Hi folks,

As usual, in no particular order...

Jari, regarding the suggestion for putting images on-screen: I wound
up writing a long enough reply that I'd best not post it here, and I
decided it probably ought to land on my "thoughts for the future" page.

http://www.projectpluto.com/future.htm#pretty_pictures

Ove, similar comments about compiling lists of objects... my reply
on that is now at

http://www.projectpluto.com/future.htm#data_tables

Andre, regarding 'attention swings'... I wouldn't worry about this
too much. It's true that at present, a good chunk of my time goes into
user support (a half to two-thirds; it varies a lot from day to day.)
As you suggest, "...Competing products would probably not address
such specific issues." But I suspect that most software of the more
mundane, word-processing/Internet surfing/accounting/game variety runs
into troubles that people can diagnose from basic principles. The problems
people run into with Guide (at least the ones I hear about) tend to be
more subtle than that.

In a perfect world, I'd hire somebody to handle most of the more
routine user support. Finding someone to do that would be nearly
impossible... most people who are smart enough to provide good tech
support for a product like Guide are also smart enough to find jobs
that pay more money than I could offer. I don't expect anything of the
sort to happen. Providing good user support is, in my humble opinion,
a necessary thing, part of what you get when you send me money. I'll
have to do it myself.

Most of the questions I get, unfortunately, are _not_ routine, FAQ
type questions. I can answer a routine question right away, by pasting
and clipping text and/or a URL, and this is very easy for me to do.

Andrea, regarding a list of asteroids reaching opposition between
dates X and Y to mag Z: Ummm... I will have to give that one some thought.
An obvious answer would be the new 'miscellaneous tables' method in Guide.
In that case, I don't have to do any programming at all to get this to
work; all I'd need would be a list of objects reaching opposition, and
a bit of time with a text editor. (I'm beginning to like the 'miscellaneous
tables' feature; I think it will save me a lot of work. When people say,
"I'd like to see this dataset in Guide", my reflexive answer now is,
"You can make it a user-added dataset, through the .TDF system." And
from now on, when somebody asks for a list of events, I'll probably say:
"Make it one of the 'miscellaneous tables'.")

Regarding the Millennium charts: I was afraid you were looking for
that <grin>. Right now, the SA2000 and Uranometria lines in the legend
are handled by special software. I've considered having some sort of
method whereby Guide can consider an "atlas" to be a collection of
RA/dec rectangles defined in a file, figure out which one best covers
a given spot in the sky (probably the rectangle for which that RA/dec
is farthest from a chart edge), then show that in the legend.

It would apply not only to the Millennium, but to any other star
atlas and to the Palomar/SERC survey, RealSky/DSS plates, and so on.
But, as with too many other projects, 'considering' it is about as
far as I've gotten.

-- Bill