Celestia Forums

The last thing I heared was Chris purchasing a G4-933 (nice move), however the link at the download section still refers to a version 1.2.2 for Mac OS X.

I understand it takes time, and I'm generally glad with the fact there is any OS X-development at all, but I wonder how it is progressing at the moment.

I'm no programmer myself, but I could localize Celestia (once there is a cocoa GUI) for the Netherlands (dutch) and Flandres (dutch speaking Belgium). Sorry I can't be of any more help.

--
Jules Stoop
'Lapinism matters...'

I've been busy with bug fixes, integrating patches from other people, and implementing the new celx scripting language, so I've been neglecting the OS X version. Next Monday is Memorial Day here in the States, so I should have time during the three day weekend to get 1.2.4 ported if Bob doesn't beat me to it.

--Chris

Thank you, sounds good.

Hi,

Was only wondering how the progress was on Celestia OS X during the weekend?

/F

Not good . . . I'm having work done on my house, and the only computer I have access to now is my laptop. I'd forgotten about that when I said I'd be working on the Mac port over the weekend.

--Chris

I too have been neglecting the OS X version... the whole work thing is getting in the way, and I'm taking a little 4 day vacation to San Diego this weekend, so don't expect anything until mid to late June.

Anyhow, after I had finished the last version I promised myself I wasn't going to release another port based off the UNIX build process and Apple's terrible implementation of GLUT.. So I've been taking my time, building Interface Builder nibs for it, constructing the gigantic ProjectBuilder project, etc. I don't have a whole lot of time to spare for open source stuff these days, but just about all of it has been going to Celestia lately, with a couple minutes here and there on iJournal.

The next version of Celestia for OS X (be it 1.2.4 or 1.2.5+) is going to be much more Mac-like without all the UI snafus that GLUT caused. I'm also going to be writing Cocoa versions of the star browsers and such to make it on par with the Windows version. Possibly a QuickTime recording function just to be even :)

Current Status:
the Project Builder project is complete and working (creating Celestia.app with a compiled executable and all the files that are supposed to be in there), I fixed all of the compile errors.. which was, to say the least, very painstaking.. all the new glext externs in glext.h there were defined by MacOS X's OpenGL framework b/c there is no GetProcAddress (so I wrote a GetProcAddress and renamed a LOT of stuff to EXTgl* instead of gl* so as not to conflict), and lots of defines are inconsistent here and there (the OS X implementation will typically have about 3/4 of the #defines for something useful, but not the rest).

Some of the Interface Builder nibs are done or started, but not near complete.

None of the user interface code is written, but it should be pretty straightforward after the IB nibs are built.

--

If someone wants to maintain a GLUT version using what I did with 1.2.2, feel free, but the one I'm working on is going to be *the* version to use.. once it's done, that is.

-bob

Thanks for the info,

I didn't want to 'rush' you or anything, I mean, most of us are busy people. However, progress seems to be shaping up pretty well.

--
Jules

So what are the plans for the OS X version now Chris? Any developing in the near future or will you wait for Bob. His version sure does sound interesting.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

/F

I'm very much looking forward to doing some OS X development . . . It sounds like Bob will get a Cocoa version working before I will though. But I'll do some work on the OS X UI for Celestia regardless . . .

--Chris

maybe it'll be something to showcase at Macworld.... then Steve Jobs'll put it on Apple's site... it'll win awards etc. etc.. I just hope you support multimonitors cause the Mac OS does that well and would make life... interesting...LOL

Oh migosh... Celestia on a 23" flatscreen..... sheesh... now i gotta save up for one....

Thought I would ask how the progress is going on the OS X version? Love to hear about the progress on it so one can look forward even more for it.

Thanks

/F

Here's the latest CVS log entries.. I've been too busy to do any serious work on it the past two weeks.

Basically, where we're at is that I've implemented the Go To Location dialog, and the whole favorites system (in a drawer) and I've implemented code that will be used to detect graphics card capabilities so potentially we can have it gracefully decide what to do with lower end graphics cards. Keyboard/Mouse handling is probably going to happen next, then the preferences dialogs and serialization.

===============================================
description:
----------------------------
revision 1.4
date: 2002/06/27 12:44:26; author: etrepum; state: Exp; lines: +4 -0
Spits out some video card info for active displays to the console
ActiveDisplays
OpenGL Mask
OpenGL Renderers
Accelerated?
MultiScreen?
OffScreen?
Renderer (Software, Generic, nVidia GeForce2MX, etc.)
VRAM
VRAM usable for textures
Display Bounds (0,0,w,h)
Current Mode
Width
Height
Refresh Rate
Bits per Pixel
Bits per Sample
Mode
Usable For Desktop GUI?
IOFlags
Samples per Pixel
----------------------------
revision 1.3
date: 2002/06/25 01:18:50; author: etrepum; state: Exp;
Serializes favorites list to NSUserDefaults (~/Library/Preferences/Celestia.plist)

Sloppy stuff, needs to be cleaned up.. but it works.
----------------------------
revision 1.2
date: 2002/06/23 03:40:06; author: etrepum; state: Exp;
Major changes to the favorites system. Menus and outline view should work pretty much as expected now, except that it does not save because it's been disentangled from the STL vector implementation and I haven't written the serialization code yet, but it will be pretty easy. Uses a tree implementation, unlimited folder depth, no problems with multiple folders at the same level with the same name.

Added boundaries.cpp/h to the pbproj.

Changes don't touch any non-OSX portions of the codebase.
----------------------------
revision 1.1
date: 2002/06/14 14:44:28; author: etrepum; state: Exp;
What I have so far with the Mac OS X Objective C/C++ version.

Please don't do anything significant with it yet. The pbproj
and maybe the nibs are going to require the April 2002 Dev
Tools (Beta). Contact me first if you plan on doing anything
with it, I don't want to duplicate effort at this point.

New OS X icns file courtesy of:
chris alford graphic design
http://www.chrisalford.com
ca@chrisalford.com
662-453-1118 Voice
662-451-2975 Pager
662-299-0830 Mobile

Everything else in there is either mine or apple's :)

bob@redivi.com
===============================================

also see: this thread

some screenshots are there.

To build, i had to make a soft link from /Users/bob/src/celestia to wherever I keep my source.

Also, the program well, displays Io. I can't click to move, the keys don't work etc. Goto 'earth' goes to display a blank sphere.

I'm using april's dev tools, on a GF4MX

That's pretty much a project builder deficiency, it changes its mind about project relative and absolute paths. It's possible to fix, but it's a pain in the butt.

As for keys/mouse, I've said a couple times that it's not implemented yet.. You have to use the go to location dialog to go anywhere.

As for earth being an empty sphere, I didn't finish the quicktime png loading code, so that's probably why.. I ifdef'ed it out, and don't know if I ifdef'ed all the old png loading code back in properly. It's either that or texture ram issues, but I think it's the png code.

Just a short message to encourage everybody who's porting Celestia to OSX. Though 1.2.2 works nicely on my ibook600 (having replaced earth with smaller textures of course) I'd love to see a native cocoa-version. Still I know from my own tiny compiling-tries that it's not that easy. I'd love to be helping but have too much to work on until September. Localizing for italian, french or german is possible so dont't hesitate to ask me once you have about finished the interface.

I found Celestia after a tip from a friend and I must say it is impressive as well as fun.
I would really like to help in what little way I can, maybe translate to Swedish or so.

Keep up the work it is appreciated.

Well, the glut version wasn't pretty, but it had the advantage of working, mostly. Right now you can't build it, and the cocoa front end is of no use whatsoever.

I'd really really really like to help on celetia, but frankly I don't see what a 'drawer' with bookmarks is going to help if I want to run celestia in a large window, for example.

Would it be possible to refocus on having a *working* glut port first thing, maintain it a bit so 99% of people can *use* celestia on OSX, even if they don't have the drawers?

Then maybe have a parallel task of making snazzy gizmos in semi-interpreted language?

BusError wrote:Well, the glut version wasn't pretty, but it had the advantage of working, mostly. Right now you can't build it, and the cocoa front end is of no use whatsoever.

I'd really really really like to help on celetia, but frankly I don't see what a 'drawer' with bookmarks is going to help if I want to run celestia in a large window, for example.

Would it be possible to refocus on having a *working* glut port first thing, maintain it a bit so 99% of people can *use* celestia on OSX, even if they don't have the drawers?

Then maybe have a parallel task of making snazzy gizmos in semi-interpreted language?

Some of the drawer's functionality is mirrored by the top menu (go to location, create new bookmark), but you need to use the drawer to manage them (rename, move them around, etc). Besides, the drawer isn't stuck out there, it collapses and expands just like any other drawer.

The Cocoa front end "doesn't work" because it's not finished, and I'm not going to have any time whatsoever to hack at it for at least another week and a half. There's no way I'd waste time on a GLUT backport.. if someone else wants to do it, go for it, but it's not going to be me. If someone wants to go ahead and put the keyboard/mouse code into the cocoa cvs it's not a terribly difficult endeavor, take a look at Apple's GLUT source code (it's public) and the GLUT version (or SDL's input core for OS X) and meet somewhere in the middle. I really just have too much else going on right now.