forteanajones said:
I should admit that I'm of two minds with Tarot applications. Part of me loves the advantages, and the other part of me feels we should stick with the cards.
I like to see cards in high resolution on a monitor because they look so beautiful in the light--that's an advantage to using tarot software.
I am running an LCD monitor at 1280 x 1024 resolution and I can't even identify the cards when they are laid out onscreen as they are so small. Funny, when I preview them in Irfanview they are much bigger for some reason.
With this program, I liked that Eikon included different backs to the cards and the ability to change the font. That is a neat facility.
For me, the program would not be useful without high resolution scans of the cards. I might do my own because I love the look of cards on a monitor. Hey, I could also do my artwork for the backs!
Another thing I thought of--Eikon has included a facility for separate notes, but not apparently to add notes onto the definitions that preview with the card when you right click. I suppose the notes pop-up was included to make a record of your spreads and readings, but it would be nice to personalize or expand the definitions that come with the cards. Particularly when you come across a gem of insight from one book or another--it would be nice to collect them with each of the Thoth cards and thus flesh out the definition for yourself (and also remember insightful stuff without trying to remember which book you saw it in and scrambling to find it.)
Great to have Crowley's Book of Thoth ready to pull up. I don't have a hard copy of it.
I did a short comparison of the Orphalese program using the description on the Orphalese web site--it allows for close ups of cards which is nice, especially onscreeen with the light of a monitor. It also allows adding notes to card descriptions I think, which are the main things I would want with software featuring the Thoth.
I'm not too interested in all the bells and whistles, just a bit of ease in customizing the view, resolution, and card descriptions.
It's a neat program though, simple and effective. I love to see programmers at work on things. You are talented Eikon, keep on creating!
[Edited to add: a couple hours later I bought the Orphalese software.]