Celestia 1.6.1 released

[chris]

Celestia 1.6.1 is now available for all supported platforms: ready-to-run binaries for Windows and Mac OS X, and a source tarball for Linux. The files are all on SourceForge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/celestia/files/

As suggested by the version number, Celestia 1.6.1 is not a major feature release. The main changes are:

• Translation improvements for existing languages, plus six new languages (Chinese traditional, Turkish, Slovak, Norwegian, Galician, and Belarusian)
• Bug fixes
• Data file updates (extrasolar planets, Cassini solstice mission, new moons and solar system locations)
• New HTML help files from Runar and Christian (Guckytos)

The complete list of changes may be found here: http://www.celestiaproject.net/celestia/161changes.txt

Many readers of this forum are probably using the latest SVN trunk version; if that's the case for you, 1.6.1 may not be that interesting to you. But, if you're using 1.6.0, you should definitely get the new version for the bug fixes and updated catalog files.

--Chris

[abramson]

Glad to see this...

[ajtribick]

...let's hope the next one doesn't take quite as long!

[Marco Klunder]

Nice work and congratulations all on this achievement

[CAP-Team]

What SVN version is the 1.6.1 release internally?

[selden]

Cap,

It's a separate branch, so its revision numbers don't directly correspond to those of the main "trunk". For example, some of the bug fixes which are included in 1.6.1 were written after some of the new features were starting to be added to the trunk. Those new features are not in 1.6.1. Some of them are still only partially implemented in the trunk. However, the bug fixes, where applicable, are included in the trunk, of course.

[Cambapo]

By the way, when will the Celestia 1.7/2.0 be released? It's been a long time since the last version came out and not even progress report or something like that. Development is shrouded in mistery...

[mr_a500]

By the way, when will the Celestia 1.7/2.0 be released? It's been a long time since the last version came out and not even progress report or something like that. Development is shrouded in mistery...

Yes, I was wondering about this too. I've read about many enhancements Fridger was doing for "Celestia.Sci" (whatever that is), but he's been saying it was "forthcoming" for the last 3 years.

Whatever they do, I hope they won't cut off Mac PPC support. (like nearly everybody else has done in the last year)

[selden]

Compiling the current v1.7 code base for yourself is relatively easy. The procedures to use on a Mac are detailed at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/D ... S_platform

[t00fri]

By the way, when will the Celestia 1.7/2.0 be released? It's been a long time since the last version came out and not even progress report or something like that. Development is shrouded in mistery...

Yes, I was wondering about this too. I've read about many enhancements Fridger was doing for "Celestia.Sci" (whatever that is), but he's been saying it was "forthcoming" for the last 3 years.

Whatever they do, I hope they won't cut off Mac PPC support. (like nearly everybody else has done in the last year)

Unfortunately, Celestia development is in deep "coma" since quite a while. Patients suffering coma sometimes wake up spontaneously, sometimes they never wake up again. There are a number of concrete reasons for the present situation that I don't want to detail now.

Celestia.Sci is NOT Celestia, although I am a longstanding Celestia developer and co-author ( ~ since 10 years). Celestia.Sci will be less and less like Celestia with time. Sci <=> scientific. It's just a working name for now. Celestia.Sci has indeed many significant improvements and new features already, and I am working hard to make it even better. One reason for not going public yet is that I still haven't found a satisfactory release modus that naturally avoids any sort of confrontation, bad feelings etc... Some previews on new features are regularly appearing over at my Celestial Matters site.


Fridger

[ajtribick]

We can only support the platforms we have developers for, and as Fridger says the state of the development community is comatose (with occasional awakenings from time-to-time). Notably, in our recent discussion of the build system the contributions have been for the Linux and Windows platforms, the Mac community has been silent on this so far.

[mr_a500]

Compiling the current v1.7 code base for yourself is relatively easy. The procedures to use on a Mac are detailed at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/D ... S_platform

I already tried this twice last month, using those instructions - but it didn't work. I get lots of "Command /Developer/usr/bin/gcc-4.0 failed with exit code 1".

[mr_a500]

Unfortunately, Celestia development is in deep "coma" since quite a while. Patients suffering coma sometimes wake up spontaneously, sometimes they never wake up again. There are a number of concrete reasons for the present situation that I don't want to detail now.

Celestia.Sci is NOT Celestia, although I am a longstanding Celestia developer and co-author ( ~ since 10 years). Celestia.Sci will be less and less like Celestia with time. Sci <=> scientific. It's just a working name for now. Celestia.Sci has indeed many significant improvements and new features already, and I am working hard to make it even better. One reason for not going public yet is that I still haven't found a satisfactory release modus that naturally avoids any sort of confrontation, bad feelings etc... Some previews on new features are regularly appearing over at my Celestial Matters site.


Fridger

That is sad. Celestia is totally awesome. I wish somebody would bring it out of its coma, smack it across the face a few times and tell it to get moving.

(I've read vague bits about people having "bad feelings", but I wish people would just try to get along. Life is too short for petty grudges.)

[t00fri]

...
(I've read vague bits about people having "bad feelings", but I wish people would just try to get along. Life is too short for petty grudges.)

No, no...that's not an issue. There is no one grumbling behind the scene.

Fridger

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[mr_a500]

I already tried this twice last month, using those instructions - but it didn't work. I get lots of "Command /Developer/usr/bin/gcc-4.0 failed with exit code 1

I take it that that mac of yours (I hope they won't cut off Mac PPC support.)
is one of the OLD ibm ppc CPU's on the old mac9
or one of the newer intel x 86 CPU's that are in osx

the current macs are NOT ppc CPU's

Yes, I know the current Macs are not PPC. My Mac is PPC ("old" G5 PowerMac, but still seems "new" to me), which is why I am hoping Mac PPC support is not dropped. (or limited to OSX 10.6+, which amounts to the same thing)

[Cambapo]

That's too bad Celestia's development is halt. If I knew more on programing I would be glad to help, I mean, I have a LOT of free time, I'm still in school and I don't do much homeworks, and also, my PC can handle the program graphics. If someone could teach em maybe I could help. Also because I know celestia since I was like 11 years old or so, and now I'm 16.

[ixfd64]

There's a little typo on the News page. It says that 1.6.1 was released in June 2010.

[Cambapo]

There's a little typo on the News page. It says that 1.6.1 was released in June 2010.

Yeah, but the Celestia I'm saying is Celestia 1.7.0/2.0