V1.1.61 is the current production release of Coastal Explorer. V2.0 is in beta testing as V1.1.8x (testing is open only to registered Coastal Explorer users).
Old test results
The test results you have selected are very old and may not represent the current state of Wine.
Selected Test Results (selected in 'Test Results' table below)
What works
The program launches and appears to respond to most type-ins and
menu/toolbar inputs. Chart (map) collection and management appears to
work correctly (note requirement for volume serial numbers - see Bug
11832). Raster charts display quickly and respond well to pan and zoom
commands. Vector charts display, too, although panning and zooming are
much slower; important data is not visible on vector charts. It's
possible to zoom in and out, move the ship icon around (invokes dead
reckoning mode), create and manipulate routes and waypoints. Both
Planning mode and Cruise mode appear to invoke as expected. The Chart
Portfolio tool also works.
What does not
Vector charts do not display depths or other notations. Serial I/O has
been tested and is still not operating, although the problem is somewhat improved with the recent test of a registry patch. Data has been collected and the application responds as expected. However the patching process is far too complex to be considered "production". See Bug 11811 for more information on this issue.
What was not tested
Autopilot commands have been seen in the expected queue but remain untested by connecting to a boat's autopilot.
Additional Comments
Based on the early COM port tests, rating the app "Bronze +" is probably closer to right. The vector chart problems remain, however.
The "App under wine" and "App under WinXP" screen shots cover approximately the same geographical area. The "jaggies" in the wine image are due to the built-in world map being being pushed well beyond its resolution limits and is not a bug/error. Fuzziness in the WinXP image is due to compression artifacts from getting the screen shot file under 600K and is also not a bug/error.
Aside from the screen sizes and presence of the RNC chart in the WinXP image, the biggest differences in the screen shots are actually relatively subtle. Note the differences in the toolbar at the top of the screen and compare the icons/buttons. This difference has, so far, responded strongly to changes to comctl32 but, as the wine image shows, there's much room for improvement.
Although somewhat difficult to see in the WinXP image, there are at least two white/red tide level diamonds shown (for the most obvious one, look on the west coast of Kent Island, about midway between the Bay Bridge and Bloody Point). Under wine the tide diamonds show up in the right place, indicate rising and falling tides correctly, and clicking on a diamond will open up the appropriate tide graphing tool, all as expected. What is missing is the caption, below the tide diamond, showing the (computed) depth of water at the tide reporting location. A minor point, perhaps, but indicative of problems with displaying data throughout the app.
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. WineHQ is not responsible for what they say.
Displaying charts properly
by RBEmerson on Tuesday March 4th 2008, 0:32
See Bug 11832 for a discussion and possible resolution to the problem of displaying charts in Coastal Explorer. Summarizing: it was found that assigning unique volume serial numbers to each (virtual) drive known to Wine allowed the application to build the needed XML files used to display charts.
If assigning unique volume serial numbers to all drives is a confirmed fix, then comments in the application's "What Does Not Work" section, about a workaround (stop chart collection before it completes) are obsolete. That section will be updated after the fix is confirmed.
COM port failure
by RBEmerson on Saturday March 1st 2008, 23:18
Attempts to even get as far as discovering (let alone using) the presence of COM ports has not worked. Although COM ports 1 through 4 are defined as part of Wine's setup of dosdevices, and a fifth port, COM5 (dev/ttyUSB0), was created by adding a Keyspan serial/USB adapter, CE continues to report no COM ports were found. See Bug 11811 for a screen shot and stderr listing.
Chart display workaround
by RBEmerson on Saturday March 1st 2008, 23:13
Rose Point Navigation Systems (author - RPN) hasn't provided insight into the chart portfolio problem but a way has been found to display both RNC and ENC charts. Place a ZIP, downloaded from one of NOAA's chart sites and put it in C:\My Downloaded Charts (duplicates Windows actions). Launch Coastal Explorer (CE) and wait while CE unpacks the ZIP and reads the contents. Accept the "Delete the ZIP" action. As CE begins to process the files, click on "Stop" and, in response to "Really stop?" click on "Yes". At this point whatever charts have been seen by CE should be available. This process works for RNC charts and for ENC charts. Note, however, that ENC chart displays are missing a number of important elements (e.g., depths). Raster charts, by their nature of being scanned complete charts, do not seem to be missing any components.
Asked RPN for help with chart portfolio
by RBEmerson on Saturday February 23rd 2008, 12:48
I've contacted Rose Point Navigation Systems (RPN) for information on the database of known charts, that is, charts imported by Coastal Explorer (CE) during its operation. During startup, CE compares a database of charts it knows about (the "chart portfolio") with all chart files in sub-dirs listed in the chart directory list. Newer files (than in the database) are added to the chart portfolio database.
Inspecting directories for modification times tamps hasn't produced any obvious candidates for where the database resides. Proof that something is happening during chart importing is found in the creation of chart files with the extension .rpsenc (presumably for "Rose Point System ENC"), showing raw ENC's from NOAA are being massaged into a format preferred by RPN/CE (common practice in e-nav apps). The time stamps on the RPSENC's match the time the import process ran.
