XEarth for Windows Version 1.3

This is a Microsoft Windows conversion of the famous X-Windows based XEarth. It supports all
of the features that make sense in the Windows environment, including markers, user defined
markers, labels, shading etc. It doesn't support gamma correction, but this behavior can be
simulated using the "day" and "night" parameters. This program supports both command line
parameters (try "xearth /?" for a complete list) and dialog based settings for easy, real
time experimentation with xearth capabilities. In addition this is a tray icon program that
doesn't take valuable space from the task bar. In practice xearth creates a BMP image 
(stored in the system temporary folder) which represents the current state of earth at that
time, according to the user settings and loads that image as the background. Some flickering
may occur to the desktop icons as they are redrawn each time, but this shouldn't be a problem
because all the other windows are not redrawn since they precede in the z-order. The main
usage of this program is to add a shortcut in your startup folder of the start menu. That 
way, every time you logon to the system xearth will be run automatically and load all of your
settings (it reads them from the system registry, unique for every user). If you specify a
"Time Interval" not equal zero (which denotes infinity), every that amount of time, xearth
will update your desktop wallpaper, according to the system clock and the options you have
selected (simple Orbit, Fixed view, shading on/off, etc). For example, if you have chosen
"Fixed" viewing position and a "Time Interval" of 10 minutes, than every 10 minutes the
wallpaper will be updated to show the current position of night and day on the visible face
of earth (specified by latitude and longitude), according to the system time.

To run the application just copy the two files provided (xearth.exe, nexxus10.dll)
into the same directory and run xearth.exe. If you don't pass any command line options, an
icon of earth should appear in your task bar tray. Also an image of earth should appear as
your desktop wallpaper. By double clicking the tray icon the options dialog appears. A 
menu is invoked by right-clicking the tray icon. For more information you may read the 
original xearth manual pages (sorry I don't have the time to create a help file, I have to
start learning Java sometime!), but most of the features are quite straight forward and with
little experimentation you will understand what they do. The original man page is provided
as a text file.

Thanks to Kirk Johnson for providing the full source code of Xearth. His code is used 
almost as is for the purposes of this program. All I have done was to create a rapper class 
for his routines written in C and some user interface features (the tray icon stuff and the
options dialog). I must also thank Spiro Ioannou for providing the original idea of porting
xearth. I know of one more port named WEarth, but it doesn't support many features (namely
the markers) and no user interface (settings may be passed only by the command line). I like
to think that this is a much-improved version. Thanks, also, to everybody who helped fix 
those nasty little bugs.

For any comments, bug reports, suggestion, praises and stuff like that contact me at: 
	
	mario@softlab.ntua.gr

I encourage you to send me an e-mail even if all you have to say is that you like it or 
hate it (or if you want to sue me for copying the code). But most of all, report any bugs
or problems, please.

Download newer versions from http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/~mario/projects.html

Version 1.2
+ fixed Apply Button behavior with "wrong" value entries.
+ fixed serialization bug of xarth object, when an EndSession of Windows occurred.
+ fixed saving problems of "time warp", "terminator" and "fixed time" options.
+ corrected some errors in the read me file.
+ added the original xearth manual page in the distribution file.

Version 1.3
+ added "removeicon" command line parameter, to remove the tray icon. There is no way to
  manipulate the application after the icon removal. One can only kill the process.
+ added label positioning and label color.
+ fixed label color problem, changing according to markers sometimes.
+ corrected "Fixed Time" problem not being "Fixed"!


Marioh
15-05-1998
