Orphalese Tarot Zone Community Forum

Hi Richard,

I've downloaded the very latest Beta (8/11) and was testing the Reading Notes function.

I noticed that the Reading Notes don't clear automatically when you gather cards, shuffle, or change to another deck. Not sure if this is a bug or working as designed (WAD).

Steps to recreate:

1. Open a deck with card notes.
2. Open a spread (I used the Celtic Cross).
3. Open Reading Notes.
4. Create Reading.
5. Close Reading.
6. Gather cards.
7. Open a different spread (I used the 3 card spiral).
8. Open Reading Notes. The last Reading Notes (for Celtic Cross) are displayed.

I tried shuffling the deck at step 6 and it made no difference.
I also tried selecting a new deck at step 7 and that made no difference.

I know there's a * button that clears the reading, but I thought it should clear the reading when you closed it???

Also, what does Copy Notes from Reading Wizard do? When I clicked on it, nothing happened.

And, when you create a reading, it doesn't look as though it's capturing the card position notes, only the card notes. When you create a document, it copies both the card position and card notes.

One last question. When a previous reading is loaded the pop-up notes show the entire reading when you put your mouse over the deck, but they don't show the individual card notes when you put the mouse over each card. You can see the individual card notes if you press F6 though. I was wondering if that was also WAD, or a bug?

By the way, the history button is neat. How do you get the decks into the Favourites list??? Sorry, I did say the question before was my last!

regards
purple_scorp

Hi Scorp,

The reading notes not clearing is by design. Basically I have separated the actions of editing and creating a reading from the action of viewing one. This brings the reading part of the program in line with how spreads are handled (you can edit spreads and create new ones without ever laying the spread out). This applies to the Reading Wizard as well as the RTF Editor. I have been thinking about how someone might send you a reading they have created using the program. You lay out the reading to see what they have said. You don't necessarily want to make any changes to it. Also you might have created a reading for someone else or for yourself as a kind of diary. You suddenly think of something you want to add to yesterday's reading. You can open the Reading Wizard and make the change without disrupting the cards you are viewing.

The RTF Editor (I relabelled it to try to reinforce the idea that it is not really anything to do with laying out readings) is really just a tool that is included for backwards compatibility as people have got used to working that way - although I do plan to keep it in there. On the other hand the Reading Wizard is really the way forward. One of the changes I am planning to make next year is to introduce TCP/IP based communication between users of the program. This will let you send someone a reading in realtime. I may also include sending decks and IM messages too through similar channels. (BTW this is not the same as the chat functionality which used to exist in the OTZ, which basically used the OTZ as a server - it will create far fewer problems).

The process I would eventually like would allow for this scenario:

A message pops up to tell you that X has sent you a reading, created using the Y tarot. The Y tarot is not installed on your machine (if it is, no problem). The program asks if you want it to do an online search. If you say yes it would be like Windows searching for components or drivers automatically. You wouldn't even need to go into OTZ. The program connects in the background, queries the database, and if it finds the deck it downloads it. Then the reading is laid out using the deck intended and the readee can see the notes against each card etc by just moving their mouse around.

Of course, there would be an option NOT to receive any of these message too!

I am telling you this to give you an idea of where I am trying to steer the reading thing. Basically I think if I can make it a very useful tool for readers then they will start encouraging their readees to download the Orphalese Tarot too, so they can receive readings in this way :)

Going on to your other points, the Copy Notes From Reading Wizard button is greyed out when you launch the RTF editor directly off the menu. It is only available when you launch it from the Reading Wizard. It copies the notes and images of the cards in the Reading Wizard (which can be different from the ones currently laid out, as we have established).

Re the tooltips, the tips appear over each card if you have made notes against each card in the Reading Wizard. You will see there is space to make general notes, and card-specific notes. When you open an old reading it is converted to the new format, but all the notes are plonked in the general section (the program cannot read what you have written so it can't tell which bits of the notes relate to each card). You can edit this in the Wizard though, of course.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer. There is always a tendency for these explanations to become a bit verbose. Really if you just deal out some cards and create a reading using the Wizard, then make some notes against each card, you should find the process is quite intuitive and the popups appear as you would expect.

By default the newly created spread should contain card position notes in the case where you have created the reading from a spread file, as well as the card notes themselves. If this is not happening it is indeed a bug - I will look into that.

Cheers

Richard

***may be double posted***

Hi Richard,

Got to play a bit today with the new reading management thingy :o) I think it will take a bit but in the end I'm sure I'll love it. I have a few thoughts or suggestions.

It took me a bit to figure out how to clear a reading. I kept closing it and then when I switched decks did a new reading and F3, the old reading was still there.... so my suggestion would be to add a clear reading button by the close button. I figured it out because I knew what the * button was for. It did take me a while though, so maybe having a clear reading button would make it easier. Or adding a clear reading and close button would be even better :o) then you have the choice to just close the window, or clear and close the window, and it still leaves the * for just clearing the reading, leaving the notes window open.

My other suggestion would be to add a spot for additional notes at the end of the reading. I normally add an overview to readings I do, this normally goes at the end. Having that extra notes box at the end would then let me type the entire reading in the new reading notes and copy over to RTF if I need to.

The other item I noticed is more likely a bug. I did a new reading and went into the deck management and the new reading didn't show. I did use refresh but it still didn't show up. I had to close the program and re-open to have it appear in the Deck Management. It did however show in the floating tree in My Readings

I have to say I do really like the new setup. It puts everything together in a wonderful way. Thank you again for all you put into this program. I look forward to enjoying this program for years and years!!!

Shari

Hi Shari,

Thanks for the feedback. Scorp made a similar comment about the RTF form not clearing. I think perhaps in both cases I will put a prompt when the form is closed/hidden asking the user if they want to clear the notes, then people won't be so surprised to see that they are still there when they reopen the form.

The reason I didn't put a prompt so far is I envisaged people wanting to hide either of the reading forms by pressing F3/Shift F3 in order to have another glance at the cards, then repeating the keystroke in order to bring it back into view. If you were toggling the form in this way it could be distracting to keep being asked if you want to clear it. But I guess people can minimize the form if they want to do this, or just move it out of the way. I am a bit doubtful about having three buttons to do more or less the same thing (clear, close, clear + close) - I think that could be confusing in itself.

You mention being able to make notes at the end of a reading as an overview, but that is actually what the first box is for - an overview of the reading as a whole. Did you not realise this or do you think there would be a need for two sets of general notes?

It is very helpful for me getting this kind of feedback, especially because I haven't really given any explanation of how these things are supposed to work, and obviously they don't appear in the help file yet. It is very interesting to find out if things are really intuitive or not.

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard,

thank you for your comprehensive reply. I can see I need to do much more playing with this feature. I have read Shari's post and your reply as well, so I might intermix some comments on them all in this post.

I understand now why you don't clear the reading but I don't know that that would be how I would personally use it. I think I'd be more inclined to want to clear the reading each time I closed the reading screen. Then, if I wanted to revisit the reading, I'd just reload it. I found the * (clear) button so this is not a major problem but in terms of intuitiveness, it was confusing. I take your point that it would all be explained in the Help section (which of course doesn't exist for Beta versions).

I don't think you should introduce additional buttons for close and clear etc but how about prompt us to Clear Reading Y/N? when we close that screen. Or, alternatively, on loading the Reading Notes, how about a prompt that says, Load Last Reading Y/N? Or maybe even tick boxes in the options so we can set it permanently for oursElves?

Regarding future direction for sharing readings, what an excellent idea. I'm assuming to be able to receive a realtime reading you will need to be registered but will the readees need to have the registered version of Orphalese to be able to read something we email?

BTW - kudos to you for including the deck check for the Reading Notes. I loaded one of my old readings and had moved the deck into a new folder. The software told me that it couldn't find that deck and then, gave me the deck dialogue box to select/reselect a new/same deck. I thought that was brilliant!!!

Regarding Card Notes in the Reading Wizard - so these notes only apply to that reading, and not to the card when it is redealt? This is excellent for when cards change their meaning when positioned near other cards. But what if you want to store that information permanently against the individual card? I would like to see a place where I could store my impression/notes about the card separate from the LWB information.

When I read for someone else, I like to physically describe the card and add my own little thoughts about it. I know I could store this information in the Card Notes but then it gets intermixed with the LWB meaning. And, what if you're sharing a carddata.xml with someone else? I'm sure they don't want your individual impressions of the card. If we could use text formatting in the Card Notes section, this would help to separate the data, say if I could enter my card impressions in purple font, for example. But, it would be better to have them in separate sections so that you could tick which bits you wanted to including when creating a reading (and not have to share your personal opinions when sharing the carddata.xml).

I read Shari's post about including a summary. I like to do the same. I think she meant that you might like to put some notes at the top of your reading, and some at the bottom (with the reading in between). I thought the best way to explain how I would use the Reading Notes would be to share a sample reading outline. Maybe I should open a new thread for this, as it would be interesting to see what others do.

My Reading Process:

1. Consult with the readee to choose a topic/spread/deck.
2. Deal cards and create a reading that contains:
a. Deck Information (how many cards, whether they are divided into suits, creator, and why I chose that deck for that reading etc).
b. Topic/spread questions and cards selected for those positions (in point form so they can see them all together at a glance).
c. Expanded Card Positions and meanings. Usually include a physical description of the card and my own impressions, then, only selected passages from the LWB (if appropriate).
3. Summary of reading, bringing all of the cards together and relating it back to the topic.

Regards
purple_scorp

Hi Scorp,

Well, I added the Clear Notes? prompt this morning so that is done.

Re the future plans for sending readings electronically, yes I envisaged that sending the reading would be a locked down feature, but that anyone could receive one.

The idea of having two sets of reading notes has got me thinking. Perhaps the easiest approach would be to have another XML file besides the CardData.xml one, which we could call ReadingTemplate.xml. You could have a button to save notes from the Reading Wizard into your ReadingTemplate.xml file. Then, instead of having the Reading Wizard populated automatically from the current spread and/or CardData.xml file, you would have three buttons each of which appends text into the reading wizard:

1) Append text from Spread (only available if a spread is open, of course)

2) Append text from CardData.xml (i.e. the LWB) and

3) Append text from the ReadingTemplate file (only if it existed).

A question that occurs to me is should the ReadingTemplate.xml file be kept at the deck level, or should it be global?

As far as having two places for general notes goes, I can see this makes sense in the context of an export to RTF, but within the program, thinking about the mouse hover, the two sets of general notes would probably have to be clumped together to appear over the deck.

BTW I added the random deck feature to the compare cards form yesterday (I thought it made more sense to have it there). I don't know when I will upload it - probably next week sometime as I am still making changes and I have visitors over the weekend so won't be doing any programming or posting here for a few days.

Cheers

Richard

Dear Richard,

firstly, I hope you have a nice relaxing, programming-free weekend with your visitors .-). You've worked very quickly to place lots of new enhancements in your software. Thank you. You deserve a nice break.

I like the idea of having those buttons in the Reading Wizard because it gives you so much more flexibility to structure your reading.

I raised two ideas: one, having an additional field to hold my individual card notes (a separate place to the one that holds the LWB notes). and two, having more reading information (like reasons why I chose a deck and a summary of what the cards mean together) in the reading notes. I'm a bit confused by your description of the ReadingTemplate.xml file.

Are you saying that the LWB notes would go into the carddata.xml file and my notes (description/impression of card etc) would go into a new file called ReadingTemplate.xml? And then I'd be able to pick one or both when compiling the reading. If this is what you're saying....that would be awesome!

Or would the ReadingTemplate.xml hold different information all together?

Once I have a better understanding of what this file would hold, I can ponder the question as to whether it should be global/deck related.

Thanks,

purple_scorp

Hi Scorp,

I meant the awesome way :)

The ReadingTemplate.xml would have exactly the same structure as CardData.xml. You could even switch to it as the source of your popup notes.

Having thought about it a bit more, it really has to be on a deck level. If you have one that you want to apply to all decks it isn't so hard to copy and paste anyway.

If there were more fields to describe the reading, they would go into the .Reading file, which is an instance of a reading, rather than a generalised template.

Cheers

Richard

Hi Scorp

Just to say I uploaded the last beta today. It has taken a while because I have made a lot of changes to the Spread Wizard too.

As far as the card notes go, you will see that you now have two options for saving card data. You can use the LWB notes or create a set of personal notes (it gets created as PersonalCardData.xml). At the same time, I thought it would make sense to add the possibility of making different notes for reversed cards, so you will find that too when you look at the card notes form. To toggle between the various options (LWB, Personal or Off) use the Popup Notes item on the main menu (F8).

I hope you will find it fairly self-explanatory. Let me know if you have any ideas for making it more intuitive (that don't involve too much work!).

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard,

I've just downloaded and am testing the new Beta. Thank you for your brilliant work.

I did a quick reading and could easily navigate to the new personal card notes. It looks fantastic. I also love the way that you've now included a tab for Reversed meanings.

So, if I'm displaying the LWB card notes (F6) is there a way to quickly switch to my Personal card notes? From what I can gather, I have to press F8 then select it from there???

Ideally I would love to see a tab for Personal, next to Reversed. I know they are stored in a separate file, but that would be the most logical and user-friendly place to put them.

I'll post some more comments once I have tested the Beta a little more thoroughly.

Great work, Richard.

Regards
purple_scorp