autostart plugins

[WasabiAus88]

hey team,
did a search but couldn't find what i wanted, please forgive me if this has been answered previously

is there a way to auto-start plugins? specifically the VDR datalogger,

I'm trying to use this to create new polars so we need it to be recording data whenever its on.

the Polar addin also doesn't start automatically which is fine, but if there is a way for this to automatically start logging data that would also be acceptable.

any other data logging ideas (must be able to poll a TCP/IP, not USB/COMM) would also be appreciated.

thanks in advance

[AedanC]

Are you using Windows, Pi, Mac or Android?

[WasabiAus88]

Heya
Ha sorry the one obvious key bit of information.

Windows 10 on a pc.

Pc turns on automatically when we switch on instrumentation. Launching opencpn is done through a startup script.

Looking for how to get vdr (or other) to start recording nmea data automatically

Thanks much

[stevead]

All plugins that are enabled in OpenCPN are loaded.
Whether the plugin actually does anything when it is loaded or whether some other action is required is defined by the plugin itself. As you have noticed, the VDR Plugin only starts recording once the "VDR Record" toolbar button is pressed.

There is another thread regarding the file save options for VDR, where it might be possible for whoever is writing the fix, to also contemplate adding an auto start feature, although be careful what you wish for, you never know when your hard drive may become full!

In the meantime a quick & dirty workaround if you really want to log data from OpenCPN whenever it starts is to define an outbound UDP network connection and at the same time run something else to log the data. On Windows this can be done with a simple Powershell script.

The outbound connection is created similar to the attached screen capture:

And here is an example Powershell script:

$Logfile = [Environment]::GetFolderPath("MyDocuments") + "\vdr-"+(Get-Date).toString("yyyy-MM-dd-HH") + ".txt"
$Port = 2947 #OpenCPN Default UDP Port
$Endpoint = New-Object System.Net.IPEndPoint ([IPAddress]::Any, $Port)
$Socket = New-Object System.Net.Sockets.UdpClient $Port
$Socket.Client.ReceiveTimeout = 100
try {
  for() {
    try  {
     
      $Buffer = $Socket.Receive([ref]$EndPoint)
      $TextReceived = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString($Buffer)
      Write-Host $TextReceived
      Out-File -Append -InputObject  $TextReceived -FilePath $Logfile -Encoding ascii -NoNewline
    }
    catch [System.Net.Sockets.SocketException]  {
      if ( $_.Exception.SocketErrorCode -ne 'TimedOut' )  {
        throw
      }
    }

    if ( [System.Console]::KeyAvailable ) {
      $x = [System.Console]::ReadKey($true)
      if ( $x.key -eq [System.ConsoleKey]::F12 )  {
        Write-Host 'Exit with F12'
	 $sp.close
        break
      }
    }
  }
}
finally {
  $Socket.Close()
}

You could be really fancy and filter the NMEA 183 data (boat speed, wind speed & angle) and export it as a CSV file for analysis & plotting with something like Excel.

[WasabiAus88]

Steve, you're a legend! thank you!