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Application Setup

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Evan Shimizu edited this page Feb 3, 2019 · 13 revisions

Soothsayer is a tool that generates overlays for casting one of the supported games. Below, you'll find a summary of how to setup the app. If you're looking for a visual guide, scroll on down to the First Time Setup Tutorial section.

App Setup

Download and run the most recent installer from the Releases page. It is strongly recommended that you install the app in a folder other than Program Files on Windows. This will allow Soothsayer to write additional text files for use in OBS. After installing, run the application. On Windows systems, you may need to let the app through the Windows Firewall (see below).

Soothsayer keeps the core overlay files contained within a directory in its install location. There's a button titled Open Overlay Location in the Settings > Config tab.

  • On Windows, this is at [install dir]/resources/app/src/obs_src
  • On MacOS, this is inside the app package itself. Right click the app and choose the "Show Package Contents" option, and navigate to the resources/app/src/obs_src/ folder.

See Overlay Usage for a list of available templates.

These core files are typically used with themes (if you load them up with the default theme, you'll soon see why). In order to use themes, you'll need to set aside a separate themes folder for Soothsayer. The theme folder should be kept on the same hard disk partition as Soothsayer's install files. Make a folder for the themes, then under the Config tab, select that location. For more information on how to use themes, see Using Themes.

If you need help getting started, drop by the Casters for Hire Discord. Hop on in there to get more info about the tool and help with setup and usage.

First Time Setup Tutorial

This tutorial is written for Windows systems. The steps on Mac will be similar, but the installation procedure is different.

  1. Welcome to Soothsayer! First off, you'll want to download an installer from the Releases page. For windows, pick the file that is a .exe (you can ignore the .blockmap file)

  2. Run the installer. It is strongly recommended that you install the app in a location that is not Program Files. I've chosen to install the app in my Videos directory. We do this so that Soothsayer can write some extra text files that you can use in OBS.

Installing Soothsayer

  1. Open the app. Navigate to Settings > Config. You can do this by clicking on the Settings button at the top (1) and then the Config (2) button, as shown below. Your app should look like the below screenshot (although your version number might be different if the app has been updated).

Locating the Config panel

  1. Set up the theme folder. We need to tell Soothsayer where to find and keep our theme files. Click on Browse, and pick a folder on the same disk as Soothsayer.

Browsing for a Theme Folder

I've kept my files right next to the app's install location. You don't necessarily need to keep them as shown below, but you do need to make sure they're on the same disk (so if the app lives on drive F, the themes also need to be on F).

Suggested theme folder location

  1. Download a theme. You've just installed, so there aren't any themes in your folder. Let's download one. We'll download the Caster Love theme from http://falindrith.me/soothsayer/caster-love.zip. We'll also make the app do all the hard work by downloading it in-app. To do so, click on the Download button (1), type in the URL to the theme (2), and click download (3).

Downloading a theme, step 1 Downloading a theme, step 2 Theme download success

  1. If the download completes, the new theme will show up in the dropdown menu. Let's select it, and activate the theme by clicking Set.

Activating a theme

  1. You should be good to go! Check out the other wiki pages (Overlay Setup, Application Operation) for info about how to set up the overlays in OBS, and how to enter data into Soothsayer.

  2. Updating the theme and the app. The app will update automatically. You will see a notice in the top bar of the application when an update is ready. Simply close the app, wait for a few minutes, and re-open it. If you attempt to open it too soon, you may get a Missing Shortcut Target error or similar. Updating themes takes a bit more work, but since we already installed it from a URL, all it takes is a single click, as shown below. I recommend checking for theme updates each time the app updates.

Updating a theme

Why do I need to let the app through the firewall?

Soothsayer operates by setting up a socket.io server on port 3005 of your machine. It uses this so that overlays set up in OBS can communicate with the application and retrieve data from the main app. This communication layer needs to be unblocked to run properly. Note that this socket will be accessible to anyone on your local network, however if they try to access it they'll only get Soothsayer data back.

Uninstalling

You can remove Soothsayer using the standard Windows Add/Remove Programs window. Soothsayer may leave settings data on disk. To delete those as well, delete the C:\Users\[Your username]\AppData\Roaming\Soothsayer folder. If you just want to reset your settings (i.e. the app has trouble loading), navigate into that folder and just delete the Settings file.

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