Luach Jewish dates, times & festivals calculator with World and Agenda interface For Series 3a, Series 3c, Siena (c) Aron Landy 1997 Introduction ------------ The program displays Jewish calendar dates and Halachic times. There are 6 display modes: all are available via the menu as well as via "hot-key" key-presses. On-line help is available (and removable in case space is scarce). In all modes, dates can be entered either as civil or hebrew dates. The user's location can be selected from any place in the World database, and halachic definitions can be changed. Month & day names, festival and fast names, times of start and end of shabbat, festivals and fasts and sedrah and haftarah of the week can all be written to (and subsequently deleted from) any agenda file. Installation ------------ You should have unzipped the following files: luach.txt this file luach.opa program file luach.hlp help file sys$help.opo help manager (help manager (c) Tom Dolbilin) Basic installation: 1. Copy luach.opa to \app 2. Make a new directory \luach 3. Copy luach.hlp to \luach 4. Copy sys$help.opo to \opo 5. From Psion System screen menu, install Luach using Menu-Apps-Install or Psion-I. Memory requirements: Luach requires approx 50k disk space for installation, and an additional 50k run-time space. Advanced installation information: Luach's help files, luach.hlp and sys$help.opo, can be on any drive. Help installation is not mandatory. Note: Data File When you exit from "Luach", a file called \luach\luach.dat is created automatically, to save some parameters. If there exists a directory \luach, on any drive, it will be used for this file - if not, the directory will be created on drive M:. So if you want this file to be on another drive (e.g. B:), make sure that there is a directory (such as B:\luach) ready. If you are happy to have it on drive M: no action is necessary. Shareware Information --------------------- Conditions of Use, Registration, Licence & Disclaimer ----------------------------------------------------- This program is shareware, which means that if you continue to use it you should register with the author. Conditions of Use ----------------- Before using the software you must agree to the following. By using it, you are deemed to have agreed to it. 1. Any legal relationship between you and the author shall be governed by the laws of England. 2. You warrant that you will keep proper complete and recent backups of all files used by the program, in particular all agenda files which you access with Luach. 3. You agree not to decompile, reverse translate, reverse engineer or tamper with the software or license in any way. Licence ------- The program will work without a registration licence, except that a reminder of unregistered status will be displayed on entry and exit. In addition, Agenda Transfers for periods beyond May 1997 will not work without a licence (however you can try out the function for past dates without restriction). For a licence to suppress these reminders and restrictions, please send £10 or equivalent to the author at: 56 Primrose Gardens, London NW3 4TP, England. Please quote the version no. and where you got the program from, as well as your "Owner Name" (EXACTLY as saved in your Psion's "Owner Info" - needed because the license is an encrypted version of it) . Disclaimer ---------- Note that the software is provided as is, without any warranty of any kind. The author shall not be liable for any loss of data or damage arising from the use of the software. Suggested Use - Illustration ---------------------------- On my own Psion, I use the program in the following way. I use the Agenda Transfer function to write the times of Shabbbat, Sidrot of the week, Hebrew Month/Day names and Festival names into my diary. I don't have any Yahrzeits, but I would write them into the diary too if I did. I then have everything I need in the diary. I use the Luach program to work out other info, such as Barmitzvahs, times of Shabbat in other places, other people's Yahrzeits, and "Zmanim" (see later). Program Description ------------------- Once installed, use of the program should be self-explanatory, but for completeness a guide follows. In all display modes, Psion-M switches between civil date entry and hebrew date entry. 1. Day Information Mode This mode is accessed by the key Psion-D. For a given day, the civil & hebrew equivalents are shown, together with the location (see later for how to set this), the day of the omer, the date of the next Rosh Chodesh and its molad, and information about the next shabbat - times for in & out, sidrah & any special haftarah. [Rule for haftarot - unless otherwise specified, read the haftarah corresponding to the last component of the "Sidrah". For example, if the "Sidrah" is "Vayikra;RCh;HaChodesh", read the haftarah for HaChodesh.] To change the day press Tab or Enter. Space bar sets the date to today. Pressing Psion-Z brings up a window showing the "zmanim" for the given date and location - 7 different times from Alot HaShachar, via Kriat Shema to Sunset & "Night" times. [On the Siena, Shabbat commencement times are also displayed - note that in this window, this times is for the day itself, as if it were shabbat, and not for the next shabbat.] Any time shown as "n/a" indicates that it could not be calculated, probably because the Sun didn't get to that position at all on that day (e.g. there is often no sunrise/set at the north pole). [See end of this file for full explanation of Zmanim] 2. Shabbat Timetable Mode This mode is accessed by the key Psion-T. For a given day, shows in & out times for the next 9 shabbatot. Press enter/tab to change start date. Takes a while to calculate - pressing a key will stop it after the current line. 3. Major Chagim Mode This mode is accessed by the key Psion-C. Shows dates of major chagim for a number of years, one column for each year. The number of columns depends on screen width. Press enter/tab to change year, left/right arrows to scroll columns one at a time, Control-left/right to scroll by the screenful. 4. Minor Chagim Mode This mode is accessed by the key Shift-Psion-C. Shows dates of minor chagim in the same format as the major chagim mode. 5. Barmitzvah Mode This mode is accessed by the key Psion-B. It is a barmitzvah calculator for up to 5 people. Use Tab/Enter to enter the name, date of birth (and whether it was after dark i.e. on the next hebrew day), and whether the barmitzvah is held in Israel or the Diaspora. The 13th birthday, the barmitzvah shabbat, sidrah and any special hafarah are calculated. See the "Day Info" section for explanation of which haftarah is read. Pressing left/right scrolls through the 5 people's details. The names and details are saved on exiting the program. The problem birthdays of 30th Cheshvan & Kislev and leap years are all taken care of. 6. Yahrzeit Mode This mode is accessed by the key Psion-Y. It is a Yahrzeit calculator for up to 5 people. Use Tab/Enter to enter the name, date of death (and whether it was after dark i.e. on the next hebrew day), and year for which the yahrzeit is to be calculated. As for the barmitzvah mode, pressing left/right scrolls through the 5 people's details, names and details are saved on exiting the program, and problem anniversaries are taken care of. 7. Settings There are two sets of settings - location and halachic. 7.1 Location Settings This mode is accessed by the key Psion-L. Use this mode to select your location, chosen from the cities in the "World" database. If your location is not shown, add it into the "World" database using the World program. To change cities, either press left/right to move to the previous/next city in the database (in alphabetic order), or press Tab/Enter. Enter the name of the city (or the first few letters, a "clue") and the database will be searched. The dates for Daylight Saving Time (summer time) are set automatically or manually. Automatic calculation is based on the "Zone" settings in the "World" database. The rules used are: Europe: last Sun Mar - last Sun Oct North: first Sun Mar - last Sun Oct South: last Sun Oct - last Sun Mar In addition, Israeli cities use the rule: first Sunday after Pesach - Sunday of Selichot starting These rules are good for Europe and USA/Canada, but may well be wrong for other places, so take care. If the automatically calculated dates are wrong, "Manual" mode can be selected, with DST start and end dates entered explicitly. The display shows whether DST is in effect for the day currently selected in the "Day Info" mode. 7.2 Halachic Setings This mode is accessed by the key Psion-H. Here you can set (by pressing tab/enter) the parameters by which halachic times are calculated. Preset ones are (as used by London Beth Din) Alot: 16.1° (degrees) Talit: 11° (degrees) Candles: 15 (minutes) Tzait deg: 7.5° (degrees) Tzait min: 3 (minutes) The way they are used is described above. Note: the London Beth Din appear to use the geographical co-ordinates of North West London for their calculations; I have found 51°35'N,0°11'W (i.e. Golders Green!) to be the best fit to their published times. You may wish to add this location to your "World" database. [See end of this file for full explanation of Zmanim] 8. Agenda Transfer Psion-A brings up the "Agenda Transfer" dialog. Month & day names, festival and fast names, day of the omer, times of start and end of shabbat, festivals and fasts and sedrah and haftarah of the week can all be written to (and subsequently deleted from) any agenda file. First set up the transfer by entering the range of dates for the transfer, the function (write to agenda, find existing entries in agenda, or delete existing entries). Specify the agenda file name - by default the program looks in the directory \agn. (Press Tab when on the filename field to access other directories.) The type of data to be transferred must also be specified, to be one of the following four types: a) In&Out Times: times (for your location) of start & end of shabbat, festivals and fasts as well as the sidrah of the week for every shabbat. For the haftarah, unless it is specified in parentheses, read the haftarah corresponding to the last component of the "Sidrah". For example, if the "Sidrah" is "Vayikra;RCh;HaChodesh", read the haftarah for HaChodesh. Daylight Saving is taken into account. NB: Automatic DST works across all years - Manual DST only applies between the exact dates you input. b) DayNames - All: Every day will have a descriptive entry, such as "26Adar1", "Pesach1", "Yom HaAtzmaut-Omer 20". In the year view, chagim will be shown with the following letter codes: P-Purim and Pesach, S-Shavuot and Sukkot, R-Rosh Hashana, Y-Yom Kippur. c) DayNames - Chagim: Only chagim will have the descriptive entry. "Chagim" here includes minor festivals and fasts - 43 days each year. d) Yahrzeits; For all of the names specified in the Yahrzeit mode (except any beginning with "*"), write the yahrzeit into the agenda if it is within the date range selected for the transfer. It will show in the year view with the code Z. Finally the "signature" must be specified. See below for more details on the signature. I suggest that you leave it on "Hidden". When you have specified what is to be done, press Enter to activate the function. If you are finding or deleting, the program will display each relevant record as it finds them (not necessarily in date order) and will prompt you for action. Thus you can choose which records to delete and which not. 8.1 Agenda Transfer - Important Notes 1. If the agenda file is open the transfer will not work. 2. Make sure you have a backup copy of your agenda before transferring data - just in case something goes wrong. 3. Notes on deleting: the program searches for any entry containing the given type of signature. This should be only luach entries, but obviously this cannot be guaranteed. It is advisable to check each one as it is shown to you. 4. If you do any deleting, it is a good idea to use the Compress function in the agenda to keep the agenda file from growing too big. This is because items "deleted" from the agenda are not actually removed from the file, but are simply not shown. It is the compress function which removes them from the file. 8.2 Agenda Transfer - Technical Detail on "Signature" It is easy for Luach to write to an agenda, but when finding an entry which Luach wrote before, it must have a way of telling that a particular entry was actually written by Luach. It does this by looking for a "signature". This is a little item which other agenda entries are unlikely to have. It works in one of 2 ways - a special code is included with the agenda entry either "Hidden" inside the agenda file or as a "Visible" character at the end of the text of the entry (or both). The hidden signature is neat and works for the current software version - but may not work, or may conflict with, future versions. This is because it uses a tiny unused bit of memory in each agenda item - and future Psion versions might come along and want to use it too. If you encounter problems, use the visible signature. Halachic Definitions -------------------- Times shown as "Zmanim" or written to agendas are calculated as follows. Note that all of the parameters mentioned in can be set by the user via the program's "Settings" option. Alot HaShachar: time at which the sun is degrees below the horizon. Earliest Talit: time at which the sun is degrees below the horizon. Kriat Shema: 3 proportional hours after sunrise (a proportional hour is one twelfth of the time between sunrise and sunset). Tefilla: 4 proportional hours. Mincha Gedola: 6.5 p.h. Plag HaMincha: 9.75 p.h. Shabbat In: minutes before Sunset. Shabbat Out: minutes after the time at which the sun is degrees below the horizon. N.B. Candle lighting time for the second day of a weekday Chag is this time WITHOUT adding TzaitMin minutes. Fasts: start Alot HaShachar, end at the time at which the sun is degrees below the horizon (WITHOUT adding TzaitMin minutes) 9Av: start sunset, end as for other fasts Erev Pesach: Eat up to end of 4th proportional hour, burn up to end of 5th hour