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[TommyGober]

...when can we start feature requests? hehe. Feel free to disregard as desired.

Labels of N,S,E,W would help the novice astronomer.

A way to toggle screen-size (or hide the menu/settings bar) would be nice.

It might add size, but is there a way to have a text label for the Time Zone offset?

Also, this is a huge undertaking, a mouse-over of each star to give the name and approx distance would be super-duper-awesome. Since most of that would be data entry, I'm sure that could be copied from online somewhere.

edit: I did notice 2 bugs/quirks. The "Draw Constellations" button text doesn't invert when the button background color changes. (White on white) There's also a horizontal line at the top of the activity below the activity bar. See right above the buttons. This might be the activity "frame" or something.

Very cool though.

[davewa]

Looks good Dave. Runs fine with me.

Couple of issues. When installing the .xo file onto a laptop, you need to specify the MIME type. This lets the XO to download the file as an Acticity and not just the binary code. It's a quick fix though.
Just create or edit the .htaccess file with the lines:

Code:

AddType application/vnd.olpc-sugar      xo
AddType application/vnd.olpc-content    xol

I don't understand.  My XO had no problem downloading the activity using the usual process via the Browse Activity.

[davewa]

KNOWN BUGS in version 0.11:

1. The text color on the toolbar buttons and labels is uncontrolled.  (I don't understand PyGtk very well.)

2. The default latitude and longitude are hard-coded into the program.

3. The program will not complain (but will also mess up) if you make typos in coordinate or time fields.

4. The chart defaults to E on the left but the "flip l/r" button is not checked.

5. There is NO support for internationalization.  All strings are hard-coded and time values are using US_eng separators (though the timestamp is specified yyyy/mm/dd rather than the natural order).

6.  The program icon is very bland.  (Hey: I had to make it with a text editor!)

7. Display preferences, position, time and offset settings are not saved.

8. Rotating the screen causes the controls in the toolbars to be truncated/overlapped.  (The map displays properly, though.)

UNTESTED:
I only have one XO so I have no idea what would happen if you try to share the activity.

OTHER NOTES:

Not a bug, but a limitation of the algorithms:  The accuracy of the plot (especially for the planets, sun and moon) suffers if you ask for a map more than about 50 years in the future or past.

And it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyhow) that your XO must be set to the correct time and time zone.

[davewa]

PLANNED FUTURE FEATURES:

1. N/E/S/W labels.  (This would have made it into 0.11 but Steve pre-announced the release so I had to scramble to get the code out and there wasn't time.)

2. Identify star/planet when mouse-over.  (A fair piece of code is required to convert screen coordinates back to object name.)

3. Detail map.  Left-click on a star and get a six-degree-square field centered on that object.  Another left-click anywhere restores the whole-sky map.

[sjf]

Sorry for the pre-announcement... my bad...

But... the Activity? Your Good!

[davewa]

I'm having trouble getting my activity summary constructed, but the operating instructions, bug log and such is on this page:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/StarChart

(Thanks AM for tweaking it for me.  I'm not up to speed on this stuff.)

[AuntiMame]

Oh. My. God.

this is amazing!!!!!!!!!

I just loaded the activity onto my XO, and...... there aren't words to describe how impressed I am....

and I'm not even into astronomy! This is the coolest thing since sliced bread!

[davewa]

Oh. My. God.

this is amazing!!!!!!!!!

I just loaded the activity onto my XO, and...... there aren't words to describe how impressed I am....

and I'm not even into astronomy! This is the coolest thing since sliced bread!

Thanks.

Did you spot this one?
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Moon
Another good / necessary aid to visual astronomy.  (Just watch out: the times reported are in GMT -- if you believe the time for tomorrow night's eclipse, for example, and you live in the USA, you'll miss it.)

[Gleth]

Thank you for your hard work, this is a brilliant activity.

I'm afraid all I have to offer in return are a couple of bugs and a question...

Buttons / radio dials do not turn red when night mode is selected but stay white.

Button text goes back to black from red when in night mode after a mouse-over event.

As for the question . . . Will the activity be able to take decimal locations? (such as 53.330322 -06.209384 ) As Google and other mapping apps give the GPS location in that manner it might be good to use so kids can find their location and put it in that way.

Again, thank you very much for this, it's going to get some use in conjuction with my ETX70.

Have fun.
Gleth

[davewa]

Given the precision to which things are plotted, your chart's accuracy probably won't suffer much if you round off to the nearest degree of longitude or latitude.  But the parser currently wants the angles expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds (with the letter designators).  So your coordinates would have to be entered as 53d19m49s N latitude and 06d12m34s W longitude.

Clear skies!

[davewa]

I've not been resting on my laurels with this project (though I did take some time off last night to view the lunar eclipse).

Coming (so far) in the next version:

1.  The present toolbar scheme becomes more like a standard Sugar Activity: you click "Activity" for the standard Name/Share/Keep/Stop toolbar; you click "What" to get a toolbar to control display options; "Where" to specify location and "When" to specify time.  This uses less screen real-estate so the chart display is now larger.

2. Entering latitude and longitude can now be done in terms of 123d12m12s as before or as 123.456789 (degrees and fraction).

3. A real icon (thanks to AuntiMame).

(edit: 02/22/2008)

4. Settings in "What", "Where" and "When" will be saved (and restored) when you stop (and resume) the Activity.

5. The saved session in the Journal entry will include a screen shot.

[davewa]

I spent some time over the weekend hacking the code some more.  Expect a "beta 2" release announcement in the next couple of days.  This will include the changes I described above, at least.

[garycmartin]

I spent some time over the weekend hacking the code some more.  Expect a "beta 2" release announcement in the next couple of days.  This will include the changes I described above, at least.

Hi davewa, just wondered if you picked up on the Python time module trick for auto daylight-saving/time-zone support (added to Moon activity for v3, re:forum comment in another place). Haven't had a proper chance to test out StarChart yet (but I do at least have it installed on my XO B4!), so sorry if you're already picking up TZ/DST automatically.

[davewa]

I spent some time over the weekend hacking the code some more.  Expect a "beta 2" release announcement in the next couple of days.  This will include the changes I described above, at least.

Hi davewa, just wondered if you picked up on the Python time module trick for auto daylight-saving/time-zone support (added to Moon activity for v3, re:forum comment in another place). Haven't had a proper chance to test out StarChart yet (but I do at least have it installed on my XO B4!), so sorry if you're already picking up TZ/DST automatically.

Actually, I'm not because the problem in StarChart is more severe than simply detecting DST in your zone -- you might be getting a plot for somewhere else as well as some time in the future.  So I just dropped the whole idea of automatically getting the zone offset (at least until linux provides a data table of all the world's time zones and DST rules!) in favor of a text entry field for it.

[garycmartin]

Actually, I'm not because the problem in StarChart is more severe than simply detecting DST in your zone -- you might be getting a plot for somewhere else as well as some time in the future.  So I just dropped the whole idea of automatically getting the zone offset (at least until linux provides a data table of all the world's time zones and DST rules!) in favor of a text entry field for it.

Yea, know what mean. Only suggestion if you're wanting to poke about (and I've not used it myself) is the pytz module, it's not in the default Python install so you'd need to have it as part of your xo bundle, but it allegedly gives you access to the city/country lists with associated TZ information among other things.