Ocpn-Draw and Boundary

[bcn]

Long tab/press is equivalent to right-click.
Works perfectly with my touch enabled Dells XPS13 and XPS18 (win 8.1), even with 4.0.0.

[rgleason]

Thanks BCN, using O with tablet has been like being a one armed paper hanger without that shortcut. I've managed by poking routes and waypoints until a menu appears, but without the long tab other things are inaccessible.

Now is there a similar technique/button for when there is no keyboard that has a TAB key? Because the keyboard is taken off and put below when we are navigating?

[rgleason]

Jon,
Hope you are having a good sail. If you are testing ocpn_draw to map out no go areas, you have probably already found a couple of items...

I've compiled O version 4.1.818 for windows and put it on Ocpn Beta File Thingie along with the most recent compile of Ocpn_Draw (I used the version 4.1.718 Opencpn.lib, I hope that was ok Jon).

I tested EBL and VRM and the boundaries and they work great works great under Opengl v4.1.818.

However the Text points seem to cause O to crash when you try to move them, using Opengl or no opengl. Maybe something about successfully writing back changes that have been made to the point?

I also tested the Boundary Points, adding name and rings, but they did not appear (I don't know if this is intentional). However when I move the boundary point, O also freezes and shuts down eventually.

I did not try to move boundaries and will try that next.

-Move boundary point and entire boundary work!

Other than moving text points and boundary points and a few little items it seems like it is working well. Needs more testing though. Its almost there!

Best
Rick

[jongough]

Rick,
Patch 503 should fix that.

Still fixing up boat, but hopefully should get away by end of week.

Jon

[rgleason]

Thanks Jon, I hope your work on the boat progresses well and you get sailing! Will test shortly.

[rgleason]

Jon, I git fetch, etc and recompiled and tested each of the drawing functions.
The Boundary, EBL-VRM and Text Point tools work great, everything seems to work.
I can move these three and do all the functions expected and shown.

I am now having some difficulty with the Boundary Point, I was not able to move it by selecting right click, because it was in some mode where a right click did not bring up the menu related to the Boundary Point. ---Now and hour later it is working! Is it because I had gotten out of the Opncpn_draw mode? Yes I think so. ---Its working pretty much as expected now...

There is one thing I think might be useful, that shows as available with the Boundary Point that needs to be enabled if you agree. The range rings and ring fill features. --Wouldn't someone want to make those boundary points into keep out or keep in watch alarms? Maybe they'd be useful for something else too.

Thanks for a great new Drawing Tool. I am sure there are other objects we will be able to add later as the need arises. Who would have thought 5 months ago that your effort would have taken you to this point? I think you and Bdcat mapped out a pretty ambitious course and with your preserverence its largely achieved.

Thank you from all of us users!

[jongough]

Rick,
I am not sure what happened when the right click did not work. The only ocpn_draw mode is when creating something and before the first point is dropped (left click). This is the mode that uses right click to cycle through the different types of drawing objects. I have found at times that a right click brings up the opencpn menu rather than the ocpn_draw menu, but I think this is due to the right click not being passed onto ocpn_draw. I will look further into that when I return.

The keep in/keep out would be easy to do, although I have been wondering how to represent it. A keep in would really require the 'fill' to be outside the boundary, i.e. the whole screen with just the boundary not filled, but this might obscure other features. I have been thinking if it could just show a shaded area around the boundary on the outside of the line, but I would have to workout how to make this look right with a multi-point, complex shaped boundary.

I have been hoping that someone will make use of the messaging and the watchdog plugin to implement proper boundary/boundary point checking and to build a keep inside/outside alarm. I have demonstrated that it can be done, and in the new watchdog it is implemented as a basic anchor alarm, but I think it needs expanding to make it more generic, so that the predictor line is used as well as the current location.

Do you think there is anything else that needs adding/fixing before the plugin moves to be a beta version?

Jon

[bcn]

Jon,

being back at the site with the PCs used for testing I installed the .501 as the latest version from GitHub.

What would be a "nice-to-have" for a beta would be the "rubber-band" VRM:
being able to size the radius with the mouse interactively.
But most probably you are running out of time before leaving now....

Have safe trip!

Hubert

[rgleason]

Bcn
I believe we have what you suggest but tou get to it by tuen on vrm in ebl that has been created. Then right click and pick move ebl. The vrm will move in and out with your cursor. So the function is there, perhaps you are loking at a vrm way of creating the same object, just because of the way we have historicaly had two separate items vrm and ebl?

[rgleason]

Turn on vrm under properties. I beed to get writing the manual!

[bcn]

Rick,

we are talking about two different features:
- moving an endpoint of an EBL and thus the related Range (circle) Implemented.
- changing interactively the radius of that circle. The way you are working with a Radar usually.

Hubert

[rgleason]

Jon
For keep in your idea of a short dista nce of fill with no outside li ne might work.
I agree it needs watchdog link and tool. Perhaps i shouldtry this more.

[bcn]

Ok, found it. Brilliant.

What does not work for me is changing the color of the VRM.

And a proposal: enable/disable VRM as an entry in the contextual menu

Hubert

[jongough]

Hubert,
You should be on 503 as there is a fix for moving isolated points.

There are two ways of changing the VRM colour:

1. Under properties for the EBL with the VRM showing. Change the EBL colour and the VRM colour will also change.
2. Under properties for the EBL with the VRM showing get the properties of the 'boat'/'start' point and change the colour.

The VRM colour, be default is set to the same as the EBL, but once you change the VRM colour to be different from the EBL then it will stay this way, unless you select the match option in the right click menu.

It may seem strange at first to use an EBL to give you the VRM, but it makes the coding/logic easier and allowed building on the 'path/point' concept that is at the heart of this plugin. From a user perspective it should make selecting the VRM easier so that it can be dragged to the size required as there is a well defined point that can be selected. This is particularly true if you have many VRM's at one time.

Adding the ability to display/hide the VRM from the context menu should not be a problem. What I need to know is how much else needs adding to context menus, properties dialogs, etc. Then I can get all this stuff sorted before the end of Beta testing.

Jon

[bcn]

Jon,

playing with the EBL/VRM I noticed that the line style will not change from solid to anything. One can select but the selection gets reverted to solid.

And I discovered that it has not been necessary to loop through the preferences to enable the VRM for one EBL - the settings pop-up double clicking the EBL has all the necessary entries.
And preferences are really global preferences - correct.

You are absolutely right that we should now encourage to use the existing tools in order to learn about the usage and the UI.
Can you put the .503 executables on GitHub?

Great job

Hubert