Setting up your Address Book for the Scenario Poker Widget

This is an example of the players you can easily create on your own. It is not a celebrity endorsement.

The Basics

Compatibility

This feature is designed for the Dashboard Widget version of Scenario Poker. It does not work in the iPhone or iPod touch version, because there is no plug-in support on those devices for web applications. We do plan to develop a native version, however, for release later this year now that Apple has shipped their iPhone OS SDK.

Minimum Requirements

The Scenario Poker widget must be registered and activated in order to enable this premium feature. If you have already purchased Scenario Poker 2.x, this update is free for you.

Generally, you must have a "me" card plus at least 27 opponents in a special group called "Poker Players". To be counted and used, each card must also have a proper First and Last Name, plus an assigned Photo Image. Any other fields are ignored by the widget. If any of these requirements aren't met, Scenario Poker will not use your Address Book until you update it, reopen the Scenario Poker widget and start a new tournament.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Complete your "me" card if necessary.
   This is how the system knows who you are. You're usually prompted to set this up when you create a your user account in Mac OS X. If you don't have one filled out, here's how:
   1. Open your Address Book from the Dock.
   2. In the File menu, choose New Card.
   3. Add your proper First and Last Name to it, and assign a Photo Image of yourself.
      • Refer to Address Book Help if you're not sure how to do this.
      • Note that the Address book currently does not preserve transparency in contact photos, so black backgrounds are preferred. Apple is aware of this limitation.
   4. In the Card menu, choose "Make This My Card". The Address Book should then display your card with a special icon and a badge that says "me".
       
2. Create a "Poker Players" group.
   Next, you'll need a special group in your Address Book named "Poker Players". If you're not familiar with how groups work, please refer to Address Book Help.
   • The Address Book's grouping feature allows you to keep your poker players separate from your real contacts.
      
3. Add at least 27 players to that group.
   Now you need to add at least 27 potential opponents to the "Poker Players" group. Again, each card must have a First and Last Name, and a Photo Image assigned to it. If you've been using your Address Book to manage your personal and business contacts, chances are you already have enough people and just need to add their photos. And this is where the fun and creativity begins:
   • You can add anyone you want to the special "Poker Players" group. Simply create new cards for any people you find interesting and then add their photos to them. You can easily find photos on the web and copy them into your Address Book for your own personal use under the "fair use" provisions of U.S. copyright law. In less than an hour, I collected 84 of my favorite professional poker players:

How does Scenario Poker use my player names and photos?

Every time you start a new tournament in the widget, Scenario Poker will scan your Address Book. If everything's set up right, it will of course put "you" in your seat. It will then choose 27 opponents at random from your "Poker Players" group. Only the first nine will be seated at your first table. The next group of nine will appear when you advance to the next table. Note that players' last names are abbreviated to fit in the widget.

Advanced Topics

Switching groups of Poker Players

Want to switch sets of players? That's easy. Just create other groups in your Address Book. For example, "Poker Pros", "Poker Buddies" and "Movie Stars". Then to swap them, simply remove everyone from your Poker Players group (select all and hit delete) and then add players from the group you want to Poker Players. Here's how:

1. Open your Address Book from the Dock.
2. Select "Poker Players" from the Group list. If any members of that group appear in the Name list:
   1. Click a player in the Name list, then do a Select All.
   2. Hit the delete key. A confirmation dialog will appear.
   3. Confirm their removal by clicking the "Delete from Group" button.
3. Select the group you want to play with from the Group list.
4. Click a player in the Name list, then do a Select All.
5. Drag the players into the "Poker Players" group.
6. Reopen the Scenario Poker widget in the Dashboard. When you click the Deal button, Scenario Poker will try to use your new players.

This works because Address Book groups are only references to cards, much like how a Playlist in iTunes is just a list of references to song files. If you remove cards from a group, they aren't removed from your Address Book or from any other groups to which they belong. They're still there in your database when you want to switch back or reorganize them.

Exporting a group of Poker Players

Want to share an Address Book Group with your friends? It's easy with the standard "vCard" format. Here's how:

1. Open your Address Book from the Dock.
2. You must tell the Address Book that you want to include photos in the vCards you export, because that option is disabled by default. Here's how:
   1. From the Address Book menu, choose Preferences.
   2. Click the vCard icon in the Preferences window's toolbar.
   3. Check the box labeled "Export photos in vCards".
   4. Close the Preferences window.
3. In the Address Book window's Group list, select the group you want to export. In this example, we'll export "Poker Pros".
4. From the File menu, choose Export > Export Group vCard.
5. Name the file "Poker Pros" (or whatever your group is called) and save it to your Desktop.
   • This creates a file with the extension ".vcf", which may be hidden.
6. Find this file in the Finder and select it.
7. In the Finder's File menu, choose Compress "Poker Pros".
   • This makes a smaller .zip archive which you can more easily share with friends.

For demonstration purposes, here's the sample vCard file we created above:

Poker Pros

Importing a group of Poker Players

To import a vCard file into your Address Book:

1. First, be sure to back up your Address Book. Scenario Software is not responsible for anything that could go wrong. If you're not sure how to make a backup, please stop here and refer to Address Book Help.
2. Download the desired vCards file to your Desktop from a trusted source.
   • For example, you can click the "Poker Pros" icon above to download it.
   • The Safari browser should automatically unzip it (if necessary) and open it, which will cause your Address Book to open and/or come to the front.
3. You should be asked, "Are you sure you want to add 84 cards to your address book?" If so, click the Add button.
   • Note that this process does not actually create the group for you. It merely adds the cards to your Address Book's database alongside any other cards that you already have. We'll create our special group in the next step.
   • Note also that a new Smart Group appears in the Group list, called "Last Import". This will come in handy.
4. Now create a New Group called "Poker Pros", or whatever name you choose.
5. In the Groups list, select the Smart Group called "Last Import". This will display only the 84 new cards that you previously imported.
6. Click any one of them in the Name list and then do a Select All.
   • If you change your mind at this point, you can simply delete the imported cards.
7. Drag the 84 selected cards to your new "Poker Pros" group.
8. If this is the only group you plan to use in Scenario Poker, you can simply rename "Poker Pros" to "Poker Players" and you're done. Otherwise, follow the instruction above under "Switching groups of Poker Players."

Enjoy!
Todd Ouzts