ACP Planner 4.0 Beta Available

ACP Planner 4.0 beta is now available for your testing and use. Here are the things that have changed:

Product Improvements

1. A new applet, TheSky QuickCapture, has been included. It's function is to quickly retrieve the J2000 coordinates and Position angle from TheSky after setting up a target using a field-of view indicator. The 3 coordinates (RA, Dec, and PA) are used typically for pasting into the Single Image or Color Series forms on the ACP web interface.
2. It is now possible to import ACP Plans for editing. There are some restrictions on what can be imported, however, so be sure to read Importing an ACP Plan.
3. The Test button in Preferences now shows a "busy" (hourglass) cursor while waiting for the remote server to respond.
4. The MiniSAC deep sky database is now installed as part of Planner installation, eliminating the need to separately download and install it.

Bug Fixes

1. Catch crash in flat plan sorter for binning > 8
2. Fix uploading of flat plans, was uploading the observing plan again.
3. Allow TheSky mosaics with 1x2 or 2x1 geometry.
4. Specifically check for single frame (1x1) TheSky mosaic, and report that as an error.
5. No longer put #dawnshutdown in the flatplan. ACP's logic now chains back from flat plan to observing plan, and Planner already puts a #shutdown there, where it is supposed to be.
6. Support for old ACP 4 plan format has been removed.
7. The Test button in Preferences is now dimmed out unless there is something in the username, password, and domain fields. This prevents a fatal crash if the domain field is empty.
8. The preferences login test logic has been improved to prevent a crash if there is a serious problem with the network.
9. The tool tip on the default flat count in preferences has been corrected. It was wrong due to a textbox cut and paste.

Here is the download link http://download.dc3.com/ACPPlanner-4.0.4-Setup.msi [edit for beta 2]

This is the first project to be done using the new development environment I've been working on. It went just great. I have so much more visibility into the issues and evolution of changes to my software projects! I hope to provide you all with a view of the bug/issue system as a replacement for WebStar in the near future.

I'm bumping this in the hopes that some people will install it, use it, and provide feedback. Otherwise I'm just going to release it. It doesn't have any exotic changes, so I'm confident that installing it won't break Planner.

Hi Bob,

I was attracted to the import plan feature and downloaded ACP Planner 4.0beta. I created a simple plan after first loading my observatory profile. I saved the plan and closed ACP Planner. I relaunched ACP Planner, loaded my observatory profile again and attempted to install the aforementioned plan. The plan was a simple CRGB, a single 120 s exposure at each filter setting with 1x1 binning with no start times specified.

Being able to modify plans (typically changing exposure times and number of exposures) would be a wonderful feature. I must be missing something. I read the suggested help section and thought I had kept everything kosher by following the procedure described above.

Thank you,

Bill Perkins

What do you mean "not working"? Maybe you could attach the plan to your reply so I can try to repro the problem here. Also attach your observatory profile (save it with planner). A bit more of a description of the problem would help so I can identify it when I test.

Hi Bob,

I couldn't get the .xml profile to send so I copied it into a Word document entitled xml version.doc. As I said, I used the same profile to both create and then try to upload M77new.txt. I was able to select the M77new plan from the Import ACP Plan item in ACP Planner, but after doing so, nothing would appear in the Planner active window.

Thanks again,

Bill Perkins

I got it! The import fails if timing features are off. Here's the link to beta 2. Install it without uninstalling the previous beta.

http://download.dc3.com/ACPPlanner-4.0.4-Setup.msi

I talked to Bill by phone just now and he confirmed that it is working for him now. A good way to end the (long) day!!!

Come on guys, beat on this thing! :-)

The new ACP 4 Planner imports my plans without a hitch now. Thank you kindly. I'll keep working with it with progressively more detailed plans and let you know if anything else crops up (on the off chance that it does)

OK, well it was fun! I was pretty beat yesterday, though.