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.
Indeed, fully understood. To fix a bug, you need to be able to reproduce it.
I'll be happy to support if you need specifics about my environment.
Thanks
@rodolgo Glad to see you are making progress as well! And thanks for the offer to let us know any system specifics.
update - no matter what I try this morning APP hangs. back to square one. I so hate to have to use BP in Pix.
@favalessa Sorry to hear that. Would you have any idea what may have caused that?
no idea. I rebooted. I set to auto load at start. rebooted. I unchecked auto load at start. rebooted. no luck. then I set auto load at start again, rebooted, frozen APP, but after an hour it opened!
After an HOUR? Wow. And your MacBook is connected to internet, isn’t it?
It pretty much looks as if something with this startup dialog causes the problem. When APP gets the working directory, all seems to work fine.
It should be extremely easy to make a build of the current version without the startup dialog - using an APP created default directory instead as the working directory. If this works, we know definitely where the problem lies and also have a working version until a final fix is there.
Best regards,
Eckhard
yes exactly! there are some other visual quirks going on, but they do not affect the processing.
Grrrr... Downloaded the trial version to give it a try and sure enough:
Please check out this post by Mabula; https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/postid/13685/
@vincent-mod Ah! Thank you. I'll look it over when I get back from lunch.
@vincent-mod
I got excited when I saw the email that there was a new post this morning, but it just refers to an older post by Mabula. My progress is going in the wrong direction. update:
recently past few days I cannot get APP to open as just hangs on directory screen at boot up. I've tried everything 10x times. (rebooting, reinstalling, following all the directions, etc) I'm giving up. I hope the team is working on a fix.
I think that this will not resolve your issue, but I was struggling for days to make my SAP GUI environment to run properly with dialog boxes (MacBook Pro, Big Sur) and I've just resolved it.
I've changed the System Preferences-->General-->Prefer tabs to NEVER.
@euripides Thanks for the tip! What was it set to before you made that change? For me it is set to "in full screen" and APP runs perfectly OK on Big Sur.
@wvreeven Mine was at full screen also, that it seems to be the default for Big Sur and APP works without issues.
Hello Euripides, hello Wouter,
to paraphrase the ancient Greeks ... Eureka! 🤗
Perfect!!!!!!!!! 🍷
That is the solution!!
Now works on my iMac too!
Jürgen
Euripides that fixed it for me also!!! restarted APP 10 times in a row with no issues or rebooting. this fix is so obscure, way to go! hours of frustration no more...life's simple pleasures.
That’s great guys! 🤩
Really glad I was able to help. Hope at least to this solve the issue once and for all (or at least Mabula finds what to do to avoid further future frustration)
Even if I am an Apple technician (not in software), I always messing around with software too. Trying to fix bugs is my second hobby 🙂
I confirm: it also works as expected on my system. Good workaround and congrats for figuring it out 🙂
FYI: I just changed the settings from "always" to "in full screen" (not sure about the exact wording in English, as my system is running with the French locale). I also successfully tested the "never" settings. And moving back to the "always" settings causes APP to fail loading.
I can confirm this as well now. When I set "Prefer Tabs" to Always", APP hangs at start up. When I change it back to "In Full Screen" APP starts normally. I passed on this info to Mabula so he can investigate and implement a fix for this.
I can also report that all the TOOLS are working now with this fix! When I was able to get APP working before, the tools would freeze the system and would have to force quit.
Excellent, that should finally point us to why this is occurring. Very obscure bug, thanks everyone!
