Compass Release Notes
Compass 1.1.4 (Oct 2, 2026)
Highlights
The main change in this release is to the Ctrl-drag on the Mundane and Transit charts, which now carries the chart through the retrograde loop of the dragged body instead of jumping over it, so moments inside the loop, such as the opposition of Mars to the Sun, can now be reached by hand. The rest of the release keeps the wheel readable, during a drag and wherever bodies stand close together: the coordinates beside each body are no longer printed over, overlapped or repeated.
Improved
• Ctrl-Drag Through Retrograde Loops: A Ctrl-drag now runs through the retrograde loop of the dragged body instead of jumping over it. When the body turns back, its ghost holds at the farthest degree it reached, and moving the pointer on carries the chart through the retrograde and the return at the average pace of the body, so moments inside the loop, such as the opposition of Mars to the Sun, can be reached; once the body is back on that degree the ghost follows the pointer again. The Sun, the Moon, the Mean Node and the Mean Apogee drag exactly as before.
• Ctrl-Drag Shows the Position Once: On the Mundane and Transit charts, a Ctrl-drag no longer prints the arrow and degree that followed the dragged body. The chart moves with the drag, so that degree only repeated the coordinates the wheel already prints beside the body, which now show its position alone. The angle printed on the aspect line while the drag is snapped to an aspect is unchanged.
Fixed
• Overlapping Body Coordinates: On a chart with bodies close together, the coordinate beside one body could overlap the coordinate beside its neighbour at some chart sizes, including the default size of a transit chart on some dates. The coordinates now keep clear of each other as the chart is resized.
• Aspect Name Over Body Coordinates: While Ctrl-dragging a body onto an aspect point of another body, the name shown for the snapped target could print on top of the coordinate beside a body, leaving both unreadable. The snapped aspect is now shown as its angle alone, such as 120°, printed on the middle of the aspect line it forms, centred on the line like a strikethrough, on an opaque background and in the same colour as the house cusp coordinates in either theme. No body is named, and when the body snaps onto another body itself, which draws no line, nothing is printed.
Compass 1.1.3 (Sep 30, 2026)
Highlights
Dragging a body on the Mundane and Transit charts now reaches aspects as well as bodies: a Ctrl-drag moves the chart with the body and lands at the exact moment of the aspect it is snapped to, and a Shift-drag on the Transit chart can jump to the next or previous time a transiting body makes an aspect to a natal one. Alongside those two additions, the drags behave the way they look, so a body released back where it started no longer sends the chart a whole cycle away, and the lunar nodes move the chart the way they travel round the wheel. The Light theme is also now a white, high-contrast scheme shared by every Rhythm Seven application.
New
• Ctrl-Drag to an Aspect: On the Mundane and Transit charts, a Ctrl-drag now snaps to the aspects the dragged body can form with the other transiting bodies, as well as onto the bodies themselves, and draws the aspect lines it would make while it is dragged. Releasing on an aspect lands the chart at the moment that aspect is exact. The aspects offered are those in the aspect list of the chart.
• Shift-Drag to a Natal Aspect: On the Transit chart, a Shift-drag now snaps to the aspects the dragged body can form with the natal bodies, as well as onto the natal bodies themselves, and draws the aspect lines it would make with them while it is dragged. Releasing on an aspect jumps the chart to the next time that aspect is exact for a counter-clockwise drag, or to the previous time for a clockwise one, and each further full lap moves one more occurrence along. The aspects offered are those in the aspect list of the chart.
Improved
• Light Theme: The Light theme is now a white, high-contrast scheme shared by every Rhythm Seven application, in place of its blue-grey backgrounds. Text is darker, control borders are clearer, and icons, warnings and errors stand out on the new background. On the chart wheel the rings, degree notches and cusp lines are drawn sharper in the Light theme; the Dark theme is unchanged.
• Shift-Drag Laps: On the Mundane and Transit charts, each whole lap a body is Shift-dragged around the wheel now moves the chart one transit further. Two full laps counter-clockwise land on the transit after the next one, and two full laps clockwise on the transit before the previous one.
• Ctrl-Drag Moves the Chart: On the Mundane and Transit charts, the chart now moves with a body while it is Ctrl-dragged: every other body is redrawn where it stands at the moment the dragged body reaches the place it is dragged to, while the house cusps and the orientation of the wheel hold still until it is released. The dragged body still snaps to the other bodies and their aspects where they now stand. While it is snapped to another body or to one of its aspects, the chart stands instead at the nearest moment that aspect is exact, so the dragged body sits on the aspect under the pointer and every other body is drawn where it stands at that moment, and the chart holds that moment for as long as the pointer stays within reach of the aspect. Releasing on an aspect lands the chart there, at the exact moment of the aspect. Pressing Escape puts the chart back at the moment it started from.
• Ctrl-Drag Released Away From a Body: On the Mundane and Transit charts, releasing a Ctrl-drag away from every other body now lands the chart at the moment the dragged body stands at the place it was released, as a Shift-drag does. It previously did nothing.
Fixed
• macOS Save Shortcut in the Editors: In the Locations Editor and the Natal Records Editor on macOS, Cmd+S now saves, matching the shortcut every other window already used. Ctrl+S no longer saves in those two editors on macOS. On Windows nothing changes: Ctrl+S saves as before.
• Directed Date After Changing the Natal Record: On the Solar Arc Directions and Secondary Progressions charts, selecting a different natal record now shows the directed date in that record's own time zone. It previously stayed in the previous record's zone until the time was stepped, and a chart saved in that state reopened still showing the wrong date. The wheel was always cast for the correct moment; only the displayed date was wrong.
• Delete After Adding a Row in the Editors: In the Locations Editor and the Natal Records Editor, Delete is now available as soon as Add creates a new row. It previously stayed greyed out over the new, highlighted row until the row was clicked again.
• Delete Key on macOS in Lists and Editors: On macOS, the delete key now removes the selected rows from the directions list of the Primary Directions, Solar Arc Directions and Secondary Progressions charts, from the aspect angle lists in the chart settings and the Aspect Settings editor, and from the Locations Editor and the Natal Records Editor. Previously only Fn-Delete did, and Backspace now does the same on Windows. Pressing Delete or Backspace while typing in an editor cell now changes only the text, where on Windows Delete also asked whether to delete the row.
• Default Chart Location on a New Installation: On a new installation, new Mundane and Transit charts now open at New York NY, USA with that location selected in their Location list, and the General tab of Chart Settings shows it selected as the default location. Previously the default named a location missing from the list, so both opened with nothing selected. A chart whose location has since been deleted from the Locations Editor still opens at its own location, as before.
• Shift-Drag Back Onto the Same Degree: On the Mundane and Transit charts, a Shift-drag that ends with the body back on the degree it started on, such as dragging it off a sign cusp and back onto it, now leaves the chart where it is. It previously jumped a whole cycle to the next or the previous transit, depending on exactly where the pointer stopped. A drop that snaps to a degree just behind the body now always finds the previous transit, and one just ahead of it the next.
• Ctrl-Drag Back Onto the Same Body: On the Mundane and Transit charts, a Ctrl-drag that ends with the body back on the body it already stands conjunct with, such as dragging it away and back onto it, now leaves the chart where it is. It previously jumped to the next or the previous conjunction, depending on exactly where the pointer stopped.
• Aspect Lines Measured in a Fixed Order: On the Mundane and Natal charts, every aspect line now measures each pair of bodies in one fixed order: how far the body that comes earlier in the standard aspect order is past the later one. A pair listed in the other order in the body list, such as Jupiter with an asteroid or with Tenet, or on a chart opened from an Aquila study, could be measured the other way round: its line was named and coloured as the mirror aspect, 270° in place of 90°, and an aspect list holding an angle but not its mirror could draw a line for an aspect the pair did not form. The lines drawn while Ctrl-dragging a body follow the same rule.
• Shift-Drag Back to the Starting Position: On the Mundane and Transit charts, a body Shift-dragged away and back to where it started now snaps to its original position, and releasing it there leaves the chart where it is. It previously stayed wherever the pointer stopped, and releasing jumped the chart by however long the body takes to cover that small distance. Dragged a full circle and back to its original position, the body now snaps there too, and the chart moves to the next or the previous time the body returns to exactly that degree.
• Shift-Drag Released While Another Is Searching: On the Mundane and Transit charts, a Shift-drag released while the previous one is still searching now replaces that search and lands the chart. It was previously ignored.
• Plus and Minus Keys While Dragging: Pressing + or - while dragging a body on the wheel no longer steps the chart time, which could cancel the drag or leave the chart at the stepped time.
• Parallel Aspect Names: On the Mundane and Natal charts, a parallel or contraparallel now names its two bodies in the same order as the other aspects of the chart, with its orb signed to match, whatever order the bodies are listed in. A chart opened from an Aquila study could previously name the pair the other way round.
• Dragging the Lunar Nodes: On the Mundane and Transit charts, Shift-dragging or Ctrl-dragging the North Node or the Mean Node now moves the chart forward in time when the node is dragged clockwise, the direction the nodes travel round the wheel, and back in time when it is dragged counter-clockwise. The chart previously jumped a whole 18.6-year cycle: a Ctrl-drag of the North Node by a couple of degrees from September 29, 2026 went to 2008 or to 2045.
Compass 1.1.2 (Sep 20, 2026)
The following bugs were fixed:
• Preset Name Prompt Icon: The dialog that asks for a preset name opened with no icon in its title bar.
• Windows License Identification: On Windows, Compass now identifies your computer from information it can read reliably. Earlier versions could not read that information at all and fell back to an identifier that described no particular computer. Because your license is tied to that identifier, it is re-issued for your computer the next time you open R7.Activator, by itself and without using up an activation. If R7.Activator asks for your registered name and activation code, enter them once. Computers running macOS are unaffected.
Compass 1.1.1 (Sep 18, 2026)
The following bugs were fixed:
• Crash When Revealing a Direction: Calculating a directions list, clearing it, and then dragging a new direction onto the wheel closed Compass without warning, reporting a stack-based buffer overrun. Scrolling the list to a row was measuring rows the list no longer held, so the same crash was possible on any of the three technique charts wherever a list had grown shorter since it was last scrolled — after Clear, or after deleting rows.
Compass 1.1.0 (Sep 17, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Unsaved Chart Marker: A chart window's title now shows an asterisk as soon as the chart has unsaved changes, rather than only once the chart has been saved to a file. A chart you have never saved still closes without being asked about, so the marker is what tells you there is work in it.
• Default Location: The Chart Settings window's General tab now opens with a Location setting, chosen from your stored locations. New Mundane and Transit charts open at that location, showing the current date and time in its time zone rather than your computer's. Natal charts are unaffected — they always open at the record's own location and time.
• Save and Save As: Every chart window's toolbar now begins with Save and Save As, which write the chart to a .compass file — the chart type, everything the chart is cast from, and everything the window displays it with, including the pinned instant of a stepped or jumped chart. Once saved, the window shows the file's name in its title, Save rewrites the file in place, and Save As writes a new one. Ctrl+S and Ctrl+Shift+S (Cmd on macOS) do the same from the keyboard.
• Open Chart: File ▸ Open Chart… and a new Open button on the main toolbar reopen a saved chart of any type exactly as it was displayed when saved, bound to its file. Ctrl+O (Cmd+O on macOS) opens the picker too; on macOS the File menu is new.
• Unsaved Changes: A chart window that has a file shows * after the file's name while it has unsaved changes, and asks whether to save them when it is closed — or when Compass is closed with such windows open, one window at a time. A chart that has never been saved closes as it always has, without asking.
• Primary Directions Chart: A fourth chart type, opened from Charts ▸ Primary Directions Chart or the toolbar. It casts a natal wheel plotting two body lists — the promissors and the significators — and a Directions tab carrying the projection, frame, latitude treatment, converse definition, key, rate and year reckoning, seeded from the new Directions & Progressions tab in Chart Settings. Shift-drag a promissor around the wheel and drop it on a significator's place, or on one of its aspect points in the zodiacal frame: the ghost's label shows the solved arc and date as you go, a net clockwise drag selects a direct direction and a net counter-clockwise drag a converse one, and releasing adds the direction to a list beside the wheel, kept in date order — the wheel itself stays at the natal moment. Selecting a row draws that direction on the wheel. The list follows the birth time: step or edit it and every direction re-dates, which is the rectification use; a direction that becomes undefined stays listed, greyed, with its reason. Directions are saved with the chart, and the promissor, significator and direction-aspect lists have preset shelves of their own.
• Calculate Directions: The Primary Directions chart's list now has Calculate, Delete and Clear beneath it, and Calculate fills it with every direction the chart's promissors, significators and direction aspects form — both senses of each — dated within a new Max Years setting of the birth. Max Years sits at the foot of the Directions tab, is saved with the chart, and is seeded from a matching default in Chart Settings. Calculate also arms the chart: until you press Clear, every change that affects the result — the natal moment, the frame, any direction setting, Max Years, and all three lists — re-calculates the list, so a rectification is one click and then a series of nudges to the birth time. Rows you delete stay deleted through those re-calculations; pressing Calculate again brings them all back. Dragging a direction that is already listed now selects it and scrolls it into view rather than listing it twice.
• Solar Arc Directions Chart: A fifth chart type, opened from Charts ▸ Solar Arc Directions Chart or the toolbar. It draws one wheel carrying your natal chart and the same points directed — every one advanced by the same arc, the Sun's own travel over the years you have lived — so a directed point beside its natal place is the direction, seen rather than read. A date and time band walks the directed date through the life, aspects between the directed and natal points are drawn as chords, and Shift-dragging a directed point onto a natal point's place or one of its aspect points adds that direction to a list beside the wheel, with its arc and its date, whatever date the wheel stands at. A Calculate button fills the list with every direction the two body lists and the direction aspects form within Max Years, and Directions & Progressions ▸ Solar Arc Directions seeds a new chart's rate, day type, arc multiple and year reckoning.
• Secondary Progressions Chart: A sixth chart type, opened from Charts ▸ Secondary Progressions Chart or the toolbar. It draws your natal chart and the progressed sky on one wheel — each planet at its own position one day after the birth for each year of life, so the Moon has moved a sign where the Sun has moved a degree. The toolbar's date and time walk the progressed date through the life at that compressed rate, and the birth time is edited on the Natal Data tab, which is the rectification loop. Shift-drag a progressed point onto a natal point's place or one of its aspect points and the ghost's label shows the perfection and its date as you go: dragging with the progressed sky's travel lists the next time that contact perfects, dragging against it the previous time, because a progressed point reaches the same place again and again — the progressed Moon about every twenty-seven years. Each row names whether the point was direct or retrograde when it perfected, and a drop dates at any age — the chart looks past Max Years as far as it needs to. Calculate fills the list with every perfection the two body lists and the progression aspects form within Max Years, and the Progressions tab carries the rate, user rate, day type, angle method, year reckoning and span, seeded from Directions & Progressions ▸ Secondary Progressions.
• Find a Direction by Date: The directions list on the Primary Directions, Solar Arc Directions and Secondary Progressions charts now has a date picker and a Find button above it. Type a date and press Find — or Enter — and the direction perfecting nearest that date is selected and scrolled to the middle of the list. Directions with no date, listed greyed with their reason, are passed over, and Find is unavailable while no listed direction has a date. Finding a direction selects it and draws it on the wheel; it does not move the chart, which is still Go to Date's job on the two charts that offer it.
• Aspect Settings for the New Chart Types: Edit ▸ Aspect Settings now offers Solar Arc Directions and Secondary Progressions beside the four existing types, each with its own aspects, orbs and chord colours. Neither editor shows a Parallels tab — those wheels plot no declination aspects — and the Solar Arc and Secondary Progressions editors keep their orb setting, unlike the Primary Directions editor, whose directions are exact.
• General Tab: The Chart Settings window's Defaults tab is now called General — the settings that reach every chart type, beside the new Directions & Progressions tab and Colors. Nothing moved; only the name changed.
• Directions & Progressions: The Chart Settings window carries a Directions & Progressions tab with three sub-tabs — Primary Directions, Solar Arc Directions and Secondary Progressions — one for each technique chart. Every row on a sub-tab seeds a new chart of that type and no other; an open chart is changed from its own tab.
Compass 1.0.9 (Sep 7, 2026)
The following bugs were fixed:
• Applying and separating on angle parallels: on a chart set to the equatorial reference plane, a parallel or contraparallel aspect involving the Ascendant, Medium Coeli, Descendant or Imum Coeli could be described as applying when it was separating, or the reverse. The angles' rate of motion was measured along the ecliptic while their position was measured along the equator.
Compass 1.0.8 (Sep 4, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Softer Equatorial Segment Numbers: The 1 to 12 segment numbers in the outer band of an equatorial chart are now drawn more faintly, so they read as a standing reference frame rather than competing with the chart's own content. They recede in both the light and dark themes, with the larger change in the dark theme, where they previously stood at nearly the same strength as a chart's house numbers.
Compass 1.0.7 (Aug 30, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Equatorial charts drop the zodiac: On a chart set to the equatorial reference plane, the outer band now marks its twelve 30° right ascension segments 1 to 12 instead of with zodiac sign glyphs.
• Equatorial charts show cycle angles: Selecting the equatorial reference plane now sets the Coordinate Format to Cycle Angles and disables the Coordinate Format dropdown, both on the chart window and in Chart Settings — a right ascension is not a position in a sign, so it is no longer printed as one. The format you had chosen is remembered and restored when you select the ecliptic plane again.
Compass 1.0.6 (Aug 30, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Aspect Presets per Chart Type: Aspect presets now belong to a chart type, so the Mundane, Natal and Transit charts each keep their own presets and their own default. A chart window's aspect preset menu offers only that chart type's presets, and a newly opened chart takes its angles from that chart type's default preset — so a Natal chart can open on a wider aspect set than a Transit chart. Presets saved in earlier versions are carried into all three chart types the first time this version runs.
The following bugs were fixed:
• Unsaved Changes Prompt When Closing With The Window Chrome: Closing the Locations editor and the Natal Records editor with the title-bar close button or Alt+F4 discarded unsaved edits without asking. All four ways of closing the editor — File ▸ Exit, the Close button, the title-bar close button and Alt+F4 — now raise the same Unsaved Changes prompt, and Cancel keeps the window open with the edits intact.
• CSV Import No Longer Discards The First Line: Importing a Locations or Natal Records CSV whose first line was neither the exported column header nor a complete data row discarded that line and then reported the import as successful. Such a line is now reported so it can be corrected, and a file whose values are all quoted — as a spreadsheet writes when told to quote every text field — now imports every row, including the first.
Compass 1.0.5 (Aug 17, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Drag a Body to Its Transit: On Mundane and Transit charts, hold Shift and drag a transiting body around the wheel to jump the chart to the precise moment that body transits the degree you drop it on. A translucent copy of the body's glyph, position dot, and coordinates label follows the pointer around the body band, and the drop snaps to the closest sign cusp, house cusp, chart angle, or other body (natal bodies included) within 1.5°. Drag counter-clockwise — the direction bodies travel through the zodiac — for the next transit, or clockwise for the previous one; press Escape during a drag to cancel it.
• Drag a Body to Its Conjunction: On Mundane and Transit charts, hold Ctrl and drag a transiting body onto another transiting body to jump the chart to the precise moment the two are conjunct. The same translucent copy follows the pointer, sticking to a target body within 1.5° and showing its name; drag counter-clockwise for the next conjunction or clockwise for the previous one. Releasing away from any body leaves the chart unchanged, and Escape cancels the drag.
Compass 1.0.4 (Aug 14, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Per-Window Chart Information Display: Each chart window now carries a Display Chart Info. checkbox that shows or hides the block of location, moment, and calculation-frame details drawn in the center of that window's wheel, where the option previously switched every open chart at once. The Display Chart Info. option on the Chart Settings window's Defaults tab now sets whether new chart windows open with the block showing; from there each window's checkbox is independent. The checkbox sits at the right end of a new strip of display settings beneath the wheel, where the Coord. Format and Display Lat./Decl. settings now live as well, leaving the settings panel beside the wheel to the settings that recalculate the chart.
• Latitude/Declination Display: Each chart window now carries a Display Lat./Decl. checkbox, on the display strip beneath its wheel, that prints each body's latitude — its declination on an equatorial chart — on the body's own ray in a dedicated band just inside the zodiac band, so the coordinates never cross the zodiac glyphs, house numbers, or house cusp coordinates. The Display Lat./Decl. option on the Chart Settings window's Defaults tab sets whether new chart windows open with the band showing; from there each window's checkbox is independent. The value follows the chart's Coordinate Format, as signed degrees and minutes (+17°43') alongside sign coordinates or as signed decimal degrees (+12.792°) alongside cycle angles, labels fan apart automatically when bodies cluster, and the entity menu's Copy Position text carries the same value while the display is on.
• Faster Chart Redraws: Chart windows re-lay-out substantially faster during time stepping, window resizing, and settings edits. The chart now redraws only the parts a change actually touches — an aspect settings edit redraws just the aspect lines, a chart-information toggle just its center block — and repeated text measurements, degree-notch geometry, and line styles are reused between redraws, roughly doubling the time-stepping rate.
• Default Calculation Frame: The Chart Settings window's Defaults tab now carries Zodiac, Coordinate Origin, and Reference Plane options, at the head of its first column, that set the frame every new Mundane, Natal, and Transit chart opens in. A practice working sidereally, heliocentrically, or in right ascension and declination no longer has to change three dropdowns on every chart. Each window's own dropdowns still work exactly as before, so an individual chart can be re-framed without disturbing the default, and changing the default leaves charts that are already open untouched.
• Per-Window Coordinate Format: Each chart window now carries a Coord. Format dropdown, leading the display strip beneath its wheel, choosing between Sign Coordinates (15°Leo37') and Cycle Angles (135.616°) for that window alone. Two charts can now be read side by side in different formats — one in signs, one in cycle angles — where the choice was previously application-wide. The Coordinate Format option on the Chart Settings window's Defaults tab now sets what new chart windows open with rather than re-labelling every open one, and the Defaults tab's settings have been rearranged into two columns to suit.
• Display Tab Renamed: The Chart Settings window's first tab, previously called Display, is now called Defaults. Its settings had grown well past appearance — the zodiac, coordinate origin, reference plane, and house system a chart is calculated in all live there — and every one of them sets what the next chart window opens with rather than changing a chart already on screen. The new name says so, which is why each option reads simply Zodiac or House System rather than repeating the word Default on every row.
• Plane-Specific Parallel Orbs: The Aspect Settings window's Parallels tab now carries separate Ecliptic Orb and Equatorial Orb settings for both the parallel and contraparallel aspects, and every chart automatically applies the orb matching its reference plane — declinations range past ±23° while ecliptic latitudes cluster within a few degrees of zero, so one tolerance could never suit both. The ecliptic orbs default to 0.1° and the equatorial orbs to 1.0°, switching a chart's reference plane re-matches its parallels under the new plane's orb immediately, and a chart opened from an Aquila parallels or contraparallels event applies the orb for the plane the study ran under. Each aspect's chord color remains shared across the planes, and previously saved orb settings carry forward unchanged, seeding both planes with the value in use before the split.
• Checkbox Styling: Checkboxes now carry the same styling as the dropdowns and text boxes beside them, keeping one background and border whether they are ticked or not, so the tick alone shows whether a setting is on. A checkbox that has the keyboard focus now draws the same accent-colored border every other field draws, where before it gave no sign of holding the focus, and the accent color is no longer used to fill a ticked box. Checkboxes also take up the same height as those fields now, so a checkbox row on the Chart Settings window's Defaults tab lines up with the dropdown row beside it.
The following bugs were fixed:
• Unsaved Locations Lost After a Failed Save: Closing the Locations editor with unsaved changes and choosing to save no longer discards those changes when the save cannot be completed. The editor now reports the error and stays open with the edits intact so the save can be retried, matching the Natal Records editor.
• Pasting Into Date and Time Fields: Pasting into a date or time field with the keyboard — Ctrl+V on Windows, Cmd+V on macOS — now replaces the value as expected. Previously the keystroke did nothing whenever the field already held a complete date or time, and the value could only be replaced by right-clicking the field and choosing Paste.
• Clipped Dropdown on the Transit Chart's Ephemeris Tab: The bottom edge of the last dropdown on the Transit chart window's Ephemeris tab — now Paral. Aspects — is no longer cut off. On a display running at a fractional scale such as 125%, the dropdown's lower border and rounded corners were trimmed away; the control now draws in full at every display scaling.
Compass 1.0.3 (Aug 5, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• About Dialog Icon: The About dialog now shows the application's full-colour icon image in place of the previous single-colour symbol.
• Meridian House System: A twelfth house system, Meridian (Axial Rotation), can now be chosen on any chart and set as the default. It divides the celestial equator into twelve exact 30° arcs, so on an equatorial-reference-plane chart its cusps fall exactly 30° apart; on an ecliptic chart they are unequal. Its first cusp is the East Point rather than the Ascendant.
• Timekeeping System: The application's timekeeping system has been brought up to date.
• Cycle Angle Precision: Positions shown as cycle angles now read to three decimal places instead of five, on the body and house cusp labels alike and in the text the Copy Position and Copy Description commands place on the clipboard. The extra decimals are dropped rather than rounded, so a body is never shown at a position it has not yet reached. The shorter labels also let the house cusp coordinates render at a larger size on many chart sizes.
Compass 1.0.2 (Jul 31, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Uranian Bodies: The eight Uranian (Hamburg-school) hypothetical planets — Cupido, Hades, Zeus, Kronos, Apollon, Admetos, Vulkanus, and Poseidon — are now selectable in every chart's body lists as a new Uranians group, which always appears last. Each has its own chart glyph and default color.
• Hold to Scroll Through Time: Holding down a chart window's forward or back time-step button now scrolls the chart continuously through time, just as holding the + or - key does. A single click still steps exactly one time unit.
• Keyboard Aspect Reordering: Aspect settings can now be reordered from the keyboard — ALT+UP and ALT+DOWN (OPTION+UP and OPTION+DOWN on macOS) move the selected setting one position in its resolution-precedence order. Dragging a setting with the mouse continues to work as before.
• Chart Information Display: Charts can now print their key information in the center of the wheel — the location and moment (with UTC offset), the natal person, birthplace, and birth moment where applicable, and the zodiac, coordinate origin, reference plane, and house system in use. The text sits on a semi-transparent rounded panel, framed like the chart window's lists, so the aspect lines behind it stay visible, sizes itself to the available space, and always describes exactly what the wheel is showing. Enable it with the new Display Chart Information checkbox on the Chart Settings window's Display tab.
• Automatic No-Line Aspects: The "Nil (no line)" checkbox has been removed from the Aspect Settings windows. Charts now decide on their own when an aspect line would be pointless: any aspect angle within 1° of zero separation — such as the 0° conjunction, or a cycle angle like 359.5° — draws no line, because its two bodies sit at nearly the same wheel position. Every aspect setting now simply carries a color, and existing settings are updated automatically.
The following bugs were fixed:
• Default Chart Orientation: The Mundane, Natal, and Transit orientation defaults on the Chart Settings window's Display tab now always apply to new charts. Previously, changing the orientation inside a chart window quietly overwrote that chart type's default, so the next chart of that type opened in the last orientation used rather than the one configured. The orientation dropdown in a chart window is now purely a per-window choice, like the Paral. Aspects dropdown beside it.
• Chart Information Line Spacing on macOS: The chart information panel no longer stacks its lines too tightly on macOS. The panel draws in each platform's own interface font, and the macOS font leaves no space between one line and the next, so the text read as cramped; it now carries the same line spacing the panel has always had on Windows. Charts on Windows are unchanged.
Compass 1.0.1 (Jul 26, 2026)
The following functionality has been added or enhanced:
• Control Labels: Control labels were re-styled with a slightly smaller font size, so they sit more subtly beside the values they describe.
• Natal Records UTC Offset: Exported natal records now include a UTC Offset column after the natal date, recording the clock offset in effect at the moment of birth. For a birth time that occurred twice — during the repeated hour when clocks are set back at the end of daylight saving — the offset identifies which occurrence is meant, so importing the file restores the exact birth moment instead of assuming the daylight-saving occurrence.
• Location Import and Export: The Locations editor now has a menu bar matching the Natal Records editor, including a Data menu for importing and exporting the location collection as a CSV file with Name, Latitude, Longitude, and Height columns.
The following bugs were fixed:
• Retrograde Bodies on Hand-Off Charts: When a chart is opened from an event in Aquila, retrograde bodies are now marked as retrograde in their position labels, including after stepping backward in time into a retrograde period. Previously the retrograde marker was missing on charts opened this way, even though it appeared correctly on charts opened directly in Compass.
• Held Time-Step Animation: Holding down the + or - key to advance the chart through time now repaints the wheel continuously as the moment moves, so you can watch the planets travel. Previously the wheel stayed still until the key was released, even though the date was already racing ahead.
• Time-Step Keys in the Date and Time Fields: The + and - keys now step the chart moment even when the date or time field, or a closed dropdown, has the focus. Previously those fields absorbed the keys and did nothing with them, so the chart could only be stepped after moving the focus elsewhere. A date or time typed into a field but not yet entered is now applied before the step, so the step moves the moment you typed.
• Entering a Typed Time: Typing a time into a time field and pressing Enter now redraws the chart for that time, matching what pressing Enter in a date field has always done. Previously the typed time sat in the field until the focus moved elsewhere, so the chart appeared to ignore it.
Compass 1.0.0 (Jul 21, 2026)
Initial release. Compass is a professional astrological charting application for casting and reading traditional wheel charts.
The following functionality is available in this release:
• Wheel Charts: Cast Mundane, Natal, and Transit charts as traditional wheels, each in its own window.
• Chart Configuration: Set the frame, bodies, and aspects for a chart in the configuration panel beside its wheel.
• Chart Time Navigation: Step a chart forward and backward through time to see how the sky changes.
• Chart Settings: Choose the appearance and display defaults that new charts start from.
• Aspect Settings: Decide, for each chart type, which aspects the wheel recognizes.
• Reference Data: Maintain shared Locations and Natal Records for reuse across charts.
• Aquila Integration: Jump from an event in Aquila straight to its matching chart in Compass.
• Update Notifications: When a new version of Compass is available for download, a toolbar button with a download glyph appears next to the theme toggle button in the top-right region of the application window. Clicking the button opens the download page for Compass in your default web browser.