Elecrow touchscreen

[SkookumCat]

Hi everyone. I have an Elecrow 10.1” touchscreen with a Raspberry Pi 4 running open CPN everything seems to work okay, with the exception of the side menu bar. It seems to react to touch but no menus or actions take place. The options menu on the lower right corner works fine as well. I’m pretty sure this an open CPN issue, as it seems to work fine out of open CPN. Here is a link to a crappy video showing the issue. https://youtu.be/EfISFocLcWA
I searched and found a few really old posts (2014) that have the same symptoms, but no solutions other the a open CPN updated fixed it.
Thanks.

[mgrouch]

You seem started drawing the route and never finished it. And you started pressing other buttons.

What happens if you do not press draw route icons first?

[SkookumCat]

You sparked my curiosity so I actually connected a mouse, and found a setting for “use touchscreen” which was not ticked. I checked the box and it works fine now. Seems a strange place to put a setting that you might need to change to make it work, but whatever. I’m moving on. Thanks!

[mgrouch]

If you use raspberry pi 4 try this OS image. You might find it more suitable for touch screen

https://github.com/bareboat-necessities/lysmarine_gen

The download link is on the page.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, SkookumCat.
Glad to learn, you solved it. Thanks for reporting solution.

[SkookumCat]

Originally Posted by mgrouch

If you use raspberry pi 4 try this OS image. You might find it more suitable for touch screen

https://github.com/bareboat-necessities/lysmarine_gen

The download link is on the page.

That does look interesting. I have an ssd that I’m using so before I go any further I think I’ll spin this one up and check it out. Thanks!

[jmu92grad]

Hi there-
First, I am trying to understand the behavior of your touchscreen and OpenCPN on RPi. Does the pinch to zoom and drag to position work as it does on Windows/OpenCPN? Just want confirmation before making the investment. Also, curious if you have an opinion of OpenPlotter vs. BBN? Sounds like you've tested them both.
Thanks-Mike

[SkookumCat]

Originally Posted by jmu92grad

Hi there-
First, I am trying to understand the behavior of your touchscreen and OpenCPN on RPi. Does the pinch to zoom and drag to position work as it does on Windows/OpenCPN? Just want confirmation before making the investment. Also, curious if you have an opinion of OpenPlotter vs. BBN? Sounds like you've tested them both.
Thanks-Mike

Unfortunately pinch to zoom isn’t supported in RPI, at least with this screen anyway. Running with a RPI 4 8 gb and a 120 gb Kingston SSD via a geekworm SSD hat, performance is quite good. The scroll with mouse or finger and zooming is smooth. I’m actually growing fond of this mini usb keyboard to control the display Fosmon Mini Bluetooth Keyboard... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BX0YKX4?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
It has easy to access mouse buttons on each upper corner and an easy to push + - buttons for zoom. The pad works surprisingly well too.
I’m using OpenCPN right now. I tried Lysmarine but found I didn’t need most of the installed software. Of course everyone’s different.
Once I get everything dialed in and installed I’ll post more.

[mgrouch]

Originally Posted by SkookumCat

Unfortunately pinch to zoom isn’t supported in RPI, at least with this screen anyway. Running with a RPI 4 8 gb and a 120 gb Kingston SSD via a geekworm SSD hat, performance is quite good. The scroll with mouse or finger and zooming is smooth. I’m actually growing fond of this mini usb keyboard to control the display Fosmon Mini Bluetooth Keyboard... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BX0YKX4...p_mob_ap_share

It has easy to access mouse buttons on each upper corner and an easy to push + - buttons for zoom. The pad works surprisingly well too.

I’m using OpenCPN right now. I tried Lysmarine but found I didn’t need most of the installed software. Of course everyone’s different.

Once I get everything dialed in and installed I’ll post more.

Linux on pi supports touch multi touch, etc. on OS level, drivers and Xserver. However the individual programs have to have listeners coded to support touch gestures. Chromium, Firefox support it. GTK3 supports finger scrolling. OpenCPN doesn’t support two finger zoom on pi. It’s because it is based on WxWidgets and old GTK2. Those versions do not support touch zoom. I did one patch to OpenCPN and made it work with two finger zoom natively, but I had to use unreleased version of WxWidgets and compile against gtk3. That requires compilation from source code. It’s going to be number of months before OpenCPN could catch up. There are some ways with third party programs to workaround it. Like twofing program. I personally do not need two finger zoom in my cockpit chartplotter. I’m fine with +/- in OpenCPN. I used twofing but eventually turned it off. Right click is emulation was more important and it is solved in BBN image, as well as onscreen keyboard issue.

[CarCode]

Touch screens have never got its way to Apple computers with macOS but only to the iPhone and iPad devices with iOS operating system. Using touch screens in an environment like a boat is some times critical and not recommended.

[mgrouch]

Originally Posted by CarCode

Touch screens have never got its way to Apple computers with macOS but only to the iPhone and iPad devices with iOS operating system. Using touch screens in an environment like a boat is some times critical and not recommended.

A lot of modern marine electronics is touchscreen only. I guess marine electronics vendors do not see it that way. As well as car ones (looking at your nik). Tesla is all touchscreen designed largely by aerospace engineers who (presumably) know what mission critical is

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by mgrouch

A lot of modern marine electronics is touchscreen only. I guess marine electronics vendors do not see it that way. As well as car ones (looking at your nik). Tesla is all touchscreen designed largely by aerospace engineers who (presumably) know what mission critical is

You may be right when the environments inside the car are the same as outside of a boat. However at my car and my boat they are different...

[hoolie]

Originally Posted by CarCode

You may be right when the environments inside the car are the same as outside of a boat. However at my car and my boat they are different...

I agree. I recently bought a low-end Raymarine MFD and I'm perfectly happy for it to not have a touch screen. All controls are push-buttons - in my view more practical for use in the cockpit.

[SkookumCat]

I also have a small Bluetooth keyboard/pad and a Logitech roller mouse. The keyboard is nice because you can be very fine with the touchpad while holding it with both hands. Much better then poking at a screen while rolling around.