Documentation

[chris]

I'm interested in improving the documentation for Celestia. With powerful but complex features like reference frames, documentation is more important than ever. I've decided to add some pages to the Celestia WikiBook. I've written a basic article on the common syntax of Celestia catalog files (ssc, stc, and dsc) and reworked some notes on time scales:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/C ... alog_Files

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/Time_Scales

I will be adding more over the next few weeks. I plan to focus on the new SSC file features, as they're new and very sparsely documented. I hope that it's helpful, and I invite others with the time and knowledge to contribute to the WikiBook too.

--Chris

[Malenfant]

Would it be possible to get our own dedicated celestia wiki? (like, for example wowwiki.com for the World of Warcraft computer game). This sort of format is ideal for documentation IMO - the existing Celestia wiki really needs to be reorganised somewhat though...

Also Chris - I don't think you've linked your articles to the main celestia page yet, have you? http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia

[chris]

Here's a new page that describes how to use JPL ephemerides in Celestia:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/JPL_Ephemerides

--Chris

[chris]

Would it be possible to get our own dedicated celestia wiki? (like, for example wowwiki.com for the World of Warcraft computer game). This sort of format is ideal for documentation IMO - the existing Celestia wiki really needs to be reorganised somewhat though...

I suppose that we could get our own Wiki. But, the Celestia WikiBook is there already, and I wanted to get started quickly. I definitely agree that the existing wiki could use some reorganization.

Also Chris - I don't think you've linked your articles to the main celestia page yet, have you? http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia

I had a link for the catalog file reference, but not for the time scales. Thanks for pointing out the omission. I added a link for the time scales page to the topic list, but the topic list should be subdivided. I think time scales belongs in a 'Concepts' subsection. The page on JPL ephemerides is currently linked from the SSC guide page; it might be better placed in a 'howto' section.

--Chris

[Guckytos]

Hi chris,

the wiki-idea is a good thing. But why not pack things like the documentation for SSC and STC directly into the official distribution?

I mean, the two guides already exist as PDF which should be readable on every system.
And Adirondack said, that he wanted to compile them into ONE comprehensive document.

Anyways, if you have some new features for the STC built into 1.5.0 i'd really like to know about them. So i would have to update the STC once again

[chris]

Here's some documentation on reference frames.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/Reference_Frames

It's at this point not much more than an outline with a few examples, but there's enough information there for it to be useful.

--Chris

[chris]

There have been some recent updates to the Celestia WikiBook. I've started on a reference for all the orbit types that may be used in catalog files:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/Trajectories

The user Urhixidur has contributed some new reference frames examples that are useful if you want to use the satellite mean elements from JPL's Solar System Dynamics site:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/R ... mics_pages

--Chris