Night Observer - my free astronomical software

[Gina]

I know with older versions of wdoze there were Delphi routines to read the system user settings such as these regional settings. Such things should not be hard coded for software for international use. I think this is a bad practice anyway, sorry.

[AstroJaWil]

I put a new one update to the program - 2.01 version. I hope that besides the addition of Algol minima in 2012, also managed to improve something about decimal separator. Try it now, maybe in a part of you that error no longer occurs.

Nocny Obserwator - darmowy program astronomiczny.

[Ptarmigan]

I put a new one update to the program - 2.01 version.

Thank you, I am happy to report that it now runs OK on my Vista laptop.

Looking good.

All I have to do now is to discover how to turn off the night vision colour and increase the font size of the 'help' so that I can read it on my small laptop screen !

EDIT : Ok, found help_eng.txt in the files, can open that in Notepad, but can no longer use 'Alt-Tab' to cycle between windows. How to minimise NightObserver window ?

[AstroJaWil]

Thank you, I am happy to report that it now runs OK on my Vista laptop.

Looking good.

All I have to do now is to discover how to turn off the night vision colour and increase the font size of the 'help' so that I can read it on my small laptop screen !

EDIT : Ok, found help_eng.txt in the files, can open that in Notepad, but can no longer use 'Alt-Tab' to cycle between windows. How to minimise NightObserver window ?

To turn on Day Mode press right button mouse and click on Day/Night.

Press F7 to read about keyboard function.

To minimalize Night Observer click on the right-up corner rectangle icon.

(Alt-Tab is not set in this program)

I am very glad that is ok now.

[malc-c]

Yup works on Vista Business -

[Ptarmigan]

Thanks, I have found day/night and settings box,

Problem1 = can the settings dialog box be resized/expanded ? because the contained fields/entries are truncated on the right

(see attach 1)

The same in the F7 window.

Problem2 =

To minimalize Night Observer click on the right-up corner rectangle icon.

Sorry, I do not understand,

do you mean this (the usual place for a windows minimise ) in my second attach. ?

It brings up the "Help" window, the same as the Help tab (they seem to be the same function/paired)

(Alt-Tab is not set in this program)

:-( for the future perhaps :-)

Thanks for your interesting work.

[AstroJaWil]

I think that both problems are of the same nature. I suppose that you have set the Windows icon enlarged or enlarged font set. When set to NORMAL problems should disappear.

If you click on the icon of the rectangle, the program will collapse to a normal Windows window, which now can easily roll up to the taskbar.

no_1.TIF

no_2.TIF

[brucen]

I can't get it to run as Norton Internet Security told me it was a security risk and deleted it! Such is life....

[malc-c]

Have no problems with the min/max buttons, or with the settings window probably as the screen res on my 24" monitor is 1920 x 1080. However when the screen was windowed the maps failed to refresh and I had a black screen within the windowed app. Clicking in the area where the map should be re-drew the screen, but then when maximised kept the maps the same size as the previous window and re-shuffled all the buttons at the bottom (see attached)

To be honest, this app is IMO still in development and very buggy, as a lot of the fundamentals (screen re-draw, decimal point issue, and window re-sizing to take account of user settings) have yet to be addressed. - Sorry but if you want honest opinions...

[AstroJaWil]

I can't get it to run as Norton Internet Security told me it was a security risk and deleted it! Such is life....

Because in this zip file inside is exe file. If you turn off Norton IS you will see Night Observer

[AstroJaWil]

Have no problems with the min/max buttons, or with the settings window probably as the screen res on my 24" monitor is 1920 x 1080. However when the screen was windowed the maps failed to refresh and I had a black screen within the windowed app. Clicking in the area where the map should be re-drew the screen, but then when maximised kept the maps the same size as the previous window and re-shuffled all the buttons at the bottom (see attached)

To be honest, this app is IMO still in development and very buggy, as a lot of the fundamentals (screen re-draw, decimal point issue, and window re-sizing to take account of user settings) have yet to be addressed. - Sorry but if you want honest opinions...

Yes I know about it. If you change size of window you should only click on a map to refresh it and hide bottom panel to have a normal view. I am using this program with one size of window. If I need to change it - return to normal view takes me one second. It is no problem to me. It is simple way to turn on frequently refreshing, but then program will be slower and this don't likes me. Maybe I find solution for your satisfaction using NO.

[malc-c]

To be fair to other developers of freeware applications such as CDC don't require the user to constantly manually refresh the screen. Whilst it may not be a "problem" for you, which is OK when you wrote the app for yourself or a few mates, but now you've published it to the world these things IMO need addressing if and when your "customers" find them annoying.

When I'm imaging in the observatory, I'm constantly moving and re-sizing the various apps I have running. To have to manually refresh your app every time would soon make me want to hit the delete key and remove it from my system.

I'll give you credit for taking on board what SGL users have raised, but I would suggest that you change the website and make this still a beta release until you have ironed out all these little issues.

[Gina]

TBH I would class this release as Alpha. There is a lot to be done with the user interface and as has been said, this is software in early development as far as publishing is concerned. I know very well from my own experience that many things show up when you get a number of people using development software. Different operating systems, different languages and different system setups will all show up things that didn't show on your own or those of a few of your friends.

The usual protocol when first releasing/publishing software is to class it as Alpha. When most things are sorted out and there are just a few known bugs remaining it becomes Beta. When you've sorted out most of the bugs and the main remaining improvements are user suggested or extra features you have a Full release. Then with feedback from users you add or improve features and these are untested, software is sometimes released on a daily or weekly schedule as Alpha or Beta.

Hope that helps - from a software developer and alpha/beta tester of other people's software

[brucen]

Because in this zip file inside is exe file. If you turn off Norton IS you will see Night Observer

Thanks

[AstroJaWil]

To be fair to other developers of freeware applications such as CDC don't require the user to constantly manually refresh the screen. Whilst it may not be a "problem" for you, which is OK when you wrote the app for yourself or a few mates, but now you've published it to the world these things IMO need addressing if and when your "customers" find them annoying.

When I'm imaging in the observatory, I'm constantly moving and re-sizing the various apps I have running. To have to manually refresh your app every time would soon make me want to hit the delete key and remove it from my system.

I'll give you credit for taking on board what SGL users have raised, but I would suggest that you change the website and make this still a beta release until you have ironed out all these little issues.

Thank you for all the comments, which are very helpful to me that the program is useful not only for me. I will try to do the next update so that the resizing does not require additional user interaction. Beta version will return to my website.

[AstroJaWil]

TBH I would class this release as Alpha. There is a lot to be done with the user interface and as has been said, this is software in early development as far as publishing is concerned. I know very well from my own experience that many things show up when you get a number of people using development software. Different operating systems, different languages and different system setups will all show up things that didn't show on your own or those of a few of your friends.

The usual protocol when first releasing/publishing software is to class it as Alpha. When most things are sorted out and there are just a few known bugs remaining it becomes Beta. When you've sorted out most of the bugs and the main remaining improvements are user suggested or extra features you have a Full release. Then with feedback from users you add or improve features and these are untested, software is sometimes released on a daily or weekly schedule as Alpha or Beta.

Hope that helps - from a software developer and alpha/beta tester of other people's software

Thank you Gina. It will help me.

Best Regards.

Janusz

[Gina]

Good Hope the seemingly negative feedback isn't discouraging - remember "Great Oaks from little acorns grow" It can seem as if everything's wrong when you first publish software and users with different operating systems, different user settings, different countries and languages get to try it. Best to view all feedback as useful/positive as it helps you to make a better product. Good luck with it

[AstroJaWil]

Gina.

Exactly the same, I understand. This criticism is constructive, because it will help me to improve the program. I am very glad that I met here so large response to my posts. I liked this forum, because only here I got so many comments. I hope for our cooperation will soon result.

Once again, thank you very much to all of you and ask for more comments.

[malc-c]

Good to see that you are taking all comments as positive

Get the basics right and then release the app. Things like scope control etc can then come as a "new" version later on

[AstroJaWil]

Telescope control assembly for sure I'll do it later. For decades, I talk about the stars and sky objects at the joint meetings of astronomy enthusiasts under clear skies and conducting observations with pleasure at finding objects in the sky by hand without the aid of a GOTO scope control. For me, it is important to know how to find yourself the object in the sky through a telescope, but do not know how to set the telescope on a computer.

[malc-c]

Janusz,

I'm no expert, but there seems to be two, possibly three main protocols that are used for telescope, camera, focuser control. All of these are covered on the Ascom standards web site ASCOM - Standards for Astronomy

The site also contains pages for software developers such as yourself, including a basic "hello world" in jscript, by way of an example, although it's not limited to this language

Edit:

Just found the list of supported languages:

Drivers for all types of astronomy devices (e.g., Focusers, Domes, Telescopes) use the Windows OS native component object feature (COM). Virtually all development languages, scripting languages, and scriptable tools allow use of Windows COM objects natively without adapter libraries, etc.

The following development languages, scripting languages, and scriptable tools can directly use ASCOM drivers:

• C++
  
• Delphi Pascal
  
• Visual Basic 6
  
• FORTRAN
  
• C#.NET
  
• VisualBasic.NET
  
• Java (the real thing)
  
• COBOL
  
• RemObjects PascalScript
  
• Perl
  
• Python
  
• Tcl/Tk
  
• PL/1
  
• ReXX
  
• JavaScript/JScript
  
• VBScript
  
• Microsoft Office (all products!)
  
• Squeak Smalltalk
  
• Visual Smalltalk
  
• REALBasic
  
• MATLAB
  
• LABView
  

[AstroJaWil]

Thank you.

I know about ASCOM, and I will try to apply it as soon as pass main troubles in my application.

[Ptarmigan]

or enlarged font set. When set to NORMAL problems should disappear

Yes, I thought that was probably the reason but I did not want to mess with my system just for this one prog. !

[AstroJaWil]

Yes, I thought that was probably the reason but I did not want to mess with my system just for this one prog. !

Actually, i don't know how and don't want to change users Windows settings.

[Ptarmigan]

and don't want to change users Windows settings.

I agree, certainly not globally !! and even changing within "NO" would be disconcerting for the user.

I dunno, I cant help, I've only ever played with consol progs in "C"

However, I would have thought that Delphi should handle that transparently ??