Mac XCode Cocoa development
I recently started a 9 month long class in Mac and iPhone Cocoa development. Having just completed the first homework assignment, I can comment a bit on the development process.
My first patent
After more than 5 years, my first patent has been awarded. Not anything to do with AstroPlanner, and not likely to make me any money as I have signed away rights to my then employer.
US Patent Office Search: type in 7590068.
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It’s been a while…
Well it’s been quite a while since I posted here. Many thousands of man hours have gone by. AstroPlanner in now at V2.0b58. So what is the current status of the application? Continue Reading »
Image Downloading revised
The image downloading system in V2 was, until recently, largely unchanged from the system used in V1. However, it has always been delicate and prone to problems and is a cause of many support questions. After some thought I decided it was time to revise the whole thing and make it both more robust, more efficient, and less obtrusive.
Beta drags on…
The beta has started, but the app is still not quite in a condition to release publicly (IMHO), so those of you waiting should continue to be patient for just a little longer.
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Beta starts
Woo hoo! The alpha (development) stage of V2 is over. The beta (testing) phase begins. Once I have eliminated some of the nastier bugs, I will make the beta publicly available. This will probably happen in a week or two.
Plan Creation Wizard
The Plan Creation Wizard feature in V1.x wasn’t particularly “wizardy”. It had a confusing single pane dialog, forced you to choose constellations, and was abysmally slow. It also wasn’t overly clever at picking objects for your plan, and would often present you with an empty plan with no objects found (apparently).
This feature has been totally revised for V2.
Advanced visibility modelling
One of the enhancement requests I receive often is to do a better job of modelling visibility of stars, etc. In AstroPlanner V1.x, there was little or no modelling of visibility. For V2, some more advance algorithms have been added (namely those developed by Bradley E. Schaefer). Continue Reading »
V2.0a31 and counting
Development continues afoot. The beta stage is fast approaching. My list of enhancements is now a lot shorter, and many of the items on the list are either going to be moved into the next version, or will be taken care of during the beta stage. Here are some of the more notable features and changes added recently. Continue Reading »
Backup and Restore
Two of the more frequently asked questions, by users of AstroPlanner V1.x, are:
- How do I backup my AstroPlanner files, in case I have a crash and need to restore them?
- How do I synchronise my AstroPlanner files and settings on my desktop computer with my observatory laptop?
Here’s a new feature in V2 that should target both of those concerns. Continue Reading »