Updating Celestia/Question

[alegator]

I have a previous version of Celestia with tons of addons, custom textures, etc. How can I update to the latest version 1.3.2 without having to reinstall all of those addons, textures, etc? Thanks.

[selden]

Don't forget that you can have more than one copy of Celestia on your system at the same time.

Rename the directory (folder) where you have Celestia now, maybe to Celestia131.

Verify that things still work:
Double-click on the icon for Celestia131\Celestia.exe and look around in your universe.

Install the new copy of Celestia and tell it to use the directory Celestia. It'll create the folder again and install itself there.

Move your Addons at leisure.

Cel:// URLs run the copy of Celestia that is in the folder named Celestia. If you want to change back to using your old Celestia that way, just rename the directories again: rename Celestia to be Celestia132 and rename Celestia131 to be Celestia.

I hope this helps.

[Christophe]

The best way to handle this is to never install add-ons directly in the extras folder of your celestia installation. Instead install them in a separate folder which you then add to the 'ExtrasDirectories' setting of the celestia.cfg file.

That way upgrade is not a problem and you can easily share add-ons between several installations.

[alegator]

Selden,
Up to the step where you say to install the new copy of Celestia in the "Celestia" folder understood. But then you say:
"Move your Addons at leisure"

How do I do that?

Thanks.

[bh]

Be careful...I seem to lose something every time I upgrade!

[selden]

alegator,

Each addon should be in its own directory (folder), so all you should have to do is to drag those directories from the old Celestia extras directory into the extras directory of the new Celestia.

If you've been letting the Addons put their files into the folders used by Celestia itself, the folders other than extras, then it'll be harder to sort out which files should be moved and which shouldn't. You may have to reinstall those from scratch.

Please take a look at http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/addon-intro.html
It should help you to understand how the Addons should be organized. If not, please let me know what needs to be improved on that Web page.

[Harry]

And remember that you can have more than one extras-directory, for instance you can keep the default-extras and then keep all addons in a separate directory. Then all you have to do after an upgrade is to add the second extras-dir to your celestia.cfg and hope that the addons still work with the new version

Harald

[Bob Hegwood]

Hello again...

I have a question concerning add-ons like Jupiter's Rings, and 3ds or
CMOD objects.

I MUST modify the solarsys.ssc file in order to display Jupiter's rings, must
I not? I haven't been able to display the rings using alternate textures, so
is there another choice here?

Also, I have had a number of problems when trying to match up textures
with models which exist in their own directories under the extras directory.
If one is using this setup, the texture files must NOT exist in the main Celestia
textures directory should they?

Thanks. Just trying to get a better handle on how to make a tour so that
it can reside in the extras directory.

Take care, Bob

[selden]

Hello again...

I have a question concerning add-ons like Jupiter's Rings, and 3ds or
CMOD objects.

I MUST modify the solarsys.ssc file in order to display Jupiter's rings, must
I not?

Not any more! (see below)

I haven't been able to display the rings using alternate textures, so
is there another choice here?

Yes, starting with Celestia v1.3.2, there is another option. (see below)

Also, I have had a number of problems when trying to match up textures
with models which exist in their own directories under the extras directory.
If one is using this setup, the texture files must NOT exist in the main Celestia
textures directory should they?

Celestia uses the first texture it finds that has the name you specify, so it's best to use unique names for the textures provided with an Addon.

Thanks. Just trying to get a better handle on how to make a tour so that
it can reside in the extras directory.

Take care, Bob

Starting with Celestia v1.3.2, object definitions within an Addon's SSC files may have one of the three prefixes

Add
Replace
Modify

"Add" just adds this new object definition to Celestia's database. This is the default. It's the same as Celestia has always done.

"Replace" deletes the preexisting object that has the same name as this object and inserts this new definition in its place.

"Modify" replaces individual declarations within the existing object of the same name by whatever declarations are mentioned in this new object definition.

These three options all assume that only one object already exists with the same name. If more than one object with the same name have been created with Add, then the results of Replace and Modify are unpredictable.

In other words, you can use following Addon SSC definition to put rings around Jupiter:

Code: Select all

Modify "Jupiter" "Sol" {
   Rings {
      Inner   74500
      Outer  140220
      Texture "jupiter-rings-20040830.png"
   }
}

Of course, you'd want to specify different values for Inner and Outer and Texture.

[Bob Hegwood]

Thanks again for your help, Selden.

I'm going to try to make tours a bit easier to install and use over new
releases of Celestia. Your advice, as always, is what I was looking for.

Take care, Bob

[selden]

Bob,

You're quite welcome, of course.