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Astrolog has a feature to run "switch macros", or a whole command line with one small switch. The -M switch takes one parameter, which is the number of the macro to run. When encountered, the switches it represents will be processed. This is similar to loading in a generic command file with -i, except macros are limited to one command line. Macros however don't require separate files, and may even call command files themselves with -i.
The switch -M0 is the option that defines a macro. It takes two parameters: the index of the macro to define, and a string representing the command line to assign to it. (The command string probably needs to be in quotes to ensure it's treated as one parameter to -M0, instead of many items which will get processed right away.) There are 48 macro slots available to define or run. Macros may do anything and even call or define other macros. It's possible to get in a infinite loop if you make a macro (or command file) call or load itself; such cases aren't detected and will make the program terminate with some unusual error.
Macros are very powerful and their uses are nearly endless. A bunch can be defined in the astrolog.dat config file for your most common switch sequences, hopefully preventing things such as batch files that would have to be created otherwise. Suppose you often want to see the transits of outer planets only to the house cusps in your natal chart for the current month. The command line for this is "-i yourchart -tn -RT0 6 7 8 9 10 -R0 -RC -C". You can assign this to the tenth macro slot with: -M0 10 "-i yourchart -tn -RT0 jup sat ura nep plu -R0 -RC -C". That line can be put in your astrolog.dat and you can do this month's transits by just typing "astrolog -M 10". Here's another example: Suppose you want a feature to bring up the chart of the spouse of whoever's chart you are viewing at any time. You can define a special macro, say in slot 5, in each of your chart info files which does a -i on the file of their spouse, or does nothing i they're unmarried. Now when in graphics mode, you can press 'F5' anytime and Astrolog will bring up the spouse's chart! You could define a bunch of macros to set various color sets or aspect orbs and switch among them quickly using the function keys. You could even make a simple chart database by having each chart file load the next one in sequence in some macro, and then cycle through your charts by running that macro in a -Q loop or from the graphics screen.
Michael
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