OpenCPN instrument

[uberiain]

Hello,
I am making a little instrument for my sailboat.
The core is a RPI 3 with Raspbian and OpenCPN using Bluetooth to communicate with the NMEA 2000 bus that is in my sailboat. I am also developing one plugin for OpenCPN to control the buttons and the joystick of this instrument. I have some questions about this:
· All times I start OpenCPN it gives me one error telling me that this is not one serial device. Does not OpenCPN recognise that /dev/rfcomm0 is a serial device? .
· How could I send a command from the plugin to OpenCPN to set OpenCPN in fullscreen mode?.
· Could I modify global parameters of OpenCPN from the plugin? I want to change some parameters, but only when the plugin is active.
I attach one picture of the instrument.
Thanks.

[bdbcat]

uberiain...

Looks like a fun project.

The changes you require will need to be performed in the OpenCPN main program, and also in your Plugin. You will need to expand the Plugin API to include some new interfaces for your buttons, fullscreen, etc. We could add these interfaces to the base source code after you develop and test them...

About RFCOMM: take a look at source code chart1.cpp, method

EnumerateSerialPorts( void )

If you can build a Plugin for rPI3, you should also be able to build a custom OCPN core to suit your needs.

Good Luck
Dave

[seandepagnier]

You can edit global settings from a plugin but it's not recommended. Also the changes won't apply unless opencpn restarts

I think you need to expand the plugin api to allow a plugin to set fullscreen.

This is yet another case where programmable keybindings would have already solved this, as plugins would have the ability to invoke any action that a keypress can.

[uberiain]

Hello,

I have found this in EnumerateSerialPorts( void ):

  if( devPatern[0] == NULL ) {
 paternAdd ( "ttyUSB" );
 paternAdd ( "ttyACM" );
 paternAdd ( "ttyGPS" );
 paternAdd ( "refcom" );

Maybe “refcom” must be “rfcomm”?. I am testing this on my RPI and I will share the result.

The buttons and the joystick are working as keyboard and mouse input, so no problem with OpenCPN.

I have added one entry in ocpn_plugin.h with:

extern "C" DECL_EXP void ShowFullScreen(bool show, long style = wxFULLSCREEN_NOBORDER | wxFULLSCREEN_NOCAPTION);

and added this method to pluginmanager.cpp

 void ShowFullScreen(bool show, long style )
{
if(s_ppim)
{
s_ppim->GetParentFrame()->ShowFullScreen(show,style);

}
}

With that I can control Fullscreen from the plugin.

[xslim]

Hi uberiain,

what kind of Bluetooth device you use to communicate with the NMEA 2000?

[uberiain]

I am using Actisense NGW-1-USB with AIS support connected to one USB host and HC-05. You can see this products on hobbytronics

The RPI sees as a rfcomm port.

[uberiain]

Hi David,
The problem with the serial port not found is not only in EnumerateSerialPorts() method, but in CheckSerialAccess() method.
In CheckSerialAccess() method only tests for access to :
/dev/ttyS0
/dev/ttyUSB0
/dev/ttyACM0
And only for defined(__UNIX__) && !defined(__OCPN__ANDROID__), for other system it returns true.
I changed EnumerateSerialPorts():
refcom by rfcomm
and modified CheckSerialAccess() to use EnumerateSerialPorts() and these changes areworking for me.
Do you think that those changes can be applied to OpenCPN?
Thanks

[bdbcat]

uberiain...

Sure, we can apply these changes.

Simplest way (for me, anyway) would be for you to post a Pull Request to the github master branch. I'll bring it into the current master immediately.

Or, start a task on Flyspray. Document your suggested changes, so that the info is captured and will flow into the next release smoothly.

By far the bast approach is through github. It sounds like you will have other ideas as you move ahead with your project, and I look forward to them.


Thanks
Dave

[uberiain]

Hello Dave,

I have published a patch in Flyspray with the modifications for ShowFullScreen and for CheckSerialAccess() methods.

What methods in ocpn_plugin.h can I use to measure the distance between the boat and the cursor position?

Where can I find more information about the use of methods in ocpn_plugin.h?

Thanks