Oblique Strategies version 0.3.0 Copyright ©2000, J.B. Hemlock All rights reversed. The original Oblique Strategies are Copyright ©1975, 1978, 1979 Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. ============================================================ CONTENTS 1. Oblique Strategies? 2. Files Included 3. Installation 4. Using Oblique Strategies 5. Creating new card decks 6. Source Code Notes 7. Copyleft Information ============================================================ 1. Oblique Strategies? OBLIQUE STRATEGIES Over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas by BRIAN ENO and PETER SCHMIDT Oblique Strategies are a set of cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt as an aid to creativity. As the original deck of cards said: "These cards evolved from our separate observations on the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case,the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident." There were actually several editions of the cards: Three printed editions that were commercially available, a fourth edition that was contracted as a private gift, and a French edition. Brian Eno also published a diary with several ideas for cards in it, and the Whole Earth Catalog published some of their own in their "Signal" edition catalog. All these editions are included in this Newton version of the set. For more information about these interesting cards, visit Gregory Taylors web site at http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/. Thanks also to Lonnie Foster, who developed an open source set for the Palm Pilot. The lovely icon is taken from his program. ObStrat is an Oblique Strategies deck for the Newton. The ObStrat package itself is merely an interface to decks of cards. You may install as many different decks as you want, or create your own. This program was inspired by Lonnie Fosters Oblique Strategy for PalmOS. That program, plus Dope Wars and Pocket Monkey, was about all I missed going from Palm to the Newton. ============================================================ 2. Files Included ReadMe.txt This file. license.txt A copy of the GNU general license. See copyleft information below. ObStrat.pkg The ObStrat package source The directory containing the NTK source for building ObStrat. Decks The directory containing all the included card decks ============================================================ 3. Installation Install ObStrat.pkg with your Newton package installer. Import any card deck files you want to use (you need at least one) into Notes, and then run ObStrat and import the decks for use. ============================================================ 4. Using ObStrat The main view should be pretty simple to use. There are three icons that draw new cards. The left-pointing arrow draws the previous card in a deck, the right-pointing arrow draws the next card, and the question mark draws a random card. The first time you run ObStrat, no card decks will be available. ObStrat stores card decks in a soup, with the ability to import card decks from Newton Notes. The Prefs slip has a set of controls for handling card decks: The Card Set popup allows you to select a card deck to use out of all the installed decks; The Import Card Set popup displays a list of card decks that exist in Newton Notes, allowing you to import a deck; The Export Card Set button exports the currently selected card deck to Newton Notes; and the Remove Card Set button uninstalls a card deck. To import a card deck, first create or import a deck in Newton Notes (several card decks, including all the printed versions of Oblique Strategies, are included with this distribution in the Decks directory). Then start ObStrat, and immport the deck from the Prefs slip. ============================================================ 5. Creating new card decks Creating new card decks is simple. Card decks can be imported from Newton Notes, so long as they follow a simple format. The card deck format looks like this: ------------------------------------ Oblique Strategies Card Deck Name of the card deck Card 1 Card 2 Card 3 ... Card x ------------------------------------ The first line of the note must be "Oblique Strategies Card Deck". The second line is the name of the deck. The rest of the Note consists of the various cards, one per line. Check out the card deck text files included with this distribution for examples. ============================================================ 6. Source notes I've included the Windows NTK source code for ObStrat. All the source code lives in the source directory in this distribution. I haven't tried compiling this project with Mac NTK, so I'm not sure what would be involved. I think the bitmaps would have to be converted, at least. Feel free to modify this source and release it. Please see the enclosed GNU general license for terms. ============================================================ 7. Copyleft information Copyright ©2000, J.B. Hemlock All rights reversed. The original Oblique Strategies are Copyright ©1975, 78, 79 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program (see LICENSE.TXT); if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.