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Mailing lists / lazarus / 2009-11

Astronomy Software

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Terry A. Haimann

For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter Duffet-Smith.

There are two major things I would like to add to it:

1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut Statements.
2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to use a Windows App.

Terry

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Phil Hess

Terry,

I've found that generating reports as raw RTF and then viewing them with your user's word processor is a good cross-platform solution and lets you use the full power of RTF, which is supported by all word processors. Tools are here:

http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/XDev/XDevStatus.html#RTF

On Mac it would be a lot easier since all you have to do is provide a print mechanism and the OS X Print dialog automatically gives you print preview and save to PDF, but the other platforms don't have that.

Why limit your app to the teeny tiny world of Linux tinkerers? Don't you think the Win/Mac communities could benefit from your app? It's not really that difficult to maintain a single code base that supports Delphi on Windows and Lazarus on all platforms.

Thanks.

-Phil

----- "Terry A. Haimann" wrote 27 lines
For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter Duffet-Smith. There are two major things I would like to add to it: 1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut Statements. 2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to use a Windows App. Terry -- _______________________________________________ Lazarus mailing list http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus

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Matt Shaffer
to Phil Hess

I understood his message to mean that he didn't want to use windows-only apps/code. I'm sure he'll port it to those systems, and if he doesn't, it's on sourceforge, so you could compile it yourself ;).

I think a useful format for reports would be an image or an excel file, but working with excel files is never easy.

Phil Hess wrote 60 lines
Terry, I've found that generating reports as raw RTF and then viewing them with your user's word processor is a good cross-platform solution and lets you use the full power of RTF, which is supported by all word processors. Tools are here: http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/XDev/XDevStatus.html#RTF On Mac it would be a lot easier since all you have to do is provide a print mechanism and the OS X Print dialog automatically gives you print preview and save to PDF, but the other platforms don't have that. Why limit your app to the teeny tiny world of Linux tinkerers? Don't you think the Win/Mac communities could benefit from your app? It's not really that difficult to maintain a single code base that supports Delphi on Windows and Lazarus on all platforms. Thanks. -Phil ----- "Terry A. Haimann" wrote: > For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge > (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. > > It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course > > written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the > Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter > Duffet-Smith. > > There are two major things I would like to add to it: > > 1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut > Statements. > 2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this > > with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my > primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to > use > a Windows App. > > Terry > > -- > _______________________________________________ > Lazarus mailing list > > http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus -- _______________________________________________ Lazarus mailing list http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus

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Phil Hess
to Matt Shaffer
----- "Matt Shaffer" wrote 9 lines
I understood his message to mean that he didn't want to use windows-only apps/code. I'm sure he'll port it to those systems, and if he doesn't, it's on sourceforge, so you could compile it yourself ;). I think a useful format for reports would be an image or an excel file, but working with excel files is never easy.

Exactly. If there were an RTF equivalent for Excel files, that might be a good choice.

Maybe images embedded in the RTF document, but the entire report as an image doesn't strike me as a good choice.

Another advantage to RTF (in addition to it being a text format) is that the user can then edit / add to the report - what a concept.

Thanks.

-Phil

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Michael Van Canneyt
to Terry A. Haimann: For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge…
Terry A. Haimann wrote 12 lines
For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter Duffet-Smith. There are two major things I would like to add to it: 1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut Statements. 2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to use a Windows App.

You can always try lazreport. I have a cross-platform app working with it.

Michael.

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Terry A. Haimann
to Michael Van Canneyt
Michael Van Canneyt wrote 31 lines
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009, Terry A. Haimann wrote: > For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge > (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. > It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course > written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the > Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter > Duffet-Smith. > > There are two major things I would like to add to it: > > 1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut > Statements. > 2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this > with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my > primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to > use a Windows App. You can always try lazreport. I have a cross-platform app working with it. Michael. -- _______________________________________________ Lazarus mailing list http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have looked at RTF when it was a Delphi App. I found it would loose a couple lines of the report at page breaks, maybe the Lazarus Component is better. I have also looked at Lazreport, but don't know enough about how to do it. In the RiseAndSet Report, the select is exported into a binary tree for update and then sorting. I had to do this for performance and was unsure of how to import that into something like LazReport. As far as supporting a Windows version, there are already many apps that do this in Windows and a lot better then I can (Some for the Mac too. ) Most of them have huge databases (1 million + records) which I have no idea how to put together. The databases I have are pulled out of Excel Spreadsheets and messaged in MySQL. As far as importing into Excel/OO Calc, I have exported data to csv and then imported that, but its a lot of trouble for the user. I do that though for the standard report, which can be submitted to the Astronomical League.

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Marc Santhoff
to Phil Hess: Exactly. If there were an RTF equivalent for Excel files, that might be a good choice.…
Phil Hess wrote 13 lines
----- "Matt Shaffer" wrote: > I understood his message to mean that he didn't want to use > windows-only apps/code. I'm sure he'll port it to those systems, and > if he doesn't, it's on sourceforge, so you could compile it yourself > ;). > > > I think a useful format for reports would be an image or an excel > file, but working with excel files is never easy. > Exactly. If there were an RTF equivalent for Excel files, that might be a good choice.

There is (has been) a format called DIF (data interchange format) and another one that i forgot about. In ancient times gnumeric and excel and others could read them both.

Maybe it's time for polishing up that old excel 4.0 and have a look ... ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Interchange_Format

HTH,

Marc Santhoff

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John
to Terry A. Haimann: For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge…
Terry A. Haimann wrote 16 lines
For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter Duffet-Smith. There are two major things I would like to add to it: 1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut Statements. 2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to use a Windows App.

I am curious to know why you can merge it with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not 3. 0.x.x ? (I presume that is what you mean)

John

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Terry A. Haimann
to John
John wrote 27 lines
Terry A. Haimann wrote: > For what it is worth I have created a project on SourceForge > (http://sourceforge.net/projects/messier/) with my Astronomy Program. > It is a basic Observing Planning and Logging Program. It is of course > written in Lazarus (I converted it from Delphi) and got most of the > Algorithyms from "Practical Astronomy with Your Calculator" By Peter > Duffet-Smith. > > There are two major things I would like to add to it: > > 1. Using a report generator instead of Printer.Canvas.TextOut > Statements. > 2. I would like to merge it with Planetarium Program. I could do this > with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not the newer SkyChart and since my > primary audience is going to be Linux Users, I really don't want to > use a Windows App. > I am curious to know why you can merge it with Cartes Du Ciel 2.76, but not 3. 0.x.x ? (I presume that is what you mean) John -- _______________________________________________ Lazarus mailing list http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus

Because you could start 2.76 with the -f switch and it would start up viewing a specific object. That has not been implemented in the SkyChart 3.x as far as I know.

Terry

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Marc Santhoff
to Marc Santhoff: There is (has been) a format called DIF (data interchange format) and another one that i…
Marc Santhoff wrote 23 lines
Am Sonntag, den 15.11.2009, 15:14 -0600 schrieb Phil Hess: > ----- "Matt Shaffer" wrote: > > > I understood his message to mean that he didn't want to use > > windows-only apps/code. I'm sure he'll port it to those systems, and > > if he doesn't, it's on sourceforge, so you could compile it yourself > > ;). > > > > > > I think a useful format for reports would be an image or an excel > > file, but working with excel files is never easy. > > > > Exactly. If there were an RTF equivalent for Excel files, that might be a good choice. There is (has been) a format called DIF (data interchange format) and another one that i forgot about. In ancient times gnumeric and excel and others could read them both. Maybe it's time for polishing up that old excel 4.0 and have a look ... ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Interchange_Format

I remembered, the other one was SYLK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYmbolic_LinK_(SYLK)

HTH,
Marc Santhoff

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Patrick Chevalley
to Terry A. Haimann: Because you could start 2.76 with the -f switch and it would start up viewing a specific…

Hi Terry,

Because you could start 2.76 with the -f switch and it would start up viewing a specific object. That has not been implemented in the SkyChart 3.x as far as I know.

I am skychart author :-)
It is easy to add the -f switch to skychart v3 because the function are already implemented for the tcp socket command interface. You can also connect to this socket to send request to search for an object. See http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/documentation/server_commands

I try to use Messier but I have a few problem.
- it look like you use an old TAchart version, in StatUnit I have to change TAGraph.AddSerie by AddSeries , comment TPieSeries.SeriesColor and MarksStyle and remove TAEngine from the uses. Now it compile with fixes 0.9.28.
- do you have a script to create the mysql database ?

I am very interested by you program as it complement well the skychart functions.
I can give some help for your project if you are interested but at the moment I am very busy with the next version of the virtual moon atlas, also ported from delphi to lazarus.

Patrick

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