Reorganizing the Windows view option dialog

[Vincent]

I think that this is a significant improvement over the current view options dialog.

Thanks Chris.
Do you wish to add it to 1.5.1? (without the Dwarf Planet and Minor Moon settings, of course)

[EDIT] Hmm, I just realized that this would require some changes in the translation files as well... [/EDIT]

Vincent, I really like the new dialogue! It looks even a lot better organized than the last one.

But I have one little suggestion: Could you switch the position of "Comet Tails" with "Night Side Lights"?

That would imo look better and be a bit more, hmm let's say consistant as lights and planets and atmospheres go together.
The Comet Tails look a bit out of place at the moment. Whereas on the right side with the other items they would seem to be okay.

Yes, that sounds reasonable.
I'll place 'Night Side Lights' at the end of the second column, though, since they don't always represent natural phenomenas:

[cartrite]

I think it looks fine. A lot more organized. Nice job on the Time dialog for QT4 also.
cartrite

[bdm]

I like the idea of grouping related items together. It is likely that the user will want to select several related settings at the same time so this makes sense.

I believe Chris has indicated that he wants to give users more control over the Information Text, so we may not be seeing None / Terse / Verbose for much longer. We should also give consideration to future changes to the Information Text, such as a set of checkboxes for these as well.

One thing that I think may be useful would be some "global" checkboxes for those settings where such a global checkbox makes sense. This would be ticked, tick-shaded, or unticked depending on the settings of the individual checkboxes. This would be at the top of the list and made prominent by bolding and possibly by raising it 1/2 a standard separation so it stands out. For example, if there was a global "orbits" checkbox, we could select it to select all the orbits, unselect it to hide all the orbits, or control which orbits we want to see by selecting and unselecting the individual orbits. This reduces the click-fest that users must go throuh if they want to turn on all the orbits. Other settings can also benefit from this, such as Labels, Constellations and (in the future) the Information Text settings that are currently controlled by None-Terse-Verbose.

Another issue is that the Settings screen is starting to get rather a lot of checkboxes on it. This is going to get daunting for the inexperienced user. If we are going to group related items together anyway, would it be better to break this form up into multiple forms, with each group of related settings accessible by tabs?

[bdm]

Another thing that may be useful on this screen is to show the shortcut keys for these settings next to the settings, provided this can be done in a way that won't confuse the user. This is a fairly standard approach with applications and it may be beneficial here.

And, yes I know that I can find this information in the Help menu, but it would be more convenient if it was presented here as well.

[Danial]

Good work. I think it looks much more intuitive.

P.S. I know this is a bit off-topic, but what's all this about the Windows version being scrapped? Is there a thread discussing this issue??

[selden]

Good work. I think it looks much more intuitive.

P.S. I know this is a bit off-topic, but what's all this about the Windows version being scrapped? Is there a thread discussing this issue??

Celestia's user interface is in the process of being redesigned to be system independent. See QT Celestia

[Vincent]

Good to know that you all like it. It's in SVN now.

P.S. I know this is a bit off-topic, but what's all this about the Windows version being scrapped? Is there a thread discussing this issue??

Danial,

The Windows version will still be developed, at least until 1.6.0.
Then, as soon as it's complete, the Qt4 front-end will take over
from the Win32 version.

Some promising shots of the Qt4 version can be found in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11773&start=132

[cartrite]

Good to know that you all like it. It's in SVN now.

Thanks Vincent,
I updated my site to include the new Windows View Option dialog in the executables for those of you who don't build SVN.
Updated to r4307. Everything looks good.
cartrite

[Derek]

Hi,

Thanks to Cartrite for the SVN exe and Vincent for the changed option panel, however there seems to be a problem or maybe its me but when I choose the "dwarf planet label & orbit" no orbit and no label are shown and when I return to the Options panel no ticks?? one other thing constellation boudaries "boundaries"

[Vincent]

Hi,

Thanks to Cartrite for the SVN exe and Vincent for the changed option panel, however there seems to be a problem or maybe its me but when I choose the "dwarf planet label & orbit" no orbit and no label are shown and when I return to the Options panel no ticks?? one other thing constellation boudaries "boundaries"

Derek,

You're right, thanks for the report! I simply forgot to check in a file. This is fixed now, as well as the typo in 'boundaries'.
You'll be able to check this out so as soon as Cartrite updates his site.

[cartrite]

Hi,

Thanks to Cartrite for the SVN exe and Vincent for the changed option panel, however there seems to be a problem or maybe its me but when I choose the "dwarf planet label & orbit" no orbit and no label are shown and when I return to the Options panel no ticks?? one other thing constellation boudaries "boundaries"

I don't think there has been any updates to the data files concerning dwarf planets. They were certainly not around for 1.5.0 or 1.5.1. You would have to define a planet as a dwarf in a ssc file. I did modify the minormoons and numberedmoons in the extras folder of the celestia-svn-r4xxx.zip file. So the Minor Moon orbits and labels should work if you use those files. Be sure to back up originals. The modified files will not work correctly if you try to use them with the 1.5.0 or 1.5.1 executables.
cartrite

[cartrite]

Yes there was a problem. I reinstalled the official Celestia yesterday and I didn't have the minormoons.ssc and numberedmoons.ssc that I modified to check with in the extras folder so I failed to check this with r4307. I updated my site to 4309 which contains the fixes. You will still need to modify a ssc file to add a dwarf planet in to get that to work.
cartrite