What's New

The Deck editor
The Card Library view
The Card Information view
Checking for database updates
Product documentation

The Deck editor

Wizard's Familiar supports creating and editing decks. The deck editor lists all the cards in an ordered list. You can drag and drop cards from the Card Library into the deck or you can copy and paste cards into the deck (if the text is in the format number space card name). You can also add text to your deck by using the Text Creation tool from the tool palette.

Deck Editor

The Card Library view

The Card Library appears at the bottom of the Wizard's Familiar window. Use the card library to populate your deck. You can filter the contents of the card library using either the filter button (Display filter dialog button) or by selecting a saved filter from the filter drop down. You can create as many new Card Library views as you wish. To create a new Card Library view press the new button (New Card Library view button) on the view's tool bar or select the Create New Card Library menu command from the view menu (access by pressing the View menu button menu button).

Card Library view

Edit Card Filter dialog

To display the Card Library's Edit Filter dialog press the filter button (Display filter dialog button) on the view's tool bar or select the Edit Card Filter menu command from the view menu (access by pressing the View menu button menu button).

The new Edit Card Filter dialog has two modes; simple and advanced.

Simple:

Card Library Filter Edit Dialog - Simple

Each of the sections of the dialog allow you to select your search criteria in a number of ways:

Selecting from a drop down list

Typing a list of names

When typing into the drop down list your text is automaticly checked for correctness. If what you have typed does not match an entry in the drop down list an error icon is displayed. If you click on the error icon it will offer you a choice of close matches to select.

Type in with auto correction suggestions

Using Custom List

The Custom List dialog box lets you select any number of items from the drop down list. Selected items will appear as a comma separated list once you press OK.

Filtering sub-types

The type filtering combo box allows you to filter based on basic types. If you check the Restrict to selected sub-types check box you can filter additionally on sub-types as well.

The Sub-type list dialog box lets you select sub types for each of the various basic types from a tree.

Filtering creature attributes

Creatures can be filtered by thie unique attributes; power, toughness and creature abilities. The simple version allows you to select from a drop down list of named sets of attributes. For example the name Weenies will filter creatures so that only those with a power and toughness of 2 or less are shown.

Advanced:

The dialog has an Advanced button. Switching to advanced mode allows the following additional capabilies:

Card Library Filter Edit Dialog - Advanced

Full text searching

Enter the words you wish to serach for in the Text Search text box. The filter will look for cards with those words. You can preceed a word with a '-' character to eliminate cards with that word from the result set. You can choose to serach the card's name, rule text and type. You can choose if your search words should be found with the exact case you typed or not. You can also decide if you want only cards that contain all your words or cards that contain any of your words.

In the example depicted above the filter will retrieve all cards that can cause a target player to discard cards that do not require an additional sacrifice.

Card Library sorting

The card library supports sorting by one or more columns. Clicking on the column headers with the left mouse button changes the sort. Holding down the Ctrl or Shift keys while clicking on the header adds to the sort list or changes the direction a column is sorted in. The tool tip for any sorted column will tell you the sort order.

Card Library Sorting

To sort the columns by colour and then by name (as shown in the example above) click on the Colour column header and then Ctrl click on the Name column header. To reverse the direction the colours are sorted Ctrl click again on the Colour column header.

Card Library status line

When a card library has focus the status line contains the number of cards shown by the library's filter out of the total number of card available.

Card Library Status Line Display

Allow saving of card filters

Card library filters can be saved for reference later. To save a filter press the save button (Save filter button), a dialog box will appear where a name can be specified:

Save Card Library filter

Once the filter has a name you can choose it from the filter drop down.

Saved filter list

By default the card library shows all the cards available in a Standard tournament. You can also change which filter is displayed by default (by using the Set Default button in the preferences dialog box available from the main menu - Windows | Preferences | Card Library Filters). There is a set of filters provided that can be chosen from (currently Standard Cards and All Cards).

Card Library has contents by default

Card Library has a filter history

Whenever you change the filter for a Card Library the previous filter is recorded in a history list. You can move back and forward through the filters you have used previously.

Card Library filter history

After selecting a saved filter from the list you can press the back button (Back button) to go back to your previously filter.

Card Library filter history back

Press the forward button (Forward button) to return to your newest selected filter.

Card Library filter history forward

The Card Information view

The Card Information view appears at the left of the Wizard's Familiar window. As you select cards in the Card Library the information view updates. This view shows you the detailed information about a card. You can create as many new Card Library views as you wish.

Card Information view

To create a new Card Information view press the new button (New Card Information view button) on the view's tool bar or select the Create New Card Info View command from the view menu (access by pressing the View menu button menu button).

You can also pin a Card Information view by toggling the pin button (Pin View button) (also available on the view's menu). Once a view is pinned it will not change the card it shows as the selected card in Wizard's Familiar changes until you unpin it.

Each Card Information view remembers its card history. You can navigate backwards (Back button) and forwards (Forward button) in the view's history.

Search for a card using the search bar

The search bar at the top of the view allows you to type a card name or part of a card name. Pressing the search button (Search button) will search for the the card name typed into the search text box. If the typed name matches a card it will be displayed

Card Information view search

If the name does not match there will be no change to the displayed card. Hints for possible matches will appear when the error icon is clicked on:

Card Information view search hints

Even if the type typed name does match, hints to other similarly named cars are available when the info icon is clicked:

Card Information view search hints

Selecting a card from the hint drop down will change the information view to show the selected card.

The Card Information view shows version information

The Card Information view now allows you to choose which version of a card to show the information for. If the displayed card was printed in more than one edition then the edition choice button (Choose version button), next to the current edition name, will be enabled. Clicking the edition choice button will display a drop down menu listing the editions the card was printed in.

Card Information view choose edition menu

If that card appears with more then one picture / flavour text combination in the chosen edition then the version choice button (Choose version button), next to the artist name, will be enabled. Clicking on the version choice button will display a drop down menu listing the artist's names for each version of the card that appeared in that edition.

Card Information view choose edition menu

Show scanned cards in the Card Information view

If you have a collection of Magic the Gathering cards and you want to see their images in the Card Information view you can scan them for Wizard's Familiar to display. Or you can create your own artwork for any Magic the Gathering card. To specify the directory where your scanned card images are located use the Card Images preference page (select the menu Windows | Preferences and choose the Card Images entry in the preference tree). In the Card image directory edit box specify the directory where your scanned images are located

Preferences for showing card images in Card Information views

Wizard's Familiar searches for card images by looking under the directory specified in the Card image directory edit box. The first image file (with an extension found in the Image file extension list) will be used. The file name search rules are as follows:

  1. in a directory named for the edition of the form "<card image dir>/<edition name>/<card name> (e.g. "<card image dir>/Seventh Edition/Howl from Beyond.png", "<card image dir>/Seventh_Edition/Howl_from_Beyond.png")

  2. in the top level directory (e.g. "<card image dir>/Howl from Beyond.png" or "<card image dir>/Howl_from_Beyond.png")

Image files types are searched for in the order listed in the Image file extension list list. Any card or edition names can use spaces or under scores ('_') in their names (but do not use combinations in one name e.g. "Howl from_Beyond would not be found").

If you leave the Art offset and Art dimension boxes empty the full card image is shown in the Card Information view.

Scanned image of Howl from Beyond in a Card Information view

To display only the card's art from cards scanned in full use the Art offset and Art dimension boxes. Enter the x and y coordinates for the top left corner of the card art (relative to the top left corner of the image). Enter the width and height of the card art on the card. Now the Card Information view will show only a portion of the full scanned image.

Cropped image of Howl from Beyon in a Card Information view

Different versions of a card's art can be selected using the choose edition drop down (Choose edition menu button - located next to the rarity symbol and edition abbreviation under the card art). For example while viewing information about the card Island select the Tempest edition version from the drop down and the Card Information view will look like:

First Tempest Island version

Some cards have additional versions of their card art. If this is the case, select the choose art drop down button (Choose art menu button - located next to the artist's name at the bottom of the Card Information view). Selecting a different artist will show the new art work for the card.

Second Tempest Island version

Checking for database updates

Wizard's Familiar ships with a database of cards available from Wizards of the Coast. Since Wizards of the Coast release new editions several times a year the database that shipped with Wizard's Familiar will become out dated. To update your copy use the Update menu command Help | Search for Update.... Follow the instructions and let the program restart. Once restarted you should have more editions to choose from in the Card Library view.

Product documentation

Wizard's Familiar provides help documentation. Introductory documentation is available from the Welcome Page (Help | Welcome menu item). Full help is available from the regular help system. Use the Help | Help Contents menu item to see the full help documentation. A dynamic help view is also available, use the Help | Dynamic Help menu item to turn it on. The dynamic help view shows topics relavant for the portion of the UI you are currently using. In addition context sensitive help is available from the UI press the F1 key to get context sensitive help.