Latest Notes on Fugawi 5, sent to Fugawi/Northport.
Hoping for someone else out there to exchange experiences and work arounds with.
Some the writing below is chronological, in that I was testing, noting and retesting. I was too lazy to re-edit! I think its obvious where I have done this. Sorry . . .
Forgive my mistaken
references to Voyager, should be Voyage Planner, but I can't stop myself!
I cut and pasted from Open Office and the formatting went screwy, I'll try and correct that now!
Dealing with the easy points first.
Chart Resolution
Chart resolution is disappointing for some having paid for an update from 4.5 to 5. It immediately kills any Wow factor and puts the client into a negative frame of mind. I guess its good enough for a touch tablet and I am looking at it on a larger screen. Zooming out hides the problem, but then we zoom in for making reef passes,
anchoring between
coral heads, etc. I may be hyper critical. It's a confidence thing. Makes it look less of a toy.
Actually I have discovered the jaggies come and go at lower zoom levels, it's not just on high zoom. Zooming in sometimes clears them up.
Funny.
AIS Screen resizing
AIS screen resizes after hiding. Again, not critical to the usability. Just disconcerting and another confidence knock. One never gets a second chance to make a first impression.
Keyboard usage to Clear Data
I work with different sets of data. I need to clear the old set before I import a new set. There is no quick way to do this. I have to scroll through the waypoint, route and track data in the libraries, highlighting it and deleting it. Using Shift Control Home and Shift Control End would speed things up, or a
single “Clear All Data” button, even better.
Would you like to delete associated waypoints?
Nice of it to ask! When deleting routes. But it needs a “Yes to All”. I have 50 plus routes and have to hit Yes 50+ times. It gets tedious when clearing an old data set.
Importing Exotic GPX Track Characteristics
This concerns my wish to transfer icons, route and track characteristics, colour, width, etc via gpx format. Your explanation regarding different implementations of the gpx standard, all permitted, make sense. Now I realise why sometimes my Homeport exports create error messages when imported into Google Earth. Some programs do a better job, Babel, GPSU and I think EasyGPS. Maybe you could
license some code? Anything anything that makes working with Fugawi 5 easier is going to enhance its value and its popularity. Break down the barriers to
purchase, facilitate the
sale, reduce the learning curve, ease migration, etc. I noted that the gpx files can be examined in Notepad or XML Notepad.
Voyage Planner
As no doubt you realise Voyage Planner shares the problems of Fugawi 5. I purchased Voyager to use with my new Raymarine MFD, exporting fsh files. But now I will use Fugawi 5. Voyager has been chopped to use with the MFD so that is why tracks are not handled. (My MFD is still in the spare
cabin, waiting for me to install the NMEA2000 backbone, lost heart when I realised that Raymarine still hates tracks - crazy). But Voyager also had a habit similar but not the same as Fugawi 5. When rebooted or after certain actions a blank screen is presented and the chart has to be reselected again and then zoomed in and re-centred. Very tiresome. Fugawi 5 does similar but it does not lose the chart. Almost as tiresome.
See later notes, I could not reproduce this when tried again in Fugawi 5. I have not retried Voyage Planner with the latest version of My Collection.gpx.
Last Position and Zoom (Problem gone?)
Similar to Voyage Planner, but Fugawi 5 at least remembers the chart in use. Why does Fugawi think that when I restart the program, I do not want to start from where I left off? Why do I have to recentre and zoom to get back to where I was?
This problem has gone! I cannot replicate it! I have deleted the library and imported fresh data. See also “Long Delays”.
Position of Zoom and Orientation Controls
If the zoom and orientation controls were in the same position as the incredibly popular and well used Google Earth, then at least most new customers would get a warm comfy feeling when first introduced to Fugawi 5 or Voyager. (But never introduce a TimeLine!!)
Drag to Rotate
This prompt appears when I hover over + or – to zoom in and out. Dragging does not work there.
Identifying a Route or Track on Screen
You said
“You may right click on any waypoints, route, or track on any chart and then hover your mouse pointer of the name presented for that item... and the right-click menu presents more options for that item including "Details". Select Details to see everything about the data item: that will show up in the left hand pane, the Data Library pane (assuming it is not hidden at the moment).”
It works just fine. Thank you. In Homeport I just hover over the item and a description with options pop up, less key strokes, less hidden, more intuitive, I did not need help.
Long Delays
You may be right, a corrupted or too exotic gpx file or its interpretation might cause this effect. Seems like the program thinks about it for a while and then gives up. In my Vista, the file was in the path you suggested.
C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Fugawi Marine 5\FugawiMarine5.db3.
It was imported from a Garmin Homeport gpx export and could be a result of a different interpretation of gpx.
I will send the problem db3 file and send the original gpx file so you can what might have slipped through the import to db3. Then I will delete the original db3 and gpx files and
rebuild the files again by re-exporting and importing it to see if the bug goes away.
I have been trying to break Fugawi 5 again. Before getting your last response I had unwittingly rebuilt the files by importing a newer data set. For the moment I cannot replicate the long delay or the resetting of the start position. Now when I first expand Waypoints I get a short delay with a black screen headed, Fugawi 5 not responding. It's a 5 second delay, not the delay I was experiencing before. And it is only there the first time I load Waypoints after starting the program, later expansions of Waypoints have no delay. I have to left click to get the black screen.
The long delay problem has gone! I cannot replicate it! I have deleted the library from within the program and imported fresh data as part of continuing work. See also “Position of Zoom and Orientation Controls”. (Errata, see also "Last Position and Zoom (Problem gone?)." Maybe some rough data got smoothed.
Yes I can replicate it, sort of. I decided to delete all the data from the Fugawi 5 and Voyage Planner Libraries internally (not by deleting the db3 files externally). When I highlighted and went to delete 1,500 or so waypoints, in Fugawi 5, nothing happened, then I impatiently left clicked the screen and it went black headed “Fugawi 5 not responding”, then I waited and clicked again and it went white and then recovered a few minutes later. When it recovered everything looked normal, except the data had gone, as expected.
I will now close the program and delete the db3 file, import fresh data and go from there.
At the same time I will see if the tracks come back, and then try and lose them again! Then I'll copy the files and send them.
Deleted the db3 file with trepidation, it was 65kB.
Went into Voyage Planner to delete the data from the libraries. Same result on waypoints, timed at 3.5 minutes before it recovered. Time to boil and egg,
English style! I have a reasonably fast computer.
Went to look for a Voyage Planner db3 file in Appdata, nothing recognised. Wonder if it is sharing some files?
Exited and then rebooted computer, just in case.
No GPS attached.
Started Fugawi 5, it remembered where I was, embarrassing. Not replicating my complaint.
Transferred the latest version of my master file in gpx format, took 1.25 minutes to load. OK.
My Collection (waypoints), My Collection (routes) A and My Collection B (tracks) looks odd but I can get used to it. The input file was My Collection.gpx.
So now I'll close the program and re-open it.
It closed quickly, rebooted quickly, remembered where I was. Damn.
But tracks have gone, no My Collection B. Waypoints and routes, yes.
At this point I'll copy the gpx file and the db3 file and send to you with these notes.
Getting the boat ready to sail back to Belize for
Christmas. I'll play again later.
Disappearing Tracks
Fugawi 5 imports the tracks from my gpx Homeport export file My Collection.gpx. They are there as plain as day. If I close the program and restart, My Collection B is gone, see last few lines above.
Wish List
I gather navigational data from a number of sources, from waypoints, routes and tracks that cruisers have put into Google Earth, from cruisers blogs and websites, from friends, from
cruising guides and from my own varied instrumentation. This is all amalgamated into a master file where it is de-duplicated, edited, cut and joined using Garmin Homeport. Dedupliction is easily done by importing the data into Navionics PC App which does not allow duplicates, and then deleting from the master file in Homeport. From Homeport the data it is outputted to my navigational software and instrumentation.
Not all instruments and software will accept the same data. Limitations are imposed upon name length, number of waypoints, routes and tracks, number of points in each route and track. Then there are the limitations of the gpx files where the transfer of icons, track width and colour, route point and track point appearance (or not) is unpredictable.
I find the number of waypoints routes and tracks restricting, but the points allowed within routes and tracks generous. So my “work around” is to join these routes and tracks together, often with a non navigable link, to reduce their number so I can get the important information into the instrument. So several reef entrances or
lagoon entrances consisting of few points my be joined by a straight line across mountains!
Anything that can simplify the above tasks is welcome.
Deduplication: Not to be as strict as Navionics PC App, but recognising duplicate names and positions on import. Allowing duplicate names with an appendage or substitution of a letter or number and allowing duplicate positions with a Yes overide.
Geographical selection: I want to draw a box on the chart and say, “export everything in that box”. Then I can limit the data to the next cruising area and still remain within the limitations of the instruments memory.
Defining Name Lengths, etc: I understand that you cannot know every make and model of GPS instrument in use. But if name lengths, number of routes, number of tracks, number of points in routes and tracks could be user defined we could set our own constraints and prevent the target instrument rendering the data gibberish. Setting if duplication allowed, how to produce unique names and how to truncate names would be good. This complication could be behind a button labelled “Advanced” for power users. GPSU allows this.