What Happens When You Click Preview?

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🧪 What Happens When You Click Preview?

Understanding Puzzle Preview, Generation, and Variation Logic

Overview

Ever wondered what’s really happening behind the scenes when you click Preview or Create in Puzzle Maker Pro?

This tutorial explains the three puzzle generation modes — so you can confidently preview, test variations, and create print-ready puzzles with full awareness of what’s being generated, when, and why.

Required Modules

Step-by-Step Breakdown

1. The Three Ways to Generate a Puzzle

There are three actions that trigger puzzle generation in Puzzle Maker Pro:

  • 🔍 Next Preview – generates a full puzzle in memory, not saved
  • 💾 Create – generates a puzzle and saves it to your output folder
  • 🔁 Create (TS) – batch generates puzzles using Time Saver rows

Each method fully renders the puzzle, including:

  • Piece layout logic
  • Shape selection
  • Style and fill color
  • Validation (e.g., avoiding invisible pieces)

The only difference?
Next Preview doesn’t save the file — it just shows the result.

2. What Gets Validated?

Even in Preview mode, Puzzle Maker Pro performs the following checks:

  • ✅ Are missing pieces overlapping?
  • ✅ Do any pieces match the background (white or transparent)?
  • ✅ Is a shape fully black on a silhouette image (if filter is off)?
  • ✅ Is padding space respected between multiple pieces?
  • ✅ Are distractors valid and distinct?

This means the puzzle shown in Preview is functionally identical to what you’d get from Create — only it’s not written to disk.

3. How Variations Work

If you’ve set Variations > 1, each variation is independently generated:

  • Puzzle Maker Pro ensures variation by rotating shapes, changing position, or selecting different parts of the image
  • Each variation also honors validation rules (e.g., skipping all-white or fully black pieces if needed)

This applies whether you use:

  • Manual image list + Create
  • Time Saver + Create (TS)

4. When Should You Trust the Preview?

✅ Use Preview when you want to:

  • Visually test your SVG shape
  • See how missing pieces are spaced
  • Confirm that piece contrast is readable
  • Check that distractors make sense

💡 If Preview looks good — your puzzle is good to go.

5. When to Use “Save Preview”

If you like what you see but don’t want to re-click Create, just hit:
📁 Save Preview

This saves the currently visible preview (Puzzle, Solution, or Both) directly to file, using your current output settings.

Outcome

You now understand the preview-generation workflow — and can confidently use it to test puzzles before exporting.

No more surprises after clicking Create.
No more guessing if that shape will work.
Preview is your secret QA tool, and now you know exactly what it does.

Further Reading

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