Educational Activities partly don't work on a win system

[LostInSpace]

Hi!
Being a newbie to Celestia I just installed the educational version of the program, the General Educational Download and some educational activities including the one about SETI.
Most links in the word document work but some that obviously have to load special data as the 'new' earth or fictional material (e.g. tatooine) as also some spacecrafts or the hubble ultra deep space image don't load.

I found that a possible cause for this could be that in the documents some link reference to 'Program Files' as the appropriate program directory despite the program will be installed in different named dirs in localized windows versions (e.g. it's called 'Programme' in my German version) by default.
So I deinstalled the whole package and reinstalled it using the 'Program Files' directory name. It still doesn't work.

Thanks for any tips!
Regards LIS

[fsgregs]

Hi there:

I am sorry you are having a problem launching the Activities. You are correct in realizing that the problem is due to where the Celestia-ED folder has been placed on your computer.

The educational activities begin with an MS Word Activity document, which must be opened first. Celestia-ED MUST be launched from inside the document by clicking on the image link (usually on page 4) that says, "Click here to begin your journey", or something like it.

This image contains a hyperlink that links to a special Windows shortcut file, which launches the program itself. The shortcut file itself can be found inside the "Activity_cels" folder inside the main Celestia-ED directory folder. For example, if you open the MS Word Activity 1&2-the Universe document and click on the picture on page 4, the hyperlink will go to a file named "Activity1&2" inside the Activity_cels folder.

The purpose of that file is to launch Celestia-ED with a certain set of add-ons (extra files) that are specific to that activity only. For example, the shortcut named Activity1&2 commands Celestia-ED to launch and load a set of add-ons called "Activity1&2".

If you click on the image and you get an error message, it means the Windows shortcut cannot find its target. It is in the Activity_cels folder inside Celestia-ED folder, but MS Word may not know exactly where the Celestia-ED folder has been installed. It is expecting it in C:/Program Files".

You can fix the problem easily. Right-click on the hyperlink image, choose edit hyperlink, click in the address box and redirect the link so that it points to the Activity1&2 shortcut inside the Activity_cels folder inside the Celestia-ED folder. If you redirect the link, it does not have to be inside the "Program Files" on your computer. Celestia-ED can be anywhere.

If that doesn't work, you can bypass the hyperlink directly by opening the Activity_cels folder manually and simply double-clicking on the file that pertains to the Activity you are viewing. For example, if you double-click on the Activity1&2 shortcut, it will launch Celestia-ED with the proper add-ons for Activity 1&2.

If the position of Celestia-ED is not in the C:/Program Files" folder, each Activity will have one or more hyperlinks to that location that will need some minor editing. Once done, the links should work.

Yet me know how things go.

Frank

[LostInSpace]

Hi fsgregs!
Thanks for your detailed answer!
Yesterday I figured out that there were three problems at the same time:

1. wrong folder link in the activity document. I solved it by reinstalling in 'Program Files' folder (that is normally never used for any program installations in localized versions of windows).

2. Decompressing the files of an activity copies all of them in the correct place. This is true for the activity links in the Activity_cels folder, too. Now for the interesting part: Examining the links in the Activity_cels folder showed that they all were broken because *they* pointed to my German specific program folder 'Programme'. Solved by manually tweaking in the link properties dialog.

3. Clicking the link in the document beginning to call the activity link (e.g. Activity10a.lnk) doesn't work with my system. Despite the document link points to the correct link file in the Activity_Cels folder and this link file itself is now - as I explained under 2. - pointing to the appropriate folder Celestia-ED is not started. Solved problem by manually starting Activity10a.lnk in the Activity_cels folder by double-click.

Took a hour or so yesterday to figure out but now all is working properly - if I do the little workaround. I really don't understand why the word document can't start the link that - manually started - works properly.
I think that all of these problems that can occur with any other non-english versions of windows depending on the default program directory can be eliminated by using not the absolute link in the word document but replacing the 'Program Files' string in the documents with the '%program_files%' environment variable...

Hopefully this can help any other users out of trouble to get these amazing activities working...

regards LIS

[fsgregs]

LIS;

I'm glad you solved the problems. OK tell me again what I have to use in the links. I heard there is some Windows string that will always locate a hyperlink, no matter where it is put. You used the '%program_files%' string. I am unfamiliar with it.

Let's say I want a hyperlink in the Activity document to go to the shortcut in the Activity_cels folder, which is in the Celestia-ED folder. I want to set up that hyperlink so that it makes no difference where a user has installed Celestia-ED. Rather, I want the hyperlink to locate the Celestia-ED folder wherever it is, and then locate the Activity_cels folder inside it.

What would the link look like? what do I type in the MS Word hyperlink field so that "C:Program Files" is no longer needed in the address?

Please advise

Frank

[LostInSpace]

False Alarm!!!

Hi Frank,

I examined your document links again and noticed that they are all correct pointing to the *relative* path. Therefore I reinstalled the program and the activities again in my country specific folder 'Programme' and everything works now pretty well except the initialising links in the beginning of the educational documents. They are pointing to the appropriate folder so I don't know why they sren't able to launch Celestia. The only workaround I have to do now is to start Celestia-ED by clicking the links in the Activity_cels folder. As I said before the links from the document seems to be correct so I really can't figure out why it doesn't launch Celestia with the appropriate cfg file.
Perhaps I was confused by this issue before and messed things up a bit so take my apologies. I hope you haven't had any sleepless nights
Thanks for your wonderful tutorials. Currently I'm a bit busy with my work but possibly I could translate some of this stuff into German shortly. It would be a pleasure if I could help to pass this to the German speaking public so in case you are interested feel free to contact me via mail...

regards LIS