Tides and Currents

[Rasbats]

everheugd ... I think the V8 harmonics may be causing the problem. Could you remove V8 for a short time? If you could try again with the harmonics from the standard OpenCPN version that would be useful. I would like to nail this one.

Thanks.

Mike

[Dockhead]

If anyone is interested in a layman user's perspectives on tides and currents and how they function:

1. The way NOT to do it is like in INavX -- tide and current diamonds which simply take you to the AyeTides (paid) site, where you have to put in the port name manually. Ick!

2. The best implementation of tides and currents I have ever seen is in my Zeus Touch MFD (this is NOT in the non-Touch Zeus). I guess it would be the same in the Simrad NSS. You don't have to click on the diamonds -- you see the currents and tides dynamically in the chart. So for tides you see, for example, 3.6 meters with and arrow up or down, showing whether the tide is rising or falling. The currents show a directional arrow with the speed of the current. This is really great.

[everheugd]

Yes, that's it!! I didn't remove the V-8 harmonics, but placed the standard harmonics files back in the tcdata map.

And now everything works fine: the tidal control window is now as in the portable OpenCPN version, I get much more arrows with the correct tidal data, and the V-8 harmonics are working as well.

I agree with you, Rasbats, that the VMH tidal information is much more useful then the V-8 data concerning currents (so I am going to register), but I like to have the tidal heights for the main ports as well.

Thank you all very much for contributing to solve my problems

[Gilletarom]

Hello Mike

Originally Posted by Rasbats

Gilletarom ... Only just seen your guide to moving the VMH plugin to a standard distribution of OpenCPN. Great work. Perhaps you could add a caution about using harmonic V8 with tcurrent.

Mike

1° Done.

2° No pot file for TCurrent plugin ?

3° What about tcurrent_helper_pi

Gilletarom

[Gilletarom]

hello Mike,

If I understand correctly, the standalone version rewritten opencpn.ini file when it shutdown. But the "standard" version of the OpenCPN also re-written when it shutdown. And it is the same opencpn.ini file.

In my opinion this is confrontational.

[Rasbats]

Gilletarom ...

Thanks for the push! The pot file is now on GitHub.

It may take some time to recompile for VisitMyHarbour.

tcurrent_helper_pi is a work in progress. It is trying to separate the UKHO tidal data from the plugin in a similar way to the S63 plugin.

How to avoid the opencpn.ini issue? I think any plugin will write some data into that file, even if it is only the name? And people may have multiple installations of OpenCPN. Setting up preferences without access to an ini file makes more work for the user. Suggestions?

Cordialement
Mike

[Gilletarom]

Hello Mike,

Originally Posted by Rasbats

Gilletarom ...

How to avoid the opencpn.ini issue? I think any plugin will write some data into that file, even if it is only the name? And people may have multiple installations of OpenCPN. Setting up preferences without access to an ini file makes more work for the user. Suggestions?

Cordialement
Mike

It seems to me that you did not understand the fact that there is only one opencpn.ini file. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Suppose you have two instances OpenCPN which runs at the same time. When you stop one of them, it completely rewrites the ini file with settings. When you exit the second instance, it also rewrites its settings in the ini file. And if they do not have the same settings, the settings of the second overwrite the first. When you restart O, what are the settings of the last instance that you stopped serving. That is why we must avoid two simultaneous instances of OpenCPN.

By cons, you do not have this problem if one of the instances takes place on USB key (portable version) and if the other instance is on the hard drive. In this case, there is an ini file on the hard drive and an other ini file on the USB key.

Finally, it seems to me that the latest beta of OpenCPN, it is no longer possible to have two concurrent instances launched on the hard disk. There was a whole series of posts in a thread on this topic in the cruisers forum. And Dave was very clear about this.

Best regards. Gilletarom.

[Rasbats]

Hello Gilletarom,

The VisitMyHarbour portable version of OpenCPN should be started directly from the file 'Start portable OpenCPN compiled.exe' in the folder ("OpenCPN-standalone-32bit") on the hard drive or the '.bat' file. This is explained in the user guide.

Or O can be started from a shortcut made to the file 'Start portable OpenCPN compiled.exe' (or the '.bat' file). If O is started from this '.exe' the 'opencpn.ini' in the folder "OpenCPN-standalone-32bit" is modified and the programdata opencpn.ini file is not touched.

Using the hard drive it is only if a user starts O using the file 'OpenCPN.exe' in the VMH folder that the main ini file is edited. Tempting because it opens up more information, such as tidal data!

I will explore the reason for the lack of icons in the VMH portable version.

Best regards,
Mike

[Gilletarom]

hello mike,

Originally Posted by Rasbats

Hello Gilletarom,

The VisitMyHarbour portable version of OpenCPN should be started directly from the file 'Start portable OpenCPN compiled.exe' in the folder ("OpenCPN-standalone-32bit") on the hard drive or the '.bat' file. This is explained in the user guide.

Or O can be started from a shortcut made to the file 'Start portable OpenCPN compiled.exe' (or the '.bat' file). If O is started from this '.exe' the 'opencpn.ini' in the folder "OpenCPN-standalone-32bit" is modified and the programdata opencpn.ini file is not touched.

Best regards,
Mike

So I plead guilty. I have not done enough testing. I had from the beginning to install your plugin in the version on my PC hard drive.

I must still corrects my tutorial. It will not be done before this weekend because I'm going to sea for a few days.

I already downloaded the pot file. I will do the translation this weekend too.

B. R. Gilletarom