A free I Ching programme

[melki]

I invite you to try a new and free I Ching programme, the "Yijing". It has been twelve years in the making. It offers basic I Ching usage and permits comparative I Ching research. Its interface runs in English, French, German and Spanish. The included texts are the copy-expired versions by Legge, 1899 and Wilhem, 1924 (German). You can also attach your own I Ching files to the program, either by chapters or in book form.

The basic user can simply click the "Consult" button, and rapidly obtain a hexagram and the accompanying text. The moving-line texts are displayed separately in a split screen for rapid reading. Attached reference texts in chapter form open according to the hexagram that was cast.

Advanced users can record questions and answers in an ongoing database. Also, various aspects of the question, such as context and outcome, can be annotated. Furthermore, multiple I Ching "consultation projects" can be maintained, for following different life issues. The database is maintained as text files, for easy further analysis with external programmes (Excel, or user-created programmes).

For the researcher, the Chinese-English Legge translation is included.

Alfred Huang's etymologically motivated English translations of the 64 hexagram titles were incorporated into the Yijing programme and were translated into French, German and Spanish. They serve as a comparative guide to Wilhelm's and others' title translations. Furthermore, the Chinese titles are transliterated into intonation-marked Pinyin, and MP3 pronunciations of the hexagram titles are available in the programme.

The programme is freeware. Download the programme from www.melkiades.com. Look for the "Yijing" tab.

The programme runs as a Java jar-file on Windows, Ubuntu Linux and Macintosh.

Melki

[lucia]

Thanks to Lise sending me the link in another thread (see searchable journals in Exploring Divination) I have had a look at this . It looks nice and it is great that you offer it - it's a real labour of love - thank you. I hadn't noticed your post down here.....

Lucia

[melki]

Thank you, Lucia, for your much-appreciated comment. It's a pleasure and a relief to see this piece of work finally become useful for others.

I'm still adding a few more pieces. Most importantly, there will soon be a scoring device that lets us evaluate the best translation, the match between questions and answers, and the usefulness of the I Ching response. Also, I'm currently formatting the 1885 French Philastre translation into a base text.

What the program needs most of all is more base texts (those that come up in the main windows). If you know of a free translation into any language (English or otherwise), please do get in touch with me. The translation does not have to be copyright-free -- you or your publisher can retain the copyright. All we need is a letter saying that it's all right for us to use the I Ching translation in this programme.

One encouraging feature that will be coming soon is a little button that will point to a relevant link, such as Amazon, your publisher, or an appropriate website. This is an open gesture: Yijing offers some free advertising, and us users get a free I Ching translation to try out, to study and to appreciate. A mutually beneficial arrangement that should bring the I Ching to many more people.
:)

[lucia]

Most importantly, there will soon be a scoring device that lets us evaluate the best translation, the match between questions and answers, and the usefulness of the I Ching response.

There speaks a statitician methinks...... forgive me, and I am really impressed with your project, but that last bit I can't relate to. While I hear what you say about good and bad translations and the problems with commentaries, I do think that the best way forward is to use several, reflect and then arrive at your own personal place with it all.

I am not a Chinese translator although I have worked with ancient texts in another language, so I rely on the skills of others. I use Wilhelm of course, but I keep in mind his conservatism, christian roots and so on, I love Brad Hatcher's work which is delightfully thought provoking, a draft of Hilary's soon to be published book, Lise, and Balkin and and............. But then there is also things like Steven Marshall which is just fab to colour in the historical spaces. Oh I want a library......

On top of that: the excellent materials on this site, particularly the Wikiwing and the brains of my fellow chingers on this forum which for me has been priceless, and then my own journals. I fully intend to download your software; the link came to me because I asked in the forum about journal making and Lise sent me to you.

But from my limited but quite long experience I don't think the Ching works 'Cookbook style' so cannot see how evaluating matches would work in practice. I have had some quite strong lighbulb moments sometimes that have flown in the face of most ideas of a line. We discussed one of them at length (11.2>36) in the Reading Circle. At it's extreme end I find it quite dark although of course it has to be scaled to fit the Q.

Anyway, thank you so much for your efforts and as you obviously have a lot of experience (and appear to be multilingual) I do hope you will join in with us sometimes in this somewhat anarchistic site :D.

Best wishes

Lucia

[melki]

:bows:, Lucia.

I consider the Yijing programme not so much of a cookbook, but the raw foundations for a haute cuisine. Some Cuisinart tools built into the Yijing may be just right for some, and useless for others. Some will prove their value with time, others might find a premature death. And new ideas for the programme are most welcome -- I may be able to do something about them. Please leave your ideas on this thread, I'll check it out daily. ;)

Also, I'll gladly join in some other discussions on this site. It'll be a delightful change from Java code, text formatting and Chinese glosses!

Best wishes, Melki

[lucia]

I consider the Yijing programme not so much of a cookbook, but the raw foundations for a haute cuisine.

I love it!

Lucia

[melki]

Many Clarity forum users have apparently downloaded the Yijing programme and are using it regularly. I am happy that you seem to be enjoying the programme.

Since the original announcement, there have been a few improvements that I'd like to present here. First, we now have styled html text in the big screen. This makes the text much more pleasant to read. The translations of Chinese original texts are in larger font than the comments, and the entire text is presented on a fine parchment background. You can also print out a given screen.

The text search now works correctly, and you can search various columns in the journaling table, the current hexagram, or the entire I Ching translation. The search is very rapid.

Also, we can now look up a hexagram reference in the following form: Hexagram x, moving lines y and z. Just enter the various numbers into the windows at the right, leave the window of the associated hexagram empty, click on "Look up", and you have the hexagrams.

Then there is a little web reference button for a designated book seller or download site. For the Legge translation for example, the button finds the product for sale on Amazon.com.

There is also a new "meditation slow-down" button at the far right. These buttons let you match the speed of the response to your meditation. If you have a difficult question, for example, you can set a wait period before generating the response.

In the long term, this slow-down will be coupled to a set of meditation animations that I am currently researching for future versions of the programme.

Many of these improvements came about through email exchanges with the Clarity moderator LiSe, to whom I am very much indebted for many improvements. LiSe has also agreed to update her own I Ching translation and to make it available through this programme. Bradford Hatcher, another frequent visitor on the Clarity forum, has also agreed to make portions his translation available on this programme. We can look forward to their new translations in about a month or so. Finally, I am also preparing the French translation by Philastre (1885) for inclusion.

So altogether, the program is very much alive. If you downloaded an early version, please feel free to upgrade. This might be a good moment, because so many changes have arrived just this past week (Version 0.9.9). Just keep your "profiles", the "Authors.txt" file and all your private author texts, throw out the rest of the previous version and put the new version into its place. The download pages start on www.melkiades.com. Please feel free to pass the programme on to others free of charge.

With my best wishes to all.

Melki