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<TITLE>Re: [APBeta] Observation Sessions</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Let just drop for this for now while I play some more. Other than the right-click Make Observation always being greyed out, you certainly have enough on your plate. <BR>
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I may of had some Operator Induced errors. I swear the clock/calendar was resetting to the current date/time each time I tried to add another observations, but that doesn’t appear to be the case today. This makes it much easier to just advance the minutes/hours and select OK.<BR>
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I’m wanting to add info from sessions over the last few years, and indeed for some I have no time information.<BR>
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If Paul Kemp can figure it out then certainly I can, even though I’m not in the Southern Hemisphere ;-)<BR>
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Steve<BR>
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On 6/24/09 3:18 PM, "Paul Rodman" <<a href="paul@ilanga.com">paul@ilanga.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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On Jun 24, 2009, at 1:30 PM, Steve Barkes wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'> Ok I’ve played with this some more. The Show Observation Database functionality gives me what I would expect when looking at previous sessions.<BR>
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But adding an observation after the fact is still too cumbersome. The Calendar/Clock interface doesn’t work well for entering items from several weeks or months ago.<BR>
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I guess I'll try this and see what my experience is. The problem with one-man-vs-one million-lines-of-code is that one never has any time/energy left for practising the art.<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Here are some ways it might could work: <BR>
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How about, from the Observation tab, if you right-click on an object in the Object list you get a menu item like Add Observation to Session... Clicking this brings up a list of sessions which you can select form and populates the time and general session info.<BR>
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....and would default to the last chosen session.<BR>
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Are you suggesting here that all your observations for a given session have the same date/time? This is fine (until you want to recreate the conditions when the observation was made (e.g. altitude) that is).<BR>
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I could represent the date/time with a graphic similar to the short-term visibility indicator. An option for selecting the time would be to click in that graphic.<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Or, allow a Fix Date to a Session Time..., so all new observations default to the time of the desired session.<BR>
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Or... Add a + to the observations list in the Observation Database Window that would close the Observation Database Window, update the general observing session data, and allow you to click on an object from the Object list to create a new observations. <BR>
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These sound contrived.<BR>
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I suspect what you're saying is you have a bunch of observations that were all made "on the night of dd mmm yyyy", without any time info. <BR>
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Paul R.<BR>
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On 6/22/09 7:52 AM, "Paul Rodman" <<a href="paul@ilanga.com">paul@ilanga.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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On Jun 17, 2009, at 9:14 AM, Steve Barkes wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'> Ok, I guess I’m confused. I’m struggling to try and enter multiple observations for a session that I had back in December of last year.<BR>
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If I right-click on an object from the observation tab, the Make Observation option is always greyed out. It works from the Objects tab.<BR>
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Sounds like a bug.<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>If I create an observation from the Observation menu, or by clicking + in Observations list, I have no way to select what session to put the observation in. I can only select the “Currently Open Session” which makes no sense in that It always has the current date/time. If the session is currently open, I should be able to close it, or change to an existing session. The other options are create a “New Session” which I don’t want to do, and the “Recent Sessions” is always blank and greyed out. What about a All Sessions in addition to Recent Sessions?<BR>
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Check the Observation preferences. At the top-left is the "New Observation Date/Time Source" option. I assume you have that set to "Computer". This setting assumes you are logging at the telescope and defaults the date/time to the current date/time. You probably want the "Ask user" setting, which will always ask for a date/time before deciding what session to add the observation to.<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>It appears the only way to move an observation into a particular session is to edit the date and time of the observation. Then I get an option to add it to an older session. But this is way too cumbersome, especially if I’m adding a dozen observations.<BR>
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Shouldn’t there be a way to Set the current session, possibly to a session date/time in the past, and then have all new observations go into that session until I change it, or create a new one? <BR>
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See below - all you need to do is change the date/time and the session management is automatic.<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Shouldn’t I be able to see a list of all my sessions? And shouldn’t it be clear looking at the interface that the correct session has been selected? How do I see a list of all objects associated with a particular session?<BR>
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There is no connection between an observation and a session. A session is defined as a start and end date/time, and an observation has a date/time. If the observation date time falls in the session date/time range it is assumed to be part of that session. It is done that way to make session management largely automatic.<BR>
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However, there are some problems in the current implementation, e.g you can't have overlapping sessions (e.g. multiple observers using the same installation of AP, or a single observer at multiple sites (e.g. multiple remote telescopes being used simultaneously). I'll be looking at fixing these problems.<BR>
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Paul R.<BR>
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