Celestia Forums

Long awaited Celestia 1.6.2 is out.

Bug fixes, new and updated translations, big updates to macOS interface, support for 64bit Windows system, Y dwarves.

Got to download page to get it.


Full changelog:

1.6.2~beta1
Bug fixes
* Options dialog is hidden on delete event instead of removed (GTK+ frontend)
* Fixed crash when loading of a celx script failed
* Localization support enabled early on startup (GTK+ frontend)
* Fixed compilation on MIPS platform
* Add missing gettext calls to make units (km, Kpc, ...) translatable
* Fixed compilation with modern compilers (Apple Clang, GCC9, LLVM7, MSVC2015)
* Fixed syntax error in GL2 shader called when there is no light sources
* First object in Guided Tour can be selected (Windows frontend)
* Fixed errors reported by PVS studio and Coverity
* Fixed compilation for 64 bit target of Windows frontend
* Removed a few deprecations of macOS frontend

Platform-specific changes
* Unix: GTK+ frontend made translatable
* Unix: celestia.desktop updated for GTK+ frontend
* Unix: build infrastructure updated for newer autotools
* Windows: tilde (~) can be used in filenames to represent home directory
* Windows: Use Segoe UI font instead of MS Sans Serif in dialogs
* macOS: Fully 64 bit, support for 32 bit is dropped, with a minimum deployment target as OS X Lion
* macOS: Application is sandboxed and part of the application bundle is codesigned
* macOS: Support dark mode on macOS Mojave or higher
* macOS: Add a dialog for choosing celestia.cfg and CelestiaResources directory

Code optimization and reorganization
* Warnings reported with `-Wall' mostly fixed or suppressed

Features
* Leap seconds added for 2012, 2015, 2017. Dropped for 1 Jan 1972
* Add support for Lua 5.2 and 5.3, drop Lua 5.0
* Favorites file by default is saved to user home directory:
- Unix: $XDG_DATA_DIR/Celestia (~/.local/cache)
- OS X: ~/Library/Containers/space.celestia.Celestia/Data/Library/Preferences
- Windows: %APPDATA% (~/AppData/Roaming)

Scripting
* Add titles for example scripts

Translations:
* Add Norwegian Bokmål translation

1.6.2~beta2
Bug fixes
* Use "kpc" instead of "Kpc"
* Fix markers rendering in multiview mode
* Fix scripted orbits and rotations (broken by update to lua 5.2)
* Fix compilation with MinGW

Platform-specific changes
* macOS: add means to migrate preferences created by old version
* macOS: migrate memry management to ARC
* macOS: better support for dark mode
* macOS: update icons
* macOS: remove own code to setup fullscreen mode
* macOS: do not change app time zone when transforming date
* macOS: use gettext instead of localized string
* macOS: allow more alternative surfaces in menu
* macOS: switch to LUA 5.1
* Unix: fix celestia.desktop to reference celestia-gtk instead of celestia-gnome
* Unix: fix speed in "Time" menu (10x -> 2x)
* Windows: use SHGetFolderPathA to get Application Data directory
* Windows: convert messages written to console to OEM CP
* Windows: fix bug in favorites file directory construction
* Windows: allow to create portable builds
* Windows: don't make splash topmost window
* Windows: make "Resolution" text in "Display mode" dialog wider
* Windows: update to support CSPICE & LuaJIT
* Windows: fix sorting in a star browser

Translations
* Fix incorrect translation of Sol to Seoul
* Update French translation
* Update Belarusian translation

Documentation
* Update INSTALL

1.6.2~beta3
Features, backported from 1.7
* Update bolometric correction and temperature for T class
* Add Brown Dwarf spectral class Y
* Update temperatures for cool stars
* Don't render corona for T5-T9 and Y class stars
* Add binary XYZV format for sampled orbits

Bug fixes
* Fix failure if an incorrect URL is pasted
* Don't abort if starnames.dat has not been loaded

Platform-specific changes
* Windows: fix installer script to include required *.dll
* Windows: copy old favorites file to the new location
* Unix: restore incorrectly removed GtkWatcher

Documentation
* Update sites in documentation (shatters.net -> celestia.space)

1.6.2
Features, backported from 1.7
* StarDB Ver. 0x0200 support, required for spectral class Y

Translations
* Update Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Chinese translations

Documentation
* Don't mention kde3, gnome and update minimal lua version to 5.1

Platform-specific changes
* macOS: bump minimal supported version to 10.10

Thank you for your work. It is very important to keep this remarkable software alive. Well done!

I'm very happy it finally happened! I guess some people, seeing Celestia only as distribution package, will be very surprised to see there is new version after ten years and next versions in progress

that's certainly applaudable thanks everyone's devotion along the way!

Even though it's just a bug fix release, it's changelog is quite impressive. I waited this version for 7+ years and I'm glad to see it released, well done to everyone!

Congratulations to the deveploment team for their hard work spent on this release!

The public hopes that the next version won't have to wait nearly a decade.

Very true Art Blos.

How do i install this so that it works with the latest Celestia Origin? I get a crash right after the simulation starts and earth pops up as the featured celestial body. I do not have this problem with 1.61.

Art?

Duglis wrote:How do i install this so that it works with the latest Celestia Origin? I get a crash right after the simulation starts and earth pops up as the featured celestial body. I do not have this problem with 1.61.

I checked version 1.6.2 many times and no problems were observed.
Send a screenshot to the topic with Origin.

Hi.
First of all many thanks to onetwothree and all the people who spent their free time to produce this new release.
I checked it and found it very nice, but I have one doubt, two problems and one request.
1- the doubt: this version is 64 or 32k? I downloaded the x86-x64 version (36MB) but I found no evidence in the "about" window. Anyway it feels more fluid than the 1.6.1 version, expecially with VT textures, so I think I have the x64 installed.
2- the problems: I can take neither screenshots (F10) nor movies (Shift+F10). Anyone else or the problem is only mine?
3- The request: the star rendering is unchanged, so it's ugly as before. Any hope to see it made better in a future release?
Thank you once again, appreciated!

Goofy

Goofy wrote:1- the doubt: this version is 64 or 32k? I downloaded the x86-x64 version (36MB) but I found no evidence in the "about" window. Anyway it feels more fluid than the 1.6.1 version, expecially with VT textures, so I think I have the x64 installed.

Tip: you can always check an installation path on 64 bit windows: if it's "Program Files (x86)" then you have 32bit application, if it's "Program Files" then you have 64bit one. In our case the installer itself is 32bit but it selects 32 or 64 bit application depending on your windows architecture, so if you have 64bit windows, then you have 64bit Celestia. There were requests to make separate installers but there were no volunteers to do this job.

Goofy wrote:2- the problems: I can take neither screenshots (F10) nor movies (Shift+F10). Anyone else or the problem is only mine?

See viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20591 .

Goofy wrote:3- The request: the star rendering is unchanged, so it's ugly as before. Any hope to see it made better in a future release?

This topic is for 1.7 not 1.6.

Hi onetwothree.
Yes, I know where are normally installed x86 and x64 programs, but it's sdviced to install Celestia out of them, so mine are all in D:.
Anyway, the important thing is that it's x64 for sure, so thank you.
I tried to modify celestia.cfg as suggested, both using a D:\ folder, and using the celestia 1.6.2 extras folder, in both cases I had an error "check your directory".
Probably I made a mistake, I'll check this again tomorrow.
Regarding the star size, well, I'll wait for next major release, I hope soon....
Bye and thank you for your help.

Goofy

Is 1.6.2 available for linux? I see that the link on the downloads page still has the original link (whereas the Win and Mac links have both for 1.6.1 and 1.6.2).

-Fizz

I haven't build it yet

Added after 1 minute 3 seconds:
Actually most of changes which affects Unices are already included as patches.

openSUSE_Leap_15.1 openSUSE_Leap_15.2 openSUSE_Tumbleweed
https://software.opensuse.org//download.html?project=home:munix9&package=celestia

AppImage
https://github.com/CelestiaProject/Celestia/issues/333

Congratulations to the development team!! I uninstalled old v1.6.1 and installed new v1.6.2. Does it support GAIA database yet?

Thanks!
Tim

onetwothree wrote:I haven't build it yet
Actually most of changes which affects Unices are already included as patches.

Well, i look forward to the rebuild. That way i know i'll have caught all the patches and have everything consistent. Thanks!

-Fizz

If you use windows and have garbage displayed instead of text in some dialog windows (e.g. in Solar system browser) please upgrade to version 1.6.2.1. This is windows-only release, users of Unices or macOS are not affected by this bug. Thanks Markerz for fixing it!

Thank you to all the team who unveiled this new version 1.6.2
in my installation, "data" becomes "catalog" and in "data" I put certain xyz and xyzv files necessary for starting.
As I have several versions of Celestia, my catalog, extra, lua-applications files are common to all versions in place and are installed on disk D. The celestia.cfg files are configured to load the files on disk D . Everything is working. It would be good if we could choose the location of "models", "textures" and "data" (xyz and xyzv). On the C drive, there will only be the executable files and everything they need