Full Disclosure: the free Android smart phone application is available for download at:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.glyphOK
All Non-free features described herein are marked with a
'###' symbol.
The Non-free version is not available yet, but it will
obviously be awesome.
FYI: Ideally, you should read this HOW-TO on a "full sized" device (like a personal computer) and follow along by playing with the function (on your hand-held device) for each example.
Contact Ralph with your questions and suggestions
Trouble shooting the Android smart phone application
| To get a get recipient name for sending glyphs | read contact data |
| To transmit a glyph to that recipient | send SMS |
| To detect incoming glyphs and notify you | receive SMS |
| To read a glyphic message from the SMS inbox | read SMS |
| To download new language files |
access Internet |
This will display the glyph and term that matches a hexadecimal
number entered in the text field. A hexadecimal number is a 'base
sixteen' number. The digits are 0 through 9 and A through F. The 'Index'
function is not case sensitive.
The application can translate the numbers 00000000 through
FFFFFFFF, but most numbers above FFFFFF (six 'F's) will not have
any terms associated with them just yet. Smaller numbers may not
have terms just yet either (the vocabulary
is still far from complete).
The 'Index' function will change all alphabetic digits (A through F) to upper case in the text field.
This will display the glyph and term that matches the string that you enter. The search function is very simple and always considers multiple words to be a single string. The search function is not case sensitive. If a string matches a unique term (such as "dogs"), it will only be found every other time you press 'Execute'. This is how you can tell that the term is unique.
The 'Find' function will change all letters to lower case in the text field.
When the search reaches the end of the list it will start back at
the beginning. A new search will start with the term following the
most recently displayed term. There is currently no way to change
this behavior (like searching backwards), but changing the glyph
or the index (and hitting enter) will change the most recently
displayed term. Unfortunately this will also clobber the search
string, so do it before you start searching.
When you understand how the Instrumentation Description laths (the second layer of the glyph) relate to the evolution of word stems (such as turning friend into friends or friendly), you will find that it is easy to change the first found related term into the proper form by clicking on the elements of the glyph. Reading the tutorial and playing with the game can help you master this skill.
Like 'Find'
but doesn't return partial matches. For example, searching for
"ERA" will not return "funERAl". This is very handy for finding
short words like "old" or "art".
Like 'Find' but doesn't search all of Creation.
'Conversational phrases'
are common groups of words found in everyday speech. Using
'conversational phrases' can simplify Instrumentation communication
and save valuable time. You can see an example of a conversation
consisting mainly of phrases in the 'Demo' function of the
Instrumentation game (select 'Bob and Ted make plans').
Phrases tend to be found in the index range from #3E01 (can I get
your number) to #3EFF (that's all folks). They will eventually
extend from #3A01 all the way to #BEFF. There are a few terms
(like 'stomach') which currently exist within this range, but I
believe that they will be replaced as the vocabulary matures.
This function will search the index range above and skip
individual terms which might accidentally contain the desired
string. Searching for the empty string ("" without the quotes)
will show every current phrase in index order.
If a word only exists in one phrase and you press Find Phrase
a second time, you will see the error message, "Cannot find
String:". If multiple phrases contain the string, you can cycle
through them endlessly by repeatedly pressing Find Phrase.
This will display all basic terms 'hierarchically' in banks of sixteen. The Layer # button goes to the previous display. The Close button will end the search and display the glyph for the selected term (for the current level). The articulation term does not change. This is a prototype function for the Instrumentation indexing scheme.
There are four levels of 'basic hierarchy'. The first level
is all sixteen of the Creation terms that end in zero. The second
level shows the fifteen terms that immediately follow the
first term that you pick. The third level provides the Passive, Active and Non-Descriptive term
banks. The fourth level displays the bank of sixteen nouns
(from the Description
layer) that relate to the second level term that you picked.
Clicking a term on the fourth level will end the search and
display the glyph for that term.
This will display all of the passive, active and non-descriptive nouns that share the same types of Creation. If you start with the passive noun 'observation' you will be shown other nouns such as 'impression', 'monitor' and 'datum'; as well as the non-descriptive noun "I've been noticing something". You can use this feature to find related words that you didn't even know were available.
FYI: I delayed adding this game because it shows the weakness of the current vocabulary.
This game will display one or more words. Pick the elements (the spokes and laths) that represent this word and increase your score (shown as "Bee Score is:" in the upper left hand quadrant). Layer one elements are worth one point, layer two elements are worth two points and layer three elements are worth four points. (layer four elements would be worth eight points, if they were used) The maximum score in any game is 100,000. Good luck!
The game defaults to using just layer one elements (the inner
spokes), but you can play higher layers by entering the layer
number (2 or 3) before selecting "Glyphing Bee" (or
pressing 'Execute'). The game is over when you get the
"Glyph is OK" pop up message. Then (Optional: enter a layer number
and) press 'Execute' to play again. Minutes of fun!
When playing multiple layers, the best strategy is to solve the inner laths first. You can use the parts of speech and the summary as a guide. The remaining laths (the thesaural laths) can seem almost random (sorry), but remember that only four or less elements need to be changed on each level. The colors are useless unless the inner spokes are already solved.
Next solve the inner spokes, the "Bee Score" for the
'solved' two inner layers must be an even number (>= 24
and divisible by four) and the colors can now help you
decide which is the last inner spoke. Try to relate the
given term back to a categorical
term (good luck, sorry).
Finally, the outer spokes can be solved with the help of the syntactic classes (or verb types). At this point you also know that you are working towards a final score of 56 (see below).
Below are the final and initial score limits for the three
current game levels.
| Number of Layers: |
One |
Two |
Three |
| Maximum possible score (AKA 100000) |
8 | 24 | 56 |
| Initial minimum possible score | 4 | 12 | 28 |
This is a version of solitaire which uses glyphs as cards. The object of the game is to arrange all of the cards into four descending suits (this is not 'Klondike' solitaire however).
The 'Shuffle' button will start a new game.
The 'Deal (##)' button will deal a new layer of Cards.
The 'Close' button will end the game and return to the
normal display.
Everything you need to know about the game (and much much more) is explained here.
If you press the home key while the "Ring
Tone" selection dialog is open, the "Solitaire" panel
may be dark the next time you
open it. To fix this, press the home key while the dark "Solitaire"
panel is open. I may fix this eventually, but I can't think of a
valid reason for you to pause during the "Ring Tone" selection
dialog. In the mean time, you can use the dark "Solitaire"
panel as a stealth screen saver.
Only adds new glyphs at the end of the message.
This will replace the current glyph in the message and then advance the pointer to
the next glyph. This lets you change existing glyphs and add new
glyphs to the end of your message. There is no current way
to insert a new glyph into the middle of an existing message. When
you add or replace the sixteenth glyph the pointer will return to
the first glyph (so be careful or you will overwrite the start of
your message).
The glyph is saved, not the index. Thus, if you change the index number but fail to use the 'Index' function (or press the enter key), the glyph will not be updated and your new number will not be saved.
A maximum of sixteen glyphs or 160 characters can be sent (due to
system limits on the size of an SMS message). If your message has
more than 115 characters, you will be told how many characters are
still available. There is a space between glyphs, so 'FF' will
take up three characters of your remaining space and '-FF' will
take up four characters. If you get the error message "SMS maximum
Exceeded", the latest glyph has not actually been saved, so you
can still save a shorter glyph or send the incomplete message.
There is currently no way to Send
the single words "false" or "no" as "-0". This is because
computers can't tell the difference between positive and negative
zero (stupid computers!). The doctrinaire alternative would
be "false or no apparently" (-20000), but there are many other
options such as "false" (386) or even "most false" (6386) or
-2000. Be creative in your refusals!
See 'Read Message' below for details on using Build and Read together.
This will insert the current glyph into the middle of the message. Everything else works like Build above.
See 'Read Message' below for details on using Insert and Read together.Go directly to a glyph.
Just one glyph, not the whole message.
This will advance the pointer to the next glyph and then display it. Notice that
this is backwards from the way that Build
and Insert work.
Build and Read share the same pointer, so the
glyph you see with Read is the glyph that you will be
replacing with Build. If you want to add another glyph to
the end of the message that you are reading, you will need to
press the 'Execute' button until you get the "No More Saved
Glyphs" message to advance the pointer past the current end of the
message.
This will display the name of the current contact or bring up the 'Contacts' application if no contact has been chosen. You must then press the 'Execute' button to start the message transmission. Before actually sending the message you will receive (another) final warning so that you can not (easily) accidentally press the 'Execute' button and resend the same message (or some new unfinished message).
Once the message has been sent there is no current way to recall it. Instrumentation is not responsible for your poor life choices (see 'Fortune' above).
If the message template is empty, you can send the single,
currently displayed glyph by pressing 'Send
Message'. Just be sure the template is actually empty.
If the final warning says "one glyph" the template is empty. If
the final warning says "1 glyphs" (or some other number) the
template is not empty. You can use the menu to 'Delete' the
template without changing the current selectable function.
This means that you don't really need to 'Build' a message to send a
single glyph. Since many terms are complete thoughts (such as
"would you like to join me??"), this can be a handy feature (if
you remember to Delete any
previous message before sending). Deleting a message does not
affect the currently displayed glyph.
This will list the glyphic messages in the SMS message queue and
let you pick one.
(in the free version, messages do not go to the SMS message queue)
This will display the name or number of the person who sent the
last post that you Picked or
Received.
(this is only useful if you have more than one friend)
However, when you receive a new Notification
this will be the name or number of the person who sent the post
that you are about to Receive.
In this case, the 'sender' might not match the message in template zero until you actually
receive the message.
If the phone number is in your 'Contacts', the name will be
displayed, otherwise, the number will be displayed.
This will clear message template zero
(unless there are "No Receivable Glyphs") and display the first
glyph of an incoming message. If the message contains more than
one glyph, it will be loaded into the message template, and the 'Read' function will be
automatically selected.
All messages are received into template zero, which means:
Save it in another template so that it doesn't get clobbered by
the next message. Requires multiple templates.
The free version (GlyphOK) only has one message template
(called template zero). the non-free version
(which doesn't officially exist yet) has sixteen message
templates. (sixteen is bigger than one)
Read message templates from memory.
This deletes an entire message and sets the pointer to the beginning of the (now empty) message template. Deleting a message does not affect the currently displayed glyph or any other templates.
There is currently no way to Delete a single glyph within a message.Turning colors off can make it easier to read the glyphs in an
incoming message. Colors cannot be used to identify a specific
glyph, because the colors will change as the vocabulary matures.
Eventually, the entire glyph should be solid blue and yellow.
Turning colors on can help you avoid glyphs which have no
associated term when you are clicking on the elements of a glyph.
The elemental colors have the following meanings:
In other words, click on a yellow or blue element to see a nearby
term.
This will cycle through 'Off', 'Vibrate', 'Tone' and 'Both'
notification modes. Off is the default mode. A Notification icon
is also displayed if the application is not currently in use.
If the phone number is in your 'Contacts', the name will be
displayed, otherwise, the number will be displayed. This happens
when Instrumentation is active (visible) regardless of the
Notification value.
NB - Notification may not work at all if the application has never been opened. I assume that this will only be an issue for a long time user who has reloaded the application and forgotten about this friendly warning. If you find a message in the SMS inbox that starts with "glyph" and continues with hexadecimal numbers, this is (probably) the problem. Otherwise glyphic messages are never sent to the inbox. This application can 'Receive' the most recent glyphic message in the inbox (but only the most recent).
This function will not work unless your phone has internet access.
You will be given a choice of languages. Currently the 'non-test' choices (see "Beta test" below) are English (the default) and Espanol (like Spanish, but poorly translated). If you choose English, any other vocabulary file will be deleted and the default vocabulary will be re-loaded. If you choose any other language, the new vocabulary file will be downloaded from this (the Instrumentation) web site and loaded.
In either case, updating the vocabulary takes a bit of time.
Downloading and decompressing a file can increase this time
significantly if the internet is feeling cranky. The (compressed)
Espanol language file is just under 171 Kilobytes.
If you press the 'Home' button after selecting a language, the download should finish in the background.
The language files English2 (309 Kb) and Espanol2 (330 Kb)
contain the beta versions of the new 'improved' vocabulary. The beta
vocabularies have different version numbers than the primary
vocabularies, so you should be
able to tell if your friends are using a different
vocabulary.
The beta vocabulary has over twice as many singular nouns as the current primary vocabulary (it even contains the word 'vocabulary'). The beta vocabulary should be updated every other week (when this website updates), until I decide that this beta vocabulary is ready to become the new "Primary Vocabulary". After that, I will use beta vocabularies to preview all future vocabulary updates. Future updates should include:
The beta vocabulary is still under construction, so:
THE INSTRUMENTATION SMART PHONE APPLICATION IS PROVIDED `AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR(S) OR CONTRIBUTOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.