Search, favorites and filters
This guide describes the Pillars phone app. The website does the same calculations, but some screens and features work differently or aren't here yet.
With four people in the app, you find anyone at a glance. With forty, you need a few tools. Search and filters show up on their own once you have five people or more.
Favorites
Every row in People has a star. Tap it and that person becomes a favorite. Tap again to undo it. The same star sits on their page, next to their name.
Favorites belong to the whole app, not to one person: a star stays a star whoever is "you". Starred people move up in every list: People, Switch person, and the pickers for relationships and groups.
The order of the list
Every list of people follows the same order:
- First, whoever is "you" right now.
- Then their starred relations.
- Then the rest of their relations, closest first: partner, parents, children, siblings, in-laws, friends, colleagues.
- Then the other starred people.
- Then everyone else, from A to Z.
Search
Type a name in Search by name. You don't need capitals or accents: "lucia" finds Lucía.
Filters
Under the search box there's a row of chips. Each one narrows the list, and they add up. Favorites plus Family shows only your starred family.
- Favorites: only starred people.
- Relationship: "Who are they to you?" Family, Friends, Colleagues or No relationship, each with how many people it holds. You can tick more than one.
- Place: "Where were they born?" The birth cities in the app, with how many people were born in each. Your own city comes first, marked Where you were born.
- Pillar: "Find by pillar". More on this one below.
While a filter is on, you'll see something like "3 of 12" and a Clear filters button.
One thing to keep in mind: relationships and "like you" are always seen from the side of whoever is "you".
Find by pillar
This filter has three modes.
- Shares a pillar with you: people with a pillar identical to one of yours, in any position. Your grandmother's Year pillar might be your Day pillar. The row tells you which one, like "Year 己巳, like you".
- Same Day Master: people whose Day Master is the same as yours.
- Pick a pillar: choose a stem, a branch or both, and then In which pillar? Any, Year, Month, Day or Hour.
When you pick, some characters fade out. That's because a stem and a branch only pair up when both are Yang or both are Yin, so some pairs simply don't exist.
Something to notice, not to prove
A shared pillar is a nice thing to spot. It isn't proof of anything. Two people with the same Day pillar aren't the same person, and they don't live the same life. But it's a good question to bring to the table: what do we have in common, and where are we different?