Overview

The Configuration View displays a modal view allowing you to configure the Evolved Art application. There are only a few things that you can configure, the most important of which is your Author Information.

Author Information

This is the most important configuration within Evolved Art. Every turtle and every population that you evolved has an author, which is given a Unique Identifier. When you start Evolved Art for the first time, you are given a Unique Identifier as an author, and the information that you configure here is tied to that ID. It is possible to update this information at a later time, and Evolved Art will properly display the updated information. However, when you export a turtle or population, say by emailing it to another user or exporting to iTunes, the author information is included in the exported information along with your ID, so that it can be imported into the app of the other user. If you have not set this information before you export your turtle or population, it will not be included in that file, and the information will be blank in the other user's app. Furthermore, if you update your author information after emailing or exporting, any updates to your author information will not be reflected in these files.

Many users object to providing their email address these days due to SPAM. You are not required to provide your Author information. You can provide a pseudonym for your name if you wish. However, if you do not wish to provide an email address, it is best to leave this field empty, as opposed to putting in an invalid email address. Furthermore, Evolved Art never uses your email address or name in any way other than to include it with turtle or population files that you export. Therefore, if you trust the users to whom you send these files, you have no need to worry that your email address will be seen by the general public.

Image Sizes

The middle section of the configuration screen provides controls to set the sizes of various images generated by Evolved Art. There are actually two areas in this section. The top area controls the sizes of images of turtle drawings when you save to the iPad's photo library, as well as when you open turtles in other iPad apps, and finally when you email turtles. The setting for email affects the size of the turtle's drawing, which is attached to the email as a PNG file.

The bottom area of this section controls the size of PDF documents that Evolved Art generates - both when a PDF document is attached to an email, as well as when the PDF document is opened in another iPad app. The segment control provides you with a selection of common paper sizes, as well as a non-standard 1024x1024 size, which is provided for those who wish to export a large PDF document for use in applications such as Adobe Illustrator. There is also an on-off switch named 'Title Page' that controls whether or not a cover page is included in the PDF document. The cover page is a simple page that includes information about the turtle, such as it's name, author, unique identifier, and the comment if one is provided with the turtle. If you are creating PDF documents to catalog your collection, you may find the cover page to be very convenient, however, if you are creating the PDF document to open in Adobe Illustrator, the cover page may be unnecessary.

Slideshow Populations

The lower section of the configuration screen provides controls to set the populations that are displayed when you present the slideshow view. The slideshow view iterates through the turtles in your populations. If you select All, then the turtles in all populations will be presented in the slideshow. If you select Populations, then only the turtles in the User Populations populations will be presented. If you select Gene Pools, then only the turtles in Gene Pool populations will be presented. In general, the turtles in your User Populations will be evolving and all of them may not be of interest to you in a slideshow. On the other hand, the turtles in your gene pool populations are most often turtles that you have selected to collect for their aesthetic qualities. Thus, most users are likely to prefer presenting only the turtles in their Gene Pool populations.