With a little ResEdit know-how and a sense of humor, you can create your own Fortune Teller masterpieces! Here's how to do it.
Before you make any changes□□, though, we strongly suggest that you make a backup copy of Fortune Teller, in case you make a mistake.
The figure below illustrates how the program creates a random "fortune" from the multitude of possibilities. This applies to all of the categories, except 'Past Lives'. That one is treated differently, and will be discussed below.
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Once the user selects a category by pressing a button, the program randomly selects one of the three sets A, B, or C within that category. It then takes a phrase at random from each of the four subsets 1, 2, 3, and 4 within the chosen set, and displays the phrases in that order. Phrases in subsets 1 through 3 represent a gradual 'set-up' to the punch line, which is always given in subset 4. The phrases are tailored to fit certain types of punchlines. This should become more clear after you've had a chance to look at the various phrases.
You can edit any of the phrases in each subset, or add new phrases (up to a total of 255 within any single 'STR#' resource. You must have at least one phrase in each subset, or the program will display a blank window in the "fortune" area when it comes time to display a phrase from that subset. Also, phrases are limited to being no more than 255 characters long.
If you'd like the user to have the same fortune every time he/she presses a given button, just ensure that there's only one phrase in subsets 1 through 4, and that these phrases are duplicated for each set A, B, and C.
Do not delete any of the STR# resources, or leave an empty resource after you've edited them. Also, do not add any new STR# IDs. The program expects to see the specific STR# IDs as currently given.
Past Lives is a bit different than the other Categories. Rather than mixing and matching from a multitude of phrases, the program simply selects from one of the available Past Lives STR# resources, and displays the four phrases it contains in consecutive order. That is, a single Past Lives STR# resource contains a complete setup and punch line. Only the first four phrases are used in any given Past Lives resource, so don't bother to add any additional phrases. Also, the number of past lives cannot currently be increased. That may be changed in a future release, if there's sufficient interest.
And, again, even though we've tried to help you edit the Fortune Teller we want to ask you not to pass around your edited copies as if they were a CyByrSoft product. Keep them to yourself.
And, yet again, we'd love to see the new phrase sets you come up with! If it passes our exacting quality control standards, we'll add them to any upgrades we issue and acknowledge your contribution in the program's 'credits'! Just send them to us at the addresses below.
Remember, Fortune Teller is Shareware. If you're among the rare few who recognize their obligations to the developers of these things, send $5 to:
Jim Byer
Rt. 1, Box 9-B
Fayette, MO 65248
That's about it! Questions? Comments? Contact us at one of the addresses below:
Jim Byer AOL: jibyer or Internet: jbyer01@bigcat.missouri.edu
Brian Cyr AOL: cyrano b or Internet: bcyr@sikorsky.com
