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Upgrade Notes for v2025.05.01

Overlay Manager improvements

One of the more useful changes in this release is in the Overlay Manager and Overlay Editor workflow. If you maintain your own overlays, especially ones that have evolved over time, the new tools for remapping variables and splitting fields make it much easier to tidy up older overlays without rebuilding them from scratch.

These changes are aimed at normal overlay maintenance rather than deep technical work. In practical terms, they help when an overlay still works in principle, but the variables inside it no longer match the way you want to organise the overlay, or when one text field has gradually become too crowded and would be clearer as several separate fields.

Remapping variables

In this release, some overlay variables have changed name. That means an older overlay may still contain fields that point to variable names that are no longer the preferred or current ones.

To help with that, the Overlay Editor now provides a remapping option in the field properties editor. The purpose of this is simple: instead of deleting a field and rebuilding it by hand, you can update the field so it points to the replacement variable.

From a user's point of view, this matters because the layout of the field may still be perfectly fine. The problem is not necessarily where the field is or how it looks. The problem is that the variable reference inside it may need to be brought up to date.

This is especially useful when:

  • you have upgraded Allsky and an older overlay needs bringing into line with newer variable names,
  • you want to keep the existing overlay design intact,
  • you would rather correct fields one by one than rebuild the overlay from scratch.

The practical benefit is straightforward: you can update an older overlay more cleanly and with much less rework. The remapping option in the field properties editor is there to help you make that sort of maintenance change safely and deliberately.

Splitting fields

Field splitting addresses a very common pattern found in older overlays. In previous versions, it was normal for one text field to contain both the label and the variable together, for example a field that effectively behaved like:

  • Temperature: ${TEMPERATURE}

That worked well enough at the time, but the newer Overlay Editor gives you much better control over alignment and grouping. Because of that, it now often makes more sense to separate the label and the variable into individual fields rather than keeping them locked together inside one text field.

That is where splitting becomes useful.

Instead of deleting the original field and rebuilding it by hand, you can split the combined field into separate pieces. Once that is done, the label and the value can be aligned more cleanly, grouped more neatly with related fields, and adjusted more independently.

This is especially useful when:

  • you are updating an older overlay created in the earlier style,
  • you want labels to line up neatly across several fields,
  • you want values to align in a clearer column,
  • you want to make better use of grouping in the newer Overlay Editor,
  • or you simply want the overlay to look more ordered and easier to maintain.

The real benefit is not just that the overlay can look tidier. It is also that once the label and variable have been separated, future editing becomes easier. You can move or format one without having to disturb the other, which makes the overlay much more flexible.

The Sun Moon and Planets

This feature has been removed from the overlay manager and put into a dedicated module. Please install the Solar System Module and configure it. The Allsky upgrade will NOT migrate any settings you had.

A sensible way to use these features

If you want to make use of these improvements, a sensible approach is:

  1. Open an existing overlay that already works reasonably well.
  2. Identify fields that are correct in placement but use the wrong variable.
  3. Remap those variables first so the overlay is showing the right data.
  4. Then look for fields that feel too crowded or too rigid.
  5. Split those fields only where doing so will make the overlay clearer or easier to maintain.

That order usually works well because it separates two different jobs:

  • correcting what the field shows,
  • improving how the field is structured.