Problems with KStars 3.5.7 on macOS

Sun Mar 6 02:04:04 GMT 2022

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the report.  Ok for the issue that you identified that I was able to address, I think this should take care of it at least for now, which is the Help button.  The issue appears to be that for some reason KHelpClient is not working properly on MacOS, which is another underlying package over which we have no control.  I was able to confirm your error and I found that every instance where it was accessed the same problem occurred.  I don’t know why this is, but based on what I observed from some testing I just did on Linux to see what it is supposed to do, the only thing this button is supposed to do is bring up the KStars Handbook online.  This is not very hard to do with other tools that we have in KStars, so I think the best solution is just to access it using one of the other tools.  So I did a little work and this should fix the issue on MacOS while leaving the other distributions unchanged.  I will wait to see if it causes any other issues on other systems, but it should not.

https://invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/merge_requests/561/diffs <https://invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/merge_requests/561/diffs>

Thank you for your feedback and helping us to improve KStars.

As Akarsh pointed out, we do tend to spend all of our time in Ekos doing astrophotography work, and the planetarium program part is often neglected.  Yes, perhaps this should be addressed, but since most of the users and the developers are astrophotographers, Ekos tends to get all the love.  Hopefully we can address that better.

Thanks,

Rob

> On Mar 5, 2022, at 7:56 PM, Akarsh Simha <akarshsimha at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2022 at 4:45 PM Bill Tschumy <bill at otherwise.com <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <http://www.otherwise.com/>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Bill Tschumy
> Otherwise -- Longmont, CO
> www.otherwise.com <http://www.otherwise.com/>
> 
> 
> 

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