Installing charts, layers and UserIcons automatically

[Hans Fix]

Hi all,

Although I am a member of this forum already for a long time, a very short introduction: Hans Fix, sails often on the dutch Waddenzee and a member of Nautin, a foundation that supplies Nautical Information for the Netherlands and Germany.
Nautin has a lot of information for the recreational sailor like charts, tidal information, a very up to date database with buoys and other related stuff.
The problem we encouter is that a lot of users find it hard to install this stuff on their PC, phone or tablet. (Perhaps it is the age :-) )
So what we want to do is make an easy to install package, with charts gpx with buoys and usericons, for example for Windows or Android.
One press on a button should be enough to install it, or for Android, select an app on the Android Play Store, and it installs automatically.
There is a lot of know how in our team (The authors of QuickTide for Windows and Android e.g.) so technical it should be no problem.
My question: is such a thing already available? Or are there code snippets we can use with examples?


Regards,
Hans Fix
Stichting Nautin

Example of a laser altymetry chart for the Waddenzee:

[transmitterdan]

Since your files are already compatible with OpenCPN then all that is required is to create XML catalog file(s) with the correct format and OpenCPN can download and install the files without writing any code. Have a look at the chart downloader plugin. It's pretty easy to figure out what XML files it uses.

[Hans Fix]

Is it possible to install UserIcons, GPX-waypoint files and KAP-chart files with the downloader?

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Hans Fix

Is it possible to install UserIcons, GPX-waypoint files and KAP-chart files with the downloader?

Hans..

It is possible to download/install whatever using the chart downloader plugin, given you put it into a ZIP archive. If the current features are for some reason not enough for you, just let us know and we will see how to implement what you need. Sure less work than doing something very similar from scratch again.

Pavel

[Hans Fix]

Thanks! Where can I find documentation for the XML file?

[nohal]

Hans...
Please look at https://github.com/chartcatalogs/cat...OY_Catalog.xml and let me know if I still need to start writing documentation for it.

Pavel

[Hans Fix]

Hi,

I am testing with the xml, and it works up to the downloading.
The only problem I encouter is after the unpacking: all files are in the directory as declared in the downloader tool, but the directory structure in the zip file is completely lost.
What am I doing wrong?

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Hans Fix

the directory structure in the zip file is completely lost.
What am I doing wrong?

You are not doing anything wrong. No chart archives we have seen contain any directories, so we implemented simplified unpacking logic that simply does not care about them (and it also very much simplifies the logic comparing files for updates).

There are basically 2 ways out of this and depends on the structure of your data (May we see it?):
1) You split the data into several archives (I prefer this if you have just a few dirs).
2) We look into support for directories in archives (Sure a must if the directory structure you have is complicated)

Pavel

[Hans Fix]

Are you sure :-) ?
If I download for example the Belgium Inland ENC Charts, then there is a directory structure in the zip file.
In the resulting directory there are lots of directories and files...

Ah, a little further investigation reveals that these are sub-directories in directories.
So if I put everything in an extra directory it works!

[nohal]

You are of course right, I forgot which way we ended up with at https://github.com/OpenCPN/OpenCPN/b...r_pi.cpp#L1485

[Hans Fix]

Hi,

perhaps I am overlooking some features that I don't know, but I encounter the following problems/ issues/ nice to haves:

I am installing a new or updated gpx file in directory layers, but this file is only detected after a restart of OpenCPN. (Perhaps also for the UserIcons I add in that directory)
I want to create chart groups automatically with the content of charts I just installed. (A group for Bathymetry Germany and a group for laser altimetry charts e.g)

Is it already possible to do these actions automatically?

regards

Hans Fix

[nohal]

Hans...
No, neither of this is currently implemented in the plugin API, but create feature requests for it, seems reasonably doable for the next release.

Pavel

[rgleason]

Hans
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