There is this already in Guide, but you kind of have to do it yourself.

You can eyeball some news point in Guide and save that position, time and other particulars as a MARK file, but lots of these and the dialogue window gets a bit small to search for them all.

But another feature that does this is the ETB file.

However, you've to 'roll your own'.

I've at times wondered how many coders there out there, however, as the ETB file format (Events TaBle) is one of the more rigid in Guide. So, .NET jockeys, C script gurus, or even Excel Macro users could've developed a front end for inputting data into an events file of events files.

Basically, there are several "go to here and/or then" in ETB, they could be drop down selections, A for asteroid, and you'd then input asteroid number and a date, etc, just as you would a planner.

You could save your etb files as is with filenames to remind, or with names sorted on date as the string descriptor, again this could have an input box in an input proggie, and the Event based, ie temporal, etb file would be sorted on your input dates, and as that is as full screen as you wish, having a kind of more info help screen, that'd be easy enough to read. You'd have to edit out the dead events yourself, but folk really do expect the machines to do everything nowadays, that's why they miss so many things, not thinking for themselves at all.

Or you select RA or C or something from a drop down for goto coords. Then you'd input those.

A comment freeform text so you not what it is, really ETB is ideally designed for it, it's rigid enough to have an input dialogue semi-automated, whilst allowing freeform labelling.

And it'd spew out the ETB to filename of choice when a submit was written, or possibly _append_, so you could keep adding to an events master file, as well as generate ETB.

And it could have an input table format, whereas as long as you've got stuff in proper column order, and comma separated, it could import long lists typed into something more convenient (like excel) and exported as .csv files. You could import files from elsewhere in something like a spreadsheet, sort them in the right order, insert a column of the Guide specific bits (like the goto codes) and save it out in the format needed as a .csv file ready for import into the ETB generator.

For example, I've got an ETB file for going to some objects I've researched upon, rather than to times and events, here's the first line

^11.16 13.61 81 68 24.6 4//gr 6.25752,-59.06509^

That's a rigid stucture right there.

In the text comments box, the line that would possibly be sorted upon if one used a date based event listing (user would have to remember to start each line with a date in that case!!!) is the

11.16 13.61 81 68 24.6 4

which tells me things, ie data.

the //gr 6.25752,-59.06509 bit are decimal degrees for RA and Dec, so you'd input those into a separate RA and Dec box (there'd have to be a choice for sexagesimal input too).

A drop down could say A for asteroid, R for RA and Dec coords, C for Comet, P for planet, etc, and the program would know exactly which //g syntax to use. Object based ones would automatically allow an input date and time too, which ain't necessarily needed for coords, so you'd go to your object then.

In Excel you'd have

11.16 13.61 81 68 24.6 4,r,6.25752,-59.06509

outputted as your csv, if lots in a table, first bit comment/name, second bit GOTO code (r for RA/DEC here), then each of RA and Dec.

There're are slight problems here, because likely it should really be

11.16 13.61 81 68 24.6 4,r,6.25752,-59.06509,,

cos no time has been put in, but such vagaries can be worked around on import.

Why don't I do it then? Well, I dunno how, not in universally usable coding languages, and I've never really fully figured out the etb formats and codes.

But it's rigid enough to have this sort of little third party "app" to be a very simple public domain tag on for Guide.

But coding folk often seem to do weird things like tell you when new moon will rise in Ulan Bator or something as a smartphone app rather than do aught useful.

Incidentally, your telescope control would be implicit, as once you are at a position in Guide, ready, you can get it to point the 'scope there. I believe that's the case anyway.

Summary : Folk have asked for a planner in Guide for ages, well, there is one in the ETB system, but you've to type it in yourself and learn the coding and commands. However, the ETB system is structured enough that an input front end, like a standard webform similar to webforms everyone is familiar with nowadays, could easily be put together by them that are into that sort of thing.

If someone does this, I hope they fully look into how ETB works, not just how it parses, to see how it is applicable in practice, rather than just dashing something off that looks good but don't do much of use.

Cheers

John