[Kstars-devel] GSoC 2011 project

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Bruce, Rafal

> I've taken a screen shoot of the boxes and lines I'm referring to (see 
> attached).  These 3Dish lines need to be solid, but keep at the same width as 
> I think that would make them for distinct at night.

I agree this is an important concern. (On a similar note, I remember
struggling to see galaxies plotted on color star charts, where
galaxies are usually marked with red color!)

It was easy to make this change. Right now I've done it at one
location, and I'm wondering if it looks good. I want opinions on the
readability of this. I'm not entirely impressed with the aesthetics,
although I don't know how to fix it (will see if it's easy).

Do let me know if the attached screenshot looks okay.

> What every method you gentleman choose to use to import the observing list 
> into the printing wizard would be great by me.

This is a rather hard thing to code. Let me see if I can come up with
something.

> I might suggest that you change the name of the printing wizard to
> something else.  It really does not describe what this function does
> and best belongs in the Tools section of the menu bar.  How about
> Visual Observers Planner or Visual Observers Template or Visual
> Observer Logs or maybe you will come up with something better.

I agree that Printing Wizard is not the best description for all the
powerful tools that the printing wizard has got. 

How about "Chart and Logging Form Wizard"? That does look long, but I
think it's a complete description. Also, I strongly agree with the
suggestion of moving it to the Tools menu. What do you think, Rafal?

It might be hard to find for most people using the software, and might
be overlooked despite being such a unique and powerful feature.

> One day I hope to give a talk at the Royal Astronomy Society of Canada (Ottawa 
> Chapter) about this software.  But we have a bit to go before this software 
> will pass the mark, for such a critical group of men and women.

Being featured at the RASC chapters would indeed help our popularity
tremendously! I'm committed (only on lazy weekends, though!) to make
our software pass the mark. 

I'm waiting to demo it at my local astronomy club as well, in this
case, mostly because the KDE Windows Installer doesn't seem very
accessible, and because some of the features I really want to
highlight could do with a lot more polish.

The KDE Edu team has been working towards a better Windows
installer. I tried setting up stuff on Windows last weekend, but gave
up very quickly. If someone would volunteer making a cool, easy to
use, Windows installer for KStars, that would be very very awesome!

Regards
Akarsh