Delphic Oracle 9 XPF release date

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The Windows version of Delphic Oracle 9 will be out on July 31 at 1:08 pm (election set for Pulaski, NY). The Mac version still needs file configuration and testing of the Swiss Ephemeris dylib. Here's a preview showing the Copper style. There's a few more issues to iron out that are minor so I might release it as a beta at first but it's coming along very nicely. The graphical capabilities are highly advanced with HD chart display and unlimited color, glyph and wheel combinations (because they can be user defined).

This is a cross-over version where you can use the same registration in version 8 and 9 and run both programs at the same time. If you've been considering upgrading or buying, now is the time to do it because after release, the price will probably double from what it is right now.
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Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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Version 9 has been released for Windows 7, 8, 10...

** Version 9.0.0.0 - Beta. I'm giving it this designation because some program features aren't finished such as printing, the Medieval and Hellenistic chart views, fixed star display in the sign wheel and aspect lines. Otherwise this update represents the greatest step forward ever taken for Delphic Oracle. The graphics are based upon an entirely new framework capable of true 3D (not a 3D representation such as a globe on 2D). The mathematics are different in true 3D. Consider this... Should you be able to see the equator of the earth if you're stationed 750 miles above the north pole? The answer is no. You would be in approximately the right position to see the small circle parallel to the equator known as the Arctic Circle on the horizon. The graphics in TerraChron are based upon this technology and give you the impression that you're in a Theater.

Also the 2D representation of charts is much crisper in this framework. Gone are the old windows GDI routines that render raster graphics with jagged lines due to estimating pixel colors with XOR. Colors are rendered without the need for boundaries that give a much smoother appearance. This framework also has many advanced capabilities such as glow effects, gradients, patterns, etc... that I haven't taken full advantage of yet but are in applications such as PhotoShop. More color definitions and color styles have been added so that you can get just the right contrast effects between fill and boundary which allow wheels to blend into each other when desired. This has allowed me to get rid of the "music score" effect in Time Wheels which instead of displaying planets show temporal activation in the chart. The Chart Designer has been updated to take advantage of many of these capabilities and has a wheel wizard to guide you through creating your own chart designs. You can show signs, bounds, decans, lunar mansions, etc, in any order with varying thickness by drag and drop in the wizard. This Wizard has great flexibility and allows for an unlimited number of chart designs that can match or surpass anything else out there. The live data technology has been updated to include more information in hover over hints for the main chart display. The time lord graph, graphic ephemeris have been updated with a better design.

The main program window makes use of mobile components such as group bars, expanders and splitters to allow a more flexible display between small and large screens. This is partially because the framework is capable of generating iOS and Android applications, but for the time being I'm focusing on Windows and Mac OS. This version is going to be released in Windows first, then depending upon how things go with the Mac installer and file configuration, it will be released on Mac OS X.

While this migration to the new version takes place, I've allowed for the running of version 8 and 9 together using the same registration. They use separate settings so you can run them side by side without interference. The experienced user will notice that many of the examination windows such as time lord displays, primary directions and dignity charts have retained similar appearance and the main menu options have kept their original configuration so that there is still the feeling of familiarity.

There are now 6 ColorStyles in the Chart Designer (2 new ones) to account for the stroke and fill options. The new ones are MatchSectionFG and MatchSectionBG, which stand for Foreground and Background and allow the stroke and fill to match colors using the same color. There is also a new Stroke color to differentiate between Foreground and Background colors. When you click on a ColorStyle property (there's one for each wheel), it will show a hint to the right describing where the color is being applied. These 6 properties change depending on whether it's a planet wheel, sign wheel, etc. The stroke color is used in line boundaries between drawing objects on the screen and allows for blending between foreground and background colors.

Some features in the Chart Designer aren't finished because fixed stars and aspect lines aren't done yet so keep in mind that the first few releases you might want to just stick with the Themes tab, double clicking to change appearance instead of designing your own. The Wheels tab is where finishing up work needs to be done, but the Visibility, Colors and Glyphs are finished. I can't guarantee that designs you create on the Wheels tab will use all of your definitions in future releases until the Wheels tab is completely finished. Also I recommend that you stick with AutoSizeFont = True (part of the Wheels tab) until I finish setting custom design settings. The fonts are by default larger now.

A new version of the Swiss Ephemeris is included with several new house systems: Abenragel A-P-C, Charles Carter's Poli-Equatorial, Equal MC (equal houses from the midheaven), Equal Aries (Aries is first house), Pullen SD, Pullen SR, and Sripati. Also added cardinal ingress options (for the Sun) to the Derivative Charts dialog.

Important Notes: The behavior with listboxes is different than on typical windows applications. In order to change the order of items in a list one must first click so that it is highlighted (and let go) then click on it again and drag. One cannot simply click and drag. Also when selecting/switching to whole sign houses, program reboot is required for proper initialization. If you happen to do a Hellenistic solar return when a different house system is selected, the display will be incorrect until you restart the application. When starting the program for the first time, the autogenerated charts (F3 - Autogenerated tab) list may be blank. Just click the Clear button between the two lists at the top and it will reset, then drag the chart types you want over to the right in the order you want them in the display, then click Save between the two lists, and Save at the bottom. Clicking on the time lords graph, graphic ephemeris and double clicking on various time lord lists will then generate your autogenerated charts for the date you selected.

This version has the Olson time zone update 2016e - 2016f and has implemented a user defined database auto-backup function (F3).
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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Looks great Curtis, but I'm wondering about this statement:
I'm giving it this designation because some program features aren't finished such as printing, the Medieval and Hellenistic chart views, fixed star display in the sign wheel and aspect lines.
To a non-tech like me, this sounds like I can't print or see the square charts. The later doesn't bother me, but the lack of printing might.Do I understand this correctly?

Any schedule for completion?

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Tom wrote:Looks great Curtis, but I'm wondering about this statement:
I'm giving it this designation because some program features aren't finished such as printing, the Medieval and Hellenistic chart views, fixed star display in the sign wheel and aspect lines.
To a non-tech like me, this sounds like I can't print or see the square charts. The later doesn't bother me, but the lack of printing might.Do I understand this correctly?

Any schedule for completion?
Yes. Version 9 doesn't have printing yet. It depends upon how things go. Of course if you just want to print a chart, there's ways to do that by making a screen shot and printing that with another program. But printing HD graphics usually means setting a different scale for computer on screen vs off screen based upon the DPI (resolution). Printing on screen graphics typically results in a grainy texture.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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That looks a little high on the memory usage. Mine is typically as shown below:
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What were you doing in the program just before showing this dialog?

One of the reasons why I didn't release it last fall was because it was taking 6 seconds to calculate a chart when I dynamically allocated the memory for the classes responsible for chart display (every time). My solution to this problem was to statically allocate memory at program boot for all the relevant classes instead of dynamically allocating memory each time a chart was drawn. This means a longer boot time at program start and greater memory usage, but faster display in animation effects. By doing this, the calculation for chart display is a fraction of a second.

Notice that you have almost exactly double the usage that I have. Did you run more than one instance of the program?

Try closing all instances and restarting.
Last edited by zoidsoft on Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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I'd be interested to know what boot times you are getting? On my iMac i5 (8GB RAM) it's taking 25 seconds to boot, but on my Windows 7 laptop (also 8 GB RAM from 2012) it takes 35-40 seconds. Some older machines are taking as long as 2 1/2 minutes to load.

I thought that 25 - 40 seconds for program boot was a reasonable trade off for the speed of use when running the program.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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It occurred to me that the more likely explanation for that level of memory use is due to TerraChron which is a true 3D astrocartography module. I just added a higher resolution map to the globe and looking at it in Task Manager, it tops out around 700 MB for RAM usage. When not running TerraChron, the usage is in the range of 290 MB to 330 MB. Perhaps the nearly exact doubling of RAM is just coincidence and not an indication of a second instance of the program running.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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Here are the fresh infos, yes, due to TerraChron memory usage go above 500-600MB, without it in normal case it's below 400MB.
Starting up of app takes 50 seconds on Win 8.1 32-bit 8GB - to me, all these numbers are too high!
Solar Fire 9 takes 28MB of RAM, Sirius 33MB, but they haven't 3D or 4D modules!

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Version 8 of Delphic Oracle takes between 12 - 26 MB by comparison. I allow users to run previous versions of my software. I remember when Solar fire 3 took over a minute to load on my laptop back in 1995, but those days are long gone.

Google Chrome takes about 330 MB on my machine (with about 12 pages open right now) and my programming environment is up in the 700 - 800 MB range. Delphic Oracle 9 is where the future is headed though. Solar Fire and Sirius will have some catching up to do in the graphics department.

BTW, one of the ways I was contemplating getting around this issue was to do a web based app version of Delphic Oracle and have the server do the graphics crunching because a server is many times more powerful than an end user machine. The problem though is unless you have a high end T1 line for your internet connection, animation would be much slower, but one could serve up high quality graphics through an internet connection as long as it was static. I opted for the client side solution because current hardware is already starting to make use of solid state / hybrid drives by default.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC