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Text File | 1995-06-12 | 56.1 KB | 984 lines

I have taken the liberty to define ruling and exalting signs for the asteroids (and the rest of the first twenty objects that don't already have them.) This won't affect much other than whether a 'R', 'F', 'e', or 'd' is displayed in the -v charts, but it will slightly affect the powers given to these objects in the -j influence chart since they can be in their ruling sign, etc. The -O object list will display the list of ruling and exalting signs (and the fall and debilitating signs which are just opposite the above) for all these objects in addition to the planets; however, I have listed them below: Chiron, the compassionate, experienced healer, is most similar in function to Pisces, hence Chiron rules here. Chiron expresses well in caring, feeling, Cancer, hence Chiron exalts here. Ceres, goddess of agriculture and representing the mothering, reproductive instinct, is similar in function to Taurus, hence Ceres rules here. Ceres expresses well in the nurturing, caring, sign of Cancer, hence Ceres exalts here. Pallas Athena, mentally acute and unemotional, is most similar in function to Virgo, hence Pallas rules here. Pallas expresses well in practical, disciplined, introverted Capricorn, hence Pallas exalts here. Juno, ability to sacrifice self-interests to maintain a relationship, is most similar in function to relationship oriented Libra, hence Juno rules here. Juno expresses well in sociable, crowd pleasing Leo, hence Juno exalts here. Vesta, with its orientation to directing hidden creative or sexual energy without fear, is most similar in function to Scorpio, hence Vesta rules here. Vesta expresses well in individualistic, quirky Aquarius, hence Vesta exalts here. The North Node, with its emphasis on being able to break from the past routine and pursue the unfamiliar and personal growth, is most similar in function to society questioning independent Aquarius, hence it rules here. The Node expresses well in growth and sacrifice oriented Virgo, hence the Node exalts here. The Part of Fortune is calculated based on the positions of the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant; if these three objects are in their ruling signs, then the Fortune will fall in Pisces, hence the Fortune should rule here. Similarly, if the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant are all in their exalting signs, then the Fortune will fall in Aquarius, hence the Fortune should exalt here. The Midheaven, being the 10th house cusp, corresponds to Capricorn, ruled by Saturn. Hence the Midheaven's ruling and exalting signs are the same as Saturn's: Capricorn and Libra. The Ascendant corresponds similarly to Mars, hence its ruling and exalting signs are the same: Aries and Capricorn. The Vertex, being always near the Descendant, corresponds to Libra, and hence has the same rulership and exaltation as Venus: Libra and Pisces. The four minor house cusp objects are set to have rulership of the sign corresponding to the house, and an exaltation the same as the main planet which rules this sign, e.g. the 2nd Cusp, corresponding to Taurus, ruled by Venus, rules Taurus and exalts in Libra. Each uranian also has been assigned its own ruling and exalting sign, meaning uranians in their rulership, etc, will be flagged as such and have more or less influence and so on. I also came up with these myself and used the interpretation strings to decide what the most appropriate signs are. If you disagree, feel free to change them, or I'll be willing to describe in more detail why I chose what I did for them. Specifically, Cupido rules Libra and exalts in Gemini, Hades rules Scorpio and exalts in Virgo, Zeus rules Leo and exalts in Aries, Kronos rules Capricorn and exalts in Sagittarius, Apollon rules Sagittarius and exalts in Aquarius, Admetos rules Virgo and exalts in Scorpio, Vulkanus rules Aries and exalts in Leo, and finally Poseidon rules Sagittarius and exalts in Pisces. The standard chart listing of the planetary positions will also include an additional field for the "velocity" of each planet. This velocity value approximates how fast the planet is moving through the zodiac with respect to the Earth (or whatever the central body is set to) in degrees per day. This value of course, goes negative when a planet goes retrograde. This is useful not only to get a feel for how fast each planet moves through the zodiac, but to determine when a planet is about to go retrograde or direct - the value approaches zero when the planet changes direction. ************************************** DATA DEFAULTS AND COMPILE TIME OPTIONS ************************************** Astrolog includes the ability to search an input file for various default parameters to use in the program. This allows one to easily change major defaults without having to recompile the program, which is useful if, say, one receives a compiled executable from a friend who had a different configuration. The program looks for the file "astrolog.dat" in the current directory, and if not there, looks for it in the default directory. Parameters in this file will override any defaults compiled into the program, although the highest priority is still given to the command line options. Note one doesn't *have* to have this file in order to run the program - if not found Astrolog will still run as before using the compile time defaults. Presently, the parameters one can change in this file are: default time zone (as indicated with -z option), default longitude and latitude (as in -l option), default zodiac system and zodiac starting offset (as changed with -s option), number of aspects (-A option), and default house system to use (values as in -c option). Next is whether the -k Ansi graphics should always be in effect. If the value here is non-zero, then it is assumed -k is always in affect, and one needs then to use the -k switch to return to normal. This is recommended for PC users who display charts on the screen more often than they print one out. After this is the default number of rows per house to pass to the -w wheel chart option. Next, the value of the minor compile time variable DIVISIONS may be changed in the file. This value tells how many "segments" we should divide each day, etc, when doing aspect or transit searches (-d or -t). More segments is slower but can be more accurate by a minute or two. I suggest a value of 24 here for Unix systems and 8 for PC's, but it is easy to experiment to see what would is best for you. One may increase this value up to 2880 without problem (if they don't mind the wait) which will mean a chart every 30 seconds for -d aspect in day charts and one every 15 minutes for -t transit search charts. Next comes the default number of rows to include in each house for the -w text wheel chart, which is four by default. Then there's a field in the astrolog.dat file specifying the character width of the screen, which is usually set to 80. This value is used to determine what column to break lines at when formatting and printing the interpretation paragraphs. So one may change this to accommodate narrower or wider screens or printers. (Note that this will not affect and has no relation to the 80 column clip flag below.) "European date format" feature: There's a flag in astrolog.dat which determines whether dates are displayed in Month/Day/Year order or in the more "European" Day/Month/Year format. Setting or clearing this flag will specify the DMY or MDY format everywhere in the program from text wheel charts to transit charts to the chart info displayed in graphics charts. "European time format" feature: This is another flag in astrolog.dat which is just like the above except that it affects how times are displayed throughout the program. When clear, times will be printed in a.m./p.m. format, while when set they will be in the more "European" 24 hour clock. "Smart cusps" feature: This is a yet another setting, a simple yes/no option that will affect the way -t transit search lists, -T transit influence charts, and -m0 aspect lists are displayed. It can only be set in this astrolog.dat file. If the value there is non-zero, then transits to minor house cusps will be processed in a more intuitive manner. First of all, aspects other than conjunctions or oppositions to minor cusps will be ignored, e.g. a trine to the 11th house is redundant and isn't really useful; we are more interested in the conjunction to the 3rd house cusp. Minor aspects to the Ascendant and Midheaven, and all other objects, are left alone. In addition, with smart cusps active, oppositions to minor house cusps will be printed as conjunctions to the opposing cusp, e.g. instead of "Jupiter Opp 3rd Cusp", we have the more logical "Jupiter Con 9th Cusp". This is just another way to make transit charts clearer and less confusing. "80 column clip" feature: This is another yes/no option that can only be set in astrolog.dat. If set to non-zero, then we guarantee that no text chart when displayed will overflow 80 columns. By default, with all objects unrestricted, certain charts will have rows more than 80 columns long, breaking up the chart making it very difficult to read. The -r0 -g relationship aspect grid, and the -E ephemeris listing, will normally go beyond the 80th column. With this feature however, these and other charts that can go beyond column 80, such as -L when uranians are unrestricted, will always be displayed on one line, with columns that would go beyond the 80th not getting printed. Then in the astrolog.dat file come default restriction values (as with the -R option) for the first 20 objects (0 = active, 1 = restricted). Some people just don't like or care about the various minor bodies such as the asteroids, Chiron, Part of Fortune, etc., and think that they clutter up the various charts. This is a good way to keep them from showing up by default (one can still use the -R option to get back any objects eliminated here.) This is immediately followed by a similar restriction list for planets when transiting in the -T charts. Then come two flags which can be set to automatically restrict sign changes and direction changes from appearing in the -d chart displays. This works like the -R restrictions but for all types of these special events, instead of all aspects or events containing a particular object. Next come the default orbs (as with the -Ao option) for the 18 aspects. Then comes a list of the maximum orbs of any aspect allowed to the first 20 objects (as with the -Am option), and after this is a list of the amount to widen aspect orbs to the first 20 objects (as with the -Ad option.) Then, for the -j influence interpretation chart, four values indicating the power given to planets in ruling sign, planets exalted in sign, planets in ruling house, and planets exalted in house, may be specified. Finally neat the end of the file, comes a long list of the main influence values used by the -j option, i.e. the power values of each of the first 20 planet objects, of the 12 houses, and of the 18 aspects. At the very end of the astrolog.dat file are several options for the graphics defaults. (Note that based on what options are compiled into the program, anywhere from zero to all of the fields may be relevant and hence even be read in.) The mode in which graphics bitmap files are written to disk, like as specified with -Xb, is set here, and like everything else in astrolog.dat can be used to override the compile time value. The default horizontal and vertical pixel size that a chart comes up on the PC screen or in an X window, like as specified with -Xw, may be set here too. Finally, the default DOS graphics modes may be customized, which are described later. "PostScript orientation" feature: One may choose the paper orientation of full PostScript graphics charts as generated with the -Xp0 switch. If this PS paper orientation value is positive, then the chart will be printed in portrait mode, while if the value is negative, then it will be printed in landscape mode. If the orientation value is set to zero (the default), then the program will decide based on the size of the current chart, with charts with larger horizontal sizes (e.g. astro-graph charts and wheel charts with sidebars) being in landscape, and charts with horizontal sizes less than or equal to the vertical (e.g. aspect grids and wheel charts without sidebars) being in portrait. "PostScript page size" feature: One may also choose the paper size of full -Xp0 PostScript graphics charts. There are two settings which specify the horizontal and vertical size in inches of the paper to be printed upon. By default this is 8.5" x 11". If you have say 8.5" x 14" legal size or A4 paper in your printer it can be used just as easily. (Note: It's been mentioned that at least some systems or drivers may clip all graphics beyond 8.5" x 11", but excluding any external restrictions Astrolog's PostScript should allow one to go beyond these limits.) "Aspect grid cells" feature: Aspect grids by default are always 20 by 20 cells (21 by 21 when for the -r0 relationship comparison grids). The actual value is also in the graphics section of the astrolog.dat file can be increased or decreased as desired. "Alternate glyphs" feature: Astrolog has the ability to choose between different common glyphs for various astrological symbols. One may optionally display charts with the "European" version of the Capricorn glyph, instead of the more twisty "American" type glyph. One may also display charts with the "astronomical" version of the Uranus glyph with a dotted circle with an ascending arrow, instead of the more astrological "Herschel" glyph with the crescent bounded cross over a circle. Finally one may display with the "astronomical" version of the Pluto glyph as the "PL" initials, instead of the more "astrological" version with the circle over crescent over cross. There is one glyph selection numerical field in the astrolog.dat file, which, if the ones place is "1" means use the alternate Capricorn glyph, if the tens place is "1" means to use the alternate Uranus glyph, and if the hundreds place is "1" means to use the alternate Pluto. The default value is "0", but many astrologers on the other side of the Atlantic may prefer "111". About the only major thing that one *can't* change in the file is the default directory path in which the program looks in for input files if not in the current directory, since Astrolog needs the default directory in order to be able to locate the file in the first place! The compile time location of where to look for this file can be overridden by the Astrolog environment variables described below. The standard "astrolog.dat" file included with the release of the program has some "comment lines" describing what is contained in each line. One can chance or delete comments as long as they make sure that an equals sign ('=') immediately proceeds any value or list of values, since the program uses this character to determine where comments end. Astrolog.dat files for versions 4.00 and before won't work with version 4.10, because there are additional definable parameters expected in the file read in for this version. Attempting to read in such an old file into version 4.10 will result in an error message saying one should upgrade the old file or delete it. Either delete the old file and modify the one included with this release, or else manually merge in the new fields in the new file with your old one. -- Astrolog 4.10 has several environment variables which may be set to indicate directories where to find the various files it may look for. Without them, the only place the program will look for chart files, the astrolog.dat initialization file, and ephemeris files is in the current directory and default directories set at compile time. The program will look where any or all of these environment variables point, if they are defined. The three environment variables are named "ASTROLOG", "ASTR4.10", and "ASTR". On a PC you can set an environment variable from the DOS prompt with a command such as "set ASTROLOG=C:\PROGRAMS\ASTRO410\CHARTS". This command can be put in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to remain persistent. On a Unix system you can set an environment variable from the shell with a command such as "setenv ASTROLOG /username/programs/astro410/charts". This line can be put in your .cshrc file to remain persistent. Note that the ASTR4.10 environment variable is version specific, i.e. future versions will ignore this variable and look in one such as ASTR4.20. This allows one to have a directory for version specific files such as the astrolog.dat file, and have multiple versions of Astrolog on the system at once without them conflicting with each other. I personally point ASTROLOG to my chart files directory, ASTR4.10 to my astrolog.dat directory, and ASTR to my ephemeris directory, although any file may be found with any of the variables. Specifically, when Astrolog searches for a file, it will look in the following directories, in order: The current directory, the ASTR4.10 environment variable directory, the ASTROLOG environment directory, the ASTR dir, and finally the compile time default directory. -- Some systems (for example, Mac's) don't directly accept parameter switches on the command line (such as Astrolog is being booted from a menu.) Therefore, such a limitation makes one unable to access many program features in the normal way. If this is the case with your system (or if you just don't like command line options), then comment out the '#define SWITCHES' line at the beginning of the astrolog.h file. If you do this, then the program will ignore any switches and prompt you to enter them manually at the very beginning of program execution. You just enter one line containing all the parameters together, separated by one or more spaces, just like is done when typing in the command line. Astrolog will automatically parse the string and extract the parameters, just like the operating system shell does. Related to this, the "-." switch, when encountered on a command line, will immediately terminate the program, ignoring any modes or other command switches. This is the formal way how to really exit the program when in the -Q loop (and really only useful in this case). Remember, earlier it was said to enter "." for the command line to exit the -Q mode. Well, Astrolog internally interprets the "." as a switch without a leading dash, i.e. "-.", which is a switch that will force program termination. -- I often use Astrolog to look at and compare files containing charts of various people. I have many chart files, so I keep them in a separate directory. Since it is always a pain to have to cd into this special directory all the time, there is a DEFAULT_DIR string to be set at compile time. Whenever the program reads in a chart file with the -i option, it will first look in the current directory for it. If it's not found there, Astrolog will then look for a file of the same name in the special default directory. A couple of other compile time option variables are in the include file astrolog.h: For those people who don't like Placidus, a default house system can be set by changing the value of DEFAULT_SYSTEM to the value from 0..9 indicating what system to use if the user doesn't explicitly specify one with -c or in astrolog.dat. A couple of other compile time options are in astrolog.h which can be used to leave out certain parts of the program which you don't desire to have or just take up memory and make the executable larger. The #define INTERPRET can be commented out to remove all the -I interpretation routines and tables. The #define BIORHYTHM can be commented out to remove the non-astrological -rb biorhythm text and graphical charts. There is a special compile time variable dealing with graphics (in addition to the "X11" and "MSG" ones) called "GRAPH". One comments out the #define GRAPH line if they don't want graphics, and not just if they don't have X windows. In other words, one can generate most of Astrolog's graphics charts even if they don't have X windows or a PC with graphics abilities. Now, when GRAPH is defined but X11 and MSG aren't, the program will generate the charts, but just never try to bring up a window; it will simply always assume that you are writing a bitmap file. The bitmap file will contain a (unfortunately always black and white for the X bitmap format) image of what would normally be in the window, just as the -Xb switch does. One can then use various graphics utilities to convert the image into something they can display on their system if they can't do so using any of the available bitmap modes. (Any system that can compile Astrolog should be able to compile in all the non screen graphics features as well.) A bitmap output mode other than the Windows .bmp bitmaps and standard ones that can be read with the Unix X11 xsetroot command is allowed in the graphics routines. If one changes the BITMAPMODE compile time option in astrolog.h to the character 'A' when compiling, or invokes the -Xb switch as -Xba, then all bitmaps output will be in a straight Ascii form, with one character corresponding to each pixel. This format is identical to the result produced by the Unix command bmtoa, and it can be converted back into a bitmap with the Unix command atobm. Although not as efficient spacewise, this is a simpler format, and is recommended for those without X windows who are still using Astrolog's graphics, if they want to write their own conversion program. ******************************** DESCRIPTION OF X WINDOW FEATURES ******************************** One of the most impressive features of the program are the X windows features, which are generally accessed in the program via the -X switch and derivatives of it on the command line. There are five different types of chart displays: A standard graphic display of a wheel chart in a window (with glyphs, aspects in the center, etc), graphic displays of the Astro-graph charts (which look almost identical to the Astro*Carto*Graphy maps from Jim Lewis) complete with all the labeled lines drawn on a map of the world (like the -L option), aspect/midpoint grids showing the aspects and orbs in effect between every body in a chart (like -g option), a local sky chart showing where each planet is located on a map of the local horizon area (as in -Z), and a space chart showing an aerial view of the solar system (as in -S). The X wheel and aspect grid charts can displayed in a different form to accommodate relationship comparison charts. There are also other commands that can be given to the window once it is up and running, which can do other things, such as continually update the window every few seconds to the current status (i.e. an extended version of the -n option) as well as other forms of animation. Note that the program is still text based, and one can easily turn off all the X features by commenting out the #define X11 in astrolog.h if they don't have X windows. Probably the only thing more impressive than the X window features are the X window features displayed on color monitors. (The charts displayed in color are *much* more eye catching than the B/W ones, IMHO.) Here is how the colors have been assigned for the various charts: Four colors have been allocated for the four elements - Fire = Red, Earth = Brown, Air = Green, Water = Blue. The various sign glyphs (and the corresponding house labels) are in the color of their element. Planets are in the color of the sign of their main ruler. Chiron and the four asteroids are Gold, while the north node, and other non-physical objects like the fortune and vertex are Violet. Representations of the Ascendant/ Descendant/ Midheaven/ Nadir (in the astro-graph map lines and elsewhere) are in the element color of the corresponding sign/house that the angular lines refer to, i.e. Ascendant = Red, Midheaven = Brown, Descendant = Green, Nadir = Blue. A few extra things have been added for color wheel charts only: dark gray lines marking off each house (in addition to the main lines on the horizon and meridian), and each degree instead of every 5th degree being marked in dark gray on the outer circle (every 5th degree being white). Aspects lines are colored too, as follows: Conjunctions = Yellow, Sextiles = Light Blue, Squares = Red, Trines = Green, Oppositions = Dark Blue. For the minor aspects we have: Inconjuncts/Semisextiles = Brown, Semisquares/ Sesquiquadratures = Orange, (Bi/Semi)Quintiles = Violet, (Bi/Tri)Septiles = Gold, (Bi/Quatro)Noviles = Pink. For color X terminals, the -XG globe display and -XW world map display are done with the continents in different colors! This makes them look much better than monochrome maps. Each of the seven continents is in a different color of the rainbow, and the colors are chosen to correspond to the appropriate chakra (etheric energy vortex along the human spine) that goes with each land mass. They are: Africa - red - Root chakra, Australia - orange - Navel chakra, South America - yellow - Solar plexus chakra, North America - green - Heart chakra, Europe - blue - Throat chakra, Asia - indigo - Third Eye chakra, Antarctica - violet - Crown chakra. Major lakes are, of course, colored navy blue. -- -v -X: The X wheel charts have their graphic information organized as follows: There's an outer circle showing the signs and sign glyphs, inside of which is a smaller circle divided up into 5 degree increments to make determining exact degrees easier. Inside of this is a circle divided up into the 12 houses labeled with numbers. The entire chart is divided by two dashed lines through the Ascendant/ Descendant (which is always horizontal of course) and the Midheaven/Nadir. Inside the house circle are the planet glyphs in their appropriate positions. Small pointer lines run from each glyph to just before single dots. These dots indicate the precise locations in the zodiac of each object. The pointer lines (which are dashed if the object is retrograde and solid otherwise) are necessary so as not to have to draw planet glyphs on top of one another when planets are conjunct. Inside the ring of the single dots, are the aspect lines connecting these positions. Since the default number of aspects to use is just the 5 majors, one can determine which aspect is in place just by looking at the aspect line. The accuracy of the aspect is determined by the dashedness of the line: A solid line means the orb is < 2 degrees; a dashed line means the orb is < 4 degrees; a really dashed line mean the orb is < 6 degrees, etc. -v0 -X: Astrolog's wheel charts will be labeled more extensively than just having the chart header information displayed at the bottom of the graphic like in other chart modes. The wheels will include full information on time, place, house system, zodiac, central planet, element table info, as well as the actual positions of planet and house cusps as displayed in the wheel. All this information is in a "sidebar" to the right of the wheel which includes a listing not unlike the -v text chart. (Note that the size of this sidebar is such that for the default 480x480 pixel chart size, including the sidebar will make it 640x480, which perfectly fills a VGA PC screen.) If you want a standard style wheel with just the chart information at the bottom of the graphic, set the -v0 flag, as in "-v0 -X" instead of "-v -X" or just "-X". -w -X: A different way of formatting the graphical wheel charts described above is available by combining the -w switch with -X. Normally all of Astrolog's wheel charts are such that each zodiac sign is the same size. Due to different house sizes in most systems however, this makes the houses appear different sizes on the wheel, so that the Midheaven won't be the exact top of the chart for instance. Some users may instead prefer "house oriented" as opposed to sign oriented wheel charts. Astrolog, with the -w -X combination, will make each house be the same size on the screen, and will compress or expand the signs instead (of course this means that such things as exact squares may not be between objects exactly 90 degrees apart on the circle any more). When graphics are displayed on the screen, the '0' key will toggle between the two forms of wheel chart. -L -X: The graphical astro-graph charts are organized as follows: A map of the world is shown. The edges of the map are labeled with ruler lines that are 5 degrees apart (with longer ruler lines for more important longitudes and latitudes, like those that are multiples of 10, 30, etc.) The equator is labeled with a dashed line. The polar regions of the world aren't shown; the map shown ranges from 60 degrees S latitude to 75 degrees N latitude. Note that each pixel on the screen represents exactly one half a degree on the world. (For -Xs 100 the ratio is one pixel to one degree, and for -Xs 400 the ratio is one pixel to 1/4 degree.) On this map are drawn the lines indicating where on the world the various planets are angular at the time in question. (Note: you might want to -R restrict some objects because otherwise the map tends to get pretty cluttered with lines.) As expected, Midheaven and Nadir lines are vertical, and the Ascendant and Descendant lines are curved. Little square boxes on the Midheaven lines indicate the exact zenith latitude location. Each line is labeled at the top or the bottom of the screen, showing what planet is in question and (sometimes) what angle is in question. All Ascendant and Midheaven lines are labeled at the bottom of the screen, and all Descendant and Nadir lines are labeled at the top. Each line goes a bit beyond to the top or bottom of the world map, and then another pointer segment (which is again dashed of the object in question is retrograde) goes and points to the planet glyph. There is a capital "A" or "M" under each of the glyphs at the bottom of the screen, explicitly indicating whether the line is an Ascendant or Midheaven line. At the top of the screen, however, there are only the glyphs, but one can still determine whether these lines are Descendant or Nadir lines based on whether they are curved or not. Note that not all the Descendant lines are labeled; this is because some of the Ascendant/Descendant lines actually connect near the top of the screen and don't actually cross it. This graphic astro-graph chart will display a small purple dot at the precise point on the world map for which the chart in question is being generated. This is useful to help see how close the various planetary lines are to you, if you live in the middle of the continent or someplace not easily determinable on the compact map of the world. -g -X: Aspect grid graphics with the appropriate aspect glyphs can be displayed by combining the -g option with the -X option (astrolog -g -X). Both the split aspect/midpoint grids labeled down the diagonal, as well as the relationship aspect grids between two charts (astrolog -r <file1> <file2> -g -X) are supported. The aspects glyphs, objects, and the signs in the grids are in their colors as defined earlier. Like the astro-graph windows, these charts can't be resized in the normal way unless one uses the '>' and '<' keys. For anything less than the larger scale sizes (achieved with the switch -Xs 300, or by pressing '>' within a window) all that will be displayed in each aspect grid cell is the glyphs of the aspect in effect, the planet being aspected, or the sign of the midpoint. However, once the largest scale size is reached, there is room in each cell to display the aspect orb to the nearest minute off of exact (with a plus or minus sign indicating whether the actual angle is slightly greater than or less than exact, or an 'a' or 's' if applying vs. separating orbs are to be shown instead); the degree and minute in addition to the sign for midpoints; and the degree and sign location for each planet that's in the grid, as with the -g text charts. -m -X: Combining the -m switch with -X will have the same result as -g with -X, since the aspect grid shows both aspects and midpoints separated by the grid diagonal. However, doing a relationship midpoint chart (-r0 -m -X) will result in the relationship aspect grid coming up but showing the midpoints instead of aspects, as desired. The -r0 -m -X switch combination implicitly does the results of the -g0 switch, which for relationship charts puts midpoints instead of aspects in the grid. -Z -X: The -Z local horizon feature can be displayed in an X window as well (e.g. astrolog -Z -X), in which all the planets will be displayed in a window depicting the sky. The small dot above or below each glyph indicates exactly where each planet is. (Some of the glyphs may be overlapping, although the program tries to cut down on this.) There is a horizontal line dividing the window representing the local horizon; planets above this line are visible, while planets below it are set. There are three vertical lines dividing the window as well: The middle line represents the due south direction, the one to the left is due east, the one to the right is due west, and the edges of the window are due north. (These directions are labeled in the borders of the chart.) Like the standard chart display, this window or graphic may be resized to any proportion. At any time one can press the 'Z' key when a graphic is up to enter this display type in that window. -Z0 -X: An additional graphics chart is available through the -Z0 switch: local horizon charts suitable for stargazing. As we know, the normal -Z switch generates a listing of the planets with respect to the local horizon, and the -Z combined with the -X switch generates a graphic image of the planets and stars on the local horizon. This chart assumes one is facing due south, and is divided left to right by the horizon line, with straight up being toward the top of the screen and straight down toward the bottom. This is a good chart, especially for noticing the rising and setting of planets and other objects, but the fact that the meridian is split up causes distortion when trying to view objects high up in the sky. Therefore, if one combines this -Z0 switch with the -X switch, a differently oriented local horizon chart will be displayed. Here, the zenith point straight up is in the center of the screen, and the horizon line is a surrounding circle. Due north is along the line from the center to the top of the screen, due south is on the line from the center to the bottom, east is to the left, and west is to the right. In other words, this is just like what one would see if they were lying on their back looking straight up with their feet to the south, so this should be better for stargazing. Outside the circle marks what's below the horizon, and the extreme corners of the screen mark the nadir - what's straight down. As with the normal -Z graphic chart, this one has the various axes marked at five degree increments. -S -X: The -S switch can be combined with -X to give a graphics chart of the solar system. This will be displayed as an aerial view of the entire solar system, with 0 degrees Aries to the left of the screen, 0 degrees Cancer to the bottom, etc. Note that this chart includes all possible planets, including the Earth (whose glyph is a cross inside a circle). Whatever object is chosen to be the central body is at the center of the screen, with all the others around it. This is a fun chart to animate - watch the planets go around the Sun, and *see* how they turn retrograde with respect to the Earth. In addition to the bodies themselves, twelve spokes are drawn from the center body to the edge of the screen, which delineate the zodiac with respect to it. Note that the scale of the solar system is large; attempting to fit all the planets out to Pluto on the screen at once will cause all the inner planets to be crammed together near the middle of the screen. To deal with this, the scale size as indicated with the -Xs switch and the '<' and '>' keys will affect how much of the solar system is viewed at once (in addition to the glyph sizes). For a scale size of 400, the viewing region will have a radius of 1 AU (just enough to cover out to the Earth's orbit). For a scale size of 300, the viewport will have a radius of 6 AU (about out to the orbit of Jupiter; useful for viewing the inner planets). For a scale size of 200 (default), it will have a radius of 30 AU (enough to include Neptune, and Pluto most of the time). Finally, a scale size of 100 will result in a radius of 90 AU, enough to easily include the entire solar system, as well as the orbits of the hypothetical Uranian bodies beyond Pluto. Note that this chart (and its text version as well) will usually leave the Earth's Moon out. The -b extended Placalc formulas are required to be in effect (as well as either the Sun or Earth being the central body) in order for the Moon to be able to appear. At a 400% scale zoom with the Moon included as well, one can actually get a feel for the relative distance of the Sun from the Earth and the Moon from the Earth, although the chart will have to be over 1000 pixels wide for the Moon to even appear one pixel away from the Earth at all! -E -X: A graphical planetary tracking chart is available by combining the -E switch with -X. This "graphical ephemeris" will display the sign degrees of the zodiac along the horizontal axis, and the days in the given month along the vertical. The positions of the planets at each day are then graphed. The result is a bunch of wavy lines that make it easy to see all the planetary movements during the month. Wherever lines cross there's a conjunction on the day indicated on the axis at the same level as the crossing. Although this only looks at the month in the given chart information, the actual day will be highlighted on the vertical axis. Combining the -Ey yearly ephemeris instead with -X will generate a graphical ephemeris showing the movements for the entire year, with the months labeled along the vertical axis. -r0 -X: True relationship wheel charts can be displayed in a window, i.e. where the planets of both charts are displayed in separate rings of the same wheel. Use the -r0 option to display this comparison type. For example, for the command "astrolog -r0 person1 person2 -X", the following is displayed: The signs and houses as in person1's chart are drawn in the outermost part of the wheel. Inside this is a ring of person2's planets as displayed in person1's houses, and inside of this are person1's own planets. Finally at the very middle is an aspect grid, which shows those aspects that are occurring between the objects in the two charts. Basically this is just the standard wheel chart for person1, except that person2's planets are in an outer ring of objects and the aspect grid shows the aspects of the relationship. Putting such a chart in animation mode only affects person2's planets, so this is a great way to analyze transits: Doing "astrolog -t yourchartfile -X" will show all your current transits, and allow you to easily animate the transiting planets through your natal signs and houses. -rb -X: Graphical biorhythm charts are available by combining the -rb (or -yb) switch with -X. This will make a graph of one's biorhythm for the two weeks before and after the specified time, with days on the horizontal axis and the Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual percentages on the vertical. When any graphics chart is up, one may press the 'Y' key to revert to a biorhythm chart. (Note that as this is a relationship comparison chart, if you go to it from a graphics mode only showing one chart, it will show the biorhythm for them at their birth, and you will want to then animate or adjust it to get a useful display.) -- A couple of conveniences for the graphics features exist. Note that the -Xo <bitmapfilename> option is only used in conjunction with the -Xb write output to bitmap switch. Therefore, -Xo automatically assumes -Xb is set. (Invoking -Xb itself without -Xo will have the program prompt the user for the bitmap filename.) In other words, astrolog -Xb -Xo 'file' is the same as just astrolog -Xo 'file'. Astrolog includes its own appropriate X bitmap (a rainbow over an opened Third Eye) if one iconifies the window, instead of reverting to the braindead UnknownIcon :) For X windows, one can animate a graphics chart on the root background by combining -XB with the -Xn switch. This will be just like the animations done in windows except the root is being used instead. Astrolog can be run in the background this way to continually update your root to the current chart representing the present moment. Limitations with this are that since there's no window, no keypresses can be processed so the program must be manually terminated, and that the continual updates will be as CPU intensive as the window animations are. Hack: Doing a relationship comparison graphic chart with the -S space or -Z horizon charts in animation mode will not cause the screen to be cleared between each screen update. This is a hack which allows one to get the effect of a timed exposure as the objects move across the sky in a -Z horizon chart, and allows one to see the orbits of planets as they move around the sun in the -S charts. (Note that it's best to not be in a flicker free graphics mode on PC's so the updates all stay on one page, and to turn off object labels with -Xl or the 'l' key so the screen doesn't fill with glyphs.) Hack: Another fun hack is that doing a graphic wheel chart with -I interpretation on (the interpretation setting normally doesn't affect graphics in any way) will decorate the corners around the wheel! How its decorated depends on the screen width setting in astrolog.dat or passed to -I. If this value is even, a spider web design will be put in each corner. If this value is odd, a moire pattern will be put in each corner. The decoration looks best when the screen width is around 79 or 80. The higher the value, the more dense the lines will be in the "spider webs", or the less of the screen the moire will cover. (Don't make the moire value too low or you will cover the entire screen, which looks cool but doesn't aid reading the chart any! :) *********************************** DESCRIPTION OF PC GRAPHICS FEATURES *********************************** Astrolog's PC graphics charts look and feel and are displayed just like the X window graphics already described. When compiling, one has a choice between four options: (1) choose no graphics abilities at all, (2) compile so that graphic chart bitmaps can be generated and output to a file, (3) compile allowing file graphics in addition to direct screen graphics in X windows, and (4) compile with file graphics and direct graphics on the screen of a PC. The addition of PC graphics in no way inhibits or affects the X window graphics already in place; it's merely a matter of which compile time options are set. Unix users don't need to look at this section. Astrolog uses the Microsoft PC graphics library as defined in the file graph.h included with their C7 "C" language compiler. This file and the graphics.lib library is needed in order to be able to compile with these graphics options set, just as the X window libraries are needed to compile with those graphics included. If unavailable, one can still access these PC graphics with the library linked in, in the already compiled executable posted. PC Astrolog is a DOS program and should be run from a DOS prompt, outside of any Windows system. To generate a graphics chart instead of a text one, include the -X switch just as one would do to bring up an X window. The expected graphic chart will be displayed on the screen unless the -Xb write bitmap to file switch is in effect. The colors chosen for the graphics are basically identical to those chosen in X window charts, and both of these in turn are based on the Ansi colors used in the Ansi text charts. Now, there are many various types of PC monitors and resolutions. Astrolog will automatically try to determine and pick the highest resolution mode available on your system, so this need not be worried about. The PC Astrolog charts may be animated in all the various ways, and the animation will usually be flicker free! Now, PC's do have limited memory, therefore there might not be room for more than one page of graphics at the highest resolution. Hence, animation at the highest (default) mode, may flicker; however, graphics at a slightly lower resolution may take enough less memory to allow enough to do flicker free animation. A special PC only feature for this has been added: Pressing the 'tab' key while the PC graphics are up will try to pick a lower resolution, where flicker free animation can be done. Specifically, we'll toggle to a 640x350 EGA mode. On my own system, the highest resolution I get is a 640x480 16 color VGA mode, however the charts can't be animated without flicker. When I hit 'tab', I drop from 480 lines of graphics to 350, but now the animation will be perfectly smooth. The results with whatever graphics system you have may be different. The chart that comes up will use as many pixels as is defined by the chart's size as specified with the -Xw and -Xs switches. The 'Q' change chart size to square key works just as before. However, on PC screens we will try to take in account the pixel size ratio. On EGA screens where the pixels are long and narrow, meaning a true "square" chart looks tall and thin, we compensate by increasing the horizontal size of the chart. The 'B' key, which for X window graphics will blast the current window contents to the root background, is a meaningless feature for a PC. This key, for PC graphics systems, will instead resize the chart to be the full size of the screen. Note that some charts however (such as wheel charts without sidebars, -S space charts, -Z0 sky charts, and -XG globes) are distorted unless they are square. For these charts, the 'B' key will resize the chart to be the largest square that will fit on the screen, i.e. will automatically do what pressing 'B' followed by the 'Q' force to square key would do. When the graphics mode is changed through 'tab', the chart size will also be modified to be the largest "square" that will fit on the screen. If the size of the chart is less than the size of the screen, it will be displayed centered in the middle of the screen. If however the chart size is greater than the screen size, then the chart will take up the whole screen, and part of it will be clipped. By default we show the upper left corner of the chart if this is the case. Now, one can define and change which part of the chart gets shown. On PC's the meaning of pressing the number keys have been enhanced. Normally, number keys set the animation speed; they still do, but now only when animation is actually being done. If not in animation, the number keys from 1..9 will define which "quadrant" or area of the chart gets shown. It's best to think of and use the number pad for this feature (make sure num lock is on!) Pressing the '7' key, i.e. the upper left number on the number pad, will set it so the default upper left part of the chart is seen. Pressing the '3' key, on the lower right corner of the pad, will show the lower right corner of charts larger than the screen size. Pressing '5' will show the middle area of the chart, with equal amounts of the chart clipped from left and right, and top and bottom. Pressing '6' will show the right end of the chart, vertically centered on the screen, and so on. Basically, we have a simple implementation of something like scroll bars, allowing viewing of all parts of the "window"! One can generate and display on the screen even the largest charts producible with Astrolog. (Bitmap files are still limited to, i.e. will be clipped to, a maximum size of 728x720 pixels, however). Even on an 640x350 EGA, one can use this to generate and view all parts of a 300% scaled relationship aspect grid (883x883), or even a 300% scaled world map display (1082x545)! -- Astrolog has support for the mouse and the mouse buttons when running graphics under DOS. Upon entering a graphics chart under DOS, a mouse pointer will appear. Holding down the left mouse button will allow you to scribble on the screen with the mouse as a pen, in the highlight color, just like how for Unix the left button is used to scribble in an X window. For PC's, the middle mouse button (if you have one - most mice such as Microsoft mice don't) will exit graphics mode and terminate the program, like pressing the 'q' key or like how the right mouse button does for X windows. The right mouse button does the same thing as the middle button for X: it will reset the current chart location to that clicked on. It won't actually display the new longitude and latitude, but you can easily see what it is by observing the chart information at the bottom of a graphics chart, or by pressing the 'v' key to see the whole chart and its location in text mode. The ability to use the mouse to sketch and scribble on the charts is extended for PC's. The right mouse button (on those non-world map charts where it doesn't already set the current location) will draw a straight line to the mouse pointer from the point where one last clicked the left button. Also, pressing ctrl-t will draw a rectangle from the point of the last click to the current mouse position. Finally, pressing ctrl-x will draw an ellipse inscribed within the bounds from the last click point to the current position. These are just more features to make Astrolog a better graphics drawing program. :) Not all PC systems have mice. There is a #define in astrolog.h called "MOUSE". If commented out, then all mouse functionality will be compiled out, even if compiling for Unix. Note that the mouse pointer and all PC mouse functions are temporarily disabled when running in an animation mode. If on a PC system a mouse isn't installed on a system and Astrolog is run with mouse features enabled, the mouse features will be ignored as if the functionality weren't even compiled in. When implementing this, I found no readily available library that would activate and query the mouse from DOS. The Microsoft graphics library I used doesn't have any mouse functions in it; however, in the C7 sample programs directory, there is an uncompiled library file called "mouse.c" with its "mouse.h" interface. I compiled this file as if it were one of the Astrolog program files and linked it in to gain access to the functionality. If you are compiling Astrolog for DOS yourself, you will probably either need to have a copy of the Microsoft compiler or else compile out the mouse features, unless you can find an alternate library with the same functionality. This is further complicated by the fact that there is a bug in the mouse.c file which causes the locations of the mouse pointer to overflow and hence wrap before the end of the screen is reached! I manually fixed this before compiling in mouse.c to the official DOS executable for this version. To fix it if you want to compile PC Astrolog yourself with this file, change line 176 in mouse.c from: "pEvent->x = (short)((long)mi.last * mi.xActual) / mi.xVirtual;" to: "pEvent->x = (short)((long)mi.last * mi.xActual / mi.xVirtual);", i.e. just move the last right parenthesis to the end of the expression. Also change line 177 in the same manner. [There's a minor known bug with the PC mouse features in the program, which is that when in a flicker free graphics mode, the mouse pointer will only appear half the time. (You can still scribble and set location, just that the pointer won't be visible.) This is due to the fact that a flicker free mode is actually two pages switched back and forth between for smooth updates. If you don't see and want your mouse here, the update generated by pressing spacebar will revert you to the other page where the mouse pointer is.] -- Although Astrolog is not a Windows program and doesn't have direct support for it with menus and all, at least not yet, Astrolog nevertheless can be run from the Windows environment, various features making this easier. One can make a Program Manager icon which will run Astrolog in a DOS box. Using the -Q0 switch here will prompt the user for whatever switches they want to use, as well as looping back when done to allow additional switches to be specified much like invoking the program over and over again from DOS. Upon exiting the program, the DOS box will also terminate, and although not as elegant as a true Windows interface with dialog boxes and all, this is just as if not more usable than the DOS interface. To make a Windows Program Manager icon for Astrolog, first click in the program group you want the icon to appear in, then choose File New, and click OK to make a new program item. In the dialog, for the description field type something like "Astrolog 4.10". For the command line field, type "C:\ASTROLOG\ASTROLOG.EXE /Q0", i.e. whatever the path name is to the executable file, and you probably want to include the /Q0. For the working directory field, type "C:\ASTROLOG", i.e. just the path to the directory where the astrolog files are. For the shortcut key you can leave it blank or press a key like 'a', meaning that pressing Ctrl-Alt-A at any time when the Program Manager is active will start the Astrolog program. Then click on the change icon button, OK the warning, and from the Change Icon dialog type "C:\ASTROLOG\ASTROLOG.ICO" (again the path to your Astrolog directory) in the filename field. This should load in Astrolog's own Windows icon file included in the zip archive, a yellow planet with red rings and two blue moons and stars around it. Click OK twice and you should be back in your group with a nice Astrolog icon that can be double clicked on to boot Astrolog whenever you want. You may also want to include "/V 43" or something similar along with /Q0 for the command line field, if you want to have more than just 25 rows in the DOS box to print the text charts in. One can also create additional icons that have certain other switches or directly display certain charts. For example, have another icon called "Astrolog Now!" which has "/n /X /Q" for its switches. Double click on this to see where the planets are right now. You can also use the PIF editor utility (usually PIFEDIT.EXE in the Windows directory) instead to create an astrolog.pif file. With the right system and settings, you can specify a created .pif file instead of the Astrolog executable directly, in the Program Manager icon, and run the program in a window in real time along with your other Windows apps, just like Astrolog on X windows! -- Finally, for PC's with graphics, the actual modes the program enters when in the "normal" and the "flicker free animation" modes can be customized and set in astrolog.dat. The values are the various mode numbers defined in graph.h for the Microsoft library. By default, the normal high-res mode is set to the value "-3", which means a mode with the highest resolution, which is usually 640x480 16 color VGA. The default low-res animation mode is set to "16", which corresponds to 640x350 16 color EGA (which on most systems is the highest resolution allowing multiple pages meaning animation can be done without flicker). Here is a complete table of the legal graphics modes, with their index values to specify them, their screen pixel resolution, their number of colors, and any comments as to what hardware are required for them. It is not recommended to attempt to enter a graphics mode here that your system doesn't support. Num. Hor. Ver. Col. Device. -3 640 x 480, 16 ("highest resolution" up to 640x480, usually #18) -2 320 x 200, 256 ("most colors", usually #19) 4 320 x 200, 4 (MRES) 5 320 x 200, 4 (4 grays) 6 640 x 200, 2 (CGA) 8 720 x 348, 2 (Mono Hercules) 13 320 x 200, 16 (MRES) 14 640 x 200, 16 (CGA) 15 640 x 350, 2 (Mono EGA) 16 640 x 350, 16 (EGA, maybe just 4 colors) 17 640 x 480, 2 (Mono VGA) 18 640 x 480, 16 (VGA) 19 320 x 200, 256 (MRES) 64 640 x 400, 2 (Olivetti, 1 of 16 colors) 256 640 x 400, 256 (VESA SVGA) 257 640 x 480, 256 (VESA SVGA) 258 800 x 600, 16 (NEC MultiSync 3D) 259 800 x 600, 256 (NEC MultiSync 3D) 260 1024 x 768, 16 (NEC MultiSync 4D) 261 1024 x 768, 256 (NEC MultiSync 4D) 262 1280 x 1024, 16 (NEC MultiSync 5D) 263 1280 x 1024, 256 (NEC MultiSync 5D) -- #+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+# + Walter D. "Cruiser1" Pullen | cruiser1@stein.u.washington.edu + #+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+# + "Who am I, What am I? As I am, I am not. But as we are, I AM. And to + # you my creation, My Perfect Love is your Perfect Freedom. And I will be # + with you forever and ever, until the End, and then forever more." - GOD + #+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#+#