======================================================= ORBITER SCENARIO EDITOR ======================================================= Orbiter Scenario Editor is an add-on freeware for Orbiter. ======= Summary ======= Installation Features System requirements Documentation Version log Credits Author Installation ============ Unzip the files contained in Orbiter Scenario Editor zip file to a folder and launch setup.exe. Follow then the instructions to install Orbiter Scenario Editor. The drivers necessary to run Orbiter Scenario Editor (dll, tlb and ocx files) are included in the CAB file. At the first start, Orbiter Scenario Editor needs to locate Orbiter. For that, a dialog box appears to search Orbiter folder. Once Orbiter is located by validating it in the dialog box, it is then necessary to close and start again the Editor. If some problems occurred during the installation, the program can be installed manually by extracting the files from the CAB files and copying Orbiter Scenario Editor exe file and Orbiter Scenario Editor help file to a dedicated folder, and copying the dll and ocx files to the Windows System folder (other files are useless for manual installation). The editor is started by launching Orbiter Scenario Editor exe file. Features ======== +) Scenario file management +) Focus and environment management +) Orbital station management +) Ship management The bases, planets, planetary system configurations are not managed by Orbiter Scenario Editor for their parameters are not managed within the scenario files but their own configuration files. The HUD and camera displaying do not interfere with the scenario itself (position of ships, number of space stations,...), and they can easily and simply be adjusted by the user when running Orbiter. So that, at the present step, the HUD and camera are not set through Orbiter Scenario Editor which autmatically set them to standard parameters. System Requirements =================== PC running under Windows 9x or XP Documentation ============= Instructions (including disclaimer and copyright) to operate Orbiter Scenario Editor are supplied in the help file installed with Orbiter Scenario Editor. Version Log =========== Version v1.09 ------------- * Bug correction Correction of planet base scanning. Correction of ship class extracting from scenario files. At the first leditor launching or after the first Orbiter folder location, it is no longer needed to restart the editor to take into account Orbiter location. Avoid to be disturbed by some non printable characters in the configuration files. Correction of planet displaying when switching to another planetary system. Correction of mismatch when a planet name includes a figure. * New features Scenario folder management including loading, deleting, saving for files and for folders Spherical cartesian coordinates converter. Version v1.08 ------------- * Bug correction Multiline scenario descriptions are correctly displayed instead of having only the first line. * New features The docked and landed ship fuel is set to 100 % The hover engine and main engine value and sliders are correctly displayed when validating Version v1.07 ------------- * Bug correction No more error when a cfg file includes several at the end The docked and landed ship fuel is set to 100 % The hover engine and main engine value and sliders are correctly displayed when validating * New features Error check when opening the files and error log display in the Tools menu The station data are not sequentially got from the scenario files but thanks to a loop extraction (checking the flags), which secures the reading in case a line or a parameter misses (by mistake) in the scenario file. Version v1.06 ------------- * Bug correction The comments are inhibited when extracting some data, which involved before the editor to mess some file names (file name & comments instead of simply the file name : the comments are defined by the strings following ";"). When saving a scenario, the editor ensures the values of AROR, HOVER_MAIN and ENGINE_MAIN are not void in the scenario file. * New features Before loading another scenario, and before exiting Orbiter Scenario Editor, the program ask to save the current scenario file and if the answer is yes, offers the possibility to save the scenario file under another name. The atmosphere altitude limit is displayed in the planetary system information. The station parameter validation test takes into account that the station orbits does not pass through or below the planet atmosphere (and thus the planet surface). Version v1.05 ------------- The test to check if parameter value is a number is replaced by an own subroutine. The former test was bound with Windows and so depending of the country setup : the decimal separator might be a "," instead of "." required by Orbiter, which involved some incorrect validation test results on some PC. Version v1.04 ------------- * New features 1. Possibility to fold up or expand the dock and pad treeview nodes. In standard, the nodes are unexpanded except the ones carrying a ship. 2. The ship parameters (NOSECONE, GEAR,... not managed by the program are stored when a scenario is loaded and saved and so kept when the (modified) scenario is saved. * Bug correction 1. Incorrect flag RPOS replaced by AROT in the scenario file saving. 2. Validation test on missing parameters (planet name, pad,...) for the ships and the stations. Version v1.03 ------------- The calendars are used again thanks to the investigation results of the v1.02. New features : 1. If the program does not located Orbiter, a dialog box is automatically called to locate manually where Orbiter is installed. The result is save in the fine OCS.CFG that is saved in the same folder as the program. When the program is launched, it opens this file to locate Orbiter and verify it is correct. If not correct, the dialog box to locate Orbiter is called by the program. 2. The ship and station parameter values are checked before validation; the checking is limited to verifying that the parameters are numbers and that the orbit semi-major axis bigger than the planet mean radius (verification not accurate in case of high eccentricity elliptic orbit). 3. Adding a tool menu in the program main windows bar menu; this tool menu presents the following features : - Planetary System Information : allows to display the mass, mean radius and siderial rotation period of all planets and moons of the planetary system used by the scenario. - Windows Calculator : calls the windows calculator to help the scenario editor user whether some calculation are needed for determining some parameters. - Orbiter Folder Search : calls the dialog box to located where Orbiter is installed (maybe needed in case of several Orbiter version are installed. Version v1.02 ------------- Temporary version to investigate about the driver installation problems. The scenario calendar and station calendar are replaced with text box to display or enter the time and dates. So that, the calendar ActiveX is no longer needed. This allowed to point out that the problem of installation where due to a bad copying of mscalc.ocx file. Version v1.01 ------------- New improvements : - no saving unless there is at least a ship. - displaying of the ship in the station and base trees with impossibility to allocate an occupied dock or pad to a ship. Version v1.00 ------------- This first release integrates the following features : * Scenario file management - open a scenario - save and "save as" a scenario - delete a scenario * Scenario management - environment, focus, user controlled ship and scenario starting date - orbital station management - ship management * The following functions are not managed - camera management - HUD management; it is replaced by standard parameters no programmable - ship non standard parameters; it is replaced by standard parameters no programmable Credits ======= The help file has been developped with Help Creator version 1.0.0.36 from Breit Technologies (www.breittechnologies.com). Author ====== Henri Liné E-mail : henri.line@libertysurf.fr http://varegue.chez.tiscali.fr/orbiter/