[nbos] [AS] possible new features? From new guy David Gordon.

[David Gordon]

Hi

I'm a new AS and FWE user.  I have to say that I'm impressed with it, though
I do have some suggestions for improvements (which you may already be
working on).

First of all, how can I become a beta tester for you?

Ideas:

For AS -

AS1 -Is there an export function where we can export the data from a .sector
file.  This is not so I can use it with other software, but so I can check
against previous saves in case I haven't deleted a star by accident.  I'd
like to be able to transfer work (star systems and the like from other
.sector maps without having to repeat the addition process via the AS GUI).

AS2 -Is there a way of preventing stars from being moved?  I locked down the
systems but still, when I had the arrow selected in the Tool menu, and I
used the cursor arrow keys, I found that I moved the stars from their
positions - really annoying!  It means that I have to constantly click on
the hand icon after I select another star, befor I slide to it and rotate
the view using the cursor arrow keys.

I'm creating a 100 light year star map for my SF background (for writing and
for gaming) and I'm using the star database compiled by David Nash at the
Dark Matters website (downloaded file GM.txt from
http://darkmatters.web1000.com/dstars.htm) to work out the stars provided by
Terry Kepner (downloaded from the NBOS site) compared to the 20ly sample
provided.  I used the sample stars at 20 light years (provided with the AS
software) and then imported the stars from the 100 ly HIPPARCOS sample
compiled by Terry.  I didn't want to replace the stars already detailed in
the 20ly sample (especially all the information provided for Sol - the
planets and such), so I've had to add the import and now I am laboriously
checking each star to clear out duplicates and record HD, HIP, LHS, ROSS etc
numbers that each star has.  It's proving to be very laborious and some of
the functions pointed out above would make this exercise much less
frustrating when I make mistakes.  At the moment I'm having to save
regularly and compare Sector reports to find mistakes.

AS3 - I suppose there's no way of making a starmap display like the
following?
http://anzwers.org/free/universe/50lys.html  This type of display would be
very useful to print out or provide for illustration and gaming.


Regarding FWE - is there a way that we can get some of the functionality of
ProFantasy's Fractal Terrain Pro?  I'd prefer not to have to shell out for
FTP and much prefer to use AS/FWE.  I'd like to be able to export
icosahedral maps for various SF games.  Also - the ability to designate
percentage of water coverage would make life easier - instead of raising the
sea level by so many thousand years.  I found that saving images from FTP
meant that I couldn't import them into FWE to edit, the colours were all
different.

A piece of icing for FWE would be to have wisps of clouds on the bit map -
but I realise that this would be a very nice to have.  :-)

Database of Solar System Flat maps.  I've searched the web for flat maps for
all of the planet pictures for Solar system planets (such as Jupitor, etc).
Do you already have this or would you like me to provide this for download?
I'll have to make sure of all the sites I've downloaded the information from
so you can cite them.

David Gordon.