Conform Universal 1.0.0 Release Candidate 1

Introduction

Conform Universal (ConformU) is a cross-platform tool to validate that Alpaca Devices and ASCOM Drivers conform to the ASCOM interface specification. ConformU runs natively on Linux, Arm, MacOS and Windows and, when out of beta, will supersede the original Windows Forms based Conform application.

Please be aware that this release will reset Conform Universal's configuration to default values.

New Features since beta 0.9.0.0

• The application will now look for and report application updates that are available on Github.
• The 32bit and 64bit Windows versions are now provided through a conventional installer, which removes the need to manually install and update the application.
• The MacOS version is now provided as an Apple signed DMG file that installs a Universal Mac App that contains both Apple and Intel silicon binaries.
• All long running operations now provide dynamic status progress messages.
• At startup the application's server component now automatically chooses a free IP port on which to run. The port number can also be configured to any required fixed value through the Settings page.
• A select device button has been added to the application home page
• The application now returns directly to the home page when a new device is selected instead of staying on the device selection page. This behaviour can be disabled through the Settings page.
• COM exception messages are now translated to more meaningful descriptions e.g. COMException (0x8004040B) is translated to "Invalid Operation.
• The Camera "wait for exposure to complete" time is now configurable through the Settings page.
• The Rotator is restored to the starting position after tests are complete.
• The Telescope "wait for slew to complete" time is now configurable through the Settings page.
• All Linux application executables are now supplied with the execute flags set so they are ready to run and no longer need to be chmod'd before use.

Bug fixes

• Errors during telescope pre-run checks are now handled gracefully.
• Excessive font sizes have been reduced.
• Window resizing is now more responsive.
• Occasional JavaScript exceptions when starting and closing the application have been fixed.
• The application now terminates reliably on all operating systems. By default, the server component will close 2 seconds after the browser page closes but this value can be changed as required on the Settings page.
• The bug that prevented testing of the COM Video.LastVideoFrame property has been fixed.

Installers

All installers are completely self-contained and do not have dependencies on any other packages.

• Windows
  • The Windows installer supports both 32bit and 64bit OS and will create the expected start menu entries. Optionally it will create a desktop icon.
• MacOS
  • The MacOS application is supplied as a DMG file that self mounts when double clicked and displays a basic GUI. Using this you can drag and drop the application to the Applications folder and can then use it as normal.
• Linux
  • The Linux 64bit and Arm 32/64bit versions are supplied as compressed archives that need to be expanded using tar -xf before use. The application can then be run from the command line by the command ./conformu