Mac Version Questions

[Aristarkhos]

1. I just downloaded Celestia for OS X last night, and there's no tools, or help menu, or [Application]/Preferences menu. Should this surprise me? I can't even get the list of keyboard commands anywhere except by running it on my Windows machine.

2. Has the Mac developer considered adding support for QuickTime capture analogous to the .avi support in Windows (which is terrific, btw.)

3. Has the Mac developer considered moving the resources directory outside the .app package so one can drop and drag resources files? ~/Library/Celestia might be a good place to put it (create it on first run).

Thanks . A great program.

[HankR]

1. Hold down the control key and press the mouse button in the Celestia window to pop-up a menu of commands. The menu items indicate the equivalent keyboard commands.

2. The Mac version of Celestia is very much a work in progress. The presently released version uses the OpenGL GLUT and is way behind the Windows version in terms of features. A new version, using the MacOS X native Cocoa toolkit is in the works. It will be a major improvement. Movie capture will likely be implemented eventually, but probably not real soon. Bob (the lone Mac developer, as far as I know) has been doing a great job, but it's a part-time, purely volunteer effort, and he's been busy with other obligations lately, so it's been slow going.

3. Something like this would be a good idea. The current setup is good for drag and drop installation but not so good for customization.

- Hank

[Aristarkhos]

Thanks for your reponses, HankR, they are very helpful.

On topic 2., yes, I know the Mac version is the work of one developer and is behind the Windows version. Just wondered if that was something he was considering.

On topic 1., are the screenshots on the download page showing a tools and help menu representative of a recent nightly/cvs snapshot, or are they representative of the "release" version linked on the page? If the latter, I would have a bug; if the former, I would just have to sit on my hands and wait for the blessed day a new release comes out incorporating it ;-). But thank you for indicating how to bring up the keybindings list.

Again, great program.

[kevludwig]

Hi,

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point in topic 3), but I've found that by Control-clicking the Celestia.app you can show the package contents, which you can then modify as you desire.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

[Guest]

~/Library/Application Support/Celestia/Textures(or whatever in the next subdirectory)

or in the main Library, which I prefer: usually the OS X-user is the admin, so his apps are installed in the main applications folder. Logically, his app'ses support files should be put in the main Library as well.

Please don't break with using the application support folder for this kind of thing. By the way, I wouldn't mind if it remained inside the package though.

[julesstoop]

Oops :oops: forgot to login... No I'm not anonymous any more... Or should it spell "ain't anonymous no more" ?

[Guest]

> 3), but I've found that by Control-clicking the
> Celestia.app you can show the package contents,
> which you can then modify as you desire.

Thanks. Didn't know that; assumed you had to use the terminal to get inside .app packages.

Ok, strike suggestion #3.