Digital Tools for Meaningful Conversations

✨ Key Tools

The Curious Souls Café web app is built around a few core components designed to facilitate connection and conversation.

• Question Decks: Access our Question Decks, a collection of curated questions designed to guide soul-searching discussions. These decks cover diverse themes and are often co-developed with the global community.

• The Dice Roller: Access the Virtual Dice Roller (or read its docs) via the floating dice icon on any page. This is a fun tool used to decide who starts, break ties, or engage in meaningful punishment.

• Actions Prompts: Access meaningful Action Prompts to spark gratitude, kindness, and inspiration with randomly presented creative tasks.

🚀 Getting Started

Step into meaningful conversations with ease! Here's how to use the app:

1. Launch the Web App
   Open the app in your browser: app.curiousouls.cafe.

2. Invite Others
   Share the QR code on the main page so others can join instantly.

3. Pick a Topic
   Choose a question deck that resonates with your group. The Icebreaker deck is recommended for first-timers.

4. Start the Conversation
   Each person chooses one of the displayed questions, and the group decides which to discuss first.

What is Curious Souls Café?

Curious Souls Café is a "third place" away from home and work, founded to counter the isolation of modern life. It's a global community that hosts events where people can explore life's big questions together. Our philosophy is centered on the power of face-to-face conversations to build deeper bonds in a safe, non-judgmental environment. This web app was originally created to support our in-person and online events.

To learn more about the initiative, check out our main website.

📚 The Question Decks

At the heart of our gatherings are questions designed to guide soul-searching discussions. This app includes numerous decks on diverse themes, many of which were co-developed with our global community.

• Adulthood: Explore the holistic journey of adulting—personal growth, authenticity, and connection.
• Authenticity: Align your actions with your values and embrace your true self.
• Clarity: Explore clarity, align with your truth, and navigate decisions with self-awareness.
• Entrepreneurship: Ignite self-leadership, entrepreneurial thinking, and bold experimentation in designing a purposeful, resilient life.
• Friendship: Deepen connection and explore the many facets of meaningful friendships.
• Global Curiosities: Questions written by participants from our events around the world.
• Happiness: Explore your personal definition and journey with happiness.
• Interdependence: Explore interdependent connection and the invisible threads that sustain our relationships and communities.
• Icebreaker: Spark lighthearted, meaningful, and heart-warming conversations.
• Inner Child: Reconnect with your playful younger self and nurture creativity.
• Legacy: Reflect on the impact you make in the world and transform your values into a meaningful legacy.
• Love Relationships: Reflect on the dynamics of love and intimacy.
• Parenting: Inspire reflection, share insights, and spark meaningful conversations about the joys, challenges, and growth in raising children.
• Purpose: Explore purpose, meaning, and the journey toward a fulfilling life, blending wisdom from philosophy, literature, and personal reflection.
• Reflection: Explore how reflection transforms memories into meaning, challenges into resilience, and endings into new beginnings.
• Reimagine: Explore evolving perspectives, personal growth and reimagine life’s narratives through self-awareness, curiosity, and renewal.
• The Mind Speaks: Reflect on thoughts, feelings, mindfulness, and personal well-being.
• Transitions: Navigate life’s changes with prompts that foster reflection and personal growth.
• True Wealth: Explore what it means to live a truly rich life—beyond material wealth—through questions that spark reflection on abundance, sufficiency, connection, and purpose
• Work that Resonates: Explore your evolving relationship with work, purpose, and fulfillment.

💖 We express our heartfelt gratitude to the Singaporean facilitator(s) for the question sets for Happiness, Love Relationships, and The Mind Speaks, and to all participants who contributed to the Global Curiosities deck.

✨ App Features & Tools

• Get Random Questions: Select the number of questions to display from any deck.

• Save Questions: Tap any question to add it to a "Saved Questions" list for easy reference during a discussion.

• Search and Filter: Use the search bar on the main page to find topics, or within a topic page to find specific questions.

• Light & Deep: Filter questions by difficulty levels: 🌱 (light), ☕ (middle), and 🌀 (deep)

• Question Numbering: There is a question number at the top right corner of each question (except for the dymanic question deck, 'All Questions') that can be shared with other participants to quickly jump to a particular question.

• Share Questions: Select a question and tap the 'sharing' icon on the bottom right corner to share the question via numberous methods supported by your device (e.g., messaging apps).

• Look Up Online: Select a question and tap the 'magnifier' icon on the bottom right corner to research the question online via AI-powered search engines and dictionaries.

• Submit Custom Questions: Add your own list of questions for a private session. Your custom list is saved locally in your browser. This feature is also useful to show ad-hoc questions during meetings.

• Favorite Topics: Tap the star icon next to a topic to move it to the top of the list for quick access.

• Optimized for On-the-Go: The web app is designed to work seamlessly on smartphones and tablets.

• Join a Live Discussion: During special events, a prominent "Live Discussion" button may appear on the main page, giving you access to real-time questions curated for that event.

💡 Tips for Using the App

• Highlight the Chosen Question: Tap the chosen question to highlight it. This helps everyone focus on the active prompt.

• Question Color: A random color (blue, red, or yellow) will be revealed after tapping. These colors match the default options of the dice, which can be used to decide whose question goes first.

• Return to Main Page: Clicking the round logo at the top of any page will take you back to the topic selection screen.

• Quick Scroll to Top: Use the sticky "Top" button at the bottom-right to quickly return to the top of any page.

• Direct Topic Links: Each topic has a unique URL (e.g., app.curioussouls.cafe/topics/icebreaker/) that you can share directly with participants.

📂 For Contributors

The web app is open source and organized for easy contributions.

File Organization

• index.html is the main page in the root folder.

• Topic pages (e.g., icebreaker/index.html) are in the /topics folder.

• Question sets (.txt files) are in the /questions folder.

• Images and other data are in the /images and /data folders, respectively.

How to Add New Question Sets

1. Add Questions File: Create a new .txt file in the /questions folder (e.g., MyNewTopic.txt). Add one question per line.

2. Create HTML Page: Duplicate an existing topic folder (e.g., icebreaker/index.html) in the /topics folder and rename it (e.g., mynewtopic/index.html). Update the file's content to reference your new topic and .txt file.

3. Register the Deck: In index.html, find the TOPIC_CONFIGS array and add a new object for your topic, specifying its name, htmlFileName, and txtUrl.

4. Update the Service Worker: Add the file paths for your new .txt and .html files to the FILES_TO_CACHE array in service-worker.js. This ensures the new content can be cached.

Managing Live Discussion Questions

The "Live Discussion" feature is controlled by the presence of a live-discussion.txt file in the /questions folder. Add the file to enable the feature for an event and remove it to disable it afterward. You will also need to uncomment/comment out the related elements in index.html.

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Thank you for visiting the Curious Souls Café! We hope it sparks many interesting conversations. 😊