Please report problems with the MacOS X version here.

[HankR]

A new alpha version of Celestia 1.2.5 for Mac OS X is now available for download at SourceForge. The release file with the new version is 'celestia-osx-1.2.5-a2.dmg'. Please see my note above for details. IMPORTANT: The new version does not include the Celestia data files. Do not delete the earlier version until you've copied out the data files as described in the README.

Please report any problems with the new version here.

- Hank

[TomTzart]

I'm planning to make another Mac OS X alpha release of Celestia 1.2.5 available shortly. This release will not include the data files (hence a much smaller, faster download). You'll have to copy the data files from the initial alpha release (they're inside the application package). Instructions for doing this will be in the README file with the new release.

Here's what's changed from the previous alpha version (mostly bugfixes):

- Moved data files to '~/Library/Application Support/CelestiaResources'

- Fixed problem loading compressed '.dds' texture files

- Fixed problem with nightside texture maps

- Fixed problem with picking objects on screen (courtesy Colin K.)

- Fixed problem with latitude/longitude in "Go To Object" dialog

- Fixed problem with jpeg images loading inverted

- Fixed problems with keyboard commands

- Fixed problem with garbage in initial display

- Fixed problem with logo display timing

- Added autosave for window location

- Updated "About" box info

- Changed to new icon

I'll let you know here when the release is ready for download from SourceForge.

- Hank

Just a little note to say that it works for me only in the Library folder inside my user, not the main Library folder.

Hugs

[MasterMac]

Hey I seem to be getting a problem simply installing this...whenever I download the disk image disk copy gives me an error saying there's no mountable file system... I'm running 10.2.3

[tonypro2]

I'm also getting that weird display bug at medium and high res. The earth texture disappears and is replaced by random bitmaps from my desktop.

Powerbook G3 500 Mhz, 384MB RAM, ATI Rage 128 card, latest OS X.

[Matt McIrvin]

I just saw something like that display bug too, but it is a very intermittent problem and does not happen reproducibly. The symptoms seem to appear abruptly when I maximize the window with the green light button. Minimizing the window and then resizing it to full screen fixes the problem!

Mine's a 1GHz dual G4 (Quicksilver 2002), 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 7500, 32MB video RAM.

Hmm... think it could be an ATI thing?

[Matt McIrvin]

While lat/lon now works correctly in the Go To Object... dialog, Distance doesn't work right if you use kilometers.

[Guest]

is the file downloading properly for other folks? i just get a 12k file.

[HankR]

For those who have been having problems downloading, I've added a gzipped version in case that might help. Please try again and report the results.

- Hank

[MasonMcD]

I'm also having a display bug that appears whenever I try to resize the window above a minimum size. The texture map of the earth (though not of any other planets) picks up elements from my desktop. Very odd.

It doesn't seem to matter what resolution, or color depth I have the display set to, nor the high, medium, low, or any of the other details in the preferences. Anything above the default window size mungs the earth.

I have the new alpha, with the proper files in the Application support folder of ~/Library. I have a TiPB 550 with an ATI RageM6 with 16 MB.

[HankR]

I tried running multiple copies of Celestia simultaneously, hoping to overload texture memory and reproduce the texture bug reported by some users, but without success. The OpenGL driver on my system seems to have no trouble managing texture memory in this situation. But it would not surprise me if there are problems with the drivers for other cards, especially those with minimal vram.

- Hank

[Vinc26]

So... now, I'm really not allone with this bug. And It's not only on gForce 4MX :

Mine's a 1GHz dual G4 (Quicksilver 2002), 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 7500, 32MB video RAM.

Hmm... think it could be an ATI thing?

It's also on ATI...

So ?

[Matt McIrvin]

On my system it does look like the kind of thing that results from overburdening texture memory. That's clearest if I go to a *really* high screen resolution, like 1920x1280; if I resize the screen bigger and bigger, there's a point beyond which Earth goes completely wacky, and switching to the low-res textures is the only way to make it work.

The experience of the one reader who noticed that Earth was getting images from his desktop suggests that this has something to do with Quartz Extreme (which uses texture memory to do various user interface manipulations). I'd guess that it isn't a Celestia bug per se but an operating-system problem with the use of texture memory close to the edge.

One thing I remember noticing when I switched to Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) is that the behavior of the old GLUT version of Celestia when texture memory was overburdened had changed considerably. Pre-Jaguar, things degraded pretty gracefully: Celestia's frame rate would simply slow to a crawl as software OpenGL rendering took over. With Jaguar, which makes much heavier use of the 3D hardware for user interface tasks, suddenly it was possible to create a situation in which the whole user interface would lock up, requiring a reboot (probably you could also recover by logging in remotely and killing processes, but I wasn't set up to do that).

I never tried to tempt fate much with subsequent versions, so I don't know how or if this was ever resolved. But I'd guess that the bugs with Earth display are just a more benign manifestation of the same kind of problem. That would mean that, by and large, it's Apple's fault.

[Matt McIrvin]

Another very strange bug that I'm seeing from the latest alpha: I can't launch Celestia from the Dock any more. If I drag Celestia into the Dock and click on it, a new, bouncing generic application icon appears in the Dock for about one second, then vanishes, and Celestia never opens.

This didn't happen with the first Cocoa alpha. Launching Celestia by double-clicking in the Finder works fine, as does launching from DragThing.

[Vinc26]

...if I resize the screen bigger and bigger, there's a point beyond which Earth goes completely wacky, and switching to the low-res textures is the only way to make it work.

...

That would mean that, by and large, it's Apple's fault.

You describe exactly what append on my system.

But another 3D application have not that bug in hight res... So Apple's fault or not, I think that it should be a way to go through this limitation.

No ?

[HankR]

Matt,

Is there any information in '~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Celestia.crash.log' when Celestia fails to launch from the dock?

- Hank

[Matt McIrvin]

Keyboard commands don't freeze up as often as they used to, but there still seems to be a problem with the keyboard commands freezing when you add or manipulate favorites. (Just selecting a favorite from the menu doesn't cause the problem.)

Changing rendering/labeling options with the keyboard doesn't cause the corresponding preferences dialog switches to change. As currently set up, that can be very confusing.

However, it might potentially be useful as well. When the prefs become fully persistent between sessions, it might be useful to make prefs set with the dialog persistent, but make it possible to change settings non-permanently with the keyboard or with menu items, so that it would be easy to play around with the options non-destructively.

In that case, you'd want to label the dialog something like "Default rendering flags" and perhaps have an easy way to set the default flags from the current state as well as the reverse, and also a way of reverting them to factory defaults. This is how some preferences work in many Mac applications, so it would be familiar to users.

If you want a simpler conceptual model than that, then I'd vote for simply making all the rendering options persistent.

[HankR]

Matt,

Although they're not implemented yet in the Mac OS X version, the Celestia core now supports "Celestia URLs" which capture the complete state of Celestia, including: date/time, time rate, location, motion, etc. as well as all the rendering and labelling options. On Linux/KDE (and soon on Windows, I believe) you can click a link with one of these URLs in a web browser and have Celestia automatically go to the indicated state. I don't know if that will be possible on Mac OS X, but I do know it will be possible to drag and drop a link from the browser onto the Celestia window and have Celestia go to the indicated state. These URLs also enable a "history" mechanism, which lets you quickly return to places you've visited previously during your Celestia session.

It probably makes sense to use this URL format for favorites, and also for saving state between sessions. The latter would mean that Celestia would start up just where you left off, not only with respect to rendering and labelling options, but time, place, etc. as well.

- Hank

[Guest]

Version 1.25 seems pretty stable for an alpha, but I have noticed a couple of odd things. First, the prefernces won't stick. I noticed a couple of other posts about this one. I have even tried editing the plist file in TextEdit, then chmod 440 <prefs file>, then chown root <prefs file>. Even with the file read-only and owned by root it gets changed each time Celestia shuts down. It doesn't seem to change on launch. Second, if I use a hires texture bigger than 2k Celestia crashes on approach to that planet - Mars and Earth are the only ones I have tried. This may be a limitation of my system (Sawtooth 500, single processor, 512 MB, Radeon 8500, 1280x1024x16 bit, 10.2.3) or it may be because I haven't been able to find any documentation and I am just doing everything by guesswork. Oh well, it's more fun that way

[HankR]

Regarding preferences in the Mac OS X alpha 2 version of Celestia 1.2.5, my experience is that they generally are retained across sessions, provided that changes are made in the preferences panel and not using command keys. Changes made using command keys are not retained across sessions, and are not shown properly in the preferences panel. I believe the probem here is in synchronizing the preferences panel with changes made using keyboard commands. This will eventually be fixed, but in the meantime, I believe that if you use the preferences panel to make changes, your preferences will be retained across sessions.

- Hank

[Owain [Guest]]

is the file downloading properly for other folks? i just get a 12k file.

I got that with Navigator. It appears that Navigator gets confused somehow by the sourceforge URL. Try downloading it in a different browser - Safari works fine for me.

On an unrelated topic, when I run this on my iBook, the earth's texture appears to be a sort of mirror... any ideas?

Cheers,
Owain