Turtle View

Overview

The Turtle View displays an individual turtle and provides actions to operate on that turtle. In this view you can set the turtle's immortality, export the turtle, open the turtle or it's image in in other iPad apps, and more. You can also change the line width used to draw the turtle's image to get a better idea of the what the turtle would look like at different resolutions.

Controls

In the navigation bar at the top of the view, you will see three buttons: Done, Action, and Organize. The Done button is obvious - it will close the view and return you to the population view of the turtle. The Action button will display an ActionSheet providing you with a number of actions that you can use to operate on the turtle. The Organize button will display a popup listing the populations in your Gene Pool, allowing you to copy the turtle to a Gene Pool population.

In the toolbar at the bottom of the view, you will see two buttons, a segment control, and a slider control. The Replace button is used to replace the turtle's program with the program of another turtle in one of your populations, or from a file that you import from iTunes. The Undo Replace button will undo a previous replace operation. The segmented control in the middle of the toolbar is used to change between the various presentations of the turtle - the drawing presentation, the program presentation, and the turtle details presentation. The slider on the right of the toolbar can be used to change the line width, or thickness, of the turtle's drawing.

 

Turtle Actions

Make Immortal

This command will make a turtle immortal. If the turtle is already immortal, then the action's name will be Make Mortal, and the action will make the turtle mortal again. The concept of immortality is discussed further in the help section on Evolution Techniques, but briefly, an immortal turtle cannot be lost during evolution. It is never replaced by a child turtle. Please note that a turtle's immortality is not remembered when the population is closed, unless you checkpoint the turtle or the population.

 

Checkpoint Turtle

This action will checkpoint the turtle to the database. This will also save the turtle's immortality setting. Before the checkpoint is performed, you will be shown a popup showing you the turtle's drawing using the program currently saved in the database. This will help you avoid checkpointing a turtle whose existing program is one you do not want to replace. Why is this important? Because the turtle that you are currently looking at may be the great-great-grandchild of the turtle that is currently saved in the database, and you may have forgotten that the turtle's previous drawing is something that you do not want to lose. If this is the case, simply click outside of the popup to cancel the checkpoint, then use another means of saving the turtle such as copying it to one of your gene pools.

 

Email Turtle...

This action will allow you to e-mail your turtle. The turtle's drawing, definition file, and program text will be attached to the e-mail, along with a PDF document containing the drawing, as well as an Encapsulated Postscript file with the turtle's vector drawing. Once the e-mail is constructed, you will be presented with the email modal screen allowing you to specify the e-mail addresses of the recipients. Then you can either send the email, or save the e-mail as a draft.

Export To iTunes...

This action will export the turtle's definition to a file in iTunes. A turtle definition file can be shared with other users, as well as imported back into one of your populations. When you select this action, a popup will be displayed asking you to enter a name for the turtle definition file that will be saved in iTunes. Once the file is exported to iTunes, you can work with it using the iTunes File Sharing area for the Evolved Art app.

Save Image To Photos

This action will save a copy of your turtle's drawing to the Photos app on your iPad. Once this is done, you can open the Photos app and use the turtle drawing in the same fashion you would any other photo that you took with your camera. For example, once the drawing it in your Photo Library, you can upload it to Facebook using the Facebook app. Or you can include it in your Photo Library slideshows.

Open Image In...

This action will open the turtle's image in another iPad app. When you select this action, another popup will be displayed showing a list of apps that are capable of opening an image. If you do not see another popup, then there are no apps on your iPad that are capable of displaying an image.

Open PDF In...

This action will open the turtle's image as a PDF document in another iPad app. When you select this action, another popup will be displayed showing a list of apps that are capable of opening a PDF document, such as Adobe Reader. If you do not see another popup, then there are no apps on your iPad that are capable of displaying a PDF document.

Open EPS In...

This action will open the turtle's image as a vector drawing within an Encapsulated Postscript file in another iPad app. When you select this action, another popup will be displayed showing a list of apps that are capable of opening an Encapsulated Postscript document. If you do not see another popup, then there are no apps on your iPad that are capable of displaying an Encapsulated Postscript document.

Open Turtle In...

This action will open the turtle's definition file in another iPad app. When you select this action, another popup will be displayed showing a list of apps that are capable of opening the definition file. The turtle definition file is a text file that uses the XML standard. Since Evolved Art is the only app that understands turtle definition files, the only apps that will be displayed are those that work with generic files, such as DropBox or Google Drive. If you do not see another popup, then there are no apps on your iPad that are capable of working with generic data files.

Print Turtle...

This action will print the turtle's drawing to a printer. Printing is a complicated process for a number of reasons. Printers have many different capabilities and resolutions, paper sizes vary, and printer driver software can be inconsistent. For example, my Epson printer provides values for the paper margins when I print on US Letter sized paper, but the actual printed turtle prints closer to the left side of the paper then the reported margin, so the turtle is not centered on the paper. Evolved Art addresses some of these issues by allowing you to tweak the printing process using the settings in this popup. While the popup appears a bit complicated, it is really straightforward.

The majority of the time, you can ignore the Print Area and Offset fields (leaving them set to zero, which uses the defaults provided by the printer), and simply set the Line Width sliders to your desired line width, and print. The Line Width sliders set the thickness of the lines when printing the turtle's drawing. As with all values in this popup, the line width is measured in points, where there are 72 points in a physical inch.

Because the range of desirable line widths is large, and many times the desired line width is a very small value, using a single slider to set the line width makes selecting very small values extremely difficult. For this reason, two sliders are provided. The top slider sets the line width with precision of 0.0025 points, while the bottom slider sets the line width with precision of 0.1000 points. The actual line width is the combination of these two values. As you move the sliders, you will see the actual line width value change in the label above the sliders. You will also see that a approximate printer resolution is provided for each line width. The aproximate printer resolution does not affect your printer's resolution setting in any way. It is telling you that the current line width setting would print with a single dot on a printer that has the approximate printer resolution. In other words, when you set the line width to 0.1200, and the approximate printer resolution shows 600 dpi, this means that a 600 dpi printer will print the lines at it's maximum resolution, or a single dot. Of course, if you set the line width to 1.000 points, and print on a 600 dpi printer, the line width will actually be about 8 dots on the page.

The calculation for the line width, in inches, is: ( line_width / 72.0 ). So if you set the line width to 0.1000, then the line will print 0.001389 inches thick [ 0.10 points / 72.0 points_per_inch ]. To estimate the number of printer dots that a line width represents, you use the calculation: ( line_width * printer_dpi / 72.0 ). So, with a line width of 0.1200 and a 600 dpi printer, then the resulting lines should print with one printer dot: [ 0.1200 * 600 / 72.0 ]. I provide these calculations for those users who need precision, but most users will discover the best line width for their printer by trial and error, and simply reuse that value each time they print. Of course, some turtles will look better with thinner lines and others will look better with thicker lines, so there is no single line width that makes every turtle look best.

The Print Area input fields are used to set the size of the turtle printed on the physical page. Again, these values are measured in points. Most of the time, you can leave these values set to 0.0, which will use the printer's default page size for the turtle print size. However, you may wish to undersize the turtle to print a smaller turtle on a large paper size, or you may wish to oversize the turtle to zoom in and focus the printing on a specific part of your turtle. Of course, oversize will require that you set the offset fields to properly place the part of the turtle that is actually printed where you want it on the paper. The paper size picker to the right of the print area input fields will set the values of those fields to common paper sizes, allowing you to then adjust them to your liking. The paper picker only sets the values in those fields, and is otherwise ignored by the printing process. Choosing Printer Default in the paper picker will reset the print area values to 0.0, which causes Evolved Art to use the paper size that the printer suggests.

The Offset fields are used to set the location where the turtle is printed on the physical page. When these values are set to 0.0, the location will be determined by the printer's suggested paper margins. However, there are times (for example, when you oversize or undersize your turtle, or when the printer does not use the margins that it provides to Evolved Art), when you will want to adjust these values. As the names suggest, you can offset the turtle from the top and left sides of the paper. These values will be added to the margins that are provided by the printer. These values can also be negative, which with move the turtle up (top offset) or left (left offset) on the page.

Once you have adjusted the settings to your liking, tap the Print Turtle button, and the standard iPad Printer Options popup will be displayed, allowing you to select your printer. Tap the Print button, and your turtle will be printed.

As a side note, many people have printers that do not support Apple's special AirPrint protocol, and therefore do not show up in the list of available printers when they try to print. The folks at Netputing provide a nice utility named HandyPrint that allows you to share any printer connected to your Mac with your iPad. I am not endorsing this product, but I have been using it to test Evolved Art's printing function, and it appears to work well. You can learn more about this product on their website at http://www.netputing.com/handyprint/. Another option for Mac users is Printopia, which is available at http://ecamm.com/mac/printopia/. I have never used Printopia. Unfortunately, I do not have a Windows machine at my disposal, but Windows users can do a Google search for "AirPrint Support Windows" and you will find many links to various utilities that support sharing your printer from Windows. It appears that the likely candidates are Finger Print, AirPrint Activator, and Elpamsoft's AirPrint Installer. Finger Print appears to be the professional solution, but again, I have not tried any of these products.

Turtle Organize Button

The Organization button opens a popup that displays the names of the gene pool populations in your library. This will allow you to copy the turtle into any of your gene pools. Simply click on any of the gene pool names and the turtle will be copied to that gene pool.

Note that before the copy is performed, the gene pool will first be checked to see if it already contains a turtle with the same unique identifier. This is to prevent you from accidentally overwriting an existing turtle (often the same turtle). If a turtle already exists in the population with the same unique identifier, you will be presented with another popup showing you the existing turtle in the destination population and two buttons. The Overwrite button will overwrite the existing turtle with the one being copied. The New Unique ID button will assign the turtle being copied with a new unique identifier before it is copied, thus preventing it from overwriting the existing turtle.

Also note that there is a limit to the number of turtles that a gene pool population can contain. If this limit will be exceeded when the turtle is copied into the population, the copy will not proceed.

There are times when you may wish to select a gene pool as your destination, but the gene pool's name is disabled with a message indicating that the gene pool has reached it's maximum size. Gene pool's are limited to 120 turtles in size. Sometimes all of your gene pools are full, but you still wish to perform the current action. When this happens, you can use the special Create New Gene Pool control at the bottom of the popup to create a new gene pool without having to leave the popup. Simply enter a name for the new gene pool in the text field, then tap the New button, and the gene pool will be created and added to your library and to the popup's list of gene pools. Then you can select the newly created gene pool as the destination for the current action.

 

Turtle Replace Button

The Replace button opens a popup that displays an ActionSheet which provides you with four methods for replacing the code of the turtle - With Last Checkpoint, Generate Random Turtle, Turtle From Population, and Import From iTunes. Note that when you use the replace action, the turtle itself is not replaced, only the turtle's program is replaced. This means that the turtle's Unique ID, Author, and other information is left as-is.

With Last Checkpoint

This action will reload the turtle's program from the last time that you performed a checkpoint and replace the current program. This is a means of reverting a turtle checkpoint without having to revert the entire population.

Generate Random Turtle

This action will generate a new random turtle program. This is identical to the way that turtles are randomly generated when you create a new population, except it operates only on the displayed turtle. The randomly generated program will use the same parameters as those used when the turtle's population was created.

Turtle From Population

When you select the Turtle From Population action, you will be presented with the Turtle Picker popup. This popup looks quite complicated, but it is very simple to use.

The picker will list all of your populations in the table on the left side. When you select one of the populations from the table on the left side, that population's turtles will be displayed to the right. Once the turtles are displayed, simply tap on any of the turtle images and that turtle's program will replace the current turtle's program.

If you wish to cancel the replace, simply click outside of the popup and it will be dismissed and the replace will be canceled.

Import From iTunes

When you select the Import From iTunes action, you will be presented with a new popup showing all of the turtle definition files that are available from iTunes. Select any of the files and the turtle's program will be replaced by the program from the turtle definition in iTunes. There are two ways for a turtle definition file to be available in iTunes: 1) you exported the turtle definition from Evolved Art; 2) you copied the turtle definition file into Evolved Art's File Sharing area using iTunes itself.

If you wish to cancel the replace, simply click outside of the popup and it will be dismissed and the replace will be canceled.