abramson wrote:mikej wrote:You said to " replace its executable" as there was a problem. What does this mean? Please be specific.
There are MANY of us out here who really enjoy Celestia but who are not "computer friendly"
Please, either release a new version or teach us how to use what you are all talking about
As I have already explained before, this is for people that know how to do it, or can learn to do it by themselves. Celestia has an official line of development and at a regular pace new versions are released. So eventually, and in short time, every version that I compile will be superseded by an official release. So, if anybody does not know hwo to use a precompiled executable, they do not need to worry. They are being left behind. Just wait a few weeks. Celestia will continue to be released officially, thanks to its dedicated developers. That's all I have to say.
Guillermo
Mikej,
To understand what's going on, you need to have a basic understanding of how the software development lifecycle works. Below is a crude diagram which approximates what's happening.
On the left are the official stable Celestia releases which are periodically available at
http://shatters.net/celestia. These are well tested stable releases which are pre-packaged in a self extracting installer which ensures correct installation on your machine.
If you want a stable version which will install with minimum fuss you should download the current latest version from the official website.
After each release (and often well before) the developers are working in parallel on features intended for the next (and future) releases. It is these features and versions that are the subject of much of the discussion in this forum, and in this thread specifically. This is represented by the right hand side of the diagram.
These development versions are referred to as SVN (subversion) versions, and they almost always will have more bugs in them than the official version (it's the nature of the beast).
Many people in the forum like to help with the development by testing these new versions and ironing out the bugs in new features. The downside of using one of these versions is that you must be prepared to deal with the occasional bug or crash, because they are "in development" versions.
You must also understand how to install them manually, and this procedure can vary somewhat, depending on the particular version and features you are installing. It really requires a degree of understanding of how the software is constructed, which most newbies will not have.
However, the good news is that as you can see in the diagram, the development work is (at the DEV team's discretion) periodically merged back into a new official release.
The discussion in this thread is currently all about the 1.6.0 dev versions which are soon to be incorporated into the next official release (1.6.0).
If you do not have a secure understanding of all this, then you should probably stick to the current 1.5.1 official version, and wait for the forthcoming 1.6.0 official release. As abramson said, Celestia will continue to be released officially.
Code: Select all
Official releases Development versions
1.4.0
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+--------------------------> 1.4.1 dev versions
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1.4.1 <--------------------------------+
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+--------------------------> 1.5.0 dev versions
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1.5.0 <--------------------------------+
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+---------------------------> 1.5.1 dev versions
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1.5.1 (current official release) <----+
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+---------------------------> 1.6.0 dev versions
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1.6.0 (next offiicial release) <-------+