Moon Phase
Moon Phase was updated to version 2.0 as of March 16, 2000.
Moon Phase is a simple application which will display the phase of the moon on any day; well, any day which the PalmOS will let you work with from 1904 to 2031.
Some of the screen shots below show the screen on a color Palm device.
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Main Screen When you start the application, the date is initially set to today. The phase will be displayed graphically as well as using the closest text name for the phase. As in the example shown here, a moon just past full is still considered full. The day in parentheses is the day of the lunar cycle, which starts on the Full Moon as Day 0. The bottom of the screen has a table which provides the dates of the next four major phases of the moon. The phases are always listed in chronological order. That means that in the screen to the left, if you change the date to July 16, 1998, the first column of the table will list the next New Moon, followed by the Waxing Half, the Full and finally the following Waning Half. You can use the arrow buttons or the Pilot's scroll keys to shift the date backward to forward by one day. You can also click on the dates in the "Next:" table and Moon Phase will jump to that date. Note: If you are using a PalmOS 1.0 device (PalmPilot 1000/5000), your screen will not have the table at the bottom of it. Other than that, Moon Phase should work the same as described here. |
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Date Selection When you click the date on the main screen, you are presented with the standard PalmOS date selection screen. Use this window as you would in the Date Book application to select the date you are interested in. When you click the day, the main screen will change the display to show the phase of the moon on that day. |
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Menu Items When you have Moon! installed on your Pilot, Moon Phase has three menu items. When you select "Launch Moon!", Moon Phase will close and Moon! will be started. The "About Moon Phase..." item will show a screen telling you about the application. The "Options..." item brings up the Options dialog. If you do not have Moon! installed, Moon Phase has only the "Options..." and "About Moon Phase..." menu items. Note: If you are using a PalmOS 1.0 device (PalmPilot 1000/5000), Moon! will not work on your system, so you will only have the "Options..." and "About Moon Phase..." menu items. |
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Options Dialog When you select the Options... menu item, you will be presented with the dialog shown here. The first option is one which will "invert" the images when checked. When you click the Done button, the main screen will be redrawn with the image displayed properly based on whether this option was checked or not. I have been told this is necessary for those PalmOS users who live in the Southern Hemisphere, as the moon's shadow progresses from the left there. I am taking this on faith, as I have never been below the Equator myself. The second option is one which allows you to tell Moon Phase to start the Lunar Phase day count at 1, which is more social expected, rather than 0, which is more scientifically accurate. |
Notes:
Warning, this application uses an approximation method, which can be done effectively on the PalmPilot, rather than the real way, which uses floating point, astronomical equations, trigonometric functions, and basically would take forever. The problem with the approximation, is that it can be up to a day off. I have spot checked the program up to the end of 2031 and that seems to be the largest error.
I am sorry about the size of this application. The majority of the size is in bitmaps, which I have to include because the PalmOS doesn't seem to want to help me create ellipsoid curves.
Version Notes:
Version 2.0:
Released 16 March 2000
Added color support with more interesting moon phase graphics.
Unfortunately, this increased the size of the program.....
Version 1.6:
Released 15 August 1999
Added a "small" icon to display in the application List mode.
- Modified the Moon! program launch menu item to look for the Sol! II application, which is replacing Moon! first. If Sol! II doesn't exist on the Palm device, it will look for Moon! instead.
Version 1.5:
Released 23 October 1998
Modified dates in "Next" table to show only the month and day because when the dates rolled into October through December, there wasn't enough room to show all 6 digits.
Version 1.4:
Released 11 August 1998
Added a menu command to switch to the Moon! program if it is loaded on the machine.
Version 1.3:
Released 9 August 1998
Bug Fix: Modified the start up code a bit to better match what the PalmOS expects.
- Added an option to allow for the Lunar Phase day count to start at 1, which is more social expected, rather than 0, which is more scientifically accurate.
- Adapted code so the Pilot's scroll keys can be used to move the date forward and backward.
Version 1.2:
Released 15 July 1998
Bug Fix: corrected code so it would run on PalmOS 2.0 platforms.
- Corrected phase day information to be accurate with standard phase day numbering practices.
- Modified code to allow it to work at a lower functionality on PalmOS 1.0 platforms.
- Code changed to better fit the Palm internationalization philosophy.
Version 1.1:
Released 12 July 1998
Added buttons to change the date backwards or forwards by one day.
- Added table to show the dates of the four major phases of the moon. You can click on this table to jump to the date shown: to the next Full Moon, for example.
- Reduced the size of the bitmaps to make room for the new table.
- Reduced size of application in Palm memory, because of the reduced bitmap size.
Version 1.0:
Released 15 June 1998
This was the initial release version.
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