Soon to follow in its footsteps will be 4.5.1 which I hope to release at a much faster pace (since it will not contain nearly the number of changes in 4.5.0). This is what I am thinking as of now:
Sequence start times (including event-based start times like astronomical twilight + / - some offset). Target start times will still have precedence here.
More options for target start times… same as above in terms of events, but also a “when visible” options that will determine when the target is either above your user-defined horizon for some azimuth, your “default horizon” as found in a user profile or 25 deg if nothing is defined.
Some minor UI issues that can cause SGPro to act a little weird when maximized (the custom windows we are now using to support themes have some transparent area which windows does not recognize as transparent)
Some work on scripting: specifically, allow for passing of a certain set of state variables to your scripts. It is not necessarily a complete list, but I’d imagine the variable set that could be passed along would be very similar to the set of file naming tokens available now.
Various smaller bug fixes.
For 4.5.X (stuff before we start up again with larger feature development):
Blow up the entire autofocus routine and refactor it to be smarter and more reliable. The data analysis, for the most part appears to be mostly satisfactory, but the way in which AF captures data could use some attention. It’s fine of there are no issues, but it doesn’t always recover well when there are issues.
More sequencing options: like “balanced” that will work to ensure that the events are always approximately the same level of complete
Other stuff too… that’s not the end of 4.5.X, but we will need to go revisit the community input again here.
@Ken, If a sequence start time is after a target start time, will the sequence start time have precedence?
For example, sequence start time is 7:30 pm (darkness) but target 1’s start time is 6:00 pm. When will the sequence start?
Will sequence start optionally run a script like sequence end does?
@Ken, thanks for asking.
To be consistent with the current Sequence End time where no targets can go past it, no target should be able to start before the Sequence Start time. When using an event-based start time, like astronomical twilight, it doesn’t make sense that a target would start before that time.
So I think this statement:
should say “Sequence start times will have precedence”.
If a Target start time is after the Sequence start time, the Target time would have precedence.
Adding event-based Sequence END times would allow sequences to start when it’s dark and end before it gets light, without the user having to adjust either time every day (as is currently needed). It would also make the Sequence end time options more consistent with the start time ones.
Adding a Sequence start script would make it consistent with the Sequence end script.
Here’s what I’d like to be able to do:
Set sequence start and end times based on astronomical twighlight +/- and offset and have that apply to all sequences. It would then be “set and forget”.
Set all my targets to start at, for example, 30 degrees and at 30 degrees the next day. Because they won’t start or end before/after the sequence times, I don’t care if 30 degrees is during the day, and don’t want to see any warnings in the “Planning tools” window. A “notice” that doesn’t set the ! icon would be ok.
Have start and end scripts run at sequence start/end so they can notify my website that a sequence has started/ended. I can currently do the sequence end script but have to fake a sequence start script by always having the first target take a bias frame (which is never used) and then call the target start script, which notifies the website.