This document lists the known changes compared with the current flash client. This list includes only significant changes and additions, not all the functionality that may still be missing from the HTML client. If you find an important omission of such a change, you may report it to the author. Steering -------- - TWA steering requires always + or - prefix to differentiate from COG course without any prefix. Setting TWA=0 without prefix is still accepted. - The COG/TWA fields in the steering tab do not change during the steer tool (visual steering) aiming but only update after a click on the race screen is made. This is to retain the old values until user input overwrites them. The COG/TWA for aiming are available in the info box at the aim target with additional details. Also the values below the polar update during aiming. - The steer tool input (mouse click) will auto-select COG steering mode into the steering tab to better match the UI aiming line. If you want instead to steer using TWA, please remember to activate TWA from the steering tab before sending the steering command. Alternatively, you can adjust "Steering tool retains steering type" Setting to prevent the steer tool from altering COG/TWA selection. - TWA and COG values in the steering panel remain in sync with with each other the whole time. The client updates the non-active steering automatically as the wind direction changes. The precision for copying is auto-selected by the client to 2 and 3 decimal places depending on the number of input decimals places in the active steering field. - Currently set steering may be "Reset" into steering tab using a new button in the steering tab. However, a very recently made turn may be missed by this recall when the command boat has not yet updated because the client does not currently track anticipated course changes. - The polar mode of the steer tool (visual steering) is no longer triggered by double clicking the steer tool button. Instead, the steering button cycles through three modes: off, visual steering, and visual steering with polar. In practice, a double click on the button will still produce the desired result if starting from the off mode as two steps in that cycle will occur. In addition, Settings (available under the Misc tab) has an option to toggle for always showing the polar butterfly when using the visual steering. - The steer tool can be cancelled using the Escape key. - Orange planning dot for setting a delayed command only shows up when the checkbox is enabled. This is to avoid UI misleading user that DC would be set by typing only the delay value. - As long as DCs are not set outside of the client, no DC "refresh" is necessary. Using a mobile client, brainaid DC editor, AGL, or other external programs to edit DCs may require DC "refresh" to have an up-to-date DC list. - There may be differences in how the new client handles the boat positional updates compared with the old client. It may result in unexpected surprises during fast-paced maneuvering if the used strategy depends on the boat update timing (e.g., the "count to ten" approach). No such differences are known at this point but it is better to be aware of the possibility and perhaps try such maneuvers first during pre-race practice. - The predictor now includes 1 minute dots for the first 15 minutes when zoomed close enough. - Polar background curves mode can be changed from pull down menu in topright corner of the polar. By default, curves up to 50kn are shown (>30kn curves only if they add information). A low TWS polar mode shows 1-6kn curves. In addition, 1-30kn mode allows removing high TWS clutter that is rarely needed and matches to the behavior previously used (both this and flash clients). Ruler Tool ---------- To use the Ruler Tool you need to enable it with one click (the button turns red). - The paths made with the ruler tool remain on screen even when the ruler tool is disabled. The ruler tool allows more than one path with a number of segments. To create a second path, double click to terminate the current path and re-enable the ruler tool. The Escape key exits the ruler tool. - The backspace key can be used to remove ruler segments in reverse order as you revise your path (the cursor must be over the map). - New buttons to delete the last or all ruler segments. - Ruler is limited to span of 179 degrees to avoid UI anomalies. - Total length of a ruler path is always enabled. Fleet, Leaderboard, and Hover ----------------------------- - Leaderboard selection and hover allow more than one boat to be displayed at each time (this is now possible with all boat lists including the "Main Fleet"). Use the Control key to select the boats one-by-one. Hold down the Alt key while selecting a boat to hold the map view in the current position if you wish you prevent panning to the position of the selected boat. The Shift key may be used to select a range of boats. - A boat with TWA=0 shows a flat sail. For fleet boats, the TWA=0 heuristics may result in a few false positives during dynamic weather situations because of fleet timing inaccuracies. Weather ------- - Weather panel, a play button (replaces the hidden click functionality). - Weather step (for backward and forward buttons) can be changed independently of the selected time window for displaying weather data. Initial step can be selected from Settings. - Weather panel can select to keep either the time or offset constant. The current selection is bolded. Click the other field in the weather panel to change between them. Settings allow selecting the default behavior when the client is launched. - Wind speed contours are now always accurate. The slider in Settings selects contours density, not accuracy like in the old client. - Quick-access buttons for textual TWS/TWD values beside each wind arrow/barb can be enabled from Settings (they appear into bottom right corner of the chart area). - Tics on the panel indicate weather update times (red), UTC hours (black), and start time (wide green band). - Weather system details (grid, update times) can be read under "Race Information" in misc tab. Points of Interest (POIs) ------------------------- - The ability to copy coordinates directly to the clipboard has been replaced with ability to create POIs with Alt+Click (available only if neither steer nor ruler tool is currently active). Clicking the POI opens a popup from where the coordinates can be selected and copied. The popup itself contains a "Delete" button that removes that particular POI. This change is due to general difficulty in changing clipboard in web browser environments due to security measures. - POI at an arbitary point will indicate VMG towards that point. - A scaleless polar butterfly (similar to the steer tool) can be enabled at the location of POI. Other ----- - Instrument visibility is controlled through the Settings (under the Misc tab). LAT, LON, VMC, and DATE instruments can be enabled/disabled. - There is an attempt to scale the practice mark size to match the size in the flash client, however, the size and also max zoom may still be slightly off which is relevant for the boats willing to participate in practice races. The Settings allow extra zooming that is incompatible with the practice race mark rounding rules; it is therefore recommended to not have it enabled during practice racing. - The chat supports keeping multiple rooms open simultaneously. Press "+" button and select the room. Up to three rooms are allowed. "Close" button can be used to close one of the rooms. - Aid lines for cursor default to off and can be enabled through Settings. In addition to horizontal and vertical lines, local wind-based aid lines can be selected. - Chat alert (on chat tab) indicates unread messages have appeared. - To help report making, boat keys can be placed to bottom-left corner, on map, or both. Visual glitches are known to appear during zooming when the boat keys appear on map. The limit on the number of boat keys that are shown still applies (this limitation may or may not be lifted in future). - Clicking a boat name on boat key in bottom-left corner highlights the boat. - Clicking a boat name on chat highlights the boat. - The race GPX file is available for download under "Race Information" on Misc tab. - The tileset used by the race (high or intermediate) is shown under "Race Information" on Misc tab. - Boat lists based on country are possible. Visual Impact Only ------------------ - Day/night is visualized using a terminator overlay. Currently, no twilight phases are shown. The night overlay color is not very dark and may easily be mixed up with an (unwanted) "non-white" background. This is a compromise because of technical reasons related to blending (the transparency effect). Because of blending, it would be impractical to use mid-grey colors as the background color. It is also possible to disable the overlay from the Settings. - Settings allow selecting how boat icon is shown during night (nav lights or hull always shown). - Command boat and predictor color can be changed using Settings. - Boat colors are corrected to improve contrast. - An option in the Settings for a scaleless polar butterfly that is always on (similar to the one available while using the steer tool). - It is possible to make tiny islands visible more easily on the map. See the Settings where the minimum size for tiny islands can be set to "default", "1 pixel", and "2-3 pixels". NOTE: the "2-3 pixel" option is known to cause a limited number of visual glitches at the map tile boundaries (including but no limited to false positives where there really is no island but only headland; but such cases are probably rare). It would require too expensive computations to fix these glitches. If you want to avoid those glitches, please use either "1 pixel" or the "default" options. - During pre-race practice before towback, the practice marks (M1, M2, etc.) are now visually labelled on the map. The additional criteria for the label to be added, is that the mark is at least 0.1nm away from the starting position to avoid overlapping labels at the start. - Distant legs of the race course can be de-emphasized (faded out) using Settings. - Polar curves are sorted based on the closeness to the current TWS. This changes slightly the polar appearance. - Fleet boat visibility default to always off. It can be altered from Settings. - Active steering mode is highlighted on the COG/TWA instrument. Technical --------- - The client is able to degrade into chatless mode to keep core functionality operation if chat messages are proven to prevent updating boat position for some reason. In chatless mode, no new chat messages can be received. No warning will be given about this contingency mode except through diagnostic tab. The client attempts to restore the normal chat functionality automatically. Some boat updates may be missed due to chat-working probing. - The client performs client-side abort. Initially, 15 seconds timeout for receiving next data fragment from the server is used with backoffs to up to 120 seconds. This may cause some spurious timeouts under challenging network conditions slowing down loading of the client but the client will discover the correct timeout over time. - The client attempts to correct time offset between the client machine and SOL server. If something makes large adjustment to the local clock of the machine after the client has started, the correction may become incorrect. In this condition the clock instrument will show incorrect time and next DC timer will be incorrect. A client reload is currently recommended to resolve (for now, later complex clock resynchronization procedure may be added to the client itself).