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The original two-pane reading is back

Short version: here it is, with my apologies. (I didn’t know anyone still used it!)

Backstory:

A few years ago I commissioned Ewald Berkers (creator of the I Ching Community’s indispensable hexagram search) to make us a new online I Ching.

I did so because the old reading, the one in two frames, created a lot of confusion for beginners. It always shows two hexagrams even when you’ve only cast one, so people get the impression that that an unchanging hexagram is ‘casting the same hexagram twice’. And it displays the complete changing line texts of both hexagrams, leaving newcomers far from sure what’s actually part of their answer.

The new reading cleared up the confusion: an unchanging hexagram just appears as one hexagram, and only the relevant text is displayed. Also, since it casts one line at a time and displays the answer on a new page, it’s just a little slower to use, which in my book is a Good Thing. (And it can be saved and exported to pdf and linked to…)

I left the old frames reading around in case anyone wanted to use it, though I didn’t really expect anyone would. And then when I created the redesigned site, I called on Ewald again to make his reading script work with it (as a WordPress plugin)… and pretty much forgot the two-pane reading still existed.

Well… I live and learn…

I’ve already had about 20 requests to put the old reading back. So, in response to popular demand, here it is. Restyled a little to match the new site, and with the links corrected, but otherwise unchanged.

I’ve included a link to this on the main free reading page – tucked away at the bottom, under the ‘introduction for beginners’.

One response to The original two-pane reading is back

  1. Thank you Hilary.

    The ‘frame javascript’ is a little masterpiece and you can find it on several sites, ‘Wilhelm/Baynes & Legge’. But your intuitive interpretation/’translation’ is remarkable, only one I’ve ever given much credence to… those plus the Eranos Ritsema Karcher concordance, which is always on the shelf for reference.

    Also the most aesthetically pleasing from a graphical design pov. When it went down on Saturday I asked and got 46>18, today I got 46>15. Spot on.

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