Problems with KStars 3.5.7 on macOS

Sun Mar 6 00:56:49 GMT 2022

On Sat, Mar 5, 2022 at 4:45 PM Bill Tschumy <bill at otherwise.com> wrote:

> Rob,
>
> Thanks for responding.  I hated being critical because I’m sure many
> people have worked really hard on this.  But it just seems like many things
> aren’t working as I’d expect.  The extra downloads are one thing.  I’m also
> a bit surprised by the identification of stars.  I will hover over a star
> and I get “star: 4.8m”.  I have to bring up the Info pane to see what star
> it is.  Now maybe I can understand this with stars from the USNO catalog
> that just have a long designation.  But these are Hipparcos and HD stars.
> Why aren’t they named in the hover display and in the status bar (which
> just says “star”).
>
>
This is a good point. We could definitely display HD info on stars upon
hovering. I think it's just something that did not occur to anyone. I don't
know how / where we have HIP numbers. We probably only have HIP
designations for stars from Tycho 2. Henry Draper is supported, but how we
handle Henry-Draper numbers is complicated by performance constraints.

> Also not sure how you are supposed to select things like open clusters to
> get more information.  Now sometimes I don’t even get the dotted ring
> around the cluster and I think KStars has forgotten that I’ve download the
> NGC info.  Even if there is the dotted ring, clicking in it doesn’t seem to
> select the cluster.  How do I bring up info on this?
>

Right click > Details should be what you're looking for. Also, please use
the Steinicke NGC/IC catalog. OpenNGC is not good as yet by any stretch of
imagination. It's only that Dr. Steinicke wishes that his catalog be used
for non-commercial uses only, which is incompatible with KStars' license.
This is why we ship OpenNGC with KStars and supply Steinicke NGC as an
add-on.

I’m just wondering if something is really broken on my installation
> (although I’ve installed on two machines with the same result).
>

Generally, we have fewer users and testing on MacOS. The primary clientele
is astrophotographers using Ekos on Linux. I'm one of the few serious
visual observers who exclusively uses KStars (and on Linux). For example,
the help stuff works fine on Linux for me. KNewStuff (the UI to download
new catalogs) is flaky on Linux. I don't know yet if the inline thumbnails
work, because I've the HiPS overlay turned on.

> Just so you know, I’m one of the primary authors of SkySafari so much of
> my expectations are the result of that and other planetarium programs I’ve
> used.
>
>
Thanks for a wonderful product, SkySafari is incredible. KStars tends to be
aimed at a different user-base and clientele. It's not surprising that
basic features are not user friendly, because most of our users either live
inside of Ekos or inside of the Observation Planner, and the basic stuff
and eye-candy features don't get enough testing and love. I think this is a
problem we must address as a team. Also we've accumulated about 3 decades
of crufty code. It's only recently that Jasem has taken on a very strong
lead in trying to get test-cases and documentation written for a lot of the
features. At least now, we're reasonably confident that our core
calculations are valid.

> Bill
>
> On Mar 5, 2022, at 4:07 PM, Robert Lancaster <rlancaste at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Bill,
>
> I can’t say I am a big fan of the “Download New Stuff” or “Get New Stuff”
> system.  This isn’t actually a part of KStars, it is a KDE package that
> KStars and other KDE apps use.  It isn’t a problem that is just on MacOS,
> it is an overall problem with that system in my opinion.  But KStars
> developers don’t have control over that code.  I don’t like the interface
> myself.
>
> As for the help button, I don’t know much about that one, I haven’t used
> it before.  I usually spend my time working on Plate Solving algorithms and
> making the astrophotography parts of the program better.  But I also was
> the one who first ported it to work on a Mac and I maintain the Mac
> version.  But even though I don’t know about this feature, I will
> definitely look into it for you, that could mean something is missing in
> the  Mac bundle or there might be a bug.  Let me see.
>
> I wouldn’t say Kstars is flaky really, it is highly sophisticated fully
> automated astrophotography suite, that has allowed me and lots of other
> people to have many successful nights of imaging under the stars.   But
> sometimes there are bugs and we need people to test and find the bugs so
> that we can work on making it better.  We are all volunteer developers who
> contribute so that everyone can get a free and great program for taking
> astrophotos.  So please let us know and we can look into issues like this.
> We especially need more people to test the MacOS versions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rob
>
> On Mar 5, 2022, at 5:25 PM, Bill Tschumy <bill at otherwise.com> wrote:
>
> I seem to be having numerous problems with KStars 3.5.7 on Mac.  I’ve
> tried it on the latest macOS (12.2.1) as well as one two years old
> (10.15.7).
>
> I’ve tried downloading the “Extra Data”, both from the Startup Wizard and
> from the Data menu item.  I will install something and then later, when I
> go back it says it is uninstalled.  Some of the larger downloads will say
> “Installing…” but then al of the sudden say "Install Again”.  Often if I
> install again it will indicate it is installed.
>
> I have downloaded the USNO stars and initially is said it was installed.
> However, if I go back now it says for me to install them.  Yet if I zoom
> in, I do see 14th mag stars so it really is installed.
>
> I have been trying to get the inline thumbnails to install, but they never
> show up in the chart.  I did see them at one point while playing around,
>  but now they are gone.
>
> Clicking the Help button in the Configure window (shown by choosing
> Preferences…) causes the app to hang.
>
> Things just seem really flakey.
>
> Bill
>
> --
> Bill Tschumy
> Otherwise -- Longmont, CO
> www.otherwise.com
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Bill Tschumy
> Otherwise -- Longmont, CO
> www.otherwise.com
>
>
>
>
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