First Principles For A New User

[Southernsunfish]

I first started experimenting with raster and vector charts back in 1995. I made my own and used CAPN and later some other software. I also have experience with aviation flight management software. I cruise occasionally, single handed in Bass Strait.



I am sorry to say that as a potential user of OpenCPN, the learning curve is too high for me, I am using Ubuntu linux. I don't have time at my desk at home to work out what is happening and the thought of having to play around and/or possibly rely on this software for navigation in bad weather, perhaps in an emergency, makes it unusable at least by me.


The problem is simple - there needs to be a quick start guide, or if there already is, I can't find it in the overly voluminous manuals. There also needs to be a plain vanilla install configuration that is daylight readable by anyone. The opening screen on my install appears to be a night brightness level with grey on grey texts that are impossible to read.



The manual need to be reorganised into a hierarchy of information: Must know, should know and could know is the usual way. I cannot find how to adjust display briightness and pallette in the documentation. Sure, there is stuff about pressing F^6 and cntrlG but it appears to do nothing.


Without the ability for the software to produce a simple readable display, there is no point in me trying to do anything else with this software.


Professional technology companies go to great lengths to write their manuals to be usable by new users with no prior experience of the system. The old story about the new user who was perplexed by the command "Press any key" because she couldn't find the "Any" key isn't a joke. Power users are not the best people to teach the system.



I will look agai at OpenCPN in a few months to see if anythinghas changed.