Hi folks,

I've made progress on most of the bugs reported, and ought to be
posting an update shortly. In all cases, I got the errors to appear
in very obvious ways, and got solutions that appear to make sense.
This covers the odd display in 'chart' mode (and probably in other modes
where the background isn't black) mentioned by Mark Huss, and the
weird display errors with the XZ catalog mentioned by Masaki Kouda.

Also: John Greaves pointed out (in a private e-mail) that the
format for Brian Skiff's photometry file, LONEOS.PHOT, changed
recently. So I had to change my user-added-dataset definition file to
match. Those of you using the new LONEOS.PHOT in Guide should get
this file, too:

http://www.projectpluto.com/loneos.zip

About getting a list of objects in a user-added dataset: yes, there
are a few cases where this would be pleasant. The quasar 3C273 is the
one that everyone mentions, but there are others.

I have evaded this task because most of the datasets are absolutely
enormous, and would create enormous lists. However, there are a couple
of ways I may be able to get around this. One that I favor would be to
provide a way to make a "list of objects", normally limited to those
currently on-screen and to a given magnitude (though this could be
overridden). This list could be saved to a file or printed, much like
other lists shown in Guide. But you could also scroll through it and
click on one of the items shown, and Guide would recenter on it.

This is already possible for (for example) asteroids; try the
"Tables... Current Asteroids" function, and you'll see what I mean.

Ideally, I would probably extend the user-added dataset functionality
so that, in addition to letting you specify what data is listed in the
short info box and what's listed when you click for "more info", you
could specify what is listed on a "list of objects" function. For
starters, though, I'd probably just have the RA/dec, magnitude, and
object name listed.

I don't want to get anybody's hopes up about this happening soon,
though. As is probably obvious, Guide 8 is _much_ later than I planned
<grin>, in part because I like adding nifty new features. I am
currently attempting to control that urge, and am working on adding
_only_ the items I have promised people would be present. If I add
everything I want to add, Guide 8 will be released just after the
heat death of the universe.

-- Bill