DeepSkyStacker 5.1.4 Beta2 is now available

[perdrix]

You can download the new beta release from here: https://github.com/deepskystacker/DSS/releases/tag/5.1.4-Beta2

Please read the notes below carefully.   There have been a LOT of changes.  DeepSkyStackerLive has been completely reworked, so will need a lot of testing.  A lot of work has gone into the translation of messages and UI text.  Please could you check for any errors in the translations.

I'd be grateful if as many people as possible would install and test this release.   Please report any bugs to the DeepSkyStacker mailing list at groups.io (one new thread per bug).

https://groups.io/g/DeepSkyStacker

Welcome to DeepSkyStacker 5.1.4 Beta 2

Only 64 bit versions of Windows 10 and later are supported in this release.

Known problems:

1. When registering a set of images with different exposure times, the progress dialogue restarts counting at 1 and the progress bar is reset to 0 for each different exposure. The estimated time for completion gets completely confused, and the progress bar reaches 100% a number of times.

2. When the image exposure is less than 1ms and the double-click to edit is used, and the user then clicks away from the editor, then the exposure is set to zero.
   This requires too much work to fix in this release, as we will need to implement our own edit control.

Changes since the last release:

1. Upgrade CFITSIO library to 4.2.0

2. Always create a trace file in the DeepSkyStacker sub-folder of the user's Documents folder. The file will be called e.g.

   DSSTrace_yyyy-mm-ddThh-hh-ssZ.log where the timestamp is GMT (UTC) time.

   The trace file will be deleted on normal application exit, but retained in the event of an exception.
   An option is provided to keep the file.

3. Add both Main Group and Group 1 at startup.

4. Initial code changes for Qt 6.5.1 Dark/Light Theme support

5. Add an option to turn off beeps on completion of registering/stacking.

6. Toolbar display improved (no square boxes round active/hovered buttons).

7. Upgrade libtiff to 4.5.0

8. Add code to handle TIFF tags TIFFTAG_CFAREPEATPATTERNDIM and TIFFTAG_CFAPATTERN when processing TIFF files in CFA format. These tags are defined in the TIFF/EP standard.
   Add code to handle EXIF tag EXIFTAG_CFAPATTERN which is defined in the EXIF standard.
   This allows automatic detection of the CFA pattern needed to decode the file.
   The only files that DSS writes as TIFF in CFA format are some of the master files.
   All other TIFF output files will remain RGB.

9. Change compression of TIFF format master files to use PKZIP Deflate instead of no compression.

10. Change default compression for saving images to PKZIP Deflate (was NONE).

11. Convert DeepSkyStackerLive to Qt.

12. Use floating point instead of 16-bit fixed point for master files. Old master files will still work.

13. Prevent undocked sidebar and image list windows from being closed (never to be seen again).

14. Suppress warning message "ZIPEncode: Encoder error: buffer error." when writing TIFF files.

15. Remove Microsoft CGI+ dependency for loading jpeg and png images.

16. FITS output files didn't contain the number of images in the stack. Save this using FITS keyword NCOMBINE, also report the number of images when loading FITS images.

17. Bug fix: Correct code for reading floating point FITS files (the value was incorrectly normalised - e.g.: 256.0 was read back as 259.996).

18. Bug fix: Value of FITS SOFTWARE keyword in output file truncated after first character.

19. Bug fix: Unable to stack images with no stars when using Alignment set to "No Alignment".

20. Improve handling for FITS DATE-OBS keyword. DATE-OBS in the output file will now be set to the value of DATE-OBS from the first input file or, failing that, the creation timestamp or last modification timestamp of the file whichever is earlier.

21. Processing/Save picture to file... did not preserve FITS keywords when the final autosave file was written as a FITS file.

22. Bug fix: Delete key to delete images from the list didn't update the information lines.

23. Bug fix: Clear list didn't reset the status bar message.

24. Work around for Qt bug (QTBUG-46620) with restoring application position and size when re-opening the application after it was closed when maximised.

25. Mouse wheel zooming worked the opposite way from most other applications, now changed to be compatible.

26. Extend exposure time edit control to 4 decimal places instead of 3.

27. Check lights when loaded using either "Open picture files" or using Drag/Drop.

28. Correct Intermediate Files tab of Stacking parameters. "Create a calibrated file ..." and "Create a registered/calibrated file ..." were inadvertently switched when porting the code for version 5.

29. Bug fix: Saving the intermediate calibrated image in de-Bayered format resulted in a corrupt file.

30. The comet position interpolation code has been re-written by Martin Toeltsch (thank you Martin). Now you need only to:

    o Mark the position of the centre of the comet in 2 light frames with a large temporal distance (ideally the first and the last light frame in chronological order).

    o Marking the comet centre in additional light frames can potentially improve the results.

31. Change some of the colours used when the Windows Dark Theme is in use so that they are easier to read.

32. Revert change made for 26 (above) - QTimeEdit doesn't work right with 4 decimals.

33. Bug fix: Magnifying glass over image area was still displayed when mouse was moved directly to another window.

34. Bug fix: Selecting/Deselecting "Create a calibrated file for each light frame" should also Enable/Disable "Save a debayered image..."

35. Bug fix: Unable to cancel Registering or Stacking because the ProgressDlg was disabled (it had the wrong parent).

36. Bug fix: Save/Restore of docked window sizes (Explorer Bar, Picture List) wasn't working.

37. Update zlib to 1.3 (from 1.2.11).

38. Bug fix: Switching away from Settings/Output tab and then switching back reset the values to status quo ante.

39. Bug fix: Output file name when using file list name as the output name was incorrectly set to (e.g.) Batch1.tif when using a file list with a name Batch1.xxx.dssfilelist

40. Clear image list at end of batch stacking.