First Principles For A New User

[bcn]

Originally Posted by gonesail

i run ubuntu linux and have zero problems with open CPN. have used it for years now. then again i am an experienced computer user. i just wish there were more charts available .. especially inland waters in Florida and the bahamas.

For the Bahamas you have the Explorer Charts at o-chart.org

[Southernsunfish]

Also


- if you enter the same directory twice by accident in the chart list, you get nothing.


- there is no indicator that tells you what display mode you are in - my raster chart displays fine but the options menue is in the night style.

[Southernsunfish]

Now I have lost my cm93 charts, I only have the .nos/geo ones I made myself. Where did the others go? How do I get them back? Losing access to charts is a fatal error for any navigation program.


Where are my charts??????????

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Southernsunfish

First discovery - the screen display control.


I aplogise for not providing a screen shot of the muddy grey and brown screen that greets me when I start the system however I have made a discovery!


If you press the (Tiny and hard to see) day and night tab once, you get an almost black night screen display. Push it again and you are back with the muddy grey palette. But push it a third time and you get a daylight readable chart display!


Folks, this is very clever, but it is a non standard type of behaviour! How many potential users give up like I did? Interface design standards and average users expect a tab to be binary ie: two choices e.g day/night, on/off. They dont expect trinary choices of three outcomes!


So I push the tab once, I get night colors, I push it again, I get back the muddy screen, I don't expect to get a third option if I push the key again....so nobody pushes the key again, instead they scratch their heads and complain like me!!!


Sinple fix: start in daylight colors and perhaps have a drop down list of the three (or more) displays.


I will persist...

OpenCPN starts in daylight mode. For everybody but you as it seems. If you provided the screenshot you were asked for, we might perhaps find out that you activated the Inland ECDIS mode, which in turn makes OpenCPN comply with the EU regulation requiring the ECS to start in DUSK mode.

The color scheme logic is not tri state, but quadruple state, as required for and known from ECDIS systems, following the natural light conditions cycle of DAY-DUSK-NIGHT-DAWN...

- if you enter the same directory twice by accident in the chart list, you get nothing.

Please explain what you mean here exactly. You can configure the same chart directory as many times as you want, if you for some reason I am missing want to, or at least I do, and it does not break anything.

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Southernsunfish

Now I have lost my cm93 charts, I only have the .nos/geo ones I made myself. Where did the others go? How do I get them back? Losing access to charts is a fatal error for any navigation program.


Where are my charts??????????

We don't know, what exactly did you do?

[Southernsunfish]

I created a directory and put everything in it, CM93 and then nos/geo. I then rea;ised thatthetabs on the bottom of the display are charts (Text is still grey and unreadable). hen I attempted to add the entire New Zealand ENC catalogue and that didnt display. rebuilding databases doesnt help.


Now I' ve lost everything.


The route creation and managment system works OK but I've had that on CAPN since 1995.


Does openCPN handle NZ ENC's?

[bcn]

Originally Posted by Southernsunfish

Does openCPN handle NZ ENC's?

NZ ENCs are S-63 sets. You will need to install the S-63 plug-in, get a S-63 UserPermit for OpenCPN at o-charts, register with LINZ using that UserPermit and receive then your cell permits for the S-63 set.
Step-by-step manual at o-charts. Study it please before typing....

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Southernsunfish

I created a directory and put everything in it, CM93 and then nos/geo. I then rea;ised thatthetabs on the bottom of the display are charts (Text is still grey and unreadable). hen I attempted to add the entire New Zealand ENC catalogue and that didnt display. rebuilding databases doesnt help.


Now I' ve lost everything.


The route creation and managment system works OK but I've had that on CAPN since 1995.


Does openCPN handle NZ ENC's?

If text is still grey and unreadable, you are likely still in DUSK or DAWN mode, please post that screenshot we keep asking you for.

You realize the NZ ENCs are using the IHO S63 encryption scheme and are not directly displayable by any software at all without a user permit, registration at LINZ and a specific cell permit set generated there, right?

Yes, OpenCPN can display encrypted S63 charts using the S63 plugin. You may get the UserPermit from https://o-charts.org/

[rgleason]

You keep referring to buttons and text being tiny. Have you tried deleting/removing the opencpn.conf file?
What is the size of your screen in pixels?

Or alternatively have you tried going to Options > User Interface to adjust your interface?
https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...user_interface

[Southernsunfish]

Ah Ha! Found the user interface tab in "options". The user interface scale factor was set to minus 5! I can now see the buttons!



Thank you for solving that problem.


I have also purchased and installed the Australian vector charts and they installed correctly.


So my problems so far have come from the initial settings of the configuration of the user interface when I loaded openCPN from the Ubuntu software system.

[nohal]

FWIW, neither is the color scheme set to other than DAY and the UI scaling factor to other than 0 in a new installation of the package... Probably magic.

[rgleason]

@SouthernSunfish
Glad to hear you are making progress. It would be very helpful if you can tell us more about your hardware and installation.


1. Did you ever delete your opencpn.conf file and restart OpenCPN? -Because that was probably corrupted or changed during installation or by you hitting something unknowingly.


2. What size and pixel density is your screen? What is the resolution? ___pixels x ___ pixels? Is it a high res screen or not?
We would like to know this for programming purposes.



Thank you.

[barcoMeCasa]

Originally Posted by Southernsunfish

Ah Ha! Found the user interface tab in "options". The user interface scale factor was set to minus 5! I can now see the buttons!

One tip, though it's all in there the manual is quite big, you can use an AI like https://www.perplexity.ai/ to search for you.

Ask >
"i am using opencpn v5 . from the manual how do i make the buttons bigger"

A second later >>
"Answer
To make the buttons bigger in OpenCPN version 5, you can adjust the User Interface scale factor in the settings. Here's how you can do it based on the OpenCPN manual:
Go to the "Settings" menu in OpenCPN.
Look for the "User Interface" section.
Adjust the scale factor to increase the size of the buttons. This setting allows you to control the size of various elements on the interface, including buttons.
By increasing the scale factor, you can make the buttons appear larger and more visible for easier navigation and interaction within the software.
By following these steps and adjusting the User Interface scale factor in the settings of OpenCPN version 5, you can effectively make the buttons bigger according to your preference"

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by nohal

FWIW, neither is the color scheme set to other than DAY and the UI scaling factor to other than 0 in a new installation of the package... Probably magic.

Probably not magic....
When giving OCPN presentations I have some times seen attenders page through options and also scroll up and down in for example the "User" tab.
When scrolling up and down over e.g. the User interface scale factor it can happens the slider bar is changed unnoticed by the scroll motion.

My guess is that this is what have happened for Southernsunfish and others?
Since the user didn't noticed the slider bar was moved it's more or less natural to express: "I haven't changed anything."

[nohal]

That I would understand, but not in this case, where "everything was small and murky" before the user found the "options". Here it must be magic.