[APBeta] The Dark Side

[Dan Kuchta]

Thanks!

I'll try a red theme, but I also have some extra Rubylith I can use.

-Dan


On Oct 31, 2009, at 12:37 PM, Jared wrote:

> I agree with Paul.  I don't bother using the night vision in Windows  
> with any application.  It just doesn't work well.  Rubylith is a  
> much better alternative.  It provides better contrast as well.  Even  
> some of the Mac guys I know use it rather than turning the screen red.
>
> Might be a new thread but I've been running windows 7 for a while  
> now as part of the public beta.  AstroPlanner has been working  
> pretty well for me.  I have noticed a couple of things though.
>
> 1- The application seems to hang for about 20 seconds while the  
> "Telescope", "Sun", "Moon", "Date/Time", and "Site" group boxes  
> appear.  I think I had this issue with XP as well though.  So  
> probably not a Windows 7 thing.  They also tend to flicker quite a  
> bit.  I believe this has already been bugged.
> 2 - connecting to the telescope seems spotty.  Although when it  
> connects I generally don't have a problem.  I think this is probably  
> part of the ASCOM issue though.  I'm connecting through a bluestar  
> device but other applications don't seem to have issues with it.
>
> Jared
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Paul Rodman <paul at ilanga.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 31, 2009, at 8:26 AM, Dan Kuchta wrote:
>
> OK, I've gone to the dark side - Windows!  I just purchased a  
> netbook on woot since they were selling one with a 1366 by 768  
> resolution so it should run AstroPlanner with enough space to work  
> well.
>
> In anticipation of its arrival, I downloaded the latest AP beta for  
> Windows and am playing around with it in VMWare Fusion on the Mac.   
> One thing I noticed right away is that the night vision mode doesn't  
> work very well.  Much of the background color for the windows stays  
> gray instead of turning red.  Is this a known problem with the  
> Windows version?  If not, then it's probably just some strange  
> behavior of VMWare Fusion.  I'm running XP Professional with SP3.
>
> Here's a screen capture of what I see in Night Mode:
>
> No, that looks like Win XP in "standard" theme mode. You can go into  
> the Display control panel and set the theme to "Windows Classic".  
> That will work better.
>
> The problem is that, unlike the Mac, there's no easy way to make the  
> entire screen red*. What you have to do is colour individual  
> elements of the UI. Windows has an API to do this, but since XP it  
> doesn't work on all UI elements. I think it has been deprecated in  
> favour of themes. I have struggled mightily to work around this, to  
> no avail. In theory, you should be able to create a "red theme" and  
> change themes when you're in the dark. Unfortunately I can't figure  
> out how to do this programmatically.
>
> For Windows, I strongly recommend a physical red screen (plexiglass,  
> etc.) in front of the monitor.
>
> Paul R.
>
> * this is not strictly true. You can twiddle the display's gamma to  
> a certain extent in Windows, but (a) it only works for about 20% of  
> video cards/drivers/settings, and (b) the range of "redness" is very  
> limited and nowhere near enough for astronomy.
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