New navigation ability that should be really handy

[MarcoMeijer]

It would be very handy if we could turn around the selected object. If you've ever used Google Earth, you know what I mean, because you can turn around the earth.

[selden]

I'm not sure what you mean by "turn around"

Any of the Shift-Arrow keys orbits Celestia's viewpoint around the body that currently is being "Followed". Is that what you mean?

[buggs_moran]

Try this Marco

Either hold the right mouse button and drag mouse

-or-

Hold shift and press arrows

[ElChristou]

Talking about this, a real cool feature would be a double quick pression on arrows (like a double click on mouse) to do an infinite loop around the selected object...

So, shift + continuous pression on arrow= turn around the object
Shift, two quick pressions= infinite loop

Pressing another arrow would stop the loop of course...

Possible?

(and to be really nice, the speed of the loop would be proportional to the size of the body...)

[Cham]

This is already possible, since at least several weeks (probably older, but I never used that trick) :

shift-arrow let the user turn around the selected object. Command-shift arrow gives an infinite loop, but it's unreliable. Trying to turn in reverese sense is hard to do once the infinite loop is occuring.

[ElChristou]

This is already possible, since at least several weeks (probably older, but I never used that trick) :

shift-arrow let the user turn around the selected object. Command-shift arrow gives an infinite loop, but it's unreliable. Trying to turn in reverese sense is hard to do once the infinite loop is occuring.

pff... after all this time there is still some unknown functions to me...

Now this shortcut works but the loop is really too fast, and not easy to stop...

[Cham]

Now this shortcut works but the loop is really too fast, and not easy to stop...

Yes, the loop is too fast.

To stop it, it's easy : use the same arrow again, just once. No need to use shift of command.

[dirkpitt]

The behaviour Cham is seeing is probably not a feature, but a bug..

[ElChristou]

The behaviour Cham is seeing is probably not a feature, but a bug..

what behavior? Cmd+Shift+arrow?

[dirkpitt]

Yes. Apparently the act of releasing the keys is not detected when the key combo includes the Cmd key (probably exclusive to the OS X version). Celestia is thus tricked into thinking that you are continuously holding down Shift+Arrow, hence the infinite rotation. Need some time to think about this one.

[ElChristou]

Yes. Apparently the act of releasing the keys is not detected when the key combo includes the Cmd key (probably exclusive to the OS X version). Celestia is thus tricked into thinking that you are continuously holding down Shift+Arrow, hence the infinite rotation. Need some time to think about this one.

Let's keep the bug and tune it a bit then!!

[dirkpitt]

As tempting as not catching bugs would be...

I myself usually end up using the fast-forward ("L") key to spin an object. Tap "L" to set time rate to x100 or x1000 and Celestia spins the object in an infinite loop. Of course this only works for objects that already have a spin, like planets.

[Cham]

But this wont be usefull if you want to turn around a complete scene, not just a planet. If there are several moons, or spacecrafts, etc, it may be interesting to turn around all of them, and not just seeing one spinning.

[dirkpitt]

I fixed the bug in my unofficial Celestia builds. The infinite spin should be gone.

There is no "spin" feature. (yet?) Shift+Double tap of arrow keys sounds like an intuitive way to do it though. Also it's pretty common in 3D programs to map a "fling" gesture with the mouse (click-drag-release) to a spinning motion, what do you guys think?