[Kstars-devel] Scripting help

[Jason Harris]

Hello,

> I can set the orientation of the
> sky and the zoom just the way I like but I haven't found hot to attach
> labels to objects from a script.  Is it possible?  What I'd like to do
> is to selected a few dozen objects and to print 2 sky maps with all
> those highlighted, one for north, one for south view.  
I'm sorry to say it isn't possible, just because I never thought of this.  
It's a very good idea; can you please file it as a wishlist item at 
bugs.kde.org?  We use that database to keep track of user suggestions.

> Also, it seems 
> that my time settings are ignored.  I can set the date without problem
> but the time either falls back to CPU time or to noon.  
I can confirm this.  I actually am seeing a few different problems here.  If I 
set the time in a script, like this one:

#!/bin/bash
#KStars DCOP script: Look South on Oct. 30th
#by Jason Harris
#last modified: Sun Oct 30 2005 22:59:53
#
KSTARS=`dcopfind -a 'kstars*'`
MAIN=KStarsInterface
CLOCK=clock#1
dcop $KSTARS $MAIN  setLocalTime 2005 10 30 1 0 0
dcop $KSTARS $MAIN  lookTowards south
##

then use the command line: kstars --dump --filename foo.png 
--script ./looksouth_oct30.kstars, I see the screen messages indicating that 
the UTC is being set to 01:00:00 (which is wrong, it should set *Local* time 
to 01:00).  However, the generated image is for the current CPU time.

Now, if I run the same script, but this time also specify a --date argument in 
the command line, then I see the same UTC messages in the terminal, but this 
time, the generated image is for that UTC time (which is still wrong, 
consideringit should set Local time, but at least the time is modified).

Thank you for reporting this; I hope I can get it fixed in time for the 3.5 
release.  Normally, I'd ask you to file a bug report, but since I'll 
(hopefully) be fixing it in the next few days, it's not strictly necessary 
(but you can if you feel like it).  If you don't hear from me or see a post 
on the list that this has been fixed, please file a bug.

> I'm using KStars: 1.0 over KDE: 3.3.2 on Debian Sarge.  I don't know
> if this is relevant but I can't run the kstars scripts from the
> shell, I get messages such as
>
>   ./export.kstars
>   call failed
>   object not accessible
>   object not accessible
>   object not accessible
>
You should see these only if KStars is not running when you execute the 
script; are you getting them with KStars running?

> While I'm at it I think it would be nice to add to the wish list a way
> to export the plot from the elevation tool and to add labels to the
> plotted curves.  The "in the sky tonight" tool would be a lot more
> usable if it had a way to filter results by magnitude and stuff like
> that.  It tells me that I can see about 200 nebulae but I'd like to
> pick the best ones for a particular night...
>
Good ideas; again, please file wishes at bugs.kde.org, so we can keep track of 
them.  One wish per item is the most useful.

Thank you very much for the feedback, we really appreciate it, so keep the 
ideas and bug reports coming.

regards,
Jason
-- 
KStars: KDE Desktop Planetarium
http://edu.kde.org/kstars