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** VERSION 7.30 **

Release notes for Astrolog version 7.30 (September 2021):

Happy 30th birthday Astrolog! :) The very first version of Astrolog was released in September 1991, 30 years ago. This file describes the freeware astrology software program Astrolog version 7.30 and the additions and fixes made to it, over the previous version 7.20 which was released five months ago in April 2021. The main things in this update are improved wheel charts, a new planet visibility chart, additional font support, and multiple 3D house models.

NEW FEATURES

Here are new additions to version 7.30 that weren't in previous versions:

1. Filled wheels: Astrolog’s wheel charts can now be filled in with color, which generally looks better and has more contrast. This affects the outer sign and house wedge areas in wheel charts, and sectors in the Gauquelin sector chart. The default fill used for wheels is a darker version of the color of the object (e.g. the color of the sign) which is darkened by the background transparency percentage value (-XI switch). If this percentage is set to over 50%, then the glyphs will be drawn in black or white instead, to be more visible on the more brightly colored background. Wheels can also be filled in with colors around the rainbow, starting with Aries or the 1st house being red. The new -Xv switch sets which type of wheel fill to use, in which 0 is turned off (if you want the old behavior of outlines only), 1 is standard fill, and 2 is rainbow fill. In the Windows version, the new “Wheel Fill” field in the Graphics Settings dialog allows one to select among these three options. Note that filled wheels are only impended in bitmap files, in Windows metafile files, and on the Windows screen. They won’t appear in PostScript files, on X11 windows, or when printing from Windows.

2. Quin and Hexa wheels: Astrolog now supports quin-wheels and hexa-wheels, or wheel charts with 5 and 6 different rings of planets. On the command line, the -r5 and -r6 switches display this many charts, and the -i5 and -i6 switches will load chart information into chart slots #5 and #6. In the Windows version, the “Info / Charts #3 through #6” menu command allows one to enter data into or open files into these charts.

3. Windows text fonts: In the Windows version, system fonts can be used for text displayed on screen. The new “Text” dropdown in the Graphics Settings dialog allows one to select which font to use for text. Options are “Astrolog” for Astrolog’s internal vector drawing (old behavior), as well as the fixed width fonts “Courier New” and “Consolas”. I find Consolas looks the best, although that font may not be available on older versions of Windows. The -YXf switch has been extended to take 5 digits instead of just 4, in which the 10000’s place digit indicates which font to use for text (0=Astrolog, 6=Courier, 7=Consolas).

4. Planet visibility chart: Astrolog has a new planet visibility chart which maps planet visibility for a year, showing when it’s above the horizon. In this chart, the horizontal axis is time of day, and the vertical axis is day within the year. Pixels are plotted if the planet is above the horizon at the date/time, allowing one to see at a glance when a planet is visible, and how those times change during the year. Up to three planets (the first three unrestricted objects) will be included, in which the first object is red, the second green, and the third blue. Points where multiple planets are visible are given the combination of those colors, e.g. times when the red and blue planets are both above the horizon will be magenta. A key showing which planets or planet combinations are which colors is placed below the graph. For example, if you want to check times for when both Mars and Jupiter are visible at night, restrict everything but Sun (red), Mars (green), and Jupiter (blue), and check the date/time areas that are cyan (in which red is off, and green and blue are on). This chart is the graphics version of Astrolog’s rising and setting times chart, so can be selected with the -Zd -X switches, or the “Rising and Setting” command in the Windows version.

5. Savard-A houses: Astrolog now supports the Savard-A system of house division. This system is named after John Savard, and uses his description of what he calls Albategnus houses. However, research into Albategnius' writings shows that he never mentioned this particular house system, which is why it's called “Savard-A” instead of “Albategnius”. In the Windows version this system can be selected with a new command on the “House System” submenu. On the command line, Savard-A houses can be accessed with “-c 21”. Astrolog now supports 23 house systems total (along with 11 additional experimental systems, and 3D house variations of all of them).

6. 3D house models: Astrolog now supports three different models of 3D houses, in which a planet’s vertical latitude as well as zodiac position longitude affects which house a planet lies within. To select the model, pass an optional numeric argument to the -c3 switch, or in the Windows version select the desired “3D Houses Plane” in the Calculation Settings dialog. The 3D boundaries of the different 3D house models can be seen in Astrolog’s graphic local horizon, chart sphere, and telescope charts. The 3D house models supported are:

1) Prime Vertical: Houses are arranged along the prime vertical, and have their poles (where the 12 houses meet) at the North and South points on the local horizon. Note that Campanus houses combined with this 3D model is a “3D Equal system”, in which all houses are equal sized 30 degree wedges of the celestial sphere. As with 2D Campanus houses, the Ascendant will always be on the 1st house boundary line, and the MC on the 10th house boundary line. This is the preferred model for 3D houses (and was the only model available in versions before 7.30) since for quadrant systems it ensures that all parts of houses 1-6 are below the horizon, and all parts of houses 7-12 are above the horizon.

2) Local horizon: Houses are arranged along the local horizon, and have their poles at the Zenith and Nadir points straight up and down on the local horizon. Note that Horizon houses combined with this 3D model is a “3D Equal system”, in which all houses are equal sized 30 degree wedges of the celestial sphere. As with 2D Horizon houses, the Ascendant won’t necessarily be on 1st house boundary line, but the Vertex will always be on the 7th house boundary line. As with Horizon houses themselves, stepping across the equator will flip all houses 180 degrees.

3) Celestial Equator: Houses are arranged along the celestial equator, and have their poles at the celestial poles or the points directly above Earth’s North and South poles. Note that Meridian houses combined with this 3D model is a “3D Equal system”, in which all houses are equal sized 30 degree wedges of the celestial sphere. As with 2D Meridian houses, the Ascendant won’t necessarily be on 1st house boundary line, but the East Point will always be on this boundary.

0) Ecliptic: Houses are arranged along the ecliptic, and have their poles (where the 12 houses meet) at the North and South ecliptic poles. This is classic 2D houses, because signs are also arranged along the ecliptic and use the ecliptic poles, which means only zodiac position longitude is used to determine house placement. Passing 0 to the -c3 switch turns 3D houses off, although it doesn’t change which of 1-3 is the default 3D house model used when the -c3 switch (specified without an argument) turns 3D houses on. An image of all four house models side by side on the celestial sphere can be seen at: http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog/pic/sphere3d.gif

7. Thick lines: Graphics charts may be drawn with thicker lines, in which all lines will be two pixels instead of just one pixel wide. This setting will also cause system font characters on graphics charts to be drawn in boldface. To do this, turn on the new -Xx switch, or select the new “Thicker Lines” command on the “Graphics / Chart Effects” submenu. Note when using Astrolog’s default vector glyphs and text, the character and text scales should be at least 200%, because otherwise the two pixel wide lines will be too thick to look good with such small characters.

8. Astro-graph nearest cities: The text mode astro-graph chart will now display a list of cities from the atlas closest to each latitude crossing. A second optional parameter to the -L0 switch specifies the maximum distance allowed from the crossing point to a city, in default distance units (miles or kilometers). In the Windows version, the new “Latitude Crossings Show Cities Within” field in the Chart Settings dialog sets this distance. The maximum number of cities allowed to be listed for each crossing (which means the N closest cities to it that are within the distance limit) is specified with the -Nl switch parameter. In the Windows version, the new “Nearest Cities List This Many Cities” field in Chart Settings sets this distance.

9. JPL Horizons custom bodies: Astrolog can compute planet positions using direct online queries to the JPL Horizons Web site. The new -Yej switch allows customizing an object slot to be the index of a JPL Horizons computable body. This feature is designed for objects not yet supported by Swiss Ephemeris, such as less common planetary moons or space probes. To determine the JPL Horizons index number for a body, visit https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi, change the “Target Body” to what you’re interested in by looking up its name, then click “show ‘batch-file’ data” at the bottom, and finally look at the “COMMAND=” line to see the number. Note if the number ends in a semicolon (which is true for asteroids and other minor bodies) then you should add one million to the number passed to Astrolog. For example, “-Yej Vul 505” will customize Vulcan’s object slot to be Jupiter’s moon Amalthea, however “-Yej Vul 1000505” will customize Vulcan to be asteroid “505 Cava”. In the Windows version, in the “Object Customization” dialog, an object may be given the definition starting with “j” to refer to the relevant JPL Horizons object. Because every planet calculation involves an online Web query, this switch results in a noticeable slowdown of the program, so shouldn’t be used with transit searches or places that internally cast many charts. Note also that (due to the Windows API’s used to download Web URL’s) this feature is for now only available in Windows versions of Astrolog.

10. JPL Horizons planets: Since Astrolog can use JPL Horizons to compute special bodies, it can also do so for the standard planets. The new -bj switch is a calculation mode that will use JPL Horizons Web queries to calculate the main planets and asteroids. In the Windows version, there’s a new “JPL Horizons Web Query” option in the “Calculation Method” dropdown. Since Swiss Ephemeris is a compressed version of JPL Horizons data, this method can be considered the most accurate astrology calculation available anywhere, although it will only be very slightly different from Swiss Ephemeris results themselves. Using this calculation method has the same performance issues as using JPL Horizons for custom objects. To avoid accidental usage and unexpected long waits, JPL Horizons Web query features can be permanently turned off within a session of Astrolog with the new -0n switch.

11. Decans in wheels: Astrolog’s graphic wheel charts will display decan boundaries around the wheel, if the new -v3 switch setting is set. Each sign will have its three 10 degree sections marked out, and labeled with the planet that rules the sign associated with that section (based on which rulership set is active).

12. Open data files: In the Windows version, the new “Open Data Files” submenu on the Help menu contains four new commands to provide access Astrolog’s various editable data files. “Open Atlas” opens the atlas or city database file “atlas.as”. “Open Time Zone Changes” opens the time zone definitions and time changes file “timezone.as”. “Open Star List” opens the Swiss Ephemeris fixed star file “sefstars.txt”. “Open Orbital Elements” opens the Swiss Ephemeris definitions for hypothetical planets file “seorbel.txt”.

13. Window title: In the Windows version, the title bar text to use for the window can be set with the new -WT switch. This can be used to mark specific windows or help distinguish a large number of Astrolog windows from each other.

14. Sidebar annotations: The sidebar area to the right of graphic wheel charts can have custom text appended to it. The new -YXt switch takes a string parameter, which if non-empty gets displayed at the bottom of the first section of the sidebar. This can for example be used to indicate who prepared the chart. If the sequence “\n” appears in the string, it will be treated as a line break. For example -YXt "Compliments of John Doe\nhttp://www.myssite.com" will show those two lines in the chart. Also, if a sequence like “\A” appears in the string (or “\” plus any other capital letter) it will be expanded into the current value of that custom AstroExpression variable. Finally, two backslashes in a row will be converted to a single one. See the ~Xt switch for an example of how to use this switch to display the chart time’s obliquity of the ecliptic and the right ascension of the MC (which normally isn’t present in the sidebar).

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Here's a summary of the 10 new command switches in Astrolog 7.30 that weren't in previous versions:

-v3: Like -v but display decan information alongside positions.

-bJ: Use most accurate JPL Web query instead of Swiss Ephemeris.

-Yej <obj> <index>: Change orbit of Uranian to JPL Horizons Web query.

-Xx: Draw thicker lines in graphics charts.

-Xv <0-2>: Set fill style for wedge areas in wheel charts.

-YXt <string>: Display extra text in wheel chart sidebar.

-WT <string>: Set title bar text of Astrolog window.

-~kv <string>: Set adjustment for wheel chart fill colors.

-~v3 <string>: Set adjustment for wheel chart decan markings.

-~Xt <string>: Set notification before sidebar drawn.

Here's a summary of the 6 new menu commands in the Windows version of Astrolog 7.30 that weren't in previous versions:

Setting / House System / Savard-A

Graphics / Chart Effects / Thicker Lines

Help / Open Data Files / Open Atlas

Help / Open Data Files / Open Time Zone Changes

Help / Open Data Files / Open Star List

Help / Open Data Files / Open Orbital Elements

EXTENDED AND IMPROVED FEATURES

A list of improvements to existing features in Astrolog 7.30, such as new things you can now do with old features that you couldn’t do before, or ways that existing features work better than before:

1. More Unicode fonts: There are three additional font options for signs, houses, objects, and aspects: Courier New, Consolas, and Arial. These are different Unicode fonts (and are extensions of the “Unicode” font option that was available before) in which the appropriate Unicode characters are chosen. For houses, the Arial font means to use Ascii digits to draw the numbers, instead of single Unicode characters. The -YXf switch has been extended to accept these fonts (in which digit #6 is Courier New, #7 is Consolas, and #8 is Arial) and in the Windows version these fonts have been added to the dropdowns in the Graphics Settings dialog.

2. More text scales: Scales of 150%, 250%, and 350% are now valid options for the text scale setting (-XS switch, or the “Text Scale” dropdown in the Graphics Settings dialog in the Windows version). The 150% scale is perhaps most useful, if one finds the default of 100% too small and 200% too large. Note that the 50% offsets only have an extra effect if an actual system font is chosen for text (as opposed to Astrolog’s internal vector drawing).

3. More fonts in files: Metafile and PostScript files now support all of Astrolog’s fonts for glyphs, instead of just the Astro font like before. For PostScript files, the fonts will be “Courier” instead of “Courier New”, and “Times Roman” instead of “Consola”, to avoid Windows specific fonts that may not be available in other environments, and to be compatible with the behavior of older versions.

4. Planet brightness: The text mode local horizon chart (-Z switch) will include columns for the planet’s brightness in magnitude, its phase (both as a percentage of disk area covered, and percentage of time to fullness), and the angular diameter that its disk covers in the sky. The Sun Vector and Moon Vector columns (which aren’t that useful anymore given that Astrolog supports actual eclipse detection) are no longer displayed by default in this chart, but will still be included if the -v3 switch setting is on.

5. 3D house display: In the graphic local horizon chart (-Z -X switches) 3D house boundaries would only be drawn for 3D Campanus houses. Now they’ll be the 3D version of whichever house system is active. (The chart sphere and telescope charts already supported this.)

6. Rings of Uranus: The telescope chart (-XZ switch) will now display rings around Uranus, tilted and rotated appropriately, when the view is zoomed in enough. An ellipse will be drawn at the most visible point of Uranus’ rings, specifically at the point of its “E” ring.

7. Transit declination display: When doing a transit search of declinations (-d or -t with -gp switches), it will now show the planet’s declination value at that time in parentheses (instead of just the zodiac position longitude, which is less useful). Transit events for latitude direction changes will also now show the latitude instead of zodiac position.

8. More display settings: In the Windows version, the Display Settings dialog has been extended to have checkboxes for having transit search charts show latitude direction changes, and distance direction changes (e.g. apogee and perigee points) as defined by the -YR1 switch. Also, there’s a checkbox for whether eclipse detection only checks for an eclipse visible from your location, or checks whether there’s an eclipse taking place anywhere on the planet, as defined by the -Yu0 switch. Finally, the Calculation Settings dialog has been extended to have a checkbox for not applying tropical nutation to charts, as defined by the -Yn0 switch.

9. Planet table distance format: In the planet information table (-HS switch) planet diameters will be displayed in kilometers (instead of the default in Earth radiuses) if the metric lengths setting (-Yv switch) is on.

10. Flipped sectors: The graphic Gauquelin sector chart (-l -X switches) will flip the chart and display sectors in reverse order around the wheel, if the Vedic chart setting is active. This is similar to existing behavior for standard wheel charts.

11. Swiss Ephemeris updated: Astrolog now uses Swiss Ephemeris version 2.10.02, which includes support for the new Savard-A house system along with other fixes and improvements.

PROGRAM CHANGES

A few changes that aren't new feature additions or bug fixes have been made to Astrolog 7.30, which means certain old assumptions are no longer valid. Most can be considered improvements, but they still change existing behavior. A list of these follows (which aren't useful to be aware of unless you have used previous versions of the program):

1. Unicode font removed: Font #4 as passed to the -YXf switch has been removed (which means the Hamburg and Astronomicon fonts have had their index numbers moved back by one, and are now fonts #4 and #5). Similarly, in the Windows version the Graphics Setting dialog dropdowns now longer contain the “Unicode” option. This has been replaced with several different specific Unicode fonts one may select: Courier New, Consolas, and Arial (which are fonts #6, #7, and #8 when passed to the -YXf switch).

2. Text decan interface: In the standard text mode listing when “Print Nearest Second” is on, showing decan positions for each object (instead of latitude velocity) is now set with the new -v3 switch (instead of with the -gp parallel aspects setting as before).

3. Hyperion moved: Saturn’s moon Hyperion has been moved two slots later in the object index order since it’s Saturn’s smallest major moon, and therefore should be at the end of the list of Saturn’s moons. This also moves moons Enceladus and Mimas back one object slot.

4. Open Defaults moved: In the Windows version, the “Help / More Documentation / Open Defaults” menu command has been moved to a new and different submenu. It’s now the “Help / Open Data Files / Open Default Settings” menu command.

BUG FIXES

Here are bugs or other issues with version 7.20, all of which have been corrected in 7.30:

1. Save Settings corruption: In the Windows version, the "Save Settings" command would create a malformed file which when loaded back in would produce an error message saying, "Too few options to switch /F (1 given, 3 required)". Also, because of the error, settings after the error point in the file wouldn’t be read in.

2. X bitmap crash: The X Windows version of Astrolog would crash if directed to draw a 24 bit bitmap on the screen, such as the detailed world maps in the -L or -XG switch charts. Detailed bitmaps aren’t supported on the screen in this environment, but can still be saved to file. Now, if directed to do so, Astrolog will automatically fall back to old style 16 color charts for the screen.

3. Astro font bug: In the Windows version, the “Astro” font couldn’t be selected in the dropdowns of the Graphics setting dialog. Attempting to do so would always result in the internal vector font “Astrolog” instead.

4. Metafile font corruption: Saving a Windows metafile format file with system fonts on, would produce a bad file that wouldn’t display in any environment.

5. Metafile text scale limitation: System font text in metafiles wouldn’t respect the text scale setting (-XS switch) which would result in small text in files that would always be at just 100% scale. Also, non-Windows versions wouldn’t apply changes made to the text scale via the -XS switch correctly.

6. Metafile display glitch: Wheel charts in Windows metafile format files wouldn’t have spokes line up perfectly with circles, which could be seen in the lower right quadrant of the chart at high zoom.

7. Declination transit bug: Doing a transit to natal search of declinations (-t -gp switches) would only look at ecliptic latitudes and not equatorial declinations, the latter of which is the standard for parallel and contraparallel aspects. Also, doing a transit to transit search of declinations (-d -gp switches) would produce malformed results if the Equatorial Latitudes setting (-sr0 switch) was on, and convert from ecliptic to equatorial coordinates twice. Both switches also have the option to check ecliptic instead of equatorial coordinates, if the -AP switch setting is on.

8. Now LMT bug: Current moment now charts wouldn’t produce the right chart when the default time zone was set to LMT (Local Mean Time).

9. AAF LMT bug: Astrological Exchange (AAF) format files wouldn’t be imported properly if the time zone was set to Local Mean Time (LMT), which is indicated by an “L” at the end of the first line of data. The chart’s Daylight Saving field would be set to 10000 instead of 0, making the chart off by that many hours.

10. Apply Info omission: In the Windows version, in the “Default Chart Info” dialog, the “Apply Info” button would only update the “Location” text field, and wouldn’t update the time zone and coordinate fields.

11. Rising & Setting bug: In the text mode rising and setting chart (-Zd switch) crossings of the meridian would sometimes be labeled in reverse (i.e. as a zenith crossing even if below the horizon, and as a nadir crossing even if above the horizon). This would happen for locations South of or near the equator, and in the polar zones.

12. Average velocity inaccuracy: The -v0 switch setting to display planet velocities relative to their average speed should compare to the speed of the Sun for inner planets (which orbit closer to the Sun than the central object) as well as for moons or nodal objects orbiting those planets. Not doing this would result in permanently slow average velocities less than 1.0.

13. Uranian display glitch: In the text mode local horizon chart (-Z switch), dwarf planet and planetary moon objects would be incorrectly labeled as in the Uranian object category. In the text mode solar system orbit chart (-S switch), dwarf planet and planetary moon objects would be incorrectly labeled as in the fixed stars object category.

14. Aspect customization limitation: The -YAD switch wouldn’t change the three letter abbreviation used for the aspect. Also, the -HA switch to list aspect information wouldn’t show customizations made to aspect names.

15. Position file limitation: Astrolog’s chart position files (as created with the -o0 switch, or the “Save Chart Positions” command in the Windows version) would save fixed stars by their object index instead of their names. That made version 7.20 files incompatible with previous versions, since the insertion of Dwarf planet and planetary moon objects in version 7.20 changed the index numbers for fixed stars.

16. Text scrolling glitch: In the Windows version, scrolling the window to the right and/or down, and then switching to text mode, would wrongly offset the text by that amount and leave a void area at the top/left of the window not drawn.

17. Missing file crash: Astrolog would crash on program startup if the data files astrolog.as, atlas.as, or timezone.as couldn’t be found. Usually these files are present, but the bug would still happen if one deleted them or renamed them to a location not on Astrolog’s search path.

ASTROEXPRESSION UPDATES

AstroExpressions or “Astrolog Expressions” are programmable customizations that don’t require recompiling the program, and can be considered an extended form of command switches. AstroExpression functions and related command switches have been updated in version 7.30. This section can be ignored if one doesn’t use this feature area.

The following lists all new AstroExpression functions. The name of each function is listed, followed by the type of its return value and the expected types of its parameters (if any). Numbers will automatically be converted to Integer or Real as needed.

Rgb: Int(IntR, IntG, IntB). RGB color. Returns an RGB color value, given red, green, and blue color components in the range of 0-255.

RgbR, RgbG, RgbB: Int(Int): Extract color component. Returns the red, green, or blue color component of an RGB color value.

Blend: Int(Int1, Int2, Real): Blend colors. Returns an RGB color value, given two RGB color values to blend together, and a real number indicating the proportion between them, in which 0.0 is fully color #1, and 1.0 is fully color #2.

Hue: Int(Real). Rainbow color. Returns an RGB color of rainbow. The hue number should range from 0-360, in which 0 is red, 120 is green, and so on around the circle.

MonN, DayN, YeaN, TimN, DstN, ZonN, LonN, LatN: Int(Int) or Real(Int): Indexed chart. Like the functions used to access chart information in specific slots, but returns chart info for the referenced chart slot in the range 0-6.

MonS, DayS, YeaS, TimS, DstS, ZonS, LonS, LatS: Int or Real: Saved chart. Like the functions used to access chart slots, but returns chart info for the saved or previous chart.

MonG, DayG, YeaG: Int: Gregorian chart. Like above but returns the date info currently being used for the Julian to Gregorian calendar crossover, which by default is October 15, 1582.

ObjDirL: Real(Int): Object direction Z. Returns the velocity of an object along the distance axis. There are similar functions with digit suffixes for chart slots #1 through #6.

PlusZone: Bool(Int): Gauquelin plus zone. Returns whether the specified Gauquelin sector from 1-36 is a plus zone.

Nutation: Real: Nutation. Returns the tropical nutation longitude offset for the most recently cast chart.

Mouse: Int(Int): Mouse coordinates. In the Windows version, takes the current pixel coordinates of the mouse pointer (relative to the upper left corner of the Astrolog window) and assigns it to the two custom variables pointed to by the parameter. Also returns these two numbers combined together using the formula (Y * 65536 + X). Note the parameter is usually a static index of a variable, instead of variable value, so should be in the form %a instead of @a, in order to assign X coordinate to @a and Y coordinate to @b.

_w1, _aj, _L1, _L2, _d1, _EY, _E01, _E02, _P1, _N1, _I1, _c31, _s0: Int: Program setting. This list of functions queries the Astrolog setting that’s set with the identically named command switch. There are only a few exceptions or alternate behaviors: Functions ending with “1” or “2” access the first or second arguments passed to the switch without that digit. Function _aj accesses the -a switch sort order, with integers 0-8 referencing the “jonOPACDm” subswitches. Functions _E01 and _E02 both reference the step parameter to the -E0 switch, in which _E01 is the rate (0=days, 1=months, 2=years) and _E02 is the factor. Function _s0 accesses the -s switch display format, with integers 0-3 referencing the “zhdn” subswitches.

_Xx, _Xv, _YXK: Bool or Int or Int(Int): Program graphics setting. This list of functions queries the Astrolog graphics setting that’s set with the identically named command switch. The _YXK function takes one parameter indicating which palette slot to return the RGB color of.

_WN, _Wnn, _Wh, _Wt, _Wo, _Wo0, _Wo3, _Wz: Bool or Int: Program Windows setting. This list of functions queries the Astrolog Windows version setting that’s set with the identically named command switch. There is one exception: Function _Wnn accesses the -Wn switch setting, and repeats the letter of the command switch in its name to avoid a case insensitive name conflict with _WN.

There are several new command switches which allow one to define AstroExpression “hooks” into areas of chart calculation or display, to modify or filter their results. All AstroExpression related command switches start with the tilde (~) character:

1. ~kv <string>: Adjust wheel section color. On entry, @x contains the section type (0 = sign, 1 = house, 2 = Gauquelin sector), @y contains the index (i.e. which sign, house, or sector), and @z contains the RGB color to use for it based on the -Xv switch setting. Return value is ignored, although if @z is changed it will be used instead. For example, to give signs colors of the rainbow, but with red starting at the Sun’s position in the zodiac, do: ~kv "If Equ @x 0 =z Blend _YXk ?: _Xr K_White K_Black Hue Sub Mul Dec @y 30 ObjLon O_Sun Div _XI1 100.0"

2. ~v3 <string>: Adjust decan glyph. Called when a decan marking is about to be drawn in a wheel chart, as done with the -v3 switch is on. On entry, @x is the sign from 1-12, @y is the decan within the sign from 0-2, and @z is the object index to be drawn. Return value is ignored, although if @z is changed it will be used instead. If @z is negative, then a sign will be drawn instead of an object. For example, to mark decans with the signs themselves, as opposed to the planets which primarily rule the sign, do: ~v3 "=z Dec Neg Mod Add Dec @x Mul @y 4 12" For another example, to mark decans using the Chaldean method, by repeating the seven visible planets, do: ~v3 "=z Mod Add Mul Dec @x 3 @y 7 IfElse Equ @z 5 =z 7 IfElse Lt @z 1 =z 5 If Or Equ @z 2 Equ @z 4 =z Sub 6 @z"

3. ~Xt <string>: Notify sidebar. Called when the wheel chart sidebar is about to be drawn. This works well with the -YXt switch to add computed numeric values to the sidebar. For example, if you want the current obliquity of the ecliptic and the right ascension of the MC to always be displayed in the sidebar, do: -YXt "Obliquity: \A\nRAMC: \B" ~Xt "=a Oblique =b RAMC"

A few improvements, changes, or bug fixes have also been made in the AstroExpression area:

Aspect reordering: The aspect list chart (-a switch) didn’t display right when object ordering was changed with the ~v switch AstroExpression.

LICENSE

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Astrolog and all chart display routines and anything not enumerated below used in this program are Copyright (C) 1991-2021 by Walter D. Pullen (Astara@msn.com, http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm). Permission is granted to freely use, modify, and distribute these routines provided these credits and notices remain unmodified with any altered or distributed versions of the program.

The main ephemeris databases and calculation routines are from the library SWISS EPHEMERIS and are programmed and copyright 1997-2008 by Astrodienst AG. The use of that source code is subject to the license for the Swiss Ephemeris Free Edition, available at http://www.astro.com/swisseph. This copyright notice must not be changed or removed by any user of this program.

Additional ephemeris databases and formulas are from the calculation routines in the program PLACALC and are programmed and Copyright (C) 1989,1991,1993 by Astrodienst AG and Alois Treindl (alois@astro.ch). The use of that source code is subject to regulations made by Astrodienst Zurich, and the code is not in the public domain. This copyright notice must not be changed or removed by any user of this program.

The original planetary calculation routines used in this program have been copyrighted and the initial core of this program was mostly a conversion to C of the routines created by James Neely as listed in 'Manual of Computer Programming for Astrologers', by Michael Erlewine, available from Matrix Software.

Atlas composed using data from https://www.geonames.org/ licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Time zone changes composed using public domain TZ database: https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html

The PostScript code within the core graphics routines are programmed and Copyright (C) 1992-1993 by Brian D. Willoughby (brianw@sounds.wa.com).

More formally: This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful and inspiring, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details, a copy of which is in the LICENSE.HTM file included with Astrolog, and at http://www.gnu.org

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* Walter D. "Cruiser1" Pullen :) ! Astara@msn.com *

O Astrolog 7.30 Web site: http://www.magitech.com/astrolog/astrolog.htm O

* "Who am I, What am I? As I am, I am not. But as we are, I AM. And to *

O you my creation, My Perfect Love is your Perfect Freedom. And I will be O

* with you forever and ever, until the End, and then forever more." - GOD *

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