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Thank you for making use of this freeware applet. It is primarily for use with the wonderful astronomical charting and logging programme, SkyMap Pro (by Chris Marriott). The purpose of this applet is to make life a little easier for the user of SkyMap Pro by automating the download and update process for comet, meteor and satellite data files.
Although you need SkyMap Pro to make full use of its features you can still use its download features without having SkyMap Pro installed. Indeed, you can retrieve any http based file from the internet, however as there is no built in parser you will get the raw file as output.
This applet is designed to work with all versions of SkyMap Pro (including version 9 and the demo versions), although there is a limitation to be aware of. It must also have access to the internet, obviously, and should run on every Windows based operating system from Win95 upwards.
As I have designed this as an "applet" it has a limited and very specific feature set, with the main features being ...
The Extra Bits are not needed for the applet's overall functionality, but have just allowed me to have a bit of fun with its design. You may have noticed that the applet itself does not use a traditional Win32 window, but rather uses a very basic "skinned" type. By the way, if you haven't worked out how to move the applet around the screen yet, just left click and hold anywhere on its background and drag away. Plus ...
Adding a bitmap to the background of the applet
right click to open the popup menu and select "Load Skymap Bitmap". A default bitmap is included, however you can create your own provided that the bitmap file is called "sky.bmp", resides in the applet directory, and that its size is 500x500 pixels.
Background gradient colours
The background is made up of a two colour gradient. You can modify the colours by accessing the popup menu and selecting "Gradient colour". The selected colours are persistent.
Well, as far as bugs go, I'm sure there are quite a few but I don't know of any at the moment. If you do find some please email me with the details.
There are however certain limitations that you should be aware of ...
Installation
To avoid access problems if you are using multi-logons make sure that you run the applet under the same user-id that you used to install it.
Comet and Satellite URL's must use the http protocol only, as I haven't implemented any ftp or other support for them.
Currently this applet searches for (and uses) the latest version of SkyMap Pro that exists on the PC. This can present a problem if you have reverted back to an earlier version of SkyMap Pro (from say a demo version) even if you have uninstalled the later version, because certain registry files may not get removed in the uninstall of SkyMap Pro. If you fall into this category please email me for a solution to this.
Firewalls
If you have any sort of firewall installed and get error messages (from this applet) regarding the host site not being found then it is a good bet that your firewall is not giving internet access to this applet. You will have to configure the firewall to allow access.
As I do this sort of thing in my spare time, and spare time is always very limited, it is doubtful whether I will be able to devote much more time enhancing it. Please note that I will however fix (or at least try to fix) any bugs that crop up. Whether or not I do make any enhancements will depend on two things. Firstly, the number of people that use this applet (and email me to let me know that they are). And secondly, the future direction and features of SkyMap Pro. Chris may well decide to implement similar features directly into SkyMap Pro itself. If that occurs then there is little point in me spending any more time on this.
Having said all that I can see a number of enhancements that I would like to implement in the future, but would need convincing by others first.
This software (Sky Data Update) is distributed as freeware (without source). It may be freely copied and distributed. Sky Data Update is copyright © 2000-2002 by Robert Loney.
SkyMap Pro is copyright © 1997-2002 SkyMap Software.
All data catalogs are copyright © their respective authors.
Disclaimer:
This software (Sky Data Update) is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. The entire risk as to the quality, performance and use of this software (Sky Data Update) is and remains the sole responsibility of the user.
Please drop me a line if you decide to use this applet. Also, let me know if you find any bugs or have any ideas for future enhancements.
There have only been two changes made:
Sky Data Update 1.2 now supports SkyMap Pro version 9
Version 1.1 had a bug in the unzipping routine when running under Windows XP. This has now been fixed in 1.2
To ensure correct operation of version 1.2 it is strongly advised to uninstall the previous version first. Please remember to copy any URL's that you have changed as these will also be deleted.
*** Please note, you will be taken to a second web page and from there will be able to download the installation exe file (SkyUp.exe).
Clear Skies
Rob