Good Nautical Chart Software . . .

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by Capt.Don

I've tried them all too! My favorite is Rose Point Coastal Explorer; however, with their new release, they are moving to a cloud computing model with their Coastal Explorer Network. Not sure what this means to the CE 2009, updates, desktop and dependency on the network. I've been a loyal user for years and may actually consider OpenCPN.

The Coastal Explorer Network is just extra information downloads and information-sharing "features" that IMHO are extra fluff. You don't NEED to use them, but there are some benefits to having the added info available. I haven't seen anything that would interfere with core navigation use and you certainly don't need to be connected to the Internet to use the program aboard.

They are changing the interface in the latest beta version to make it more user-friendly to touch screen users but some of that actually interferes with use of a mouse -- for instance the on-chart zoom-in/out control that behaves badly if you move the mouse-over it for other reasons.

[Sheriff]

Originally Posted by left52side

Ok I got the cm93 january 2010 downloaded on my computer.
But still cant figure out how to open the files or charts....
All I am getting is a bunch of folders with numbers on them.
And cannot open the files inside.
Is there something I am doing wrong.
Any help at all would be appriciated.
Here are some examples of the folder names and the names of files contained inside.

First Folder name is 00300000 files in side are named 00300000.A.
Again thank you all.

i saw this problem happened if

1: there is another navigation programme on the computer

2: what O.S are you running?

[left52side]

Thanks for all the replys everyone.
Wadda big thanks to you.
I have the charts on opencpn now and playing around tring to figure them out.

[Capt.Don]

Originally Posted by SailFastTri

The Coastal Explorer Network is just extra information downloads and information-sharing "features" that IMHO are extra fluff. You don't NEED to use them, but there are some benefits to having the added info available. I haven't seen anything that would interfere with core navigation use and you certainly don't need to be connected to the Internet to use the program aboard.

Agreed. I'll give you an example of where the lines are blurry. CE offers a ships log and blog capability. Currently, this only posts to the CE network. They claim they are working on an XML export, which I hope makes it into the software. Without the export or print, this feature is somewhat limited in value/use to me.

There are great benefits to the CE Network - automatic chart updates, weather downloads, community guide book, etc. It looks like users will pay $99/year for this convenience + software updates. They are moving towards an annual subscription model.

I like the sofware. I've found Rose Point Navigation to be very responsive to suggestions, improvements. I'll have to think about a $99 upgrade to the 2010 version and the ongoing subscription. If I didn't like CE so much, I would be using OpenCPN!