I would like to suggest 'some' changes to the interface:
To change the properties of an object you must open the menu by right-clicking on the object; U.S. (Universe Sandbox)
shows the menu plus
2 panels related to the object (e.g. "Earth properties" and "Earth commands"): on the first you can change velocity, mass, density, ..., of the object; on the second you can do some nice actions like turn the object to dust and explode it (just examples, not desires...
).
My idea is to unify these panels, separate them from the menu of the system, and add some other commands:
Changes:
When you click on an object, U.S. shows one menu like this (I will explain the changes later):
e.g. The object is Earth (taken from the system "Our Solar System")
Things between " " are editable
Things between [ ] are buttons
Things like (1),(2),(#) are notes
Earth properties:- Name "Earth"
- Vel "30.3 Km/s"
- Mass "1.0 Earth" [show KGs](1)
- Diam "12742 Km"
- Dens "5.51 g/cm^3"
- Rot p "23.9 h"
- acc "0.0061 m/s^2"
- g "1 Earth" [show m/s^2](1)
- esc v 11.2 km/s
- Hill s 1.47 M Km
- dist from Sun 146 M Km
- dist from
"you"(2) 1.25 M Km
- Axis "#°"(3)
- Pos -123 M | 1680 | 80.3 M Km
__________________________________
Changes to position- [orbit parent]
- [orbit actual system centre of mass](4)
__________________________________
Views about Earth- [set to centre](5)
- [light pulse]
- [comet trail]
- [show relations](6)
- [show lagrange points](7)
- [show forces and vectors](
__________________________________
'ADD' menu of Earth- [add object](9)
- ["2"D grid] "1000"
__________________________________
'Delete' menu of Earth(10)
- [explode] "10 Km/s" [escape vel] [zero] "13"
- [to dust]
- [delete]
The menu could be put on 2 diffierent columnes and should be big as this one (it doesn't take much space compared to the options inside)
notes:
(1): clicking 2 times it turns normal
(2): you can change "You" in "Mars", "Moon", "Jupiter" ... in order to find the distance between these objects
(3): this is to change the angle of the axis with the orbit; i don't know what is the Earth value of it
(4): this makes the object orbit around the centre of the mass of that moment (it can change).
it can be simply called [orbit around barycentre].
I don't know how to determit the velocity and the speed of the object (could the mass of the barycentre be the sum of all the other masses? maybe without the mass of the object? i don't know
). I will show the utilities of this comand later
(5): I put this button in this menu because (for mortals and probably not for programmers) it just changes the trails path
(6): it shows just the relations with the selected object.
(7): this would be a nice add: I will return on this later.
(
: shows the forces and the vectors of the object (velocity, acceleration, ...) and the resultant.
(9): this is one of the biggest new feauture ( Dan, don't be angry
); it adds 'something' in orbit around the Object:
First: You select the type of the object (dice, Earth, Moon, Sun, Black hole,
Rings(this is why there isn't a button before) ...) like U.S. does now.
Second: You select the orbit type:
-The medium distance and (again, don't kill me Dan) the eccentricity (how long is the big axis of the ellipse compared to the small) ===> The velocity and the direction would be automatically calulated. You can choose the position of the planet and the direction of rotation on the hipothetical orbit around the object
- The inclination compared to the axis of the object
Third: You click on [launch] and the new object would start to orbit.
The rings would be a bit different and easier: you choose just the type plus minimum and maximum radius.
(10): this menu changes the object radically, or deletes it.
I suggest to add this menu closing the previous. i think it would cover the orbit when you have to choose the position...
No, the post isn't finished
What about the Lagrange points, [orbit around the actual centre of mass], and the first menu?
The lagrange points could be shown as... points: Instead of adding a real object (like in the systems "Lagrange points - ..." U.S. could simply add a mark (with a trail) ===> they would not change position (in my pc the lagrange points L1 and L2 aren't very stable). If you want a real object on their positions you can right-click on the mark and choose an object that starts orbit in that position with same direction and velocity. The comand [orbit around barycentre] could be usefull here:
e.g. In the System "Lagrange points - Earth & Moon" you could add in L4
or L5 position a big object ( like Mars or anotherEarth) ==> It wouldn't be so stable, but if the 3 objects orbit the barycentre (with the same angular velocity) they would remain in orbit. I've read this in a wikipedia article about lagrange points or about the problem of the 3 corpes. Now i don't have time to add a link, maybe later... sry
The last change: the first menu
Surprise: it doesn't change
. Simply the object menu opens alone: it would be to big in my opinion.
The "New Bodies" menu in would need for the classical start (obviously possible)
Please post your opinions about the changes. Dan, again, don't kill me
I think this is the longest post I ever made
FGFG
P.S. as usual sry for my bad English
P.P.S. I've used a lot the simple present in order to not make much errors (probably I made errors even in this line
)
Topic: changes to the interface? (Read 13692 times)
