Celestia Forums

I am a new user of Celestia on Mac OS X 10.5. i am using Celestia 1.6.0

I really want to use addons but when i download them they:

1 - seem to be written for PC users
and
2 - tell me to put the addon folders in the celestia extras folder.


Where is this folder? ...as i understand it... the new version for mac has everything included in the .app file. I tried to drag and drop the folders (and individual files) into the application but that def didn't work.

any ideas? this is really frustrating me but maybe i'm just dumb.

Berg,

I suspect you are dealing with a ZIP archive.
Many addons will be in a ZIP archive which must first be extracted, and only then can the extracted contents be copied to the EXTRAS folder.
In WINDOWS a ZIP archive is usually extracted using WINZIP or some other compression utility.
I don't use a MAC, but I believe there are tools/utilities available for OS-X which are able to extract these archives.

Once you have the contents extracted, look to see if a README file is included with the addon, and also read the following...

For the basics on installing addons, you should start here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/Add-Ons

To understand how celestia.cfg works (including an explanation of how the extras folder is configured), read this: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/Customization

A wealth of further information is here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia#Customizing_Celestia

CC

berg wrote:Where is this folder? ...as i understand it... the new version for mac has everything included in the .app file. I tried to drag and drop the folders (and individual files) into the application but that def didn't work.

any ideas? this is really frustrating me but maybe i'm just dumb.

You are not a dumb; for strange reasons the "CelestiaResources" folder is now deep inside the application's bundle. The best you can do is create a "Celestia" folder, place inside your application, then right click it to open the bundle (second choice in the contextual menu), then browse for the "CelestiaResources" folder and drag and drop it inside the previously created folder, next to the application.
Now inside this "CelestiaResources" folder you will find all you need, "Extras-standard" folder, configuration file, Script folder and more... If the "Extras" (simple) folder is not there, just create it to place inside all your addons.

For your zip problem, there is a ton of solutions, just do a googling...

sweet...so i have now succesfully add a few addons to Celestia and all is well.....sort of... i added the star wars addon (http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... don_id=167) for tatooine, endor and the death star and i have the planets sitting there. thats great. but they are just formless orbs orbiting around Rho Crb. And the Deathstar doesn't exist. yes, i restarted celestia....many times....yes i made a Star wars folder and put it into Extras-standard. Yes, when that didn't work i also took the individual texture and models folders and took them straight to the main Celestia Textures and Models folders. any ideas?

Some possibilities about what might cause surface textures not to be visible are described at
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... tro.html#6

Do any of them help?
They're described for a Windows environment.
I'd appreciate any help in making them applicable for a Mac environment, too.

so i figured it out...all i had to do was place the files in the celestia "textures" and "models" (respectively) main folders without it being in a "star wars" folder. i just dropped them straight in and voila! still not quite sure as to why i had to do that as every where i read it just says to leave the files in the "extras" folder but..it works...thnsk guys!

Berg,

What method have you been using to extract the Addons from their Zip files?
An addon Zip archive usually contains the datafiles already inside their appropriate directories.

By default, when a zip file is expanded on a Windows system, it creates the models and textures/medres directories within the extras directory with the catalogs. models and textures already inside them The files don't have to be moved by hand into different directories.

Is this not happening on your Mac?

Yes...it does...and yes it did...but it didn't work til i dropped them in the main folders...no idea why though. Any ideas?

--- edit ---

Properly updating add-ons are in the responsability of the users who submitted them, not the Celestia development team.

Fridger