There has been another release of new client. Browser refresh is required, and you may also need to clear your browser cache (see here)

Client Release Notes:

Note: When you first run the new client you may be prompted to allow Sailonline to store data on your computer. Boat lists etc, will NOT save unless you allow this.

* General
- Font now used is Verdana for improved legibility.
- Various features have display options (ie degree format) : see the Options dialog available from the Help (?) tab.
- Text on tabs replaced with icons.
- Display Options and custom boat lists now save and are restored when the race client is reopened.
- SYC members can now close the Advertisement panel for increased map space.
- The code 'P' (a.k.a. 'Blue Peter') Flag is displayed in the top left of the map, during the 'tow-back' hour prior to Race starts. (This is a blue flag with a white central square, used to indicate a '5 minute Preparatory Signal' in IRL racing - SOL has the '1 hour tow-back' period)
- The time display on the Instrument dashboard only updates when new boat data is received for your boat. If no boat update is received for 1 minute, the clock will turn red. This may mean you have been disconnected and require a refresh. As soon as the client receives a boat update the clock will return to normal.
- Course Mark 'Rounding Indicator Texts' now explicitly state how the mark is to be rounded, 'Leave to Port' or 'Leave to Starboard'. The server enforces such roundings.
- The information displayed at map top right now updates automatically if you move the wx slider with the arrow keys (click the thumb first), and when the client recieves new data for your boat, without you having to move the mouse.
- There is now a 'Quick Help' window accessible from the Help (?) tab - specifically aimed at our new users, to quickly get them using the basic aspects of the SOL user interface.

* Chat
- The display of chat messages has been redesigned to display the country flag and SYC member status of the person who posted the chat.
- For chats displayed in the client that were not sent on the same day they are viewed (according to utc), the date is also displayed.
- You can copy a chat post to the clipboard, as you could in the previous client (ie including name of poster, and date/time) simply by holding the Alt key and clicking anywhere in the chat post.

* Map and Boat(s)
- Double clicking anywhere on the map will centre the map at that location. (except when using the Ruler tool)
- 'Alt-Click' anywhere on the map copies the coordinates of the click location to the clipboard. The coordinates are always copied to 4 decimal places, regardless of zoom (or decimal places shown on the map display) and in the same format as shown on the map (see Options below)
- Boat Name and Rank display when mouse is hovered over a boat now show the country flag and SYC member status.
- It is now possible to show both TWA and CC predictors simultaneously. The predictor corresponding to your current course type is drawn darker, while the opposite predictor is displayed lightened. This is Optional (see below)
- Distance & Bearing can be computed using either Great Circle (GC) or Loxodrome/Rhumbline (Rh) - for both the mouse location data and the ruler tool. A "GC" or "Rh" is appended to any range/bearing displayed in the race client - ie "5.12 nm @ 120.5° GC" indicates that the Great Circle method was used to compute the distance and heading. Loxodrome mode is more appropriate when using the ruler tool to determine the heading of a delayed command, and other short range work.

* Weather & Time Slider
- Relocated to increase map area
- Forecast display length now selectable by a drop-down list, with 2 more 'modes' added. Now possible to limit forecast to 12, 24, 48hr and the full forecast from grib source.
- Alt-Click toggles hide/show
- Times > 24hrs now display as days/hours, ie "+1d12.5h"
- Three 'Time Navigation' buttons have been added, to move forward, backward and to return to current time (0). These are labelled '>>', '<<' & '|<' respectively. The amount by which the time slider is moved depends on the forecast length selected, being 30 minutes in 12hr mode, 60 minutes in 24hr mode, 120 minutes in 48hr mode and 3 hours when the full forecast is selected.
- There are tick marks above the weather slider, indicating intervals of time. Again the exact length of each interval will change depending on the forecast length displayed. There is also a 'floating' or 'moving' tick mark, that indicates the time of the next forecast according to the GFS schedule. As the time for the next forecasdt update approaches this tick mark will move to the left.
- The level of detail of wind contours is now adjustable to see finer features. This will impact map pan/zoom and weather time sliding performance if increased. There are 5 possible levels of detail, set on the Options (see below)

* Steer Tool
- Steer Line is drawn colour coded for tack/gybe, red = Port green = Starboard.
- In 'Extra Information' mode, from double click, a Polar Butterfly is drawn centred on your boat location and rotated to match the wind. This is likewise coloured red/green.
- There is no time scale for the polar butterfly, it displays the same size regardless of zoom, TWS or Polar performance profile.
- When using the steer tool to set a COG command, the COG value is displayed to 3 decimal places. This is to reinforce that when doing this, more precision than shown in the text box is actually sent to the server. To have the full accuracy available sent as the command, make sure that COG is selected as the command type before you click the map to fix the course in the steer tab, and clicking Send. (this is not new in this release, only the display)

* Delayed Commands
- You can now specify Days, Hours & Minutes as well as decimal hours to specify the time interval to delay a command for. This is done by writing the time as '#d#h#m' (where # is some values). You can omit larger time units if they are 0, but smaller time units must be included - ifor example, you can specify '0d2h15m' instead of 2.25, or just '2h15m'. But for a delay of 2.0 you must include the minutes, even though they are 0 - specify '2h0m'. The race client provides help if you enter a wrong time interval. The input box wil highlight red, and place the mouse over it for a 'hint' to correct the delay value. You cannot specify seconds. You can include spaces, ie '1h 30m'
- When the time interval in the delay input box is within 6 hours, an orange dot appears on the predictor(s), accurate to the minute. This does not represent any DC on the server, just the time you have currently in the input box. Use this as a guide only - as always, some caution is advised when using the predictor for either TWA course path, or for position at a future time. Set the delay value back to 0 to remove the orange indicator.
- Delayed commands displayed in the Delayed Command tab (clock icon) can now be edited. Select the command you wish to edit, and click 'Edit' (next to the Refresh button). A popup window will appear with the command details as currently held on the server, and you may change any or all of the date/time, type and value of the command. There is a 'Date Chooser' if you need to change the date of the command, and a field to allow the time of day, in UTC, to be modified (as hh:mm:ss). The command type - 'COG' or 'TWA' is selectable and you can modify the value in degrees. Once you have set the values you want, click the 'Submit' button. NOTE: If any input is not formatted correctly, this Submit button will not be active. Clicking Cancel will cancel the editing of the delayed command. The command is automatically refreshed in the list.
NOTE: The client will do its best to correct for time differences between your local PC and the server, but it is not uncommon to see the time of an edited DC out by a few seconds.
- COG commands are shown to 3 decimal places (TWA still shows only 2). (See comment under Steer Tool)

* Fleet List
- New custom list type, based on distance from own location - so-called "Distance List" (click 'Dist' button).
- Distance value is completely up to the user.
- A Distance List displays its title as "Boats < X nm", where X is the value set by you.
- After the title, the number of boats in the list (ie the number of boats within a circle of radius X from your boat) is displayed inside square brackets.
- This list is updated with each fleet update, when set to show only boats in the list boats may appear and disappear as the enter or leave the 'zone'.
- Custom lists created by specifying individual boats are now saved between closing the race client. Distance Lists do NOT save.
- For SOL's Timed Races, only the best rank is shown if multiple runs have been recorded - and any active run.

**NEW** Race Notes
- An optional tab can be displayed to allow you to make notes for each race. These notes are saved, and will be available if you close and reopen the client. You can also choose to use a larger display font.
- A few 'Keyboard Macros' are built-in, accessible by holding Ctrl while hitting the key:
= 'T' inserts the current date and time, in UTC.
= 'B' inserts the name of the boat currently hovered over with the mouse (keyboard focus must remain in the notes window)
= 'D' inserts a degree symbol
= 'S' saves the contents.
= More will be added later.
- The contents are also saved every time you hit the Enter key.
- Copying the mouse coordinate to the clipboard by holding the Alt key and clicking the map is useful for recording coordinates in the race notes.
- Each race has its own 'Notes'.
NOTE: As the SOL client requests only limited storage space on your computer (1Mb), it is recommended that you clear and re-save any race notes once you have completed the race.

**NEW** Race Messages
- Important notifications can now be sent out by SOL Admin, and displayed in the race client. Any *new* message(s) will appear as a popup, similar to the new weather notification, and are then displayed in a list on a special 'Race Messages' tab. This tab is only visible if there is one or more race message to be displayed, and can be identified by the Naval Code 'L' flag symbol (black and yellow chequered flag). Notifications of change of NOR and other important messages will now be sent to you in the client.

* Options
- An options popup dialog is available on the Help (?) tab.
- Various display options are available: to toggle leader highlight and new weather sound. Auto-switch the weather slider to 24 hour mode on race open.
- Enable 'Great Circle Mode', or use Loxodrome (if unchecked) calculations for distance and bearing.
- Set the level of detail used for display of wind contours. There are 5 levels, the lowest is the same as that displayed in previous race client versions. [NOTE: Using higher detail levels may impact graphical performance depending on your computer]. Higher detail levels are most useful in areas of light (<6kn) winds.
- Degrees can be displayed as 'decimal degrees' (ie -5.50°) or 'degrees decimal minutes' (ie 5°30.0S) - Note that the direction is explicit in this second display mode. When copying coordinates to the clipboard using 'Alt-Click' the format specified here is used. If the Instrument dashboard is set to display your current location, this format is also used.
- Race Leader highlight is now optional, and remains during night mode if enabled.
- Toggle display of both predictors.
- Enable or Disable the 'Race Notes' tab.
- Clear the local store of all data saved by the SOL client, including boat lists, options and race notes from previous races.
- ALL Options have default values that correspond to how the previous client version behaved, for example the defaule coordinate format is decimal degrees, and Great Circle is used to compute distance and heading to the mouse location and by the Ruler tool.


Enjoy!


--- Last Edited by Aaron Gage at 2012-02-20 03:06:00 ---

I am speechless mate, well done! Really looking forward to a race to try some of this stuff!

Wow! O_O

What a pretty nice improvement!

Thank you very much for this great job!

(I'm on PC SO Wind*ws)

--- Last Edited by Xinanhook at 2012-02-06 07:56:19 ---

A huge update with some really exciting sounding new features I can't wait to try and work it all out - thanks for all your hard work on our behalf!

Overnight SOL's Development Team introduced a new race client. For some reason this appears to be causing problems for a few SOLers and is related to Adobe Flash. Please make sure you are using the most up to date version of Flash Player, empty your browser cache and if that doesn't help, try using a different browser.

If none of this helps then unfortunately you will need to wait for the Development Team (who are spread across the globe) to coordinate a solution. It will probably not be for some hours, but please keep trying!

Did we already go back to the old client, was that a tryout, ciao.

Please note that SOL's Development Dudes have now reverted the client back to the previous user interface until such time as they are able to resolve the random Flash problems.

There is a new Flash update, v11.1, that was just released. Just FYI.

Copasetic

--- Last Edited by A2R at 2012-02-17 14:52:00 ---

New flash doesn't sadly support PPC Macs..