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.
1) Not all users use huge monitors. I only have laptops and tablets. This has all kinds of unintended consequences. Like the video's and images with APP running on a huge monitor are not very usable as I cannot see what is being shown, which is worse when the display system refuses to let you zoom in.
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2) Keep columns in the file list as the user has set them
It is possible to rearrange columns, and change their widths. However, as soon as you select another file by double-clicking on it, the columns get their original widths and they are all moved back to their initial place.
This is very annoying. Apparently there was a programming effort to get the columns change position and with, but that effort is wasted if one cannot keep these changes.Â
As I currently must manually deselect bad lights, I have to go through them all without the support of the quality information that the system has computed. That effort is now wasted as well as I cannot use it.
Further, lots of columns have wider titles than content. This wastes lots of space.
Also, some columns show information that is irrelevant for particular use cases. By being able to delete them I recover some valuable screen real estate.
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3) Visual indications of a file being selected and a file being important for some reason look almost identical. I am now looking a a file that has a black background for some reason, and a selected file that has an almost-black background because I selected it and it is showing in the file view. i have no idea why the black-background file is important.
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4) There is a CPU mode and a OpenGL3 mode (on windows). In OpenGL3 mode there is this weird view where only the bottom-right quarter of the image is the actual image, and the other quarters are either stripes or just background? I have no idea whether the system uses this info or not, but it apparently interferes with scale-to-fit, so I have to manually adjust the screen every time to only see the quarter that shows my images, which is quite annoying as I have to rezoom all the time.
1) Not all users use huge monitors. I only have laptops and tablets. This has all kinds of unintended consequences. Like the video's and images with APP running on a huge monitor are not very usable as I cannot see what is being shown, which is worse when the display system refuses to let you zoom in.
I'm not sure I get this one, you mean you're watching video's while using APP? And then what is the actual issue? I would not watch video's while processing myself btw, as I give APP all the memory I can afford. 😉
2) Keep columns in the file list as the user has set them
It is possible to rearrange columns, and change their widths. However, as soon as you select another file by double-clicking on it, the columns get their original widths and they are all moved back to their initial place.
That is interesting, I will try that myself. Something we definitely will address in a future update.
3) Visual indications of a file being selected and a file being important for some reason look almost identical. I am now looking a a file that has a black background for some reason, and a selected file that has an almost-black background because I selected it and it is showing in the file view. i have no idea why the black-background file is important.
Improvements to the UI is definitely on our list always, so these points are very valuable, thank you.
4) There is a CPU mode and a OpenGL3 mode (on windows). In OpenGL3 mode there is this weird view where only the bottom-right quarter of the image is the actual image, and the other quarters are either stripes or just background? I have no idea whether the system uses this info or not, but it apparently interferes with scale-to-fit, so I have to manually adjust the screen every time to only see the quarter that shows my images, which is quite annoying as I have to rezoom all the time.
OpenGl3 is a very old system and has, unfortunately, a bug on which we're working together with the developers (it's a bug in OpenGl). Please check if you are able to switch to OpenGL4, maybe when having a look at your gfx card settings, we had another customer that never looked in there and he could change it.
