ACP Planner 4.2 Release Notes (January 2011)

This is a release for compatibility with TheSky X 10.1.10 or later. Previous versions of Planner worked only with TheSky 6. It also addresses installation and operation issues on Windows 7/Vista with User Account Control enabled, as well as additional installation issues on 64-bit systems.

Critical:

You may have to run TheSky X "as administrator" once to get its scripting support to register with the Operating System. Look in Program Files\Software Bisque\TheSky X Professional and find TheSkyX.exe. Right Click on it and select Run as Administrator. Let it come up and settle. Wait for 30 seconds then close TheSky X. You only have to do this once (if at all).
Capture from telescope coordinates has been removed. It was not practical to support with TheSky X. Also, since Planner is designed as an offline tool with ACP, it makes little sense to capture targets from the live telescope position anyway. This simplified the controls as well as the logic in Planner. If you really need this, please contact DC-3 Dreams and we'll try to help.

Product Improvements

The Plan Capture and QuickCapture applets now detect and use TheSky X 10.1.10 or later. If TheSky X is present on the computer, it will be used in preference to TheSky 6. Therefore, if both are installed, these applets will only use TheSky X.

Bug Fixes

The Presets editor window now disables the filter selectors and Update button when there are no presets in the list. This corrects a possible fatal error, as well as making the behavior like the other windows.
The error report text file resulting from a failed ACP Plan import has been moved from Planner's program folder to My Documents. This was needed for Windows 7/Vista with User Account Control on. You won't notice this change unless you go looking for the file later. It still appears in Notepad after the failed import.
It is now possible to successfully import plans with naked deep-sky objects as targets (using MiniSAC).
Importing ACP plans with time features enabled now properly ripples the target start times.
The missing help page for adding/editing calibration frames has been created, added to the table of contents, and linked to the "help me" link on the Add/Edit Cal Frames window.
The Plan Capture and QuickCapture applets will pop up a friendly/informative error message box if TheSky X has not been run as admin once to register its COM interfaces.
The tooltip on the Presets list is now a balloon like the other windows.
When saving observatory profiles, remove/replace illegal characters for file names when constrcting the proposed file name for the profile.
Specified directory for cal frames has been fixed. It was missing from the generated plan.
#count 1 and #repeat 1 directives are inserted to prevent target carry-over problems with plans which have a mixture of old- and new/compact-format targets.
The plan compiler used by Planner for importing ACP plans has been separated from the one used by ACP. This prevents changes in one from affecting the other, and also prevents problems when installing a newer version of Planner or ACP on a machine with an older version of the other already installed.
SkyTools importing documentation has been enhanced to describe the proper column scheme to use for importing, and giving a sample.
The installer now handles Windows 7/Vista installations with User Account Control enabled. It also fixes a problem with installation on 64-bit systems.

ACP Planner 4.1 Release Notes (November 2009)

This is a maintenance release. It fixes a high-priority bug with importing ACP plans. Plans which specified the last filter in the Preferences list would fail to import. Off-by-one error. This has been fixed.

ACP Planner 4.0 Release notes (September 2009)

(older release notes)

ACP Planner 4.0 is a major upgrade, and includes new features plus the inevitable bug fixes.

Product Improvements

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.
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.
The Test button in Preferences now shows a "busy" (hourglass) cursor while waiting for the remote server to respond.

Bug Fixes

Catch crash in flat plan sorter for binning > 8
Fix uploading of flat plans, was uploading the observing plan again.
Allow TheSky mosaics with 1x2 or 2x1 geometry.
Specifically check for single frame (1x1) TheSky mosaic, and report that as an error.
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.
Support for old ACP 4 plan format has been removed.
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.
The preferences login test logic has been improved to prevent a crash if there is a serious problem with the network.
The tool tip on the default flat count in preferences has been corrected. It was wrong due to a textbox cut and paste.