2026-10-09 APP 2.0.0-beta48 has been released !
This is mainly a bug fix release for the reported bugs in beta47. In addition it has a significant User Interface performance improvement noticable when you need to process 1000s of images in APP.
2026-10-03 APP 2.0.0-beta47 has been released !
This is a very big release... many code optimizations/rewrites, many parts of APP are much faster and more precise, especially star analysis and registration are much faster ! Big mosaics will go much faster 🙂
And we introduce a new preview filter, which includes the new Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch and a General Levels Stretch, this has been long over due. The old preview filter (the panel on the right side to stretch and preview your data) has not been updated for a couple of years and it is a critical part of any APP session.
Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch or ADSS is a much more intuitive stretch algorithm. It is also color preserving (which is a great new addition in itself ! ) which means that the highlights are no longer bleached, color is maintained from the linear data while stretching. You can simply stretch your data using the sky background level and signal width sliders which work much easier and more intuitive. You no longer need to fiddle with the old complicated sliders with zoom buttons. All the zoom buttons for the sliders are made redundant. And you can enter slider values in the slider value fields yourself. I will make a youtube video in the coming days to explain and fully introduce ADSS. Once the video is ready, it will be highlighted on the forum.
RGB Combine upgrade !. The RGB Combine Tool has been rewritten mostly. The tool is faster and easier to use and most importantly, the Luminance slider to inject a luminance channel or channels into the RGB composite is now working correctly. It no longer bleaches the RGB colors. Combined with the new ADSS preview, you will get much better and easier great composites with great color! I will also explain this in a new youtube video.
Hi,
I just installed APP on a MacPro 2009 running Catalina and a MacbookPro running Monterey. Both don't show any other drive both internal and external than the one it is installed on. Both run on 256 GB systemdisks without data and other drives don't appear within APP. What do I do wrong?
@donald Can you check and make sure that the drive appears under /Volumes please?
In Disk Utility all drivenames are preceeded with \volume
@donald My question was meant to ask if you see the drives under /Volumes in APP.
Ah, no, in APP there is nothing more than just "\" and "users" and "Donald", "Donald" being the working folder. There is nothing on a higher level than "\".
@donald Just a side node. Unix and unix-like systems (like linux and macOS) don't have "\". They only have "/". In other words, the separator used is a forward slash. Only Windows uses backslashes.Â
Having said that, what version of APP are you on?
Yes you are right "/". The version is 1.083.2 for Mac.
@donald Thanks for confirming the version of APP. I am not aware of any permission settings needed in the macOS settings to give APP permission to see external drives on Catalina. On Monterrey, can you check and verify that APP has the required permissions by clicking on the Apple logo to the upper left of the screen and selecting System Settings?
Yo! Found it!
Go to the field: "Folder Name", delete whatever is in there and type: "/volumes".
Then the button for the file loader shows: "/volumes" and click on the button. Now the fileloader opens with all the drives.
Now that I have APP running I can tell that this volume changing is very poorly programmed. It is simply impossible to easily go through your drives and folders. My built in drives are slower than my Samsung T5 drives on a USB 3.1 port so I have quite some work in switching from the internal drive that holds all my images and the work drive outside.
@donald Unfortunately Java on macOS doesn't reveal which directories are mapped to external folders so this is the best we can do. Agreed though that it is a shortcoming but as long as macOS doesn't improve in this respect, it cannot be solved.
