Celestia Forums

First of all, and as I am a new user : Hello to everybody
Secondo I apology for my strange English. I hope you will understand me anyway.

I'm a (relatively) new user of Celestia and there are so much capacities in that program that a little help is welcome. For that the Educational Activities are perfect. They take us by hand so we can discover a lot of wonders.
But I encountered 2 problems (with Windows XP).
Here they are and I explain the way I used to by-pass them. I hope it may be useful to somebody.

- Problem #1
I have an error message mainly at the exit (but also sometime when running) of the program that say something like "Celestia has encountered a problem and must be closed". The reason is that I have a Creative Audigy sound card and it come installed with a file "openAl32.dll" in the "windows\system32" directory.
If this occurs, simply remove the file with the same name that resides in the "PROGRAM FILES\celestia151-ED" directory. Everything should be ok again.

- Problem #2
I have also the standard version of Celestia on my computer and I like that "cel:\URL" links, .cel and .celx scripts be associated with that version of the program. But when I want to play with the Educational Activities, it is properly not possible. So I searched how to associate easily either a version or the other.
It is usually simple with a right-click to open a file with the chosen program. But here, for the script files, the pop-up menu presents us "celestia" and... "celestia" as the two possible choices.

I think it would be possible to do something in the setup of celestia-ED to avoid this.

For the moment we can correct that by dealing with the registry of Windows.
Seek for the key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache]
and find the name:
"C:\Program Files\Celestia151-ED\celestia151-ED.exe"
When done change its data from "celestia" to "celestia151-ED"

This must be done only once. Then you have two distinct choices for the two versions.

But that doesn't give a solution to change easily the associations from a version to the other. The principle is the same but it is a bit more complicated because there are several keys to be changed.
To do that I use 2 files whose extension must be ".reg". Double clicking on them allow to reset associations (URL and scripts) with a version or with the other.

The first one associate Cel:\\URLs and scripts with the standard version of celestia v.1.5.1.
Copy this text and paste it in Notepad (with Ctrl-V), then save it as "cel-standard.reg"



The second file allows the associations of URLs and scripts with the educational version (celestia151-ED.exe) of the program. It will be saved as "cel-edu.reg" after a "copy and paste" of this text:


Switching from an environment to the other is now quite simple: double-click on one of these files, accept the warning and that's all!

Last thing (and I have not solution for that): the render options set by a version are kept by the other.

I hope that all these minor problems will disappear in the next versions of celestia-ED.

.reg ards
jogad

Jogad:

Thanks for your detailed description of how to determine if a copy of openAL32.dll is in the Windows System32 folder. That does work!

Also, thank you for outlining how to create an edited registry file that changes the association of cels and celx files from one version of Celestia to the other. What I have done in the past is simply place a copy of the default Celestia.exe application (from version 1.5.1) inside my Celesta151-ED folder. Then, if I want to use celURL's with the regular version of Celestia 1.5.1, or with any newer version, all I have to do is simply launch that version of Celestia in advance. Then, if you click on a celURL while the regular version of Celestia is already running, that version will display the celURL just fine.

For example, if I place a copy of 1.6.0pre 1 inside the Celestia151-ED folder and launch it by clicking on its icon, then all the celURL's available in the educational activities will execute inside the 1.6.0 version that is running. Of course, the educational add-ons will not load unless you click on the image file inside of the written Activity document, but ....

Nevertheless, having a way to change from one registry file to the other is NEAT!

Regards

Frank