Elite Observatory - Search your journal for potentially interesting objects, or notify you of new ones on the fly while exploring!

Vithigar

Vithigar
DjVortex said:
Even though I have never used Lua, it's already about a million times better than the old XML format... :)
Click to expand...
Yes, the original XML criteria structure was very difficult for people to use. The newer Lua ones used by Observatory Core are much nicer. The next release, which I hope to have ready sometime in August, will clean them up even more such that they'll co-operate better with Lua development tools and potentially support things like syntax highlighting and IDE hinting/intellisense.
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Vithigar

Vithigar
kobytz said:
I would really appreciate it if you would return (or add custom color values in the settings) the old color scheme of the application, because the black and white scheme hurts my eyes. Thank you for your understanding and I apologize for my poor English. Thanks!
Click to expand...
The next release will support theming and comes with both light and dark themes, as well as custom user themes. Can currently preview it in the ui overhaul pre-release if you want to give it a spin, but be warned that plugin compatibility is a little spotty with this version right now.
 

kobytz

K
Vithigar said:
The next release will support theming and comes with both light and dark themes, as well as custom user themes. Can currently preview it in the ui overhaul pre-release if you want to give it a spin, but be warned that plugin compatibility is a little spotty with this version right now.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for the work you are doing, I am looking forward to the release of the new final version and plugins for it.
 

Vithigar

Vithigar

Download Elite Observatory Core

Tool for reading/monitoring Elite Dangerous journals for interesting objects.
observatory.xjph.net

1.0.0 - UI Overhaul Release

It's finally here, but first there's an important point that needs attention.
MULTIPLE PLUGINS ARE BROKEN BY THIS UPDATE, YOU WILL NEED TO UPDATE THEM
Significant changes have been made to plugin presentation and behaviour. In most cases this can be fixed by updating the plugin as well, most plugins should have 1.0.0 compatible updates either already available or coming very soon.
Now that's out of the way, what's actually in this update?

What's New?!​

The Observatory UI has been completely overhauled and is hopefully now a little more intuitive. The main points of difference for end users are:
  • Switched from vertical side-tabs to traditional top-tabs
  • Rather than dumping every setting for every plugin onto the "Core" tab Plugin settings are now presented in their own windows, accessed by selecting a plugin and hitting the "Plugin Settings" button
  • Light and Dark themes are now available
    • In addition it is possible to add user-created themes, instructions for creating them will come soon
  • "Read-All" gives an indication of progress, doesn't appear to just hard lock the application while running, and can be cancelled by the user if it appears to be taking too long
  • Plugins are no longer limited to simple grid views and can provide more complex UIs
  • Plugins can be individually toggled on/off using checkboxes on the plugin list
  • Resizing columns works (re-ordering soon, maybe)
  • Sorting by column works (plugins can opt to disable this if their data shouldn't be considered sortable)
  • Observatory better remembers its exited state in general, window location, column sizing, last tab viewed, should all persist
  • Notification plugins that take over audio or popup notification duties can now disable the settings pane for the associated native functionality (native voice notifications and Herald notifications can no long talk over each other)
  • Audio settings have been unified in the Core tab, rather than having individual conflicting settings per-plugin
  • Changing your journal folder location is harder to do accidentally (you need to double-click the journal folder path in the core settings pane)
  • Due to a UI framework change hopefully the annoying solid white popup bug is gone
  • Start Monitor On Launch and Read All On Launch settings have returned
  • Exporting has been improved and will now only export the tab your are currently on, as well as having both tab-separated .csv and .xlsx export options available
  • A button to quickly access the plugin data folder has been added
  • Explorer Custom Criteria has a new criteria annotation syntax that plays nicer with Lua development environments, though the original :: Label :: style annotations still work

Another Note​

Observatory is now self-signed and checks all loaded plugins against its own signature to confirm their origin. If an unsigned or signed but not matching plugin is loaded the user will be presented with a one-time dismissable warning about running code from unknown sources.
This is not a robust security measure, but I always felt a little weird about Observatory being a possible vector for malicious code. By running Observatory you are implicitly trusting me to not do anything untoward, but I can't really do anything about the plugins you load, which have just as much access and ability to run arbitrary code as Observatory does. This warning is only there to serve as a reminder that by loading these plugins you are extending that trust to additional parties.

There is a minor issue right now where some systems aren't able to read this signature and incorrectly report that Observatory is a debug build. This should not impact any usage of the application and can be ignored.
 
Last edited:

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
Vithigar said:

Download Elite Observatory Core

Tool for reading/monitoring Elite Dangerous journals for interesting objects.
observatory.xjph.net

1.0.0 - UI Overhaul Release

It's finally here, but first there's an important point that needs attention.
MULTIPLE PLUGINS ARE BROKEN BY THIS UPDATE, YOU WILL NEED TO UPDATE THEM
Significant changes have been made to plugin presentation and behaviour. In most cases this can be fixed by updating the plugin as well, most plugins should have 1.0.0 compatible updates either already available or coming very soon.
Now that's out of the way, what's actually in this update?

What's New?!​

The Observatory UI has been completely overhauled and is hopefully now a little more intuitive. The main points of difference for end users are:
  • Switched from vertical side-tabs to traditional top-tabs
  • Rather than dumping every setting for every plugin onto the "Core" tab Plugin settings are now presented in their own windows, accessed by selecting a plugin and hitting the "Plugin Settings" button
  • Light and Dark themes are now available
    • In addition it is possible to add user-created themes, instructions for creating them will come soon
  • "Read-All" gives an indication of progress, doesn't appear to just hard lock the application while running, and can be cancelled by the user if it appears to be taking too long
  • Plugins are no longer limited to simple grid views and can provide more complex UIs
  • Plugins can be individually toggled on/off using checkboxes on the plugin list
  • Resizing columns works (re-ordering soon, maybe)
  • Sorting by column works (plugins can opt to disable this if their data shouldn't be considered sortable)
  • Observatory better remembers its exited state in general, window location, column sizing, last tab viewed, should all persist
  • Notification plugins that take over audio or popup notification duties can now disable the settings pane for the associated native functionality (native voice notifications and Herald notifications can no long talk over each other)
  • Audio settings have been unified in the Core tab, rather than having individual conflicting settings per-plugin
  • Changing your journal folder location is harder to do accidentally (you need to double-click the journal folder path in the core settings pane)
  • Due to a UI framework change hopefully the annoying solid white popup bug is gone
  • Start Monitor On Launch and Read All On Launch settings have returned
  • Exporting has been improved and will now only export the tab your are currently on, as well as having both tab-separated .csv and .xlsx export options available
  • A button to quickly access the plugin data folder has been added
  • Explorer Custom Criteria has a new criteria annotation syntax that plays nicer with Lua development environments, though the original :: Label :: style annotations still work

Another Note​

Observatory is now self-signed and checks all loaded plugins against its own signature to confirm their origin. If an unsigned or signed but not matching plugin is loaded the user will be presented with a one-time dismissable warning about running code from unknown sources.
This is not a robust security measure, but I always felt a little weird about Observatory being a possible vector for malicious code. By running Observatory you are implicitly trusting me to not do anything untoward, but I can't really do anything about the plugins you load, which have just as much access and ability to run arbitrary code as Observatory does. This warning is only there to serve as a reminder that by loading these plugins you are extending that trust to additional parties.

There is a minor issue right now where some systems aren't able to read this signature and incorrectly report that Observatory is a debug build. This should not impact any usage of the application and can be ignored.
Click to expand...
That's pretty amazing! Thank you for your hard work on this app, it's amongst my must-haves and always-running :)

Right on, Commander! o7
 

Borg Grob

B
Vithigar said:

Download Elite Observatory Core

Tool for reading/monitoring Elite Dangerous journals for interesting objects.
observatory.xjph.net

1.0.0 - UI Overhaul Release
Click to expand...

Hello.

Good Job.

But unfortunately, despite uninstalling the old version of the program, deleting the files in "user/AppData" after starting the program I get an error:
"Unable to load settings (DisplayDropdown), some values may have been cleared.
Error: InvalidArgument=The value '4' is not a valid value for 'SelectedIndex'. (Parameter 'value')
Actual value was 4." :(

Regards Commander! o7
 

Vithigar

Vithigar

Download Elite Observatory Core

Tool for reading/monitoring Elite Dangerous journals for interesting objects.
observatory.xjph.net

v1.0.1 - Multi-screen Bugfix​


  • Fixes an issue where screens were handled incorrectly on multi-display systems causing a potential error when displaying notifications
  • Stop erroneous display of being a "debug build" when certification checking failed


@Borg Grob You should be able to re-select a new display in the core settings to save an updated configuration and stop seeing this error.
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
For those of you writing Custom Criteria for explorer, there is a new option for how to annotate them using Lua comments instead of labels. It plays much nicer with Lua dev environments and syntax highlighting. The new format is documented here: https://observatory.xjph.net/plugins/explorer/customcriteria

In addition there is a pre-made Custom Criteria VSCode dev environment which provides type hints, tooltips, and autocompletion for criteria objects and functions.
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1725322383755.png

1725322401955.png

You can find that here: https://github.com/Xjph/observatory-custom-criteria
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
Just learned that the update check in pre-1.0.0 versions wasn't picking up the 1.0.0 release. This is now fixed so more people should be aware it's available. :D
 

Vithigar

Vithigar

Download Elite Observatory Core

Tool for reading/monitoring Elite Dangerous journals for interesting objects.
observatory.xjph.net

v1.0.2 - Week One Bug Fixes

Small set of bug fixes for last week's release. Most notably fixes the selected theme not correctly being applied on restart, and allowing custom themes to overwrite older versions of themselves.
  • Allow added themes to overwrite existing themes
  • Correctly load previous selected theme on startup
  • Fix startup crash when loading plugins with no UI columns
  • Auto-scroll lists to most recently added item when monitoring
  • Slightly relax requirement for window to be fully on-screen when reloading previous position
 

varonica

varonica
Vithigar said:

Download Elite Observatory Core

Tool for reading/monitoring Elite Dangerous journals for interesting objects.
observatory.xjph.net

v1.0.2 - Week One Bug Fixes

Small set of bug fixes for last week's release. Most notably fixes the selected theme not correctly being applied on restart, and allowing custom themes to overwrite older versions of themselves.
  • Allow added themes to overwrite existing themes
  • Correctly load previous selected theme on startup
  • Fix startup crash when loading plugins with no UI columns
  • Auto-scroll lists to most recently added item when monitoring
  • Slightly relax requirement for window to be fully on-screen when reloading previous position
Click to expand...

The only thing that was really annoying mean was the failure to load selected theme on startup, thanks for this update....now I can finally have my light theme without having to switch after starting...whoohoo (y)
 

Moirai

M
Curious about updating to this version. However, is there an updated version of the BioInsights plugin available for it yet? I primarily use that, so don't want to update if it cuts me off from its functionality for now. Ta.
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
Moirai said:
Curious about updating to this version. However, is there an updated version of the BioInsights plugin available for it yet? I primarily use that, so don't want to update if it cuts me off from its functionality for now. Ta.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it's in an unreleased beta state. I'm not sure if @MattG is willing to share it here and will tag him in for this one.
 
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