Lucid Phoenix Player Help
What is Lucid Phoenix?
Lucid Phoenix is a program that plays interactive 'dichotomous' identification keys in your web browser.
A Phoenix key can be thought of as a tree-like arrangement of questions. Depending on the answers given to the questions at each branch point, a user of a Phoenix key follows a path through the key, eventually arriving at an answer (an entity or taxon in the key).
Lucid Phoenix Keys
The types of keys used by Phoenix were first implemented as paper-based keys, using one or more traditional designs. Phoenix improves on these traditional keys by adding new features not possible in a paper-based key, and providing a simple point-and-click interactive interface.
Lucid Phoenix Panels
When a Phoenix key first loads you will see four panels.
The top left panel (Questions) holds the questions that need to be addressed at each step (branch point) of the key.
The top right panel (Entities Remaining) holds the entities in the key - this may be a list of species of plants, orders of insects or types of rocks, depending on the subject of the key. On first starting the key, the panels at bottom right (Entities Discarded) and bottom left (History) will be empty.
Please click on the thumbnail below for a larger image of the Lucid Phoenix Panels
The first question to be addressed will be in the Questions panel at top left. There may be two or more choices, and the choices may be plain text or illustrated with images. Consider the options and make your selection by clicking on one of the choices. Note that in a Phoenix key you may only make one choice in answer to any question.
Phoenix Process
When you have made a choice, Phoenix will do three things. It will:
1. write your answer to that step in the History panel
2. move some entities from Entities Remaining to Entities Discarded.
3. Display the next question of the key in the Questions panel.
Entities Remaining Panel lists all entities that match the answer you have given to the question. This process, of questions addressed one after the other and entities progressively moved from Entities Remaining to Entities Discarded will be repeated until only one entity remains - you will have identified your specimen.
History Panel displays all choices you have made as you progress through the key in the History panel. At any time, you may find that you need to backtrack through the key. Click on any item in the History panel and Phoenix will take you back to the point which you addressed that question. You may then choose to change your answer by clicking on another choice in the Questions panel.
Entities Panels In the two Entities panels (Entities Remaining and Entities Discarded) each entity may be represented by a name and/or an image thumbnail. In both cases, the entities may be hyperlinks to pages that provide further information on that entity. Hyperlinked entities are underlined and written in blue text - click on any hyperlinked entity to navigate to the page of information about that entity.
Phoenix Button Panel
Back Button
Another way of backtracking through the key is to use the Back button. This takes you back to the previous step.
Next Button
The Next button takes you to the next step in the History list.
Skip Button
Suppose that as you are running through a Phoenix key you come to a question that cannot be answered. In the example above you may reach the question "Fruits fleshy" or "Fruits dry". But perhaps you have no fruits on your specimen, and have no idea what the fruits are like - you are blocked at this branch point. This is the Unanswerable Couplet problem, and is a major difficulty with pathway keys.
Phoenix's Skip button is a partial solution to this problem. If you reach a question that you cannot answer, press the Skip button. Phoenix will write a branch point to the History list, then will continue as if you had answered the question with the first choice. You will proceed as before, with some entities being discarded as you continue answering questions. When that path has been exhausted, Phoenix will automatically return to the skipped question and proceed as though you had answered with the next choice. In this way, you may find that when you have finished the key after skipping a question you will have two or more entities in Entities Remaining rather than just one - you will need to look at the information supplied for those entities to decide which is correct.
If you skip a question and Phoenix is proceeding down one of the possible paths leading from that question, the entities that are inactive (that is, are involved only in the second path) will be greyed out and moved to the bottom of Entities Remaining.
Restart Button
If you complete one identification with Phoenix and want to start a new one, click the Restart button. Phoenix will reset back to the beginning of the key.
Sets Button
Some Phoenix keys may be supplied with Entity Sets. For instance, a key to a group of fishes may include as entity sets regions such as Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean etc. Some fishes may occur in only some oceans. If you have such a key and you know that your fish came from the Indian Ocean, click on the Sets button, then click on the checkbox alongside Indian Ocean. Phoenix will exclude from the key all fish that do not occur in the Indian Ocean and will reorder itself to remove any questions that no longer apply. In this way, Phoenix will dynamically create for you a key to fishes of the Indian Ocean.
Note that the Sets button is only active at the start of a key.
About Button
About Lucid Phoenix
Help Button
This button takes you this page.