Tetrabyblos Professional Astrology Plugin Quick Manual

Tetrabyblos Requirements – Important notice Quick Setup Installation and Upgrade

Using available shortcode parameters

Option main page

Backup your texts

Restoring you reports

Backup all your options and changes

Restore all your options and changes

Custom images – upload and use

Multilanguage support

Backup and Restore settings

Re-Download Products / Purchase History

Tetrabyblos Requirements – Important notice

The only requirements for installing and run Tetrabyblos, are:

having a website made in WordPress
have the permission to upload and install plugins (allowed in any common and proper installation service)

Usually, any WordPress based website has these simple features. However, I encountered some cases where my users didn’t have the simple permission to install one single Plugin, not even the ones from the marketplace – which is far from being logical or fair since they are paying a considerable price for the hosting.

If you are using WordPress.com, for example, then you cannot install plugins. We often see on the web complaints from their users saying that they can’t see the plugins menu in their WordPress dashboard. It is because you are using WordPress.com, which has its limitations (earning limitations, inability of installing plugins or upload themes, etc.). You can, however, install plugins on WordPress.com if you upgrade to their business plan (which is expensive). On the other hand, you can install any plugin you want on your self-hosted WordPress.org website right out of the box. And the migration process from the first to the second is not that hard (we are preparing an article about the process). If you want to take control of your website, change its appearance and give it (almost) unlimited functionalities and features, you can either choose WordPress.org, or another hosting provider (not necessarily a specific WordPress one).

So, before ordering Tetrabyblos, you must be sure you can install a plugin. To do that, on your WP dashboard, click in the Plugins menu – if you don’t have it, it’s automatically the end of the story. If you do have it, look at its submenus and see if there’s an option “Add new”. Again, if not, you’re done. However, if you have that choice, make sure you have another one – after clicking in add new – called “Upload Plugin”. If you don’t reach this final phase, you are not able to install plugins of any kind. In some exceptions, you might be allowed to add one from the private WordPress marketplace, but not one you bought or downloaded freely from a trusted repository (including the WordPress itself). You can’t install an external plugin. Period.

Even if it’s for security reasons in some cases, the fact is that several users are being greatly impaired, with the wrong idea and impression that the service that they are paying is at a fair price and that they are enjoying a complete package and service with all the features of a normal WordPress installation. It’s not like this at all. You can have, for example, a simple shared host, with all the major features of any website (control panel, FTP, lots of space, etc.), and have a personalized installation of WordPress with all the features it offers. So, think wisely if you are one of these cases, not because you aren’t able to install specifically Tetrabyblos, but because you are being prevented to enjoy literally thousands of other useful plugins, mostly free.

Quick Setup Installation and Upgrade

(Steps for installing or upgrading the Plugin)

Please unzip the Bundle file called “Tetrabyblos_Vx.x.x.x_UNZIPME.zip”. You’ll get one folder called Documentation – the documentation in PDF along the zipped Max Heindel’s report – and a zip file called Tetrabyblos.zip, which is the plugin (do not unzip this last file please). Then, you have two scenarios:

If you haven’t yet installed any of the plugin versions the process is simple: enter your admin Word Press panel, click in Plugins (on the left menu), and then click – on the top – in “Add new “. At the new screen, click again on the top in “Upload Plugin “. In the next screen you can choose the file you want to upload, which is zip. After choosing the file, please click on “Install now “. Wait a few moments, and when the message that the plugin was successfully installed press “Activate Plugin” please – otherwise the plugin won’t show or run. You can see now the admin icon for Tetrabyblos at the right menu.
If you already have installed the old version, you cannot do automatically step 1. You must go first to the Plugins page – as before – and right below the Tetrabyblos label, you must deactivate it first (or you can check the box near to it, and in the bulk action choose “Deactivate”). After that, still in the Plugins page, you can then delete the plugin (the option is also bellow the name or check it and choose “Delete” from the Bulk operations). After this process, you can now proceed normally to step 1. Updating manually Tetrabyblos will make you lose all the files and configurations – except the reports if you made an earlier backup in the Tetrabyblos menu which can be restored.

Using available shortcode parameters

(Using Tetrabyblos Plugin in your page)

Using Tetrabyblos Astrology Plugin is rather easy: just place the following code

[tetrabyblos]

with the brackets wherever you want the interface to appear.

Tetrabyblos allows now to generate the natal chart components, or to send the user directly to the calendar of transits.

So, for the natal chart, just place the code

[tetrabyblos action=”natal”] or just [tetrabyblos]

And for the transits

[tetrabyblos action=”transits”]

So, you can create 2 different pages, which will have the same input, but will give the user 2 outcomes. Remember to choose the page you want the Transits to appear in the admin menu. By default, Tetrabyblos creates a page called Transits. You can change it to another name if you want. Whatever is the page you are going to use, you must place also a short code in it (the default page already has it):

[byblostransits]

with the brackets and in text mode. You can call that transits page directly – the input form will appear.

In the meantime, you can decide to give access only to users registered in your Word Press website. If that is the case, just place:

[tetrabyblos action=”natal” userlogged=”yes”]

Or in the transits case

[tetrabyblos action=”transits” userlogged=”yes”]

If you want to call a page to output the vedic north style chart, use the following shortcode on whatever page you want:

[byblosvedic]

It will generate a form data input (like in the natal case), and on submit will output the north vedic chart among other important information, along with the interpretations reports (optional, as in the other cases). You can also force the user to be logged by using userlogged=”yes” like before.

Important note: place this short code in TEXT MODE, otherwise Word Press won’t interpret the code correctly.

You’re done!

Option main page

In the main options page of Tetrabyblos, you can find basically all the possible configurations for it.

The first item in the options page, is the “Title of the forms”, which are the sentences that will appear in the input and results form, at the top. You can choose whatever you want. By default, it’s set to “Natal Chart Calculation” and “Ω – Natal Chart Results”.

In the second option, “Show natal interpretation”, you choose to show or not the written report to the users.

The third one, “Show transits interpretations”, is where you decide to show or not a transits option button in the generated natal chart of the user and redirect him to the page you want where he can see the current transits with his chart. This has nothing to do with the regular transits page, which I’ll explain a little later. So, you decide to show or not this button in the generated natal chart to allow the user to dig further, and in the result, you decide to show the transits text only, or the text plus the graphic table, with the aspects. If you won’t be using the page that Tetrabyblos generates automatically for you (called transits by default), you must define which page do you want, and place inside it the shortcode:

[byblostransits]

Otherwise, the plugin won’t know where to go.

The fourth option, “Show advanced options to user”, enables a section in the input form which allows the advanced user to choose the house system he wants to use, and the type of zodiac (western tropical, or several sidereal ones).

The fifth option, “Other Arabic Pars to show”, allows you to define other Arabic pars to be calculated and shown to the user. You have almost 90 additional pars besides the usual ones. But you can activate or not the ones you want (even the usual ones).

The sixth option, “Formula to calculate Pars Fortuna”, is a matter of opinion. The Pars Fortuna can be calculated differently for day or night or use the same formula. It depends of the astrologer’s point of view. Your choice.

The seventh option, “Select default values” defines the default values to be used in the fourth option, when this one is not available to the users. So again, you, as an astrologer, decide what system you wish to use.

The eighth option, “Select essential dignities table and score system”, gives you the chance to define which table of essential dignities and what type of score points you want to use. In the dignities, you can use even your own custom table (besides the traditional ones from Ptolemy or Dorotheus), that can be programmed a little bit lower in the options page. As for the score systems, 2 major ones are available:

System I: All the direct and mutual reception (m.r.) essential dignities and direct debilities are considered. A peregrine body is the one which doesn’t have any direct or m.r. essential dignity and it’s not considered to be peregrine if it’s in fall or detriment.
System II: All the essential dignities and debilities are considered, along with the mutual reception (m.r.) in rulership or exaltation. A peregrine body is the one which doesn’t have any direct or m.r. essential dignity or direct debility.

The ninth option, “Define graphic options”, has several aspects you can control. One is the type of chart that is draw: you can make it with or without the current transiting planets (that will appear outside the wheel). So, the option “Radix only” will only draw the natal planets. You can also choose if you want your chart in colors or in plain black and white – it’s an artistic choice.

Regarding the scale fields, they have a reason. Themes for Word Press are different, and in some the text and graphics will appear normal, but in others too big. You can reduce both the scale of the input/output form, and control the solar sign size, in a way that the plugin will match your page. You can also not show the solar sign glyph and/or name and/or the progress bar that appears while the plugin is making the calculations.

Finally, you can show in the written report if you want – and control the size – pictures for the ascendant, the body with most dignities, or all the bodies.

In this section, you also find the CSS style settings of the result page. Using the plain elements language of the W3.css javascript library (consulte its usage at their website at https://www.w3schools.com/w3css/), you can control de appearance of the buttons of the plugin, or the tables appearance, for example. The same happens with the layout of the result page. You can arrange a new disposition for the sections you want to show, and can configure also the colors that will be used in the graphic astrological chart (from the outer ring color, to the planets, and so on).

The tenth option as for the eleventh, are intuitive. You decide which bodies/points/sections you want to appear or not in the generated chart.

Choose whether to show or not the Vedic Info report, or the bodies/points Lilith, Chiron, Moon nodes, Pars Fortuna or the stars. Show, or not, the soft minor aspects, like Semisquare, Quintile, Sesquisquare, Biquintile, Parallel and Cont. Parallel. Disable the Astronomical information or the Arabic Pars if you wish so. You have control on what is show or not.

However, here is a special attention to 2 sections:

The “Now” button is a special feature not commonly used by astrologers, since it defines in the input form the time or date to the current ones. For some, this is important. For most, it won’t be. So, you can disable it by checking it.
The second, is the “Print” button, which allows the user to print the results. This is in a beta stage, not completely tested, which means you can use it, but must be aware that errors – small ones – can appear.

Note: whenever you make a change, please always press the “Save changes button”, otherwise your choices won’t be saved properly.

The final section of the main options page is the editor for the texts, etc. and is called “Tetrabyblos Personal Interpretations & Dignities Editor”. The name says it all.

By default, Tetrabyblos brings Max Heindel’s interpretation reports. So, if you choose to show the reports, they will appear in the chart information.

But you can make your own texts for the natal and transit interpretations easily. Again, two major points to not forget:

If you write any text, and don’t select the “Active” box near it, that text is a draft, and won’t appear in the interpretations report. This is great for making your texts quietly and with time. Another important point is that you must always save the changes in the blue button that says “Save Changes and delete marked” that allows to properly save those texts and to delete all the items you don’t want to keep; it just takes that they have the checkbox “Mark” selected near them. It’s very simple.

So the basic operations you can do after adding or modifying a text, or to create a new one, are:

Delete an entry (or several): just check the box next to the entry (entries) you wish to delete in the column “Mark“, and press the “Save Changes and Delete marked“.
Add an entry: write the text you want in the last blank and empty textbox for the specific combination you choose in the first columns, and again press the “Save Changes and Delete marked“. If the combination was already entered, you’ll be notified of the repetion.
To deactivate an entry (or several): uncheck all the entries you wish to define as drafts (or simply not to show them) by unchecking the box near to each at the “Active” Again, press the “Save Changes and Delete marked”. By default, all the entries are active and ready to be incorporated in the reports. To disable one, or several you don’t want to show, just uncheck it (them) and press “Save Changes and Delete marked “.

Despite this configuration, the texts will only appear if the option “Show Interpretations” in the main Tetrabyblos menu is set to “Yes”.

The dignities editor – your custom table – is intuitive. Just don’t forget to press at the end of the table in the button that says, “Save custom settings”.

Note: please make regular backups of these texts and your custom tables. The plugin will advert you of that. If you install a newer version of the plugin or loose the current one, you can always import the work you have done without having to do everything all over again.

Backup your texts

To backup your own text reports (along with its definitions), just press the Tetrabyblos Admin icon in your WordPress installation. There you’ll see an option for “Backup your Texts “. Make the backup by pressing the “Backup texts! “ button, and download the zip file by clicking in the indicated highlighted link “here” in the next screen. This zip will contain your work so far regarding the text reports and the dignities tables.

Restoring you reports

To restore your own text reports (along with its definitions), just press the Tetrabyblos Admin icon in your WordPress installation. There you’ll see an option/submenu to “Restore your Texts “. You’ll be asked to upload your previous backup (your zip file). Choose it and submit by pressing “Upload texts! “. The previous reports will be placed in the database accordingly.

Backup all your options and changes

To backup your own text reports (along with its definitions), your settings and preferences and your language translations (or just modifications), just press the Tetrabyblos Admin icon in your WordPress installation. There you’ll see an option for “Backup ALL“. The process will begin automatically, and you can download the zip file by clicking in the indicated highlighted link “here” – the system will probably ask you to save it.

Restore all your options and changes

To restore your own text reports (along with its definitions), your settings and preferences and your language translations (or just modifications), just press the Tetrabyblos Admin icon in your WordPress installation. There you’ll see an option for “Restore ALL“. The process will begin automatically after you choose the restore zip file to be uploaded from your computer, and will end when you see in the small report “Done!..”

Custom images – upload and use

In Tetrabyblos, you can use your own images for showing up in your reports. If you choose under the Tetrabyblos admin menu the option “Upload custom images “, you’ll see a panel which allows that. The process is simple: you just select/choose one image from your computer (formats accepted are jpg, jpeg and png) and apply it to a sign or a planet. So, for example, if you want to choose a personalized image to be shown for the signs, you must select 12 files, and apply each one to a single sign. The same applies to the planets.

Multilanguage support

An implementation of multilanguage support (a feature many times requested) was made. Now, most of the major and more important texts and strings on the plugin show to the user, can be translated manually by you, without having to resort to the paid Google translator API. The admin panel, however, was not yet translated.

You just must translate the strings/phrases you want, to other format or language and they will be replaced in the user’s interface. You can save your translation if you wish – or restore/download it at any time, or just simply restore to the default English language. We would appreciate it very much if you could send us the different language translations you have.

Backup and Restore Settings

Every time you install Tetrabyblos, the configuration setting of your choices will be reset to the default values. However, with this option you can export your current settings to a json file, and retrieve them later by importing it, so that the options that you wish to be defined by default in the admin main configuration panel can be restored with just one click.

Re-Download Product

If by any reason you need to re-download your product again, please enter on the member’s area, and click on the “History/Re-Download your products here” link (here). You will find a page where you can Request a “Re-Download” (by entering your email) to receive again the links of the products you allready purchased. In the same page, you can also consult the history of all the products you allready purchased.

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