OpenCPN

[Viking Sailor]

I like the idea of having a text label included in the icon.

Paul

[idpnd]

Nice icons! Makes it look a bit even! shinier

[Christian Van H]

Once repaired, those icons are perfect!

[manimaul]

Thanks for the nice responses. I'll make the icons 32x32 this evening and see how they look. Then I'll work on a Track icon.

As for using the icons, they are GPL licensed originally from the Oxygen icon project. License I've only slightly modified them in Inkscape.

Are you a graphics designer?

Thanks for the compliment, but no. I do install marine electronics for a living though in Seattle. This latest project is the closes I come to graphics design. If you like marine electronics, you'll may like this: http://matrixmariner.com/sites/defau...lton_pre_1.pdf (Preliminary design)

And, thanks bdbcat for a really great piece of software. I have a delivery captain friend that has been using it on his laptop and loves it.

[lfabio]

Dave,
thanks for creating an excellent piece of software. I come from several years of using various commercial products and I'm very impressed with what I see.
I do have a few questions, if I may:
- the 'tips.html' file says that the bar at the bottom left should let you know if there are different scale charts for the area the mouse is hovering on. I always see only one large bar (I am using CM93 charts, for reference). What am I doing wrong?
- As to the save/load question you asked earlier in the thread (I was diligent and read all 43 pages), I would very much approve of a system to effectively save/load the entire waypoint/route set in one file, so as to be able to (a) have different sets of routes for different occasions/trips and (b) switch route sets from one PC to another.
- Lacking the above, which files do I need to copy over to transfer the 'current state' of openCPN to another PC?

Thanks!

[emagin]

I am confused about the chart 'history'.
I have played with OpenCPN for a bit and now have a bunch of routes, marks and MOB things all over my chart.
How do I start with a clean slate and get rid of all that stuff?
Doing RT-Click on each of the dozens of marks/tracks will waste too much time.
Thanks

[bdbcat]

Ifabio and Emagin...

Routes/Marks. ,etc...

1. The GPX In/Out functions allow you to save and restore the complete set of routes and marks to a named file. This should be sufficient to move the current state of opencpn to another PC or device.

2. There is currently no way to summarily delete all of the routes and marks. Is this needed? We could add another selection to the rt-click Route menu viz: "Delete all Routes" with a confirmation dialog. Same for marks.
Opinions, anyone?

3. Ifabio, Chart selection boxes: If you install other charts such as BSB or s57 ENCs, and your ship's position or screen center is within the coverage of these charts, then blue or green boxes will appear. Clicking on these boxes brings up the associated chart. The CM93 box (Brown/Yellow) is always available, since the coverage is worldwide.

Dave

[Zoef]

Eheh,... install again? It takes less than 5 minutes, including all the charts.

Klaas

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

There is currently no way to summarily delete all of the routes and marks. Is this needed?

I suppose for the aforementioned functionality of "moving complete sets of routes and waypoints between pcs" it would be necessary to have a tabula raza option?

[emagin]

From the comments this type of Multiple routes on/off feature does not seem obvious to people.
I have used several programs, my favorites being Coastal Explorer and MS Streets & Trips (land navigation)

In both cases the analogy would be MS Word
MS Word is the application
Word Docs are the documents

These handle routes like Word Documents
Each route, however long or complex is a document that can be:
Opened
Closed
Saved

You store your routes like files/word docs in your hard drive (not .ini file)
You open and close them as you need them.

I'm not sure if I missed the boat here, but OpenCPN seem to do things in a new way. Perhaps this is because it's multi-platform....

I find that because it's different I spend a bit of time scratching my head trying to do 'normal' things and can't make headway.

I just figured out that to blank my session (remove all routes) I had to open C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\opencpn\opencpn.ini and edit the various routes parts in there.
This is pretty onerous and perhaps could be improved.

Thanks

[raisin56]

emagin,
close the program and open the "opencpn.ini" file in your favorite text editor. At the bottom of the file you will find two sections one labeled [Marks] the other [Routes]. Leave the heading and delete the entries that follow it. Save the edited file and re-open Opencpn and all waypoints and routes will be gone. Or if you don't mind doing all the first time setup things again just delete the "opencpn.ini" file and when you start the program it will create a fresh file with all the original defaults.

Dan


Sorry emagin I received a phone call and started the post before you posted the you found the ini edit.

[bdbcat]

emagin, and others...

Points well taken. It was never intended that users should hand-edit the .ini file. That would be a giant step backwards in UI design....

On the other side, it took me a bit to assimilate the concept of Coastal Explorer's "Navigation Object". It is clearly the "app operates on document" model, entirely natural for MS developers.

Historical note: I started out with Nobeltec V4. If anyone has used this before, you know that if you accumulate and keep online a bunch of routes /marks, then the program takes progressively longer and longer to shut down. It seemed to somehow be scrubbing the route list, looking for whatever. After one season's use, the app took 20 minutes(!) to shut down. This was one of the early motivations for opencpn.

opencpn is the way it is because of my personal usage patterns. Routes and marks are dynamic and usually transient. I usually delete today's route as I anchor. Why? 'Cause I'm where I am, and I know how to get there again if I need to. Tomorrow is another day, route creation is easy (and fun?). My routes usually have two waypoints: Head-pin to head-pin. I don't use tracks. I rarely share routes, preferring to be my own captain, and assume others want to do the same.

But that's just me.

All that said, I have been known to hand edit the ini file for a quick clean slate....

Anyway, I hear the comments, and solicit more. Maybe we can get some consensus on this and tweak the UI.

As somebody once said:
"Don't sweat it, it's only ones and zeros."

Dave

[idpnd]

I think your first proposal was perfect-

Existing features:
Load all routes
Save all routes
Save single route (via right click)
Delete single route (via right click)

Missing feature:
Delete all routes

The exported routes are saved to separate files, and current routes are held in the programme's internal 'database' (.ini file).

[jpiebrig]

Hello,
I am new on the forum and new also with Ubuntu. In search of a software under Linux, I discovered Opencpn which I loaded and which seems to me to correspond very well to what I am looking for : a software cleared of many options which I do not use.

At least as it seems to be !
But once the software is installed, as soon as I open it, it does not find the file " opencpn.conf " and it asks if it has to create the file in "/home/jp/.opencpn/opencpn.conf". I answer "yes" and in fact it does not created it. I make it manually afterwards.
Then it asks me for the place of the maps' folder which I have already created. And when I open "Tools" it jams as soon as I click "Add". It also makes the same for all the tabs of "Tools" as soon as I choose an option and as soon as I confirm it, it jams and I have to kill the process.

This so far my experience with this software and I am sending distress signals.

I beg your pardon for my poor english which is half automatic traduction , half mine .

Thank you for your help

Jean-Pierre

[bdbcat]

jpiebrig....

Lets have a look at your log file.

~/opencpn.log

If you could post the results here, we may be able to diagnose your problem.

Dave