Guckytos wrote:So guys,
as promised, here are my comments on the official Celestia Readme:
- INSTALLING IN UNIX
Shouldn't this be LINUX?
Celestia has been ported to UNIX variants other than Linux, so it might be appropriate to leave it as is.
MOUSE, KEYBOARD & JOYSTICK CONTROLS
This point here can now be dropped with the new help/FAQ, don't you think?
I agree with Runar that we should leave a quick start guide here. However, that will add to the effort required from translators, so maybe it's best to just refer the reader to the new help guide.
KNOWN ISSUES
I think most if not all items from this list can be dropped.
- Many people have reported problems running Celestia with Matrox G400/G450 3D accelerator cards. As I don't have a Matrox card, I haven't made much progress on this bug. If you do have a G400, have Visual C++ installed, and would be interested in testing a debug version of Celestia, please contact me.
Are those cards really still around?
It's time to drop this. Or at least move it to some obscure corner of the FAQ that deals with legacy hardware. It certainly doesn't belong in the README anymore.
On 3D accelerator cards with a limited amount of memory, resizing the main Celestia window can cause textures to disappear.
To which cards does this apply? Is it really still an issue? Shouldn't it then be moved to the FAQs?
Yes, move it to the FAQ. Almost any graphics card should have enough memory to run Celestia full screen. Even very low end laptops have graphics chips with unified memory architecture, so they can use as much normal RAM as required for graphics.
The maximum texture size supported by the Voodoo 1/2/3 is 256x256, so many of the planet textures will look blurry when running Celestia on one of these cards.
How long ago was the one of these sold? Are those cards really still around?
Yikes. This needs to be eliminated from the README and moved to the same dusty corner of the FAQ as the note about Matrox cards.
Celestia only barely works in 256 color mode. If your display is set to 256 colors, change it to 16-bit or 32-bit if at all possible.
Either a point for the FAQ, which I doubt, or it could be dropped. Even quite old hardware shouldbe able to run in more than 256 colors.
Anyone still running in 256-color mode is living in a world of pain. We shouldn't claim that Celestia 'barely' works in 256-color mode. It won't run at all. I think that we should have an updated 'Requirements' section: 1 GHz processor, graphics card with 32+ MB (any such card automatically fills the 16- or 32-bit color requirement)
If objects look good at a distance but get too dark when you approach them closely, your OpenGL driver does not support a required extension. Try upgrading to the most current version of drivers available for your card. For some older cards, this still won't fix the problem. The next version of Celestia will feature a workaround.
Which next verion? 1.6.0? If yes, then the point can definitely be dropped.
This only applied to ancient S3 cards with broken drivers. Drop this item.
For up-to-the-minute answers to some common problems encountered when running Celestia, please view the "preliminary Celestia User's FAQ" located on the Celestia User's Forum:
Can be dropped as the FAQ is now included.[*]USER MODIFIABLE ELEMENTS
[list]
[*]
... for satellites, days and kilometers are used instead.
This should be clearer on the fact that it means moons AND all other objects.
Perhaps this is better:
...for satellites (natural or man made) that orbit something, days and kilometers are used instead.
Should all this stuff about add-ons be moved to a separate add-on guide? I feel that the README should just address the basics: installing Celestia, getting it running, very basic keyboard/mouse controls. Add-on creation is certainly beyond the scope of the README, though add-on installation may not be.
--Chris
