Development Diary

GPSDash Version 1.7 (05/03/15)

• New: Support for RMC only GPS receivers - Some big companies like the german T-Mobile are selling crippled GPS receivers that are hard-wired to output none of the standard NMEA records beside RMC. GPSDash now also supports this devices as good as possible.
• New: Main Direction Indicator for Compass in digital mode - When in digital mode the compass now also shows a main direction indicator (N, NE, NW, S, SE, SW, E and W).
• New: Automatic import of 3rd party calibration data - When a new map is added via the "Add new map..." command from the Map Views context menu, GPSdash now automatically imports the corresponding calibration data if this data is stored in a file that resides in the same directory with the same basename (filename without extension e.g. mapimage.gmi).
• New: Distinct captions for Clock modes - If the clock is in UTC mode, the caption of the clock now show "uTime" instead of just "Time" for UTC and Local mode.
• Fix: Uninitialized Values - Values that have not been initialized are now shown as "unknown" in the List-View.
• Fix: Reset Gauges Command - In previous versions the "Reset Gauges" command was only available when disconnected and not replaying a log. This limitation has been removed in v1.7
• Fix: Problems with "Auto Connect" switch in unregistered version

GPSDash Version 1.6x (05/02/21)

• New: Average, Maximum and Minimum values for Speedo and Altimeter (1.67) - As there are many situations in which not only the current value of a gauge is of interest, GPSDash now also displays the maximum, the minimum and the average of the speed and the altitude function. You can view this values via the context menu of these two gauges (see screenshot). To reset those values, use the "Reset Gauges" command of the "Tools" menu.
• Fix: 3 digit display for degrees (1.67) - To meet common standards in navigation, degrees in latitude and longitude are always displayed with 3 digits ( e.g. "018.124961 E").
• New: Importing/Exporting Maps/Calibration Data (1.65) - GPSdash now offers the possibility import maps and the necessary calibration data from other GPS applications. At the moment maps of GPS Tuner (*.gmi) are supported. The developer of GPS Tuner maintains a map sharing site where you can download precalibrated maps. To give something back, GPSdash also supports to export maps into all importable formats.
  
  To import a precalibrated map, the following three steps must be taken:
  1. Download the map image and the calibration data (gmi file) to your PocketPC/Storage Card.
  2. Load the map by selecting the "Add New Map..." command from the context menu of the Map-View.
  3. Import the calibration data file via the "Import..." button in the "References..." dialog and confirm with "Ok".
• Fix: Display bug in Altimeter (1.65) - For values in between 1000 and 9999, the altimeter showed some optical defects in digital mode. This is fixed in v1.65.
• Fix: Editing Map Metadata (1.62, 1.65) - Removing maps and updating a maps metadata via the "Select Map..." dialog should work again as intended.
• New: Importing/Exporting Waypoints - It's now possible to import waypoints from GPX and LOC files. If there is interest in support of another XML format please let me know. Beside importing you may now also export all your waypoints to a GPX file of your choice. You can find these new features in the "Nav" section of the GPSDash menu.
• New: Log-File Control - In all previous versions of GPSDash simply all GPS data was logged. As this produces quite big log-files in short time you may now control the type GPS records to log and at which rate. A rate of n for a GPS record type means that only every nth record is written to the log-file. To help you getting started there are some predefined profiles you can choose from. The log-settings are stored persistently. You can find this new dialog in the "Log" submenu.
• New: Autoname for Logs (1.62) - I added some convenience to the GPSDash logging facility. To quicken up the start of creating a new log-file, GPSDash now suggests a filename based on the actual date and time.
• New: Dashboard Layout Persistency - With this new release the position and status of every gauge is saved persistently on program exit. This data is then used to restore the layout of the Dashboard on the next startup.
• New: Improved Compass Scale Design - To meet common standards the compass scale now shows 5° intervals in the scale. Beside this, also the scale of the clock was improved a bit.
• New: Brush-Tool Opens "Select Map..." Dialog - If you are in Map-View, the Brush-Tool in the GPSDash toolbar now directly opens the "Select Map..." dialog.
• New: Direct Manual Link (1.62) - I now added direct links to the manual in the 'Tools' menu and the GPSDash 'About' dialog.
• I made minor adaptions for the new PocketPC's with WM2003SE and VGA resolution (1.62).

GPSDash Version 1.5 (04/05/13)

• New: Night Mode - An additional display mode was added for the Dashboard and the List-View. Beside a second color scheme, this should be the preferred display mode for low light conditions.
• New: Digital Gauges - For the Speedo, the Altimeter, the Mileage-Gauge and the Compass, you may may now freely choose between analog and digital mode. You can switch between the mode of a gauge via it's context menu.
• New: Distance to Waypoint in Compass - If you now select a waypoint, beside the bearing indicator also the distance to it is shown directly in the Dashboard's Compass gauge. To save space, no unit indicator (km, miles, nautic miles) is displayed in the compass. The distance displayed in the Compass always uses the same measurement system as the Mileage gauge - so you can lookup this information there. I am sure that not only the GeoCachers will like this new feature.
• Fix: Latitude before Longitude - To meet common standards, WGS84 coordinates are displayed as Latitude:Longitude:Altitude (Longitude:Latitude:Altitude before v1.5).
• Fix: Persistency of Reference- and Waypoints - To avoid data-loss in case of complete battery discharge or hard-/soft-rest, changes to calibration data or Waypoints are immediately saved persistently. Previously this data was only stored at program exit.
• Change: Shareware Data-Limit was increased - For easier testing of compatibility and functionality, the Shareware Data-Limit was increased by 50%.

Information about changes in previous versions...