Switched Keys

Card Box Searches

This is the final post in the three part series on Scrabble Word Study using card boxes. This section illustrates how you would do some of the searches that you want to add to your card boxes. You may also want to just do these searches to become familiar with the Hoot search options. This lists the card box to add to but you may choose to use standard boxes, or lists instead of what is shown. 

Two letter words

Search Type: Letter Count
Size: 2 letters
Add to: Lists > Anagrams, "Two Letter Words"

Two letter hooks (or hooked threes)

Search Type: Hook Words
Size: 2 letters
Add to: Lists > Hooks, "Two Letter Hooks"

Hooks help you to identify places where you can add a letter to a word while forming your own word in the other direction. Hooked threes is another way to study all the "words" formed by adding a hook to a two letter word.

Search Type: Predefined > Hooked Words
Size: 3 letters
Add to: Anagrams

JQXZ 3-5 letter words

Search Type: Pattern > *[JQXZ]*
Size: 3 letters to 5 letters
Add to: Anagrams

Q not U 2-7 letter words

Search Type: Predefined > Q not U
Size: 2 letters to 7 letters
Add to: Anagrams

V or C 3-5 letter words

Search Type: Pattern > *[VC]*
Size: 3 letters to 5 letters
Add to: Anagrams

Top 3 six letter stems: TISANE, SATIRE, RETAIN (List Box)

There are two possible ways to study stems in Hoot. You can create a card box with all the anagrams of the term + blank, and you would have up to 26 cards. These are added to Lists so you can determine if you have mastered the stem in question. You can alternately just add them to the standard Anagrams card box.

Search Type: Stems, Top 6 Letter > Search
Order by: Alphagram
Tap on TISANE
Add to: Anagrams

or

Search Type: Anagrams > "TISANE?"
Size: 7 letters
Order: Alphagram descending
Add to: Lists > Anagrams, "Stem TISANE"

Alternately, you can study stems as blank anagrams (not generally recommended). This gives you one card for each stem with all the possible words. For TISANE, that would be 96 words.

Search Type: Pattern > "TISANE"
Add to: Blank Anagrams

Vowel Dumps (3-5 letter words)

Search Type: Predefined > Vowel Heavy
Size: 3 letters to 5 letters
Add to: Anagrams

High Fives

High Fives are five letter words ending in a high point tile (FHYW). While the words are selected based on whether they begin or end in a high point tile, the query will be for all anagrams. If you want to focus just on the High Fives you could use the slide show to study instead of a quiz. Alternately, you could quiz in flashcard mode and mark the words as correct if you know the High Fives

Search Type: Predefined > High Fives
Add to: Anagrams

High Eights

High Eights are terms that you may be able to play in one of the corners for big points if your play covers both TWS, and the high point tile is on the DLS. For example, ADEQUATE could net you over 300 points.

Search Type: Pattern > (???[JQXZ]*)|(????[JQXZ]*)
Size: 8 letters
Add to: Lists > Anagrams, "High Eights"

Admittedly, getting to play one of these is a long shot, but it doesn't hurt to learn some of these words. Replace JQXZ with 45 to learn 

Sevens from STARLINE?

Some people advise learning sevens from a set of letters like STARLINE?. You may want to use other terms.

Search Type: Word Builder, "STARLINE?"
Size: 7 letters
Add to: Lists > Anagrams, "STARLINE? Sevens"

Double Difficult Letters

I often see recommendations to study words with double I's or double U's, either separate or together. An expanded version of this recommendation from Art Chester is to study double letters for each letter in CHIKUVWY. You can do this in Hoot with 

Search Type: Pattern, *([CHIKUVWY])*\1*
Size: 3 - 5 letters
Add to: Lists > Anagrams, "Double Difficult"

You can also study each letter separately with *(I)*\1*

If you want to study just words with double letters together take out the middle asterisk and try
*([CHIKUVWY])\1*
or *(I)\1 for individual letters. Note that there are some letters that are never repeated together.

Quiz settings

Before you get too far in your study you will probably want to check out the card box related settings. One of the newest ones is Flashcard mode. In this mode, you don't have to enter you answers. Instead you answer them mentally, tap on the list to see the correct answers. Then swipe up if correct, down if incorrect. To enable this Enable Flashcard mode.

Other settings are

Auto advance - advances to the next question automatically after a brief pause.
Custom keyboard - This will show a keyboard with only valid Scrabble tiles.
Loop - At the end of a list, advances to the first item.
Screen on - If using slides, keeps the screen on.
Show hooks in quizzes - Shows the hook letters before and after each word in the list.

Technical Details

The card box filing system.

Card box databases exist in subfolders based on lexicon, and most can be copied to other devices. One reason you would want to that is to manipulate them. The locations are fixed, so you may want to backup existing databases before copying.

Location

In the Hoot app, Card boxes are located in Documents\Cards\<lexicon>\<type>.db
For example Anagrams in CSW19 are at Documents\Cards\CSW19\Anagrams.db

In all cases, the name and location determines what type they are. A database named Anagrams.db in the CSW19 folder represent anagrams in the Collins lexicon. Except for lists, Hoot card box databases are compatible with Zyzzyva, and the storage location follows the same pattern as Zyzzyva so you could copy one from there.

Current paths to Card box files
Hoot desktop path - based on the User Folder selected by the user. <UserFolder>\Cards\<lexicon>, typically C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Hoot\Cards\<lexicon>
Zyzzyva path - C:\Users\<user>\Zyzzyva\quiz\data\<lexicon>\
Collins Zyzzyva - C:\Users\<user>\.collinszyzzyva\quiz\data\<lexicon>\

Android 11 restrictions

With the update of devices to Android 11, the freedom that Hoot has to access storage is limited. With new installations on Android 11 you don't have access to the card box databases in Hoot, so you can neither upload or download databases. Of course, this restriction doesn't apply to the desktop version of Hoot. Under Android 11, the lexicon and card box databases are stored internally and removed when the app is removed.

Conversion caveats

When updated lexicons are released, it is also possible to copy a card box to a new lexicon folder and you'll be tested on the anagrams in the new lexicon. However, new anagrams may not exist in the card box for new words. For example, there are four 3 letter words in CSW19 that don't have anagrams in CSW15.