One of my first experiments were to apply a checkerboard pattern to the inscription grid and checked how period 19 or mirror+period 15 behaves. There were no discrepancy between this test and the odd/even anomaly. Try the same with upper/lower half in different colors. Also no discrepancy.

That’s cool largo, I have been looking for a tool to use like this and have been working on chunk sizes of the 340 in the background for the last few months. I have been using http://zodiackillerciphers.com/zodiac-pattern-drawer for the moment but it is tedious. I am getting RSI. I came up with a simple pattern that employs the first pivot and half of the 340 using the first 8 columns, I ran it through AZ decrypt with some "interesting results". i will endeavour to recreate and refine and show and if it proves worthy i will continue on this format
i look forward to utilising your system..

That’s a real handy visualization tool Largo. Loving the name and icon.

A few issues for me,

The window does not fit on my 1920*1080 screen.

And concerning transposition I suggest to include the opposite operation as well. The period operation you have included inputs characters periodically (1,5,9,13,17,…) and outputs them in a line (1,2,3,4,5,…). The other way around would be to input characters in a line and output them periodically. I call the first untransposition and the second transposition. But have referred to it as doing and undoing transposition also.

Thanks, Largo – this is really handy and I look forward to playing around with it some more.

Thank you for your replies. I hope that I can release an update with new features this week. I have lots of ideas.

A few issues for me,

The window does not fit on my 1920*1080 screen.

Thanks for reporting it!
Hm…that’s strange. I have tested it just now with different resolutions but it always fits onto the screen. Even when I start it on my Macbook Air 11′ (1366*768) it fits (if windows task bar is hidden). Do you have some special DPI or scaling settings on your machine?
In the next update I will make the dialog resizable and include scrollbars. This should fix the problem.

And concerning transposition I suggest to include the opposite operation as well. The period operation you have included inputs characters periodically (1,5,9,13,17,…) and outputs them in a line (1,2,3,4,5,…). The other way around would be to input characters in a line and output them periodically. I call the first untransposition and the second transposition. But have referred to it as doing and undoing transposition also.

That is a good idea! I had implemented some "undo" transpositions in my python library for undoing odd/even, primes and diagonal writing but unfortunately not for period n. I will implement it in one of the next releases.

Do you have some special DPI or scaling settings on your machine?

It was at 125%, it more than fits now at 100%.

Hi

I have uploaded version 0.2. Here is the changelog:

– Redesigned UI. Should now fit on smaller or scaled screens
– Transcription grid can be copied to inscription grid and vice versa
– The transcription can be saved to a text file
– Flip/Mirror, rotate and period n can now be applied to a selection (in the last version it was only possible to apply on the whole grid)
– Buttons and other controls are enabled/disabled depending on the selection within the grids.
– New option "keep original size" for period n.
– Live statistics! Select a region in one of the grids and check the statistics just for the selected area.
– Letters on prime positions can be selected
– Double clicking a letter selects all similiar letters
– Added an about dialog and instructions dialog
– Bugfixes

I think the tool can now be used productively with the new update. My goal was to add some handy tools to examine some of the common z340 observations like odd/even, upper/lower bias, prime phobia and period 15/19.
For example you can apply different color gradients to upper and lower half and apply period 19. Or maybe apply a checkerboard + mark primes, flip the whole thing and apply period 15.
Another example: Mark the primes and apply period 19 ("keep original size" must be checked!). Then have a look at the colored letters in the transcription grid. Fits the "recipes for prime phobia" observations from another thread.

Please note that the controls for color patterns and transpositions are greyed out as long as your selection is empty. E.g. to flip the whole cipher click "All" or press ctrl-A in the transcription grid to enable the manipulation controls.

If you find bugs or you have any ideas please let me know! I will constantly add new features

I hope you find the tool useful. I am curious if anyone can make some new observations.

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dp426bzin0xbhbe/Peek_a_boo_v0_3.zip?dl=0

Hi Largo, I am having trouble loading the code onto the first page . what am I doing wrong
I am technologically disadvantaged as I was born analogue era

Nice changes Largo.

Invert is very sluggish. I don’t understand what the function of the inscription window is since manipulation is happening solely in the transcription window. It would be cool if the user could select an operation, for instance period 19, which is then applied from the inscription window to the transcription window, and any change to the inscription window would automatically update the transcription window with the period 19 operation. This way the user could explore stacked manipulations. But then you should allow manipulation to the inscription window also. Oh, and can you add offset controls? And add something that lets the user know what position in the grid is being hovered over, in x, y but also in position numbers 1 to 340. Could you also use doranchak’s webtoy character sets for the 340 and 408? That would make things easier in the long term.

I don’t want to come across as overly demanding. Just listing my dream functionality. Thanks allot for developing your tool.

Nice updates, Largo! I had fun playing with this new version. The way it tracks positions with colors is extremely useful!

i still cant get to load this. i get a JIT debugging window. is that my problem ? or is it me?

Hi Largo, I am having trouble loading the code onto the first page . what am I doing wrong
I am technologically disadvantaged as I was born analogue era
…
…
i still cant get to load this. i get a JIT debugging window. is that my problem ? or is it me?

Sorry that I have not answered earlier. May you can describe what you have done exactly and post the content of the debugging window (copy the text or create a screenshot)? Can you start the tool at all or does it crash when you are clicking some buttons?
I was born in the analogue era too

I don’t want to come across as overly demanding. Just listing my dream functionality. Thanks allot for developing your tool.

Don’t worry yourself, this does not sound like „demanding“ to me. I am glad that you find my tool useful, so thank you for your ideas! I have implemented some of them (zodiac font, fixed the sluggish invert, tooltips for x/y coordinates + index when hovering a letter). A pivot finder is also implemented. Unfortunately my cable modem is broken and my provider has not sent a new one yet and so I can’t upload it at the moment.
When I started developing the tool my intention was to have a tool to compare „before“ and „after“ of transpositioning ideas. At this point the goal of the tool was not to solve z340. Instead of untransposing z340 I tried the other way: Applying manipulations to a plaintext and see how the result behaves in statistics. During development I’ve changed my mind and tried to create a more general tool. That’s what it is now. At the moment the tool lacks of „undoing“ transpositions. If this is implemented the tool can be used in two directions (thanks for your idea).
At first I had the idea to create three grids but I gave up that idea since the tool should be minimalistic and easy to use. So I had the idea that all manipulations are done solely in the right grid. To compare stacked transcriptions you can apply a transposition in the right grid and move the content of the right grid to left grid by clicking „<„. Now you can apply another transposition on the right grid and compare it with the left one. Or do you mean something else with „stacked transpositions“? Maybe I don’t get the point.
What do you mean by „offset controls“? I have row+column shifting tools on my todo-list, is it that what you like to have implemented? Or do you mean something else?
I have so many ideas to improve the tool. For one of those ideas I would need your help: How about a „send to azdecrypt“ button? It should be quite easy to implement by using the library „ZeroMQ“: http://zeromq.org/. There are bindings for Basic also. AZDecrypt needs to listen on a specific port on local host. If Peek-a-boo sends a text, AZDecrypt recieves it and starts solving it. If you don’t like the idea its ok. But I think that would be a really nice feature.

Hey Largo,

Offset controls like these:

123
456
789

Offset column order +1

312
645
978


123
456
789

Offset row order +1

789
123
456


123
456
789

Offset +1

912
345
678

Also, row and column period operations are a must have. It is the period operation applied on the rows or columns order. Sending ciphers to AZdecrypt would be a nice feature. I’ll look into ZeroMQ.