Hi folks,
Some things to catch up on, concerning a temporary shutdown in
the mailing list, storing multiple locations, the "Go To... Comet"
function, suppressing "wrong stars" in GSC, and changing hotkeys
in DOS:
INTERRUPTION TO THE MAILING LIST:
Something I only learned about via another mailing list... looks
like Yahoo will be shutting down from 5:00 UT on 16 March to about
15:00 on 17 March:
http://groups.yahoo.com/local/service.html
MULTIPLE LOCATIONS:
Martin, you're right; some sort of function for this would be
a help. Right now, the best you can do is to go to "File.. Save a
Mark", and create a Mark file with that location.
The main problem with this is that a .MAR file will save all sorts
of other things too, such as display settings, colors, RA/dec,
field of view, et endless cetera. If you wish, you _can_ edit the
.MAR file and remove all extraneous lines. An example:
999 name Project Pluto corporate HQ
11 lat/lon -69.900000 44.010000 0
15 timezone 0.000
17 zonename GMT (UT)
20 home 3
...would store all the location-dependent data for where I am,
at longitude W 69.90, lat N 44.01. (In my case, I'm always using
UT, so I could safely omit 15 and 17. If I didn't occasionally
set my viewpoint to be another planet, I could omit 20.) Were I
to click on "File... Load a Mark" and select this file, only my
location would change; everything else would be left "as is".
Hardcore meddlers who want to know what lines mean what in the
.MAR file should look here:
http://www.projectpluto.com/mar_fmt.doc
COMET LISTING:
Right now, when you click on "Go To... Comet", you get a list
of comets down to the current mag limit. (If comets are "off" or
"on", and therefore no limit is set, Guide lists all of them.)
I'm pondering having "Go To... Comet" bring up a list resembling
that in the "Tables... List Current Comets" function. In the latter,
you get a list of more extensive comet data (location, magnitude,
constellation), and can click on a line to center on that comet.
Some of the other "Go To" functions could be similarly modified:
for example, "Go To Planet" might bring up a list resembling the
first dozen lines or so of "Quick Info", where you can click on
a planet name to center on that object. (Or on a rise/set time
to see that planet at the rising/setting time.)
WRONG STARS IN GSC:
Pat Madden wrote: "...I had no idea 80,000 galaxies were
misplotted as stars!" It's actually far more than that, especially
if you include all the other misplots of things such as plate
scratches, diffraction spikes, asteroids, and so on. But I
have (so far) taken a cautious approach and removed only items
which it is blatantly obvious ought not to be included.
DOS HOTKEYS:
Pierre Laporte asked about setting hotkeys in the DOS version.
The Windows version now has a nice little dialog box to do this,
but the user interface in the DOS version has basically been
unchanged for a long time now. But you can change DOS hotkeys
with a text editor:
http://www.projectpluto.com/hotkeys.htm
-- Bill