Celestia Forums

What are the uses of the file called "guide.cel", located in the base directory ? It's a script, but if I try to use it, nothing is happening. And there's a reference to this file, in the config file. So what gives ?

It's a Windows (linux?) file...

ElChristou wrote:It's a Windows (linux?) file...

What is a Windows(linux?) file?

Cheers,
Fridger

ElChristou wrote:It's a Windows (linux?) file...

Well, it's a file on my Mac. So it's a Mac file too

And it's a cel file, not a "windows" file.

Apparently, it's useless on the Mac version. If it's really usefull for something on windows, what is it ? I'm typing on windows (at work) right now, and I tried to use that small script file (on windows), and apparently it's doing nothing (I even got a kind of error message with it : "bad parameter list"). So this file is getting very mysterious.

I'm getting the impression this is an old relic from the past of Celestia, that was forgotten (?)

Can we trash it, and remove its reference from the config file ?

Cham wrote:

ElChristou wrote:It's a Windows (linux?) file...

Well, it's a file on my Mac. So it's a Mac file too

And it's a cel file, not a "windows" file.

Apparently, it's useless on the Mac version. If it's really usefull for something on windows, what is it ? I'm typing on windows (at work) right now, and I tried to use that small script file (on windows), and apparently it's doing nothing (I even got a kind of error message with it : "bad parameter list"). So this file is getting very mysterious.

I'm getting the impression this is an old relic from the past of Celestia, that was forgotten (?)

Can we trash it, and remove its reference from the config file ?

Was a file FOR THE WINDOWS VERSION...
Trash it, remove the entry from the config, do what you want, it won't do anything on osX... (indeed that should be done at CVS level...)

ElChristou wrote:Was a file FOR THE WINDOWS VERSION...

Read again my message. I'm using the windows version right now, and that file is doing nothing !

Here's a typical entry in that cel file :

{
Name "Jupiter"
Target "Sol/Jupiter"
Description "Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and the fifth from the sun. Like the other large outer planets, Jupiter is a gas giant, with no solid surface. The Great Red Spot is the biggest and longest-lived of the many storms in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere; this Earth-sized tempest has been around for at least 300 years."
}

Cham wrote:What are the uses of the file called "guide.cel", located in the base directory ? It's a script, but if I try to use it, nothing is happening. And there's a reference to this file, in the config file. So what gives ?

In the window version, this file is used by the "Tour guide" (navigation Menu):




It has a .cel extension but it is not a "real" .cel script file.
Don't you have such a Tour guide on other platforms ?

Vincent wrote:In the window version, this file is used by the "Tour guide" (navigation Menu):
It has a .cel extension but it is not a "real" .cel script file.

Don't you have such a Tour guide on other platforms ?

Ahaa ! Thanks Vincent. Now it works, on the Windows version. And no, we don't have this on OS X.

Cham wrote:

ElChristou wrote:Was a file FOR THE WINDOWS VERSION...

Read again my message. I'm using the windows version right now, and that file is doing nothing !

Cham wrote:Ahaa ! Thanks Vincent. Now it works, on the Windows version. And no, we don't have this on OS X.

ElChristou, you are getting arrogant. Your message isn't helping in any way and doesn't add anything to this topic. Don't you understand the confusion came from the fact that this tour file is having a cel extension ?

Cham, this is the contain of the demo.cel which is shipped with Celestia 1.5.0 pre3 for Win. I do not know if this can help you. When one hit the key "D" it start. Perso, I use it for placing the camera on my location, nor as tour.

demo.cel:

{
timerate { rate 0 }
labels { clear "planets|minorplanets|stars|constellations" }
renderflags { set "stars|planets"
clear "constellations|orbits|cloudmaps" }
print { text "Beginning demo . . .\nPress ESC to end." origin "center" duration 2 }
wait { duration 2.0 }

print { text "Let's start near home . . ." row -3 }
select { object "Sol/Earth" }
cancel {}
# goto { time 0 distance 3 upframe "ecliptical" }
# gotolonglat { time 0 distance 3 longitude -122 latitude 47 }
synchronous {}
gotoloc { time 0.0 position [ 0 0 20000 ] }
wait { duration 0.1 }
center { time 0.1 }
wait { duration 1.0 }
follow {}

print { text "We're now orbiting about 12,500km above the Earth" row -3 duration 5 }
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 30 duration 10 }
print { text "Earth looks much more familiar with clouds." row -3}
wait { duration 0.1 }
renderflags { set "cloudmaps" }
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 30 duration 6 }

print { text "Next stop: the Moon." row -3 }
select { object "Moon" }
goto { time 5 distance 4 upframe "equatorial" }
wait { duration 5.5 }
print { text "Watch for the Earth and Sun as we orbit the Moon" row -3}
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 30 duration 10 }

print { text "Off toward the Sun." row -3}
select { object "Sol" }
goto { time 8 distance 12 upframe "equatorial" up [ 0 1 0 ] }
wait { duration 8.5 }
print { text "At this distance, dark sunspots are visible on the Sun's surface." row -3}
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 20 duration 10 }

print { text "Let's zoom out for an overview of the inner solar system." row -3}
orbit { axis [ 1 0 0 ] rate 45 duration 2 }
renderflags { set "orbits" }
changedistance { duration 4.0 rate 1.0 }

print { text "Turning on planet labels . . ." row -3}
labels { set "planets" }
wait { duration 1.0 }
print { text "We can speed up time to watch the planets orbit the sun." row -3}
timerate { rate 2592000 }
wait { duration 3.0 }
print { text "For each second, a month of time elapses in the simulation." row -3}
wait { duration 12.0 }
timerate { rate 1 }
print { text "Now, time has been stopped completely." row -3}

wait { duration 1.0 }
print { text "Our next destination is Saturn." row -3}
select { object "Saturn" }
center { time 2 }
wait { duration 2 }
goto { time 8 distance 6 up [ 0 1 0 ] upframe "equatorial" }
wait { duration 6.5 }
renderflags { clear "orbits" }
labels { clear "planets" }
print { text "Several of the moons of Saturn are visible as bright dots" row -3 duration 3}
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 30 duration 12 }

select { object "Mimas" }
goto { time 5 distance 4 upframe "equatorial" }
print { text "The most prominent feature on Saturn's moon Mimas is the huge impact crater Herschel." row -3 duration 9 }
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 30 duration 12 }
changedistance { duration 6.0 rate 0.5 }

select { object "Sol" }
center { time 2 }
print { text "Note how faint the Sun appears at this distance." row -3 }
wait { duration 2 }

print { text "Let's look around at the stars in the sky." row -3 duration 2 }
wait { duration 2 }
select { object "Alpha UMa" }
center { time 2 }
print { text "Northern Hemisphere residents should recognize the Big Dipper in the constellation Ursa Major." row -3 duration 3 }
wait { duration 4 }

select { object "Polaris" }
center { time 2 }
wait { duration 2 }
print { text "We're now centered on Polaris, the North Star." row -3}
wait { duration 1 }
labels { set "stars" }
wait { duration 2 }
print { text "Polaris is part of the asterism commonly called the Little Dipper." row -3}
wait { duration 2 }
print { text "To help us get oriented in the sky, Celestia can draw constellation diagrams for us . . ." row -3}
renderflags { set "constellations" }
wait { duration 2 }
print { text ". . . and constellation names" row -3}
labels { set "constellations" }
wait { duration 2 }

select { object "Alnilam" }
center { time 4 }
wait { duration 2 }
print { text "Orion is the sky's most prominent constellation." row -3 duration 3 }
wait { duration 4 }

select { object "Beta Cru" }
center { time 4 }
wait { duration 2 }
print { text "The Southern Cross is a familiar sight in Southern Hemisphere skies." row -3 duration 4 }
wait { duration 4 }

rotate { axis [ 0.707 0.707 0 ] rate 20 duration 7 }
print { text "Let's enable galaxy rendering so that we can see the Milky Way" row -3 duration 4 }
renderflags { set "galaxies" }
rotate { axis [ 0.707 0.707 0 ] rate 20 duration 14 }
rotate { axis [ 0.707 0.707 0 ] rate 20 duration 10 }

select { object "Antares" }
center { time 5 }
wait { duration 3 }
print { text "We'll now travel to Antares, a red giant star in Scorpius." row -3 duration 5 }
wait { duration 2 }
renderflags { clear "constellations" }
labels { clear "constellations|stars" }
wait { duration 1 }
goto { time 8 distance 200 }
wait { duration 8.5 }
goto { time 5 distance 10 }
wait { duration 5.0 }
print { text "Even though we are now 10 times farther from Antares than\nEarth is from the Sun, the massive red giant star still looms huge in the sky." row -3}
wait { duration 4.0 }

print { text "Let's zoom out and get the big picture . . ." row -3}
changedistance { duration 10.0 rate 2.0 }

select { object "Milky Way" }
print { text "We're viewing the entire Milky Way galaxy." row -3 duration 6 }
orbit { axis [ 1 0 0 ] rate 30 duration 16.0 }
print { text "Time to go home . . ." row -3}

select { object "Sol/Earth" }
goto { time 20 distance 10 upframe "equatorial" }
wait { duration 20.0 }
print { text "Demo completed." row -3}
wait { duration 3.0 }
}

Cham wrote:ElChristou, you are getting arrogant. Your message isn't helping in any way and doesn't add anything to this topic. Don't you understand the confusion came from the fact that this tour file is having a cel extension ?

Hey, hey, don't begin, please... In your first post you ask what was this file for (implicitly as you are a osX user you are searching under osX), so my response was clear, no? If this file do nothing under osX, why losing time with much explications?

Now if you were looking at this under Windows and state it clearly in your first message, as I remember having tested this I had answered you without a doubt with more details. It's just that right now for me you are still a osX user... sorry...

Fenerit,

this topic has nothing to do with the demo (that one has a clear status, since it's a real cel script file). It's also working on the Mac version of Celestia.

The tour is another thing. And it's a sad thing that there isn't anything similar on OS X.

IMHO, the tour.cel should have another extension, to remove the confusion (tour.txt ? tour.data ?). Novices who want to learn scripting for Celestia may have troubles because of that file. Since the file is refered in the config file, we can easily fix this "mistake".

Sorry Cham, you have reason; I've lost the reference to guide.cel not demo.cel.

Cham wrote:...And it's a sad thing that there isn't anything similar on OS X.

IMHO, the tour.cel should have another extension, to remove the confusion (tour.txt ? tour.data ?). Novices who want to learn scripting for Celestia may have troubles because of that file. Since the file is refered in the config file, we can easily fix this "mistake".

If I remember well, Chris wanted to get ride of this guide... Why? I don't recall, but was in relation with the demo (demo/guide tour are redundant I suppose?)...

Now the problem of the extension is irrelevant if this stuff is supposed to disappear...

ElChristou wrote:If I remember well, Chris wanted to get ride of this guide... Why? I don't recall, but was in relation with the demo (demo/guide tour are redundant I suppose?)...

Well, as I see it, the tour is very different than the demo. It's a kind of "bookmarks" system, since the user can also edit the tour.cel file (should be tour.txt for easier access and less obscure meaning). It reminds me a bit Vincent's tools (which may give some information on the selected object). The tour panel is acting in a similar way, but it's also different, since it's also like a bookmarks system. Having played a bit with it on the Windows version, I think I like it.

IMO, it could be a good thing to add it to the OS X version.

I already see some uses for the tour panel, since it is storing some objects defined in the tour data (like a bookmarks system), and also some basic information about the objects.

Cham wrote:The tour is another thing. And it's a sad thing that there isn't anything similar on OS X.

I never got around to implementing the Tour Guide in the Mac OS X version. It just wasn't a high priority for me. I also never got to Image Capture, Movie Capture, the Solar System Browser, the Eclipse Finder, and so on, all of which seemed more important to me than the Tour Guide. This seems especially so now, as a Tour Guide feature can be easily implemented with a Lua script. A cross-platform GUI will (hopefully) solve the feature mismatch problem in the future.

- Hank

I tried the Tour Guide on the Windows version a while back, but it didn't seem like a very compelling feature at the time so I completely forgot that it existed. I think that, and image capture are two features that Celestia don't really need.

As Hank says, Tour Guide could really just be a script (a new demo script?) - optional perhaps - and image capture, well, just press Print Screen or Cmd+Shift+3.

dirkpitt wrote:I tried the Tour Guide on the Windows version a while back, but it didn't seem like a very compelling feature at the time so I completely forgot that it existed. I think that, and image capture are two features that Celestia don't really need.

As Hank says, Tour Guide could really just be a script (a new demo script?) - optional perhaps - and image capture, well, just press Print Screen or Cmd+Shift+3.

I agree. Nor the Movie Capture is a vital feature. Who needs good Celestia's videos may do in another way (more expensive, though), than manage a CPU intensive process of codecs compression and resolution; better to send the signal to an external DVD recorder.

I understand what means Cham; indeed we could imagine a bookmark system more interesting than the actual (I'm talking under osX); just like a script manager, a bookmark manager could allows you to store and sort the items as the actual system, but also display a thumb, allows a selection of some items to tour them, allows why not comments and all this within a format easy to share (one could load the bookmarks from another user, add some of them to his own library etc...)...