Celestia Forums

Is there some way, other than restarting the program, to force the star browser to update the Nearest Stars data?

For me, the browser invariably shows the stars nearest to that when the browser is opened for the first time. Obviously, the array isn't being updated each time the browser is opened or when the viewer location changes.

I'm not sure if this is a real bug or I've just missed something; sorry if this should be under bugs. I searched but couldn't find recent mention of anyone else experiencing this.

(Mac OS 10.4.6 / PowerBook G4 / Celestia 1.4.2 updated from CVS and rebuilt clean around 20:00 JST)

If I recall, the number of entries in the browser is quite limited so only the nearest stars (around Sun?) are shown in this limit...

There is no way to update this during a session...

Not quite.

The browser correctly displays the Nearest Stars to the location where I am the first time I open it during a session, no matter where I have gone or how many stars I have visited before opening the browser.

It doesn't update after subsequent movement, however: it continues to display the first set of data as if the viewer position had not changed. (This is true whether I leave the browser open during movement or close it and then reopen it after reaching the new "destination" star.)

I've tried hitting ESC and reselecting the star, moving closer or farther away, reopening the browser after each attempt, but nothing seems to help.

If this is a bug and there's no workaround, I guess I'll try to have a look at the code. I suspect it's a case of not updating the array used in the column view in the browser window....

(And I guess this should go under a feature request, but the stars listed under Nearest are not sorted by distance. That would be a nice addition. )

Under Windows, the Star Browser list shows the list of closest stars at the time the Star Browser is opened. It is not updated in realtime while you change the viewpoint, but the list is correct for whatever the viewpoint was when the Star Browser was opened.

To see an updated list, close the star browser and open it again.

Making the list change in realtime would doubtless require a significant amount of code, so you shouldn't expect to see that implemented any time soon.

[edit]The Windows star browser also sorts the list if one clicks on the header of one of its columns of data, although it only sorts for increasing values, it doesn't reverse the sort if you click that header again.[/edit]

rjcraig wrote:(And I guess this should go under a feature request, but the stars listed under Nearest are not sorted by distance.That would be a nice addition. )

Completely agree.

The man in charge of the osX front end is Dirkpitt, he his actually pretty busy but you can always mail him if you need some info about the code...

Thanks, Selden. I'll keep that in mind if I ever get a Windows machine

Seriously, though, I understand what you mean about the code for realtime updating. (I imagine there would be a hit on processing speed as well.) That wasn't something I was really interested in, I just mentioned it to show that there's no update whatever the state of the browser. (In the Mac version, you can select a star in the list and click the Go button and the browser stays open during movement; I assume the Windows browser works the same.)

I seem to recall having exchanged emails with Dirkpitt about the code a year or so ago, ElChristou. I'll have a look at it first myself and then maybe contact him if I can't figure something out. Thanks for the reminder!

rjcraig wrote:...I seem to recall having exchanged emails with Dirkpitt about the code a year or so ago, ElChristou. I'll have a look at it first myself and then maybe contact him if I can't figure something out. Thanks for the reminder!

Oops, I've been fooled by your number of post, didn't saw you joining date!! ... Sorry!

ElChristou wrote:Oops, I've been fooled by your number of post, didn't saw you joining date!! ... Sorry!

Hmm? Oh.

No problem! I've been around a while, but am not a very active poster here. (Not an inner system body, as it were...more of a comet with a long period? )

Once the Mac Dev team updated the CVS tree and I could get it to compile on my laptop, I've pretty much kept to myself, updating every once in a while and building a new version. I play around occasionally with models, textures, fictional systems...that sort of thing. I'd like to contribute to the coding but know very little about C++. (I have been tinkering on a Cocoa/Obj-C GUI [regular stand-alone app, in other words] version of Jim Burrow's StarGen, however. I'm more of GUI than command-line kinda guy. )

rjcraig wrote:...Once the Mac Dev team updated the CVS tree...

You should perhaps have a look at :
http://shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11013&start=15

Not sure there will be much update of the osX UI...

Thanks for the link. I'm assuming you meant the discussion about moving to a cross-platform Qt-based UI, right?

I looked at Qt a few years ago in connection with another project I was involved in at the time. It ultimately wasn't applicable for our needs and I haven't looked at it since. I assume there's a free Mac version as well or they wouldn't be discussing it.

(Sorry if that was a bit confusing about the CVS. I was referring to the past. When I first joined here, the Mac version files were WAY out of date and check-outs wouldn't compile properly. Dirkpitt and Hank Ramsey, I believe, substantially updated the CVS two years or so ago(?) and it has compiled fine?€”for me at least?€”ever since.)

selden wrote:Under Windows, the Star Browser list shows the list of closest stars at the time the Star Browser is opened. It is not updated in realtime while you change the viewpoint, but the list is correct for whatever the viewpoint was when the Star Browser was opened.

To see an updated list, close the star browser and open it again.

I'll see if this kind of updating can be quickly added to the OS X version. Best not to stop developing just because we started talking about Qt and cross-platform gui's.

Here is an unofficial build of Celestia OS X 1.5, where the Browser refreshes the Nearest Stars list whenever the Browser window becomes active (such as when the window is closed, then reopened).

Celestia Unofficial (This is not a direct download link. Choose the Celestia UNOFFICIAL build 2007-05-09 link on the page)

CVS has also been updated, for those compiling from CVS.

dirkpitt wrote:Here is an unofficial build of Celestia OS X 1.5, where the Browser refreshes the Nearest Stars list whenever the Browser window becomes active (such as when the window is closed, then reopened).

Celestia Unofficial (This is not a direct download link. Choose the Celestia UNOFFICIAL build 2007-05-09 link on the page)

CVS has also been updated, for those compiling from CVS.

Cool, Tx Dirk!

dirkpitt wrote:Here is an unofficial build of Celestia OS X 1.5, where the Browser refreshes the Nearest Stars list whenever the Browser window becomes active (such as when the window is closed, then reopened).

Celestia Unofficial (This is not a direct download link. Choose the Celestia UNOFFICIAL build 2007-05-09 link on the page)

CVS has also been updated, for those compiling from CVS.

Belated thanks! It seems to work great now!

(Sorry to be so late in saying so, but I got occupied with other things again and am just now returning to the project I wanted to use this feature for. I updated my CVS the other night and did a new build and voil? ! Great work!)