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Old 05-06-2023, 08:42   #1
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Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

Is there a C++ developer in the room?
I almost know nothing of this language and I'm looking for help or paid contract to develop an OpenCPN plugin to support some tracking features.


If anyone knows the program a bit and would like to help me improve the services of skipperblogs.com, I’d be very happy to hear from you.


Otherwise any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks !
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Old 05-06-2023, 23:31   #2
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

Quote:
Originally Posted by Provist View Post
Is there a C++ developer in the room?
I almost know nothing of this language and I'm looking for help or paid contract to develop an OpenCPN plugin to support some tracking features.

Thanks !
Please indicate very briefly what tracking features you are wanting.
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Old 06-06-2023, 01:35   #3
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

Sure !


Users on skipperblogs have their boat tracked on a live map (via E-mail, Iridium, etc). But some doesn't have satellite connection and it would be wonderful to have openCPN store their route for later update.



1. The plugin would have to store coordinates and timestamp (COG and SOG would be a nice-to-have) on regular interval.

2. A button in the sidebar would open a popup with a input to set the remote user id, a selection for time intervals, a checkbox for automatic data sending to remote webservice (if internet connection), a button to trigger data send to remote webservice.



I don’t know how complicated that would be to develop. But maybe with the base of the plugin developed, I could do the finishing.
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Old 06-06-2023, 03:12   #4
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

Isn't this already a feature of Logbook - Path to email
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Old 06-06-2023, 04:59   #5
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

Are you interested in storing routes or tracks? The terms are not interchangeable in OpenCPN. OpenCPN already has a feature to track a vessel's movements. You can export the track to a GPX file. There doesn't seem to be any need for a plug-in to accomplish what you want to do.
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Old 06-06-2023, 05:49   #6
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

It would store tracks; but something like one point per hour or less.



I know that you can export tracks as GPX. But I wanted to avoid users the hassle to manually export their trace and have to import them again.
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Old 06-06-2023, 06:14   #7
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

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Originally Posted by Tupaia View Post
Isn't this already a feature of Logbook - Path to email

Sorry my brain was off on one.

What I meant to put was if you set up Logbook to record GPS position every hour you can export the KML file of the path formatted for Google Earth. It ought to be a simple process to convert KML to whatever format your web site mapping uses. There are converters for many formats JPG and QGIS
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Old 07-06-2023, 02:54   #8
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Re: Looking for an OpenCPN plugin developer

Quote:
Originally Posted by Provist View Post
It would store tracks; but something like one point per hour or less.

I would be surprised if that's the case. Version 4.8.8 which I am using stores points at intervals of less than a minute. Has that changed in later versions?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Provist View Post
I know that you can export tracks as GPX. But I wanted to avoid users the hassle to manually export their trace and have to import them again.

OpenCPN used to be a nice compact program that would run on almost any old computer. No more. It has fallen victim to feature creep. I don't think it's a good idea to keep adding code to automate things which can already be done quite easily with the existing program. Manually exporting tracks is not much "hassle" and users should be doing that anyway as part of their chart management. If don't export routes, tracks, and waypoints and then delete them you wind up with an awfully cluttered chart and a program that consumes resources unnecessarily.


Would you want to use a word processing program that retained every document from session to session? Of course not. You create a document in a session. If you anticipate future use for that document you save it. When you need to use it again you open it.


OpenCPN retains everything between sessions unless you explicitly delete it. I believe that was a poor design choice. The workaround is to export routes, tracks, and waypoints to GPX files and delete them from your chart before you end a session. Your next session then starts with a clean chart and you can import only the objects you need for the current session.


If you take that approach to chart management there is no "hassle" to exporting tracks for use by another program because you will have exported your tracks anyway. All you have to do is point the other program at the track file.


You don't have to tell me mine is a minority point of view. The feature creep I mentioned earlier is clear evidence that the developers are eager to bulk up OpenCPN with additional code and a complex array of plug-ins. I keep reading messages about people who can't load their favorite plug-in because it hasn't been compiled for the latest version of the program. So your request, unnecessary as it is, will probably get a favorable hearing. But while you're waiting for developers to act you might try my chart management technique and see if it doesn't solve a number of problems for you without requiring and developer resources at all.
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