How many OpenCPN users?

[barcoMeCasa]

Originally Posted by wholybee

So, while I see barriers for some, I don't think OpenCPN is _that_ complicated. Once it's setup and charts are installed, OpenCPN is pretty darn simple.

Though it is compared to so much dumbed down works instantly apps these days like navionics which so many people are used to now, comparing the 2 is a bit like comparing a basic selfie app on android to full blown photoshop, so many want a near zero learning curve & digging through the manual is a step too far.
Though the Ai with the manual helps a lot, found lots of little features & settings in there as it's so quick compared to diving into the manual
https://www.perplexity.ai/spaces/ope...SeuxuzUAkxUVMg

And a deep dive with perplexity through social media puts TimeZero ahead in ease of use but doesn't seem that much in it. Lot to pay for not spending some time in the manual - & Ocharts are a fraction of the price of TZ charts

Not sure there is anything out there that provides all the features I use most days anchored or on passage - in no particular order..
watchdog for offcourse/wind increase,
dashSk for all the useful signalk data,
plots to see little trends over time
logbook
mbtiles - sat images are pretty much must have for anchorages
plug & play radar, with a Halo anyway. So handy to find a space in the anchorage.
gribs ontop of synoptics & ascat from weatherfax plugin - does anything else do grib over ascat? So powerful!
Dashboard & tactics, love that little blue true wind arrow on the boat.
Prob lots more ..


But for most people most of the time navionics is more than enough (though maybe not in SE asia right now.. ) , this is just more web chat room banter with little to do with the outside world, personal preferences morph into some kind of illusory external reality .

[mvweebles]

OCPN file management is a remarkable throwback to the days of DOS. Why bother shoulder-surfing a new user to understand their frustration when there are stalwart sycophants proclaiming ease of use?

[boatman61]

Bit insulting ain't we..
Stating a fact does not make one sycophantic any more than saying knowing how to dead reckon with a degree of accuracy across the Atlantic makes one a luddite.
Basic intellect is enough (or should be) to accomplish either or both.

[bcn]

Do you refer to chart directories?
In the case of installing from the Chartdownloader, or installing S-63 and o-charts one will not need to know about that concept at all.


Of course the directories come handy when creating chart groups.



Installing mbTiles or from other sources the concept of a "folder" where those are residing should not be an issue. At least not for somebody who remembers "drawers" for the paper charts...

[mvweebles]

Bit thin-skinned, eh?

Unending chorus of opinion certain qualifies.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Bit thin-skinned, eh?

Unending chorus of opinion certain qualifies.

In case you had not noticed, most posts on any subject are mainly opinion.. including yours..
Judgemental is something else, implying a certain sense of assumed superiority.

[barcoMeCasa]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

OCPN file management is a remarkable throwback to the days of DOS. Why bother shoulder-surfing a new user to understand their frustration when there are stalwart sycophants proclaiming ease of use?

Are we talking about the android version or linux/Win? How is it any different to clicking through your documents directory to open a spreadsheet or word doc? Nothing like dos.

Android is a pain but that's down to google.

TZ looks worse if anything with permits to worry about as well
https://userguide.mytimezero.com/tz-...rt_Manager.htm

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by barcoMeCasa

Are we talking about the android version or linux/Win? How is it any different to clicking through your documents directory to open a spreadsheet or word doc? Nothing like dos.

Android is a pain but that's down to google.

TZ looks worse if anything with permits to worry about as well
https://userguide.mytimezero.com/tz-...rt_Manager.htm

CE and TZ manage charts very intuitively. You do have to decide whether you want vector or raster (or satellite but requires an internet connection which is much more common with Starlink). May need to purchase a chart set (I use CMAP in Central America). Zoom in and you get more detail. Zoom out and you get less. No file management needed. Simple.

Don't get me wrong, there are some use cases for OCPN which is why I use it sometimes. And I do like it. But the learning curve to use it is prohibitive for many. If OCPN were a regular commercial product that charged for use, it would be in the graveyard. Which probably explains why no one has purchased OCPN as an entre into expanding their navigation suite. I seriously doubt any of the commercial nav suites see OCPN as a competitive threat. Sure don't see them seeking to emulate OCPN features.

[OZwingle]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

OCPN file management is a remarkable throwback to the days of DOS.

Yes, familiarity with DOS does make chart management a bit easier. And yet, I find sorting and organizing objects in my life advantageous. Kitchen implements in the galley. Wrenches all together, but sub-sort by metric and imperial. Splicing tools in one bag, taps and dies in another.... Even Christmas lights are in their own box. Sort bins (folders in DOS) keep life (and computers) running faster and easier.

[rwwff]

I love having it on my desktop, and may install it on my next laptop. Its great for studying places I've never been, remembering places I have been, playing with routes and timing. Seeing the charts blown up on my 32 inch monitor is just simply cool, in a nerd sort of way.

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

I sailed a friend's boat with "state of the art" RM Axiom plotters at the helm and the nav station. One showed fish traps the other didn't. They were both running off of the same chart data. We spent many hours trying to wade through the settings but were unable to work out why they displayed differently. Lucky it was daylight and we knew where we were going. A bit like a simple calculator if you follow blindly without some expectation of the answer you can end up in serious trouble. So what ever you use be it dedicated plotter or OpenCPN you still need to put in some effort to understand. OpenCPN offers total flexibility at the small cost of a little time in familiarisation.

In several ports, I made a fair bit of money helping people with chart plotter issues. Some setting somewhere turned of AIS display, or they were in north up mode and wanted course up, etc. "Real" chart plotters are not easy or intuitive either. They fit a need or desire that an installer or tech can set them up in some way, and the captain just looks at it and never pushes a button. IMHO opinion a dangerous situation, or at least, expensive when you pay the sailor in the slip next to you $500 just to press a few buttons to turn on AIS targets. For the record, I didn't ever ask for money for pressing a few buttons, but neither did I turn it down when the captain said 4 others had looked at it and I was the only person to figure it out.
So, I take that in context when people say OpenCPN is difficult and chart plotters aren't. If I was the 5th person to come along and look at a Garmin chart plotter and the only one able to make a simple display change, you can't convince me that it is easy to use. But you will convince me that most people don't do anything other than turn it on and look at it, and as long as that is all they do, they _think_ it is easy.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by wholybee

In several ports, I made a fair bit of money helping people with chart plotter issues. Some setting somewhere turned of AIS display, or they were in north up mode and wanted course up, etc. "Real" chart plotters are not easy or intuitive either. They fit a need or desire that an installer or tech can set them up in some way, and the captain just looks at it and never pushes a button. IMHO opinion a dangerous situation, or at least, expensive when you pay the sailor in the slip next to you $500 just to press a few buttons to turn on AIS targets. For the record, I didn't ever ask for money for pressing a few buttons, but neither did I turn it down when the captain said 4 others had looked at it and I was the only person to figure it out.
So, I take that in context when people say OpenCPN is difficult and chart plotters aren't. If I was the 5th person to come along and look at a Garmin chart plotter and the only one able to make a simple display change, you can't convince me that it is easy to use. But you will convince me that most people don't do anything other than turn it on and look at it, and as long as that is all they do, they _think_ it is easy.

Fair point - chartplotters do require configuration, but much of that is due to MFD integration/calibration with the autopilot. I certainly do agree that the manufacturers of MFD equipment could make it a LOT easier to connect via Bluetooth or WiFi for firmware updates or route transfer - definitely seems hit-or-miss sometimes.

But the basic chart/nav function of an MFD/Chartplotter is pretty bullet-proof. I probably have one crash every 125+ hours of operation so it's pretty stable. For me OCPN crashes or hangs-up noticeably more than Coastal Explorer on the same laptop. I've run boats off a laptop and it works fine - the Rosepoint Navigation NEMO interface box also works fine but definitely takes some head-scratching to install. It delivers good data to either Coastal Explorer or OCPN, though I have not advanced to running the A/P through it.

It gets expensive, but running Furuno Black Box equipment with hardened display screens seems to be the way to go. You could run OCPN though most run TimeZero because it integrates seamlessly with Furuno. I know a few running Coastal Explorer (or their commercial-grade Nav suite), no one running OCPN on advanced hardware setups. The actual black-boxes are pretty sizeable and generate a lot of heat so they're not for everyone (not to mention the expense).

Bottom line is OCPN is fine. The $0 price-point offsets a lot of grey-hair inducing drama for many folks and they're willing to put up with a relatively fragile device with a non-daylight viewable display running software that typically only one person aboard really understands. It may emulate a Chartplotter, but it doesn't come close to a reliable MFD.

There are a few OCPN functions I wish commercial Nav products would emulate - MBTiles being top of list (another topic altogether - for those who need MBTiles such as me in my cruising grounds, you really need to make your own at the zoom resolution you need, not just find what's floating around the internet). I also wish there was a catalog of o-chart type bolt-ons. But I also think there is a wealth of features OCPN could incorporate, top of list would be a pre-load of CM93 and to "Apple-fy" file management so the user didn't have to figure out why there are 200 buttons across the lower margin of their screen. As this and every OCPN thread demonstrates, the user group is pretty defensive about OCPN. I sorta wish a Garmin or the like would purchase it and take it to the next level.

[bcn]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

. But I also think there is a wealth of features OCPN could incorporate, top of list would be a pre-load of CM93

You are aware that the CM93/2 sets are pirated? OCPN should publish them as own ones?
Being without updates since more than 12 years (this info for somebody new in this circus reading the thread...)

and to "Apple-fy" file management so the user didn't have to figure out why there are 200 buttons across the lower margin of their screen.

Always did like to query a chart in a quilt. The "200" buttons don't exist anymore. Charts getting grouped if you don't set it differently.

As this and every OCPN thread demonstrates, the user group is pretty defensive about OCPN. I sorta wish a Garmin or the like would purchase it and take it to the next level.

And if the OCPN contributors don't care about Garmin, Furuno etc.? We don't compete. No neccessities.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by bcn

You are aware that the CM93/2 sets are pirated? OCPN should publish them as own ones?
Being without updates since more than 12 years (this info for somebody new in this circus reading the thread...)


Always did like to query a chart in a quilt. The "200" buttons don't exist anymore. Charts getting grouped if you don't set it differently.


And if the OCPN contributors don't care about Garmin, Furuno etc.? We don't compete. No neccessities.

As I said......pretty defensive.

[Eight Sails]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

I sorta wish a Garmin or the like would purchase it and take it to the next level.

OCPN is developed and distributed under the open source GNU General public license. AI helpfully explains: "The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a widely used free software license that grants users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. It's a 'copyleft' license, meaning that any derivative works must also be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. This ensures that the software remains free and open, promoting collaboration and innovation within the open-source community."

Garmin doesn't give its intellectual property and derivative products away for free. Garmin does have a history of buying competitors for their market share and IP. The next level for acquired products is apt to be the dumpster.

Anyone subscribing to the Cruisers Forum weekly digest knows how often OCPN updates and new releases are published. Continuous improvement over many years is a strength not a weakness. The level of customer satisfaction with some marine electronics manufacturers' support could be another topic. Support for the OCPN community is strong because the developers and users are the community.

Its not defensive to point out facts....