> 
> >>gimme a chance to check it out and see if it dies worse that the 0.94
> >>release did over 0.93.  if it does, i'll formally object, but we can
> >>probably go ahead anyway, because the HOMEPAGE makes it sound like
> >>it's totally new.  and i dig the new screenshots.
> >
> >totally new and totally different.  i see the author pulled in most of
> >the patches i sent him, but not all of them, so we'll have to make a
> >few more patches to get that back to "normal".  that said, this one's
> >totally different, which i might end up liking, but for now it's not a
> >two minute job to get my old way of using xplanet working in the new
> >version.
> 
> okay...more poking and prodding makes me think that:
> 
> - too many command line options are missing.  i can't completely
> control xplanet without making a config file and telling xplanet where
> to find it.
> 
> - some features are currently unimplemented.  i like setting the fuzz
> factor to zero so that i get a hard edge between day and night
> shading.  that's gone.  or not there yet.
> 
> - the mercator projection mode seems to me to be totally broken.
> 
> - it no longer uses x fonts for rendering, only true type fonts, and
> it only comes with one of those.
> 
> = i like that he included the $HOME/.xplanet patch i sent him that
> augments the search path, but i think he should also have included the
> $XPLANET stuff i sent him at the same time.
> 
> + i like the -pov stuff, which gets you a view of the solar system
> from anywhere(?).
> 
> + i like the -print_ephemeris output, even though i have no idea what
> it means or how to use it.
> 
> + i like that you can tell it where to put the stars, instead of them
> just being random dots.  seeing orion is neat, but being able to tell
> that tell that aquarius is rising is just too cool.  ;-)
> 
> + the -origin stuff looks interesting, but i haven't played with it
> all that much yet.
> 
> it's hard to say.  i think i like it but i'm not sure.  would it be a
> pain to import it alongside the existing xplanet package?  they're
> really very different.

Your can specify the search directory on the command line. The following
are the default search paths - see man-page:

        The current directory
        searchdir
        subdirectories of searchdir
        subdirectories of xplanet (if it exists in the current directory)
        subdirectories of ${HOME}/.xplanet on X11
        subdirectories of ${HOME}/Library/Xplanet on Mac OS X
        subdirectories of DATADIR/xplanet

Isn't this what you wanted?

I've looked into the mercator projection, and whilst the screenshot
on the web looks fine, I can't reproduce it on my system. However,
it may be as simple as a configuration problem.

I wouldn't be hard to create an additional package, however, I don't believe
it is appropriate for this package as it will only lead to user confusion
and makes it harder to maintain for very little gain.

What do you think?

cheerio Berndt