School of Evolutionary Astrology Forum

Discussion => Evolutionary Astrology Q&A => Topic started by: ari moshe on Jul 14, 2011, 05:39 PM

Title: Adding an additional point to the extra wheel in solar fire. Help requested
Post by: ari moshe on Jul 14, 2011, 05:39 PM
Hi all, some time ago Upasika posted some helpful instructions for adding lucifer (or any point) to the extra wheel ring in solar fire. The link he posted below in step 1a does not work. Does anyone have any guidance to offer?

====================== Moderator notes =================
For anyone who views this post later, I've corrected the original asteroid download link that was listed (further down the page) as the posted link did not work.   Also, the instructions further down say you need to use the Solar Fire Wheel Designer before you can see extra ring points.  That is not correct. You can do it that way, but its not necessary. Here is the method I use, which uses chart wheels that come with Solar Fire:

On the Chart Options Solar Fire menu, select Wheel Style and then UniWheel
A window will open up listing filenames.
The default Solar Fire wheel style is UNI1.WH1
Find UNIEXTRA4.WH1. highlight it, and click Select.
That will display your charts with a nice extra ring that shows the full name of the extra ring points rather than a shorthand code.

On some versions of Solar Fire those wheel filenames might not be capitalized.  That's fine.  Whether upper or lower case, select uniextra4.wh1.

Also, this file location is  listed below as the place to place the asteroid files
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Esoteric Technologies\SwissEph
That is the correct file location only on some versions of Windows - 32 bit versions of Vista and Windows 7

For 64 bit Vista and Windows 7 the correct folder is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Esoteric Technologies\SwissEph

and for Windows XP it is in this sub folder \SwissEph
of whatever folder your Solar Fire is installed in.  In Win XP that can be a number of places.
For example, on my computer the correct folder is  C:\Program Files\SolarFire6\SwissEph

The official instructions for adding asteroids to Solar Fire are here
http://alabe.com/smarterticket/Customer/KBArticle.aspx?articleid=290
Steve
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Hi Ari,

I have got Lucifer into Solar Fire and I can share with you how I did this. However I'm not sure if it will work for all combinations of operating system and Solar Fire versions. I've got a PC with Vista SP1 as the operating system, and running Solar Fire v 7.0.10

It's a bit of a journey so I'll try to make the explanations as clear and detailed as possible. Also I'm not sure at what level your (or anyone else's) computer skills and/or familiarity with Solar Fire is so I wont assume too much, so if it seems tediously overdone with detail please excuse me - but at least this way if someone who is not too familiar with Solar Fire also tries to use these explanations it might be helpful for them if I've spelt everything out explicitly.

Once done though it works like a treat. It does look long winded, but once you know how to do this, the whole operation only takes 3 minutes or so.

If you have any difficulties with the process just let me know and I'll try and help you or anyone else through it.

Before you or anyone else gets into this, I'd like to mention that the last step (step 6) involves using the Wheel Designer in Solar Fire, so I suggest if you aren't familiar with doing this or aren't reasonably confident with computers generally, you get someone local who is to help you do it, rather than attempting it alone with only these guideline instructions.

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1a) Click on the link below, or paste this link into your browser and then hit the Enter (or Return) key on the keypad to open the Astrodienst FTP site where downloads are made from...

ftp://ftp.astro.ch/pub/swisseph/ephemeris_files/ast1  incorrect

Working link is http://www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph/ephe/ast1/


This opens the directory on the site that has the Lucifer asteroid ephemeris file in it.

1b) Scan down the list of files until you see the file: se01930s.se1    

(It will probably have a date of 09/29/2006 12:00a.m. and a file size of 43,583
BTW ... 1930 is the asteroid number for Lucifer, just in case this is handy to know.
Also, if you have trouble downloading this file I can always email it to you directly)

2) Click on this file and a dialog box should open asking whether to open or save this file. You want to save it to a folder on your hard drive so click on Save, and select a folder to save it to. Make sure the "Save as Type" text field underneath the filename text field is showing "SE1 file", then click the Save button again.

3) Once you've got the file into a folder on your PC, then you need to move or copy it to the following folder where Solar Fire stores its ephemeris files:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Esoteric Technologies\SwissEph


4) Now that the file is in the Solar Fire system you can setup Solar Fire to include this in your charts etc.

4a) Open Solar Fire and click on the "Chart Options" menu, then click on the "Files" menu option.

4b) When a submenu appears click on the "Asteroids file" submenu option. This opens the File Management dialog box showing all your asteroid files.

4c) Click on any existing file to highlight it, or create a new one and once created click on it to highlight it, then click on the "Edit" button which will open the file. This will open another dialog box that allows you to select which asteroids you want included in this file.

4d) In the dialog box in the top right hand corner make sure the "Swiss Ephemeris" option is selected by clicking on it. You will also notice that there are two large lists of "Selected Asteroids" and "Available Asteroids" further down.

4e) Now look in the column of Available Asteroids and you should see Lucifer 1930 in it. By just clicking on it, it will automatically transfer itself to the Selected Asteroids column.

4f) Click on the "Save" button. You'll now be back at the File Management dialog box, and the file you were just editing should still be highlighted, so now click on the "Select" button to make that the current asteroid file for use in Solar Fire. Doing this will also close that dialog box as well.

5) To get Lucifer to show up in chart the first thing you need to do is to add it to an "Extra Ring Points" file.
Depending on whether you want Lucifer to be part of a normal chart display so that it appears just the like the other planets and points in a chart wheel, or whether you want to see many other asteriods and points (such as the north and south nodes of all the planets) in the chart display, you would setup different "Extra Ring Points" files for these two different scenarios.

The reason for this is that the chart wheel can quickly become very cluttered if you include too many extra points in the wheel where the planets etc are normally displayed.

For now, I'll explain how to setup a file so that only Lucifer is showing as an extra point in your charts along with the normal planets. (The one drawback with this method of displaying extra points in the same ring as the normal planets etc, is that SolarFire doesn't space the glyph out to make room for it when its very close to another point in the chart. However I don't find that a major problem. If you do then you can create an extra ring outside the main chart ring in a wheel design and put the extra points in that. But that's another matter)

5a) Click on the "Chart Options" menu, then click on the "Extra Ring Points" menu option. This opens the File Managemnent dialog box showing all your Extra Ring Points files.

5b) Click on the "Create" button to create a new file. Give the new file a name eg "Lucifer", and click OK. Now your new file should be highlighted in the list of Extra Ring Points files.

5c) Click on the "Edit" button to edit the new file. This will open a dialog box where you can select what extra points you want in your file.

5d) On the right hand side of the dialog box where it says "Point Type" click on "Asteroid".

5e) Underneath the list of Point Type options is a button labelled "Select File..." - click on this and then in the Asteroids dialog box that opens up click on the Asteroid file that you included Lucifer in, in step 4, then click on the "Select" button.

5f) Look in the list of "Available Points" until you find Lucifer, then click on it to highlight it. Then click on the "<-Add" button below the list of Available Points. This will add Lucifer to the "Selected Points" list.

5g) Make sure Lucifer in the "Selected Points" list is highlighted (click on it if it isn't), then you can type in the "Glyph" text box at the bottom left of the dialog box the symbol you want to describe Lucifer in the chart wheel. (I just typed "Luc").

5h) Click on the "Save" button and the dialog box will close. You'll now be back at the File Management dialog box for Extra Ring Points.

The new file you've just created and added Lucifer to should still be highlighted (click on it if it isn't), so now you just need to click on the "Select" button. This will now be the current extra ring points file for use in Solar Fire.

6) We're almost there! One step to go and Lucifer will automatically display in your charts.

Now you need to design a chart wheel style to include extra ring points in it. You can create a new wheel style from scratch, or simply modify one you currently use. If you haven't created wheel styles before I suggest you just modify one you use. For now I'll explain how to modify a wheel style that you currently use.
Some care is needed with this part as it will permanently alter your currently default wheel style, and if something isn't done right then it may be hard to get it back unless you know how. So I'll put screen shots in here to assist. However, as with all of this, I cannot control what happens when you modify your wheel style so I suggest if you aren't familiar with doing this or aren't reasonably confident with computers generally you get someone local who is, to help you do it.

6a) Double click on a "single" chart in the Calculated Charts list on the main screen to display it in the View Chart window. This will display using your currently default wheel style on your currently default Page for a uniwheel chart.

6b) You now want to edit this wheel style, so click on the "Wheel Style" button on the right hand side of the window near the Quit button. This will open the File Management dialog box for Wheel Designs. Your currently default wheel design should automatically be highlighted.

(We are going to modify this wheel design, so it may be a good idea to note down the file name  - i.e. the one that is highlighted in the File Management dialog box. Even better would be to make a copy of it, just in case you want to revert back to the original design of that file later. Briefly "¦ to do this make sure you do write down the highlighted filename NOW. Then click on the "Copy" button and write "backup" or something similar in between the existing filename and the ".WH1" extension. Now click on the "Save" button. You will then be back at the File Management dialog box. IMPORTANT: now click on the filename in the list that you originally wrote down, to highlight it.)

6c) Click on the "Edit" button and the Wheel Designer window will open. If it isn't full screen it may be useful to have it that way, in which case click the little black square (the middle button of the 3 buttons) at the very top right of the window.
The window should look similar to this...



This is showing Solar Fire's default single chart wheel style (a uniwheel) that it ships with. Of course you may see a different looking wheel depending on which wheel style you have selected as your default single chart style in Preferences/Edit Settings.

6d) On the right hand side of the window where it says "General Properties" click on the black downwards pointing triangle to the right of the text box.



6e) When you do this a drop down menu will open. Click on "Chart 1 Planets", which will select it.




You will then see all the properties that can be set for the chart's planets.




6f) Now you need a pen and paper. Make a note of the settings for all these properties. The property is in the left column, and the setting for it is in the right column.
To see the setting for the "Tick Width" property simply click on the property i.e. click on the row that says "Tick Width" and the numerical setting for it will be displayed in the top text box, just under where it says "Chart 1 Planets". If you are in doubt about what the setting for it is, note it down as a "2", which is a reasonably good setting for a tick width.

6g)  Now on the right hand side of the window where it says "Chart 1 Planets" click on the black downwards pointing triangle to the right of the text box.



6h) When you do this a drop down menu will open. Underneath Chart 1 Planets in the menu click on " - Chart 1 Extra Ring Points", which will select it.



You will then see all the properties that can be set for the chart's extra ring points




6i) You now need to set all these properties to the same values each of these properties had for Chart 1 Planets that you wrote down in step 6f.
To do this you set each property one at a time. First you click on the property, which will display it's setting in the text box that is underneath where it says " - Chart 1 Extra Ring Points" and above the list of properties




As I've said just above, the existing setting for the property that is currently highlighted (i.e that you have just clicked on) is displayed in the text box shown by the red arrow. All you need to do now is look at your notes and find the property that is the same as the one you have highlighted, and enter the setting for it (e.g. 3, 14.25, False etc)  in this text box, overwriting what is initially showing there, then press the "Enter" key on the keyboard. Now that property is set with it's new value, and you can move on to the next property and set that, and so on.

6j) When you have finished doing this click on the File menu (top left hand corner), then click on the menu option "Save", then the "OK" button in the message that says the file has just been saved. Then click on the File menu again, then the "Exit" menu option to close the Wheel Designer window.

6k) You will now be back at the File Management dialog box for Wheel Designs, where the wheel design you have just edited should still be highlighted. Click on the "Select" button to close this dialog box.
Now you should be back at the View Chart window, looking at the chart you displayed initially. Nothing will have changed with this chart.

6l) Now click on the "Redraw" button, and if all has gone well, you should see Lucifer displayed along with the planets in the chart. It will have the letters that you gave it as a glyph in step 5g. If you didn't do that it will possibly be called "a1".




That's it. With these settings, from now on Lucifer should be displayed in all your single wheel charts that you display by double-clicking on them in the Calculated Charts list. It won't display in biwheels etc unless you modify your default biwheel design to include extra ring points like we did for your default uniwheel design.

Hopefully this will be handy.
Upasika
Title: Re: Adding an additional point to the extra wheel in solar fire. Help requested
Post by: Steve on Jul 14, 2011, 06:03 PM
The correct URL is http://www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph/ephe/ast1/

I will change that in your original post so anyone who comes along later will see the correct URL.

It is not necessary to use the Solar Fire Wheel Designer to see extra ring points.  The wheel with extra points ships with Solar Fire.  You just have to make it the active wheel.

On the Chart Options Solar Fire menu, select Wheel Style and then UniWheel
A window will open up listing filenames.
The default Solar Fire wheel style is UNI1.WH1
Find UNIEXTRA4.WH1. highlight it, and click Select.
That will display your charts with a nice extra ring that shows the full name of the extra ring points rather than a shorthand code.

On some versions of Solar Fire those wheel filenames might not be capitalized.  That's fine.  Whether upper or lower case, select uniextra4.wh1.