The StellarMate Plus Manual
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which are up on the selected night are displayed (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). When
an object in the list is selected, its rise, set and transit times are displayed in the
lower-right panel (i.e. Mars rises at 17:13, transits at 21:46 and sets at 02:16). In
addition, you can press the Object Details... button to open the Object Details
window for that object.
By default, the WUT will display objects which are above the horizon between
sunset and midnight (i.e. “in the evening”). You can choose to show objects which
are up between midnight and dawn (“in the morning”), or between dusk and dawn
(“any time tonight”) using the combobox near the top of the window. You can
also choose to see only those objects that are brighter than a magnitude by
setting a minimum magnitude using the Show objects brighter than
magnitude spinbox. You may center the selected object in the Sky Map or add it
to Wish List by pressing the Center Object or Add to List button.
18.4.6 The Script Builder Tool
KDE applications can be controlled externally from another program, from a
console prompt, or from a shell script using the Inter-process communication
protocol (D-Bus). KStars takes advantage of this feature to allow rather complex
behaviors to be scripted and played back at any time. This can be used, for
example, to create a classroom demo to illustrate an astronomical concept.
The problem with D-Bus scripts is, writing them is a bit like programming, and can
seem a daunting task to those who do not have programming experience. The
Script Builder Tool provides a GUI point-and-click interface for
constructing KStars D-Bus scripts, making it very easy to create complex scripts.
Introduction to the Script Builder
Before explaining how to use the Script Builder, I provide a very brief introduction
to all of the GUI components; for more infomation, use the "What's This?"
function.
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