As I said, it's already doable. There's some documentation on ETB files in the manual, both online and in print.

Bit sparse mindst.

There are several ETB files available that can be used to aid in reverse engineering.

But basically there's coding for the link naming, the flat ascii identifier, per row, there's //g for the goto, and I think //t for the time, I can't remember which, and that's a standard format.

So, if your planner can export in that order, name, //g for goto (probably always easiest to have coords outputted there), and //t, well, it'd output to a format Guide can use, and has been able to since about Guide 6 or 5 or whenever ETB came in (probably 1999 by the looks, so that may be as far back as 3 or 4, I know I've used it a lot in the past).

The USER has to do some work, they have to save it to an etb file with a meaningful name they can look up, and the identifier/flat ascii/name/link part of the ETB has to be recognisable, but that's it.

If they want it to do absolutely all the thinking then they'll miss out on astronomy, because they'll miss most things that happen.

So, let's go look at Rigel, for no good reason except it gives me an example. We'll call the fall "BrightStar.etb" for no better reason than we will. We'll pretend it has the 20 brightest stars in it, but I'm only going to do the line for Rigel. And for no readily apparent reason we'll look at it at midnight on new year's day.. ...or is that eve?

----------cut and paste from next line-------------
;e Bright Stars
!
^Rigel //gr05h14m32.27s,-08d12'05.9";t01/01/2012 00:00:00^
----------cut and paste to above line--------------------------

Cut and paste this into the Guide directory as an ascii file. I've tested that, and it works.

First line says it's in English, and the title of this ETB is Bright Stars. It's actually irrelevant what the file is called, as long as it ends in .etb, but it's helpful to pick a sensible file name.

Second line is just a !

You can write stuff in the row before the ^ and after the ^, in fact you can hav ^ ^ doublets, with the bits to be processed, more than once in a line. Stuff outside it will be written in black and just be text, stuff between it will be red and underlined and a GOTO in Guide, stuff before the first // is for labelling what you are going to do, stuff after the // are for doing it. //gr is goto ra, I thought then I'd have to put //t for the time, but it seems the // commands can be concatenated via a ; .

And the ! says "in More Info write up tables in monotype font so they are neatly formatted on columns", works in TDFs too that one.

Anyway, you go up to the Menu, Select Tables, go to the bottom of that list and select Miscellaneous Tables, and then you get a list of all the tables available, one will be named Bright Stars. You get a few with Guide upgrades I think, usually asteroid occultation stuff and mutual satellite of Jupiter stuff some years, when they are happening. Object and time, just like a planner, surely...

You'll only see the word Rigel linked, click on it, you'll go there position and date wise. Date doesn't have to be incuded, btw, it's not essential.

It can also be a toolbar button, for quick access, though if I remember rightly that currently says "24", whereas something "ETB" or "Events" or whatever would be something of a better button label.

It's been there ages, it works, it can be worked with, table headers can be the date or night of observing, eg "Next Friday" instead of "Bright Star", do it which ever way planners work.

The above is the basic core, identifying link label/name, coords in sexagesimal, and the time, probably local time (you can choose other sorts I believe). And if that ain't enough you can look into it more for doing other things, but that should be all you need, and mostly what your software cn achieve. For instance, just guessing, table header could be "Friday 1st Whenever", and each row could be saved sorted in time order by the planner, and include a rought time in the string if needed, as surely these are data within any planner?

Stuff's always there if folk bother to look for it. Export to is possibly the onus of the person wanting to use the "to" and not the owner of the "to", because although import is often nice, depends whether the imported "from" has enough users/need related to it.

Personally I cannot even remotely understand the need for an automated night planner, pencil and paper or just memory was always good enough for me, though I'd sometimes have to print out a chart or two via Guide for some trickier starhopping that the Petersen Field Guide didn't quite deliver on or there was some comet or asteroid to search for, but with new GOTO machines etc I suppose people can view lots more in one night. And miss out on the serendipity too, no doubt, like the odd meteor, the look of the sky and all its colours, not all of which are artificial, the naked eye stars, the changing ones, the twinkling ones, the migrating wild fowl, the tumbling satellites, whatever. I wonder if folk actually do a night's observing without looking up nowadays? Probably, if they're stuck in a dome too. Yeah, I know I sound luddite, but I can see folk using their smartphone to take remote ccd images on rentascops before long, and not actually eyeballing anything. Although that's not all bad either, especially for those who have no means of doing any observing otherwise.

Cheers

John

-------- Original Message --------
From: "msdeprest" <msdeprest@...>
Apparently from: sentto-1412422-8146-1304858109-wisetdf=safe-mail.net@...
To: guide-user@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [guide-user] RE: Observing Planner to work with Guide
Date: Sun, 08 May 2011 12:34:59 -0000

>
>
>
> I have propose this idea to Bill a number of times, Phyllis K Lang over at Knightware has tried to contact Bill about putting together an interface that would allow Deep Sky Planner to work with Guide. Which already interfaces nicely with Chartes du Ciel, Redshift, Starry Night, and The Sky. Strangely Phyllis says that Bill did not respond ...
> I have a number of friends that are currently using Sky Tools just for the very reason that it allows them to create a planned observing session. I for one would love an interface between Deep Sky Planner and Guide.
> Just my thoughts ...
> Mark S Deprest