

Show HN: My saturday project. For when your co-founders can't 'Draw Something'.  - sgk284
http://www.omghalp.com/

======
naush
Funny, I wrote a script for my girlfriend a week ago too. I just grabbed my
word list from /usr/share/dict/words though.

<https://gist.github.com/2069501>

~~~
naush
Update: use the official word list from DrawSomething...

------
hellokhoaphan
Real awesome tool, great job Steve.

On a side note though, anyone who seriously uses this tool to play 'Draw
Something' is missing out on the concept of the game, which is to use your
creativity to draw up something that users can then guess.

If you're using a tool to help you guess a word the correct word, then you're
doing the "drawer" a disservice by basically saying to them that their drawing
is good enough, when it really isn't... seeing as you couldn't guess what it
was.

It's like funding a start up that you know is destined to fail and you keep
telling them to keep on keeping on with the doomed idea; or in this case,
their crappy drawings that you can't guess!

~~~
wizzard
While I agree with you in spirit, I just want to point out that it's not
always the drawer's fault that you don't recognize a pop culture reference
("katniss") or something a bit obscure ("golem").

Also, you might have too much riding on the game if you can use startup
funding as an analogy!

------
roryokane
It would be nice if you made the text "Draw Something" in the subtitle link to
the app. I didn't know what Draw Something was, but clicked the link anyway,
assuming I could figure it out by analogy to hangman and Pictionary by looking
at your site's interface. I couldn't; I had to look it up.

Possible link destinations:

<http://omgpop.com/drawsomething>

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/draw-something-
free/id4886282...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/draw-something-
free/id488628250?mt=8)

~~~
sgk284
Thanks for the suggestion! Just deployed a new version that links to their
page.

------
sgk284
This is just a quick project I threw together this Saturday. It simply finds
all possible words that meet the criteria you specify and ranks them according
to their English frequency.

~~~
Gigablah
I'm surprised that domain name was available :)

------
keithpeter
I tried the word 'parallelogram'. The web page keeps changing 13 letters to 12
letters in the number of letters box then saying it can't find a word.

I've never heard of 'draw something' as a game before so perhaps I'm using a
word that isn't allowed or something.

Stuff like this is handy in teaching especially if it works on a mobile phone
(blackberry for teenagers, iPhone for colleagues :-)

~~~
sgk284
Hey, thanks for the feedback. You can only specify 12 letters, so it doesn't
make sense to search for a 13 letter word.

Re: teaching, I'll clean up the code a bit and put it up on github. There
isn't anything too novel in there though.

------
kirillzubovsky
Steve, "Scoutzie" is not a word! _ugh_ :) It's good to see you guys are still
having fun!

~~~
sgk284
Haha, thanks Kirill :) Everyday you gotta have fun!

------
mayanksinghal
Is this is an acceptable convention in US: <http://omgpop.com/drawsomething>
says that the app is available at .99 cents (Get it now: .99 cents)?

~~~
superchink
No, that's definitely wrong. It's a common error, though, and in a lot of
cases people don't even notice (especially when it's clear that it doesn't
sell for part of a cent).

------
snguyen
I've actually been using this for awhile: <http://www.justin.my/draw-
something-words/>

------
mopatches
Cool - where are you sourcing the candidate words?

~~~
sgk284
I used the frequency lists from Wikitionary for searching an ranking. They've
got the 40,000 most frequent words.

~~~
mgevans
The client downloads the current word list from this URL:
<http://static.iminlikewithyou.com/drawsomething/wordlist.csv>

I've been meaning to see if I can run a proxy and substitute my own words.

EDIT: I personally use wordplay
([http://hsvmovies.com/static_subpages/personal_orig/wordplay/...](http://hsvmovies.com/static_subpages/personal_orig/wordplay/index.html))
with the -lx flags on this file when I'm stumped

~~~
mopatches
Nice! Steve - can you use this word list instead?
(<http://static.iminlikewithyou.com/drawsomething/wordlist.csv>)

~~~
sgk284
Yep, the site includes that word list now :)

------
tobiasbischoff
took the best methods from this comments here and put the in an ios app:
CheatSomething! is free in the AppStore:
[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=513666674&mt=8)

------
shinji97
you should consider allowing users to input all the letters into one single
input box, might just a little bit less effort for the users =)

~~~
jurre
You can just keep typing while you're in the first text box :)

~~~
sgk284
I'm glad you noticed that! I added it as a convenience for myself when testing
it... and wasn't sure if anyone else would discover it :)

~~~
jurre
Would be even nicer if the cursor also moved!

~~~
sgk284
Yeah, I played around with that. On the iPhone they disable allowing you to
programmatically focus input fields in Safari (from what I could tell). So
rather then spend time on a work around, since this was just a fun side
project, I figured I'll ship it as is.

~~~
jurre
Fair enough! It's not up on github is it?

~~~
jurre
I'll keep an eye on it and see if I can send you a pull request :)

~~~
sgk284
Here it is: <https://github.com/stevekrenzel/omghalp>

------
taofu
Why "co-founders"? Surely you mean co-players

~~~
sgk284
Heh, it was a jab at my co-founders.

------
madzito
nice.. so you put a limit on the number of letters, and shuffle the letters in
all possible combinations searching your wictionary. Interesting.

~~~
sgk284
Thanks :) I also order the results based on frequency and I just pushed an
update to the site that uses the official word list of "Draw Something".

------
gautaml
500 Server error.

That went well.

~~~
zalew
[http://www.omghalp.com/?length=6&char=b&char=a&c...](http://www.omghalp.com/?length=6&char=b&char=a&char=t&char=&char=&char=&char=&char=&char=&char=&char=&char=)

indeed

~~~
roryokane
Yes, it turns out that the game gives you a selection of letters, like
Scrabble, to fill in all the text fields shown. You get the 500 error if you
leave the text fields blank. It would be nice if the site gave a JavaScript
alert instead of submitting the form with invalid input.

