The Slide Rule: Support

Write to support@gameshoutout.com. Say which version you have (Settings, then About) and what you did, what you expected and what happened instead.

Requirements

For Windows: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, from the Microsoft Store. The application works entirely offline and needs no account.

Common questions

Where are my settings kept? In one file in your user folder. Settings, then About, shows the exact path. Export writes a copy you can keep or carry to another machine; Import reads one back.

How do I move the slide and the cursor without a mouse? Press Tab to select the slide or the cursor, then use the arrow keys. Shift moves finely, Ctrl moves coarsely. Press ? for every keyboard shortcut.

The rule refused my calculation. The line under the calculation box says how it read what you typed and what it can do instead. It multiplies, divides, squares, takes square roots and, on the extended instrument, cubes, cube roots, sines, cosines, tangents and common logarithms, in chains of up to twelve numbers. It cannot add or subtract; no slide rule can.

How do I get the ten-scale instrument? Settings, then Scales, then Extended. Lessons that need it put it on screen themselves.

Can I write my own lessons? Yes. Learn mode names the folder to put them in, under “Lessons of your own” beneath the lesson list; a file you put there appears alongside the built-in lessons, and one that could not be used is listed there with the reason. The format is at the end of this page.

I lost my progress. Progress is judged against the lesson as it stands, so a lesson you rewrote may show as unfinished. Reset progress on a lesson starts it again; Import restores an exported file.

Writing your own lessons

A lesson is a JSON file, one lesson to a file, in the folder Learn mode names under “Lessons of your own”. It is read alongside the thirteen lessons that come with the application, and a file whose id matches one of those replaces it, which is how to adapt a lesson rather than copy it. A file that does not fit what follows is listed in Learn mode with the reason, and the rest still load.

{
  "id": "reading-the-scales",
  "title": "Reading the C and D scales",
  "summary": "One sentence for the catalogue.",
  "level": "beginner",
  "order": 1,
  "instrument": "standard",
  "steps": [ ... ]
}

id, title and at least one step are required. summary, level and order are for the catalogue. instrument is standard or extended, and a lesson that reads a scale the four-scale rule does not carry must say extended, which also puts the ten-scale instrument on screen when the lesson opens.

Every step has an id of its own, unique within the lesson, a kind, a title and text. Any step may open with the rule in a particular place through setup, whose slideOffset and cursorPosition are measured along the rule, so log10(2.4) puts the C index over 2.4 on D. There are three kinds of step:

• explain shows its text, with highlights marking values on the scales.
• task asks for a movement and checks it. target says where the slide, the cursor or both should end up, and hint is offered when an attempt misses. tolerance is a fraction of the rule’s length and is best left out: a step that names none is judged against the graduations of the scale at the value it asks for, half a division either side, so the graduation nearest where the learner stopped is the one the step asked for. Half a division is sometimes finer than a screen pixel, so it is never tighter than 0.002 of the rule.
• quiz asks for a number. answer is required. scale names the scale the reading comes off, and is D when left out: a quiz that names no tolerance accepts half a division of that scale either side of the answer, so a reading off K, three times as coarse, or off L, which is linear, should say so. tolerance is a fraction of the answer and is best left out as well; it is for a quiz about a region rather than a graduation.

The application checks every file as it reads it: a title and at least one step, step ids that do not repeat, every scale named existing and every value being on it, a target on each task and an answer on each quiz, a quiz’s scale being one the lesson’s instrument carries, a slide alignment naming a slide scale and a body scale the right way round, a task tolerance no finer than the screen can place the hairline and no wider than the rule, and setup positions that are on the rule.

Privacy

The application collects nothing. See www.gameshoutout.com/the-slide-rule-privacy.

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