Show HN: NYT Connections Canvas – drag and drop for easier solving

1 points by drewchew 3 hours ago

I've always enjoyed the NYT Connections puzzle, but I felt like you should be able to drag the tiles around to help plan your guesses better. Making a tool for myself seemed easier than getting the NYT to change their game on my account. So I explained the idea to ChatGPT (or maybe Gemini, I forget at this point) and here we are.

Here's how to use it:

1. Set Connections game to light mode. The tool doesn't like dark mode screenshots for some reason and I haven't asked AI how to fix it yet. 2. Screenshot the connections board. 3. Crop the screenshot to only include the word tiles. 4. Go to the Connections Canvas page. 5. Upload the cropped screenshot. 6. Drag the tiles around the canvas to plan your guesses.

Warning: the drag and drop behavior can be a little fiddly, and I've only tested on iOS Safari.

If you have a suggestion for how to fix it (or any other feedback), give me a shout.