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.
I am using an iMac 27" with a Magic Trackpad to run APP 1.083 and in this version (as in all previous versions) there is no functionality for right-clicking on the list of files being operated on to choose sort options or do whatever else you might do by right-clicking. I also cannot click on the headers of the various columns ("frame", "file name", "ISO/gain", "Registration RMS" etc) to sort that way. Is this functionality meant to be present?
It's not very standard indeed, we may improve on that in future versions. But you should be able to right-click on the file-list and then choose how to sort it.
@vincent-mod Unfortunately, it does not work at all. Do you know if the issue is the trackpad, or is it the OS?
@jlg84 For me "right" clicking on the trackpad works fine. For instance when I load lights and then "right" click on the files list, I get a popup allowing to sort the files etc. Can you give an example of where you expect "right" clicking to work and it doesn't?
When I have my lights and calibration frames loaded, and have gone through the calibration process, shouldn’t I be able to right-click somewhere in the list of files under the viewing window to choose sort order and things like that? I have tried right-clicking everywhere in there, including on the column headings, and nothing works.
@wvreeven I'm on 12.0.1. And I just tried this on my MacBook Air too (running the same macOS, but with an M1 chip) and right-click doesn't work there either.
Just to be sure, but the trackpad is configured to respond to 2-fingers being a right-click right?
I’ve been doing Ctrl-click. I just tried two-finger click and that seems to work! Why does one work, but not the other?
@jlg84 Great that two-finger clicks work. Ctrl-click doesn't because there is no generic "right click" functionality in Java (or any other generic programming language) and this needs to be explicitly programmed. I'll pass it on to Mabula.
Hi James @jlg84,
I have put this on our ToDo list to fix for MacOS users;-) I guess you also have problems then with zooming in and out on the image data with the mouse? Left click zooms in, and right click zooms out.
Using the CTRL key + left mouse click instead of a right-mouse click should not be difficult to implement so we will make it work in the next release.
Mabula
@mabula-admin To zoom in and out I use the two-finger slide on the trackpad, which works fine. Thank you for adding the CTRL-click functionality in a future update!
