below are descriptions of all the parameters you may use to customize the applets to your webpages. Be sure to enclose any parameters that contain white space in double-quotation marks. Most parameters have default values in case you do not specify your own values, but the first two parameters (AUTHOR and COPYRIGHT) are necessary. If you are not sure how to incorporate an applet into a webpage (with its parameter names and values), looks at the source of this webpage and the applet embedded for an example, or read the FAQ page.

  • AUTHOR: This parameter must appear exactly as follows: 
    <param name=AUTHOR value="Eric Harshbarger, http://www.ericharshbarger.org">

  • COPYRIGHT: This parameter must appear exactly as follows: 
    <param name=COPYRIGHT value="RandomText applet, Copyright 1998, Eric Harshbarger">

  • BACKGROUND: This parameter points to an image file that is used as a background to the applet. All the various texts of the applet will be painted on top of this image. Consult the FAQ page if you are unsure about what image formats you may use.

  • BGCOLOR: This parameter indicates the background color of the applet. Consult the FAQ page if you are unsure what format to use for the parameter's value.

  • FGCOLOR: This parameter indicates the foreground color of the applet. Consult the FAQ page if you are unsure what format to use for the parameter's value.

    NOTE... You may designate a font with the parameters below, but it is strongly recommended that you choose a fixed-spaced font for FONTNAME (like Courier); otherwise the effect of the RandomText is spoiled.

  • FONTNAME: This value indicates the fontface used by the applet. Java1.0.2 has the following values from which to choose (must be spelled exactly): TimesRoman, Dialog, Courier, Helvetica, DialogInput, Symbol.

  • FONTSIZE: This value indicates the size of the font used by the applet.

  • FONTSTYLE: This value indicates the style of the font used by the applet. The value should be one of the following: plain, bold, italic, bolditalic.

  • MESSAGE.#: This series of parameters (starting with MESSAGE.0, MESSAGE.1,...) defines the texts that are unscrambled. The applet will cycle through them beginning with MESSAGE.0. Multiple lines in a single message may be forced with a backslash '\'. This linebreak character may be changed with the LINEBREAK parameter if you actually want a backslash to appear in the final message.

  • LINEBREAK: If you wish to change the usual 'linebreak' character (defualt is backslash '\'), you may do so with this parameter.

  • SCRAMBLE.SPACE: If 'true' spaces in MESSAGES will be decoded just like normal characters. If 'false' the spaces are always visible (thus one can tell the individual word lengths as the words themselves are unscrambled).

  • ALIGN; This parameter should be 'left', 'right', or 'center' and indicates the horizontal justification of the messages in the applet area.

  • VALIGN; This parameter should be 'top', 'bottom', or 'center' and indicates the vertical justification of the messages in the applet area.

  • SOLVE.RATE: As a message is unscrambled, this parameter indicates how may steps of randomness must occur before the next character(s) are solved. A value of '1' would mean that each cycle solves another letter (or letters). A '5' would mean that the it takes five cycles to solve the next character(s). The default is '3'.

  • SOLVE.COUNT: This indicates how many characters in the message are solved in each 'solving cycle'. The default is '1' (only one new letter is finalized each solving cycle).

  • SOLVE.SPEED: Indicates the millisecond pause between each cycle. The default is 50.

  • SOLVE.ORDER: A number to indicate how the letters is solved. If positive, the letters as finalized in a 'forward' manner from the beginning of the message to the end, in order. A negative value means the message is solved back-to-front. A value of 0 (the default) means the message is finalized randomly.

  • PAUSE: This is the amount of milliseconds a completely solved message remains visible before the applet starts unscrambling the next message. The default is 2000.

  • RANDOM.CHARACTERS: This is a string of characters from which the applet pulls its random characters when scrambling the message. The default is a string of all capital letters, 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.

  • SOUND: This can be a quick sound file play with each scramble cycle to more emphasis. Consult the FAQ page if you are unsure about what type of sound files you may use.


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