[Kstars-devel] post 3.4 TODO list

[Pablo de Vicente]

El Jueves, 13 de Enero de 2005 04:51, Jason Harris escribió:
> Hello,
>
> I think we are in pretty good shape for 3.4 (in terms of bugs to be
> fixed), since not much has changed since 3.3.  I will still do my usual
> "QA List", sometime after the freeze.
>
> I did notice that we have a lot of stuff marked "TODO" on the 3.4
> Features Guide:
> http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.4-features.html
> I think almost all of that should be retagged for 4.0.  Let me know if
> there's smething there that you want to stay tagged for 3.4.
>
> Here's some things I am thinking of working on after the 3.4 thaw (some
> of these are user wishes):
>
> Observing List improvements:
> + visible marking of objects in the sky map
> + draw a rectangle on the sky, add objects in that region to the list
> (with ability to filter by type and magnitude)
> + make window non-modal
> + Ability to Save/Load observing lists (maybe provide some default
> lists, like the 50 nearest stars, or the Messier Catalog)
> + Add other ways to populate observing lists?  Any ideas?

  I would like to start up the observing list from the main tool bar or from 
an entry in the top menu bar. I will think more carefully about this.

>
> Side Panel: Similar to the side panel in Konqueror or KDevelop.
> The pages would be streamlined, compact versions of some of our tools
> (you'd go to the full tool for full functionality).  Possible panel
> pages:
> + Find Object
> + Observing List
> + Object Details
> + Calculator
> + What's Up Tonight
> + Telescope Control Panel
> + Quick Settings
> (actually, I need to think about this some more...we probably do not
> want to have to maintain two versions of all of these tools!  Some of
> them, like the Find Object window, would be perfect to just drop into a
> side panel and remove the standalone window altogether.  However, a lot
> of these are too big to put as-is in a side panel...)
>
> Favorites:  Several users have asked to be able to quickly activate a
> preset configuration, such as "Looking west at 6:00 pm from Paris,
> France, using the Moonless Night colorscheme".  This kind of stuff can
> be stored easily in DCOP scripts, but there's no way to do a quick-load
> of a script.  I was thinking of binding the Function keys (F2-F12) to
> load DCOP scripts specified by the user.  Maybe we can preload some
> useful ones by default.
>
> More Infoboxes:
> + Add an Infobox showing the coordinates of a connected telescope, and
> what it is tracking.
> + Add an Infobox mode for the Observing List (showing just object
> names)?
>
> OpenGL: The Legend Continues!  Apparently, with Qt4 we will have some
> native OpenGL support.  So I will hopefully be taking another look at
> this.

Jason I have had an idea here. We could activate OpenGL in two steps. First 
only for the solar system view. Indeed I confess I have tried (and half 
achivied) to rotate the plane of the ecliptic so that you can see if edge-on, 
or at any angle, but not using OpenGL. I did not commit this change because 
it was half done, not very pretty and I found no free time to finish it. 
However if we use OpenGL we should have the whole functionality for the solar 
system bodies. What do you think?.

>
> Program efficiency: The code as written must check every object in the
> catalog to see if it is onscreen, every time it refreshes the screen.
> When the zoomlevel is high, this is inefficient, because nearly 100% of
> the objects are offscreen (plus, refreshes happen more often at high
> zoom).  I really need a way to totally ignore objects which are
> offscreen by a wide margin.  I haven't yet come up with a clever
> method, but I have not yet actually sat down and thought long and hard
> about it.  Ideas are welcome.
>
> Custom Objects:  Needs to be easier to add your own objects and catalogs
> (I believe Pablo said he wanted to look at this at one point...)

Yes, sorry. I follow the list but have no time, not even for the translations. 
I also half coded this but I was unhappy with the solution. I will try again. 

>
> There's more, but this is what's been on my mind lately.  Anyone else
> have plans to share?

Somebody from my work has told me he would like to be able to change the width 
of the lines when printing the sky on paper. He uses xephem for that and 
edits the postscript file directly, but in our case the postscript is more 
illegible. We should be able to select the width of the lines from KStars 
preferences to achieve a fine printout, or at least print according to the 
user's preferences.

>
> Jason

regards

Pablo.