Feature Requests

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Hi.
Ref. to Flyspray FS£1161 FS#1161 : AIS Add country to the target query dialog

I've made a update of the diff file in flyspray. The country codes list was not complete -sorry.

I've run the patch in Windows only. If anyone would like to test in other system I'll appreciate that. See attached diff file. (Discard the .pdf extension)

Thanks Håkan

[CarCode]

Works here with Mac OS X, thank you.
I have localized the strings also.

Gerhard

[Hakan]

Gerhard...
Nice to see. Thanks for your test.

And I understand you recognised the missing function declaration in the Diff file!? That's because I run Diff only between a commit and a second change.

[seandepagnier]

I would like to see a plugin developed which allows users to make comments about waypoints, and then share them on an online database. For example: "good holding 8 meters deep with mud, peaceful place, local market 1km east" or "polluted with mosquitoes and smells of sewage" etc.. The navitronics software already has this, is it possible to tap their database too? Could also share tracks and digital images people have taken etc.. many possibilities.

Another one:
plugin downloader plugin.. "one plugin to download them all" would automatically install plugins, their needed datafiles as well as language translations. Can be set to automatically check for updates to both plugins and opencpn itself.. what do you think?

[bcn]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

I would like to see a plugin developed which allows users to make comments about waypoints, and then share them on an online database. For example: "good holding 8 meters deep with mud, peaceful place, local market 1km east" or "polluted with mosquitoes and smells of sewage" etc.. The navitronics software already has this, is it possible to tap their database too? Could also share tracks and digital images people have taken etc.. many possibilities.

Active Captain? The Navionics example might work where you are right now - sites with little traffic from visitors and which are experienced.
Go to the Balears and you will find 20 fotos and 10 comments for the same bay. Quite useless and even annoying if there isn't any quality control a la Wikipedia. I switch it off.
Tore proposed something similar various times with some ideas.
Making comments to a waypoint (and linking a URL) is already possible, the database or Wiki not.

[Rasbats]

Sorry, Windows based.

The hyperlink for waypoints opens up a lot of possibilities. I can start a small local '.exe' using the file link.

The problem is that the '.exe' does not know anything about the waypoint it is called from. Any switches I put in the 'command line' when editing the waypoint cause the link to fail.

Could the arguments be preserved so that the '.exe' can make use of them. The .exe could find the location of the waypoint.

I am trying to gain access to the position of an individual waypoint on the chart, which does not involve the <CTRL> + X method from a plugin.

Thanks for looking.
Mike

[Rasbats]

Thank you again OpenCPN !!!

The context sensitive menu option for plugins solved my problem! Weather Routing plugin code pointed the way.

Mike

[RhythmDoctor]

I might have mentioned this before, but it's still relevant and could be highly beneficial for planning:

I would like to see a feature (plug-in or built-in) that brings up an adjustable calendar and clock, and adjusts all of the on-screen current vectors and tide icons accordingly. This would be extremely beneficial for planning future trips with tricky currents.

The example below shows how Garmin Bluecharts does it, but I HATE the cluttered look and awful UI of that program. Bluecharts also no current stations in Philadelphia, where currents can be quite strong. O has over a dozen current stations in that area (corresponding with the Coast Guard monitoring buoys).





The example above gives a good example of why this is important. The east entrance to the C&D canal is tricky because the currents in the canal have a different cycle than the currents in the river. When coming down river from Philadelphia, timing is critical. Too early, and you hit a strong opposing current in the canal. Too late, and you hit a strong opposing current in the river. So the ability to simultaneously show multiple current vectors at a future date/time would be great for planning.

[rgleason]

RhythmDoctor, Why not enter these feature requests in the Tracker?
OpenCPN::Tracker 0 - OpenCPN - Feature Requests: Tasklist

-Enter with TIDE as the first word please, also leave a link to your post and description in this thread....http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1468648


I think your explanation is good. with the illustrations. How would you improve the first interface?

[Viking Sailor]

RD, have you tried right clicking on the tide bar?

[RhythmDoctor]

Originally Posted by rgleason

RhythmDoctor, Why not enter these feature requests in the Tracker?
OpenCPN::Tracker 0 - OpenCPN - Feature Requests: Tasklist

-Enter with TIDE as the first word please, also leave a link to your post and description in this thread....http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1468648


I think your explanation is good. with the illustrations. How would you improve the first interface?

Heading out right now, but I will do that later today. You are right, it's time for me to figure out how to enter these things into the official tracking utility. I post here because I'm comfortable doing that, but I should figure out the right way to do it.

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

RD, have you tried right clicking on the tide bar?

Yes, hundreds (thousands?) of times.

I'm trying to plan a trip down the river and through the C&D canal in June. With the way it's currently implemented in O, it would take thousands of mouse clicks. Try looking at a future date at multiple current stations, and you will see what I mean. My suggestion is to improve the method of selecting alternate dates/times, and have the result display on all the stations simultaneously.

As a workaround, I tried running O in Virtualbox, and modifying the virtual machine's date there at the OS level, but it keeps resetting to the current date/time.

[RhythmDoctor]

Originally Posted by rgleason

How would you improve the first interface?

Oops, sorry I forgot to address this question.

The Garmin interface is terrible for a wide variety of reasons. O already has addressed these issues, so simply "bolting on" an interface to create a temporary "virtual time/date" (a dialog box with calendar and time, much like Garmin did) would fully address the problem, as long as the current vectors and tide icons respond to it in real time, or at least with an "Apply" button.

[rgleason]

Celestial Navigation is very dependent on correct time, so the Cel_Nav plugin would benefit from some utility to set time (but this problem is a little different than what you are suggesting). We've had this discussion about time setting before, and it seems like you would have to set the computer clock frequently, or perhaps leave it and set the time in the cel_nav sightings using a quartz watch.

[Rasbats]

Here in the UK we have to use licensed UKHO data. Coming to VisitMyHarbour in the near future is a plugin to use UKHO tidal diamonds in the way RythmDoctor envisaged.

Shameless advert but ...

UK Tidal streams for OpenCPN (stand-alone or add charts) : by VisitMyHarbour [Charts for OpenCPN and Polar Navy] - VisitMyHarbour articles

Windows based. Closed source because of the licensing issue.

Just wonder if tidal diamond information is available for the USA. If someone could point me to that data I could look at a plugin to use that source.

The advantage of the diamond is that it can deal with non-rectilinear tidal current in a simple fashion.

[cagney]

Originally Posted by Rasbats

Here in the UK we have to use licensed UKHO data. Coming to VisitMyHarbour in the near future is a plugin to use UKHO tidal diamonds in the way RythmDoctor envisaged.

Shameless advert but ...

UK Tidal streams for OpenCPN (stand-alone or add charts) : by VisitMyHarbour [Charts for OpenCPN and Polar Navy] - VisitMyHarbour articles

Windows based. Closed source because of the licensing issue.

Just wonder if tidal diamond information is available for the USA. If someone could point me to that data I could look at a plugin to use that source.

The advantage of the diamond is that it can deal with non-rectilinear tidal current in a simple fashion.

David Flater over at Xtide does an excellent job of publishing yearly updates of US tidal data. They contain

All data for the U.S. and associated locales available from the National Ocean Service web site as of 2013-12-10.

You will find the latest file here: ftp://ftp.flaterco.com/xtide/harmoni...8-free.tar.bz2. The file harmonics-dwf-20131228-free.tcd is direct usable in OpenCPN as is.

Why not expand your coverage to include the rest of the UKHO charts for OpenCPN, recently released by VMH ?

Thomas