Your chart, arch by arch

Your chart is four arches standing side by side, like four doorways into the same house. From left to right they're your Year, Month, Day and Hour pillars. Each arch holds two characters: a stem on top and a branch below.

The Chart tab shows whoever is selected. To see someone else's chart, tap the avatar at the top left, or tap their name in People.

The top of the screen

Under the name there are two small chips.

• The first one is the convention, for example True solar time, day starts at 11 pm. Tap it to open How we calculated it.
• The second one tells you how certain the pillars are: All four pillars are exact, Three of four pillars (no birth time), The hour depends on the convention, Several possible versions, or Imported, unverified.

Then a line tells you when and where the person was born, by the clock and by the sun.

The four arches

The Day arch glows a little and carries the tag You. Its top character is your Day Master, the center of the whole reading.

If the birth time is missing, the Hour arch stays empty. That isn't an error: three pillars still say a lot.

If the time was given as a range, one pillar may have two possible versions. Its arch is split in two, and a card explains the options. Tap the split arch to compare them, or use Add exact time if you find out the time later.

Tap an arch

Each arch opens a sheet with its details:

• The pillar in plain words, like Yang Water over Dragon (Earth).
• Its role next to your Day Master, such as Creativity or Support. On the Day arch it says Day Master (you).
• The Hidden stems: the characters each branch carries inside, like seeds under the soil, each with a colored dot for its element and its role.
• The Stage and the Na Yin, two traditional images for the pillar.
• A label at the bottom: From your chart for calculated pillars, or Imported, unverified for pillars typed in with an earlier version of the app.

Words with a dotted underline are glossary terms. Tap one for a short meaning, and Learn more if you want a longer article.

Why that year?

If you were born in January or early February, before the Start of Spring, a card explains why your Year pillar belongs to the year before. It shows the exact day and time Lì Chūn arrived in your birthplace.

Your Day Master

Further down there's a portrait of your Day Master: its character in a circle of its element's color, and a headline like You're Yin Fire: a candle. A few lines explain the image the tradition gives it, then a question to think about. The Traditional reading label has a Why? that shows the rule.

The rest of the page

• Full reading: the long reading, section by section.
• See together and See as a group: your chart next to one or two other people. They appear once there's someone else with a birth date.
• Elements: how many of each element your chart has.
• Ten roles, Symbols, Compass (Kua) and How we calculated it: one tap each.
• Relationships: who this person is to the others in your list.

In Settings, Terminology switches between plain names and the classical ones. With Traditional, the roles show up with their Chinese characters and pinyin.