Feature request: fictional flag

[bdm]

I think a useful feature in Celestia would be an ability for users to filter out fictional material. Fictional addons are a lot of fun, but when using Celestia for educational purposes the fictional stuff may get in the way.

Fictional addons could have a flag as follows:

Code: Select all

"Druidia" "Lalande 21185"
{
    fictional true


If the fictional flag is not specified, it defaults to False if not specified anywhere. If a parent body has the flag specified, and the object has no flag, the object inherits the parental flag. For example, if a planet is defined as fictional, its moons and locations are also fictional. (If a parent body is fictional, the fictional flags for its child objects must always be fictional, ignoring their fictional flags. Otherwise we would have strange effects of real moons orbiting fictional planets. If we hide the fictional stuff, what happens to the moons?)

This flag would also be useful for real objects if they employ fictional textures. Limit-of-knowledge textures would have Fictional=False, and any texture with imaginary data would have Fictional=True.

[Dollan]

Or one could simply have two installations of Celestia running, one for fictional items, and one "pure" form. I do this, but get so anal as far as what I want available that I've ended up with about 6 or 7 different installations!

...John...

[Michael Kilderry]

I do this, but get so anal as far as what I want available that I've ended up with about 6 or 7 different installations!

...John...

Lol, that's exactly what happened to me! Do you have the problem of having to come up with a different title for each installation? I try to be a bit more creative than just numbering them, some names of for my Celestia installations include Proximacelestia, Leracelestia, Siriuscelestia, Addoncelestia, Universecelestia and the list goes on...

[Dollan]

Well, I don't make different installations for closely related items. But, for instance, I have Celestia Starwars, Celestia Stargate, Celestia Star Trek, Celestia Runar, Celestia SciFi (for general add-ons, such as the recent Lexx ship, 2001, and so on), Celestia True (for actual, scientific add-ons), Celestia OA, and of course Celestia ArcBuilder.

...John...

[bdm]

Perhaps the fictional flag can be expanded so diferent "universes" can be selected. This would work like the alternative textures.

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"Druidia" "A distant star"
{
    fiction "Spaceballs"

Specifying this setting implicitly sets the body or location as fictional. The setting would use the same string for all material from the same universe.

A menu in Celestia can select between the different fictional universes: Star Trek, Babylon 5, ArcBuilders etc. The menu could also have a setting "None" that selects only nonfictional material. This would eliminate the need to have multiple Celestia installations.

[bdm]

In the meantime, an alternative method to keep various fictional universes separate is to have a separate "Extras" directory for each, and switch between them by editing celestia.cfg. This is how I manage the different universes.

[buggs_moran]

Perhaps the fictional flag can be expanded so diferent "universes" can be selected. This would work like the alternative textures.

Code: Select all

"Druidia" "A distant star"
{
    fiction "Spaceballs"

There's one for you modelling gods (ElChistou, et al), Lonestar's Winnebago and Spaceball I complete with the bumper sticker.

[maxim]

Indroducing that kind of a ssc flag would make it neccessary to alter /every/ addon that exists so far.

IMHO a practical solution would be to allow an arbitrary number of 'extra' entry lines in the .cfg file and the possibility to browse, switch and reload the according directories at runtime. Thus every possible tweaked configuration can be done - for everyones very special needs. Remember that one 'extra' definition can hold any number of directories at any depth inside the extras main folder.

The above proposal would require:
- code for reloading the .cfg entries at runtime (a long demanded FR)
- code to read/process more than one 'extra' entry line in .cfg
- UI code for browsing and switching those .cfg entries.

maxim

[bdm]

maxim's suggestion for alterable cfg extras directories would work well. The basic need is the ability to switch from one fictional group of add-ons to another, and maxim's idea would accomplish this.

It's possible to write an addon utility that accomplishes this outside Celestia.