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#10 EQMOD Opening without Scope Connection Fix
It would be great if when clicking on an EQMOD Icon it would open even without a telesope connected so you could check settings without having to setup and connect a scope! My EQMOD only flashes on/off on the screen without a scope connection. frustrating! With scope connected it works fine.
EQMOD is not a stand alone applicaiton but is an ASCOM driver. As such it only appears when a client application asks it to - it also only closes when the all the connected applications have disconnected.
Try using the toolbox application that installs with EMQOD to launch EQMOD - you will see that that the toolbox will not close down EQMOD if it fails to connect to the mount. The flashing you see is caused by your planetarium/control application client application shutting down EQMOD when it reports that the connection to the mount has failed and then contiuously starting and stopping EQMOD as it retires.
So EQMOD is behaving exactly as it is supposed to - starting when asked , and closing when asked. The issue of the flashing is casued by the software you are using that control EQMOD.
Thanks for your reply – I fully understand that is how it is supposed to work and that is why I submitted this under feature request which it still is. If I thought it a buggg I would have submitted it as a buggg so I guess the request could be re-titled to maybe make EQMOD stand-alone? At least to the point where there is a way to check settings without having to set up everything! It could warn you that no connection to scope detected etc… I will give the toolbox a try as you suggest, I have seen it but did not spend any time looking at that in detail. Maybe it is what I am after....
Thanks
Robert
I've no plans to modify EQMOD to run as stand alone application - and to be honest I really don't see the need. Doing so would also invalidate it as an ASCOM compliant driver.
However, if you really want to operate it that way then there is a way it can be "tricked" into launching. Take a look at the vbscripts that should have installed with EQMOD (should be listed off the widoows start menu). There should be a "start EQASCOM" script that uses a "back door" to mess with EQMOD's client count in order to make it start up . The down side is that to shut eqmod down again you have to use the associated "kill" script.
Interesting, Thanks for the info I will take a look at these scripts. You say however you see no reason to make EQMOD stand-alone. Well you might not but I sure do. Last night for example I thought I may have a setting in EQMOD wrong so instead of just booting up the laptop and opening EQMOD to check - I had to basically setup, connect and initialize my rig to check an EQMOD setting..... To me that's plenty reason to if nothing else have it open even if it gives a sort of warning that mount is not connected...... Thats just me but I'm sure others would like it to atleast load without a mount connected..... It does work the way it is but this would make it better IMO and the reason for Feature Request?
As I've tried to explain EQMOD is not shitting itself down - it is being commanded to close by the client application you are using. Use a different client, such as the tooolbox application supplied with EQMOD, and you can happy open up EQMOD with the mount disconnected. So there really is no need for anything to change.