Route Planning Questions

[rgleason]

@Albinvega27 Thanks so much for your years of support and contributions. So sorry you are unhappy about it, but don't post this kind of response here. Use another general thread, rather than this specific topic.

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by rgleason

@Albinvega27 Thanks so much for your years of support and contributions. So sorry you are unhappy about it, but don't post this kind of response here. Use another general thread, rather than this specific topic.

Sadly he is correct and you too should better think about his reasons rather than point him to another thread. OCPN has changed into a playground for programmers but not a tool for sailors anymore.

[rgleason]

Mike, I like your plugin and think it could be a great tool Route Planning for Power and Sail. Eventually I would like to see it more integrated and easier to use.

Referring to the Buzzards Bay otidalplan that I posted, the first otidal adjustment for the Sekonnet River is probably ok, the second otidal station and adjustment which is in shore somewhat at Westport is probably not the current station that I would prefer to use, it would be the nearest dominant Buzzards Bay current at the center, which would affect the outcome somewhat. That is why I'd really like to see an option to accept stations and change them.

I was wondering why the plugin is called oTidalplan instead of something like oCurrentPlan?

Regarding integration in the future. I would like to see this plugin used as a "Calculation Runner" (a button) for Route Manager Properties such that there are fields for cETA, cETD & cSPD or the present fields are used with a small indication that they are adjusted for "Current". A selector to change the Current station at the waypoints (or leg) after the first trial would also be helpful.

I see that you have added calculation DR points into the otidalplan route. I think that would be ok to happen to the original RM properties "route" when the Current Runner button is hit. Those points would be wiped out on the second trial after some currents were adjusted and new DR points would be created within the route.

To accomplish this the API would have to be extended to include the ETA, ETD and Speed fields. I believe that position is already in there, and you have access to waypoints in a route I believe. It would be nice if the appropriate API values were worked out now so that this could happen after the next API change.

Regarding the oTidalPlan menu screen. Is it possible to arrange the entry values similar to the RM Properties header? Something like

Distance, Speed, Time, Depart, Date, Am/Pm, Time (Local@PC, GMT etc?), Default Color, Style, Width? If possible. Option to change type of time would be appreciated.

The "Attach Currents" selection actually asks the user to select a Route. I assume this button searches for and selects the current stations based on Max Dist from Leg and inserts DR points based on Leg Distance and sets up the parameters to use for the actual calculation.

The Calculate DR and Calculate ETA buttons ask for another selection of a route. Why? What happens if you select a different route? I would think that you already have the route information, current stations and DR points stored in a matrix ready to be used for calculations.

I would be interested in any thoughts about this. The icing on the cake would be to be able to step through the route by 1 hour showing the currents and boat DR position on the route (somewhat similar to otCurrent, which is a favorite of mine) but with the route and boat DR position shown.

For OpenCPN RM Properties there are a couple of things that need fixing for planning purposes, I think. When I open a route that has had a future date and time entered and saved. If I click on the route again to open the Route's Properties Menu, the time is immediately changed to the current date and time. Mike advises this is because I did not save the change by closing Opencpn to save the data to the navobj.xml file. Can't this be made to be more logical and immediate?

I would like to write some flyspray suggestions but need to hear more from you both about this and the possibilities @rasbats @bdbcat.

[rgleason]

Originally Posted by CarCode

Sadly he is correct and you too should better think about his reasons rather than point him to another thread. OCPN has changed into a playground for programmers but not a tool for sailors anymore.

Carcode you are being a ludddite, other programs have this feature worked out, and quite well. And rather than criticize you should be helping us improve the Dev Manual which we are working on right now.