Instrument/Control Panel add-on?

[Malenfant]

Yep, it's damn cool.
After some time, you find the Celestia experience changes a lot.
Perception is different. It's no longer an "anonymous window".
You're like being there. Strapped in the pilot's seat.
If you add your favorites KDE buttons as another overlay on the cockpit foreground, it feels like you ARE THERE! ... With full control.
Still working on it.
Will post a new result

Yeah, if you can add some functional buttons to the cockpit itself that'd be really useful... I dunno if there is a way in Celestia to associate a function with click on an area of the screen though.

[Boux]

Hi there,
A new screenshot after some more tweaking of the code.
Looks really good on my widescreen setup.
The kids' jaws have been falling to the ground.
Completely different perception. They think it's some sort of space game now lol!
I am working on an LCD-like rendering of the bottom of the screen.
Kde's clickable bookmark palette fits in nicely.

http://jmmi.club.fr/celestia/cockpit.jpg

[Malenfant]

that looks much better, I think the cockpit outline had some dodgy pixellation going on earlier...

Can this all be done in windows? Something like that bookmark bar could be handy, if it can be further customised...

[Boux]

Can this all be done in windows? Something like that bookmark bar could be handy, if it can be further customised...

I don't think this can be done readily in Windows.
With KDE, you can put bookmark and tool bars wherever you want (top, stacked, left, right, bottom, floating, locked). Bars are customisable in a very simple way.
Almost everything in Linux can be configured by text files, plain ascii or xml.
There is no cryptic central registry as in Windows. All programs or system binaries have their own human-readable config files.

[Malenfant]

Well since Celestia is a multiplatform application this isn't really going to be a whole lot of use to anyone unless it can be done entirely within Celestia (not using any functions that are part of the outside OS), and can look the same across all platforms.

[Boux]

Well since Celestia is a multiplatform application this isn't really going to be a whole lot of use to anyone unless it can be done entirely within Celestia (not using any functions that are part of the outside OS), and can look the same across all platforms.

Not exactly.
The overlay image is OS independant.
The toolbars are a native functionality of KDE/Linux.
It is just that the Celestia KDE interface is more developped than the Windows one.

[Boux]

I am now playing with a Shuttle cockpit overlay.
More realistic than Orbiter's glider.
Still some work to do with lateral windows outlines
Imagine this is a sized down shot from a 26" widescreen monitor.

[Space Pilot]

Wow that is awsome!! I been a celestia fan for a few years now and been hoping someone would do somthing like this! will this be an addon that can be downloaded? It would be really cool if you could switch from llike a cockpit view to a 3rd person view where a 3d ship model could be seen to! Im kinda limited in knowledge when it comes to this kinda stuff or I would attemt it myself.

Oh, by the way, where can I find that hubble model?

[selden]

That telescope model, by Jestr, is on the MotherLode.

http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/satellites.php

[fsgregs]

Boux:



I LOVE IT!!! My students would all flip out if the overlay could be added dynamically to Celestia during program run (perhaps via menu or keystroke). It fits perfectly with the external view of the Celestia 1, the ship that Jack Higgins created for me some time ago to use in the Educational Activities. Here's a screenshot of the Celestia 1. It is heavily featured in all my Activity journeys.



Please do whatever you can to provide your cockpit add-on for use in a Windows system.

Frank

[Boux]

Boux:



I LOVE IT!!! My students would all flip out if the overlay could be added dynamically to Celestia during program run (perhaps via menu or keystroke). It fits perfectly with the external view of the Celestia 1, the ship that Jack Higgins created for me some time ago to use in the Educational Activities. Here's a screenshot of the Celestia 1. It is heavily featured in all my Activity journeys.

Please do whatever you can to provide your cockpit add-on for use in a Windows system.

Frank

Hi,
Unfortunately, this cannot be an add-on currently because the additional overlay is hard-wired into the code.
I had to make several changes to it such as adding a new class for a custom_texture that is called by Celestia from the textures folder where flare and logo are already sitting.
Some other changes process the auto re-sizing of the overlay picture to the current screen width and height and the behaviour of the existing blueish overlay console at the bottom of the screen where one can enter an object name.

Some other changes are to be done such as defining a hotkey to switch it on and off at will.

All in all, nothing really difficult but it implies changing the code and re-compiling it (btw, it is a breeze under Linux and very fast, I can test two different builds within a couple minutes!). Not everyone is able or is wanting to do that.

I have stopped this development for the time being. I am waiting for the next stable release to redo everything. There are too many changes going on on the CVS at the moment.

When it is done, I will (perhaps, I am busy like hell with my job) release a short how-to with bits of code to add or to change in the various source files for people who make their own builds out there (for any OS obviously).
A more elegant, easy to maintain solution would be to put the changes all together in a separate *.h and *.ccp pair of dedicated source files.

I am not a programmer. I work in a completely different environment.
I am just learning C++ for the fun of it and as a side-effect of my personal interest for Linux and Celestia.