How to edit defaults for tracks and marks?

[Crab]

Sorry if this is already documented. I just couldn't figure out the right search phrases to find if this has been asked and answered before.

My dad's new(er) Windows 7 laptop has a bigger screen with high resolution. The default colour / color track one pixel wide is hard to see over a raster chart. He wants to improve visibility of tracks , marks , and waypoints by making them larger and a different colour, but since he sets six strings a day while prawn fishing, I'd like to give him custom defaults rather than tell him to customise / customize each track and mark individually after creating them.

I imagine my first step would be (while OpenCPN 4.2.0 is off) to try to find its .config file, make a backup copy (with "copy of" added to filename) then open the original file in Notepad, edit a value in certain lines containing these default values, save, and open OpenCPN again to check our changes. I've never actually tried editing a config file though.

Where should I look for default track width ?

How can I specify a bigger icon as default for marks?

Thank you for your help,
Maureen

[bcn]

Maureen...

in the ini file in you will find

[Settings/Others]
ShowRadarRings=0
RadarRingsNumberVisible=0
RadarRingsStep=1
RadarRingsStepUnits=0
ConfirmObjectDeletion=1
WaypointPreventDragging=0
EnableZoomToCursor=1
TrackIntervalSeconds=60
TrackDeltaDistance=0.1
TrackPrecision=2
RouteLineWidth=2
TrackLineWidth=2
CurrentArrowScale=100
DefaultWPIcon=triangle
WaypointRangeRingsNumber=1
WaypointRangeRingsStep=1
WaypointRangeRingsStepUnits=0
WaypointRangeRingsColour=#FF0000

For the size of symbols perhaps you should play with
Enable Tablet Scaled Graphics Interface at
Options/UserInterface.

You can create also your own symbols for markers. Details in the manual.

[Crab]

Thank you! Changing default track width didn't affect the tracks already created (although their Properties boxes still list their width as "default") but new tracks are wider.

(Yes, default track width was originally 2 pixels as in the settings list above, not 1 pixel as I erroneously said earlier.)

(I found the config file using Search for "opencpn." Windows 7 search found no file named opencpn.config as mentioned in documentation. What it did find was a file "opencpn" in a hidden Program Data folder in C:

Thanks to your tip I found we could adjust mark size with the User Interface slider once Enable Tablet Scaled Graphics Interface was selected. The other slider adjusts button size. I would not have figured this one out easily; Tablet Scaled Graphics Interface sounded dangerous and not like something a laptop user would need.

Much appreciated!

[bcn]

Originally Posted by Crab

(I found the config file using Search for "opencpn." Windows 7 search found no file named opencpn.config as mentioned in documentation. What it did find was a file "opencpn" in a hidden Program Data folder in C:

Two hints for Windows (Explorer):
- enable "show hidden and system files" in oder to see the "Program Data" folder
- disable "hide known file extensions" to show extensions like .ini, .log or .exe

The actual denominations might be slightly different - have no English Windows at hand.
Apply this for all folders.

[Crab]

I suspected it might be something like that. That's why I didn't say there was no file of that name: all I could say for sure was my system's Search didn't locate that name, but it found the file once I shortened the search phrase by leaving out the extension.

Thanks again!