Liu (六)

A minimalist I Ching oracle living in your macOS menu bar.

About

Liu (六, "six" in Chinese) is a lightweight macOS menu bar app that lets you consult the I Ching using the traditional three-coin method. Cast hexagrams with a click, view changing lines, and look up interpretations — all without leaving your menu bar.

Features

• Three-coin method — authentic I Ching divination using the classical coin toss algorithm
• All 64 hexagrams — complete hexagram library with Chinese names, pinyin, and English translations
• Changing lines — automatic detection and display of changing lines with relating hexagrams
• Trigram display — shows upper and lower trigrams for each hexagram
• Sound effects — ambient coin toss and guzheng sounds (can be muted)
• Menu bar icon — dynamic icon shows the current hexagram's unicode symbol
• Lookup — quick Google search for hexagram interpretations
• Keyboard shortcuts — toss (Return), lookup (F), mute (M), quit (Q), switch hexagrams (arrow keys)

Requirements

• macOS 14.6 (Sonoma) or later
• Xcode 16+ (to build from source)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/jareksedy/Liu.git

2. Open liu.xcodeproj in Xcode
3. Build and run (Cmd+R)

The app runs as a menu bar item — look for the circled 六 icon in your menu bar.

How It Works

The app uses the three-coin method of I Ching divination:

1. Click Toss Coins six times to build a hexagram from bottom to top
2. Each toss simulates three coins (heads = 3, tails = 2), producing values 6-9:
   • 6 (Old Yin) — broken line, changing
   • 7 (Young Yang) — solid line
   • 8 (Young Yin) — broken line
   • 9 (Old Yang) — solid line, changing
3. Changing lines (6 or 9) generate a relating hexagram showing the transformation
4. Switch between the primary and relating hexagram using the segmented control

Project Structure

Liu/
├── App/            — App entry point
├── Models/         — Hexagram, Line, Trigram, SharedState
├── Views/          — Main view and helper views
├── Components/     — Reusable UI components
├── Services/       — Sound effects
├── Extensions/     — Int coin toss extension
├── Constants/      — UI constants
└── Sounds/         — Audio files

Built With

• SwiftUI
• AppKit (menu bar image rendering)
• AVFoundation (sound effects)
• Firebase Analytics

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.