Sol System v1.00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ General Information ------------------- Sol System is designed to be a general knowledge astronomy application providing a graphical view of the solar system for any date/time the user specifies. The type of view is sometimes called an orrery. Sol System is written and maintained by Chris DiPierro of Star Pilot Technologies. Requirments ----------- * A Palm Connected Organizer running PalmOS v2.0 or higher. * 43k of free memory on your Palm for the program files/databases * About 5k of memory free on your Palm during runtime of the application. Installation ------------ The following is a list of files related to Sol System and information about the necessity of each: solsys.prc - Sol System program file (required) Known Bugs ---------- * There are no known bugs at this time. Usage ----- Because of the graphical nature of Sol System and the variety of observing options we wished to provide, operation is somewhat complex. Below is a description of the controls Main Screen The main screen shows the actual solar system view. Aside from the planets and their orbits, the main area of concern are the two toolbars at the bottom of the screen. Please note that all "buttons" in the toolbars are "clickable". This means that even fields that look like text fields are actually buttons and have a function as such. Top Row - You will see a date displayed here. This is the date that corresponds to the graphics above it. You can click this field to set a different date. "N" - Sets the date to "now" (the current date on your Palm) Left Arrow - Go back in time by a specified amount (change the amount in the Date/Time preferences menu) Right Arrow - Go forward in time by a specified amount - This is the "maximum" planet displayed. In other words, if this field reads "Mars", it means no planet beyond Mars will be plotted on the screen. Note that even if you have a planet listed here that is far out in the solar system, if you are too zoomed in to see it, it will not display anyway. Clicking on this field auto-zooms to a level appropriate for viewing the planet displayed. Bottom Row Left Arrow - Move display left by a specified # of pixels (change the amount in the Display preferences menu) Up Arrow - Move display up Down Arrow - Move display down Right Arrow - Move display right "C" - Center display "+" - Zoom in by a % (specify % of zooming in the Display preferences menu) "-" - Zoom out "<" - Show fewer planets on screen ">" - Show more planets on screen "I" - If hilighted, display inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) "O" - If hilighted, display outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) "Go" - Start planets in motion (specify options in Orbit preferences menu) Main Screen Menus Preferences->Display - Display options Preferences->Orbit - Orbit options Preferences->Date/Time - Date/Time options Display Preferences Arrow Increment - How much to move the display when you hit the move arrows Zoom Increment - % to zoom in/out when you hit the +/- buttons Auto-scale - If selected, when you display more/fewer planets, the display is automatically zoomed to accomodate them Orbit Preferences Orbit Increment - How many days to skip (can be positive or negative) on each orbit step Redraw Increment - How many orbit steps to take per second. To be honest, this is approximate at best, and depending on how many planets are on the screen will not function at very high rates. We suggest limiting this to 5 or fewer. Date/Time Preferences Date Increment - How many days to increment (or decrement) when you hit the time arrows Default to current date - If checked, the date for the graphical display will default to the current date instead of whatever you last viewed. Registration Info ----------------- Sol System is distributed under the shareware "try before you buy" license. It costs $9.95 to register. Benefits of registration include: * Ability to change date beyond 5 years from current date * Ability to change many more options than in shareware version * Free upgrades to future versions To register, please refer to http://www.star-pilot.com/purchase/ Liability --------- The author of Sol System is not affiliated with Palm Computing, and is not liable for any damages caused to the user or the user's computer equipment (including both their home PC and their Pilot). This program has been tested on a PalmPilot Professional, a Palm IIIx and a Palm IIIc and to the best of the author's knowledge will not harm similar equipment. However, by installing this product the user dissolves the author of all liabilities related to this program or otherwise.