For this update, besides fixing some issues I focused on making things a little easier for the user. Usually these are just little things that can make a big difference in user friendliness. Also, suggestions put forth by you, the users, have also been incorporated.
Here is the full list of fixes/changes/additions:
Fixes
- Load in FS button will no longer turn green if a FS flight is not available.
- MD11 autosave was saving only 8 files instead of the standard 10. Tracked this issue down to the 1 minute autosave interval and MD11 autosave taking significant time to complete. To allow the MD11 more time to complete, the 1 minute interval is actually trigger at 1 minute 5 seconds.
- Popup didn't appear when PMDG panelstate was available (after clicking the Download button) is fixed.
- FS paths didn't update on the fly when changing in User Setup fixed.
- Erroneous headings displayed in GCP fixed. This also fixes the issue on the online flight map in the event that the bad heading is sent to the server, the flight map was programmed to default to the 045 heading aircraft graphic.
- A situation where the flight has just taken off and if GCP or FS fails before the first normal autosave event, the loaded flight doesn't register off the ground. This occurance causes GCP to not register that the flight ever left the ground which halts all logging. This issue is fixed.
- There was a situation where the START LOGGING button was available even though all of the required items to be filled in were not complete. Fixed.
- Fixed the Download button for retrieving the panelstate and fs save flight files. This is the error that users were getting regarding no aircraft being selected when clicking the Download button.
- When submitting a PIREP, there was a situation where the PIREP was not posted to the server but GCP disabled the Send PIREP button thinking the submission was valid. GCP must now get an explicit "OK" from the server indicating a successful entry before disabling the Send PIREP button. An error popup will be displayed if the PIREP submit was not completely successful.
Changes
- On the weather tab, the checkboxes for METAR and TAF are checked by default.
- Weather tab, when the users mouse is over the weather display box the user will be able to use the mouse wheel to scroll without clicking. When mouse moves out of the box the scroll feature is disabled.
- When a station entered in the weather request field does not report a METAR or TAF, instead of a popup being produced, GCP will now make a note in the weather display box.
- Headings on group boxes are changed to blue and bold for easy difference between them and the actual data presented on the tabs.
- Renamed several items on the preflight tab.
- Some other small cosmetic things were changed...not worth mentioning.
Additions
- Added Flight Plan entry box. A flight plan is not required to start logging your flight.
- Airport codes entered in: Departure, Destination, Takeoff Alternate, Enroute Alternate, Destination Alternate entry boxes are automatically entered in the weather request field on the Weather tab and in proper order. After setting up the Preflight tab go to the Weather tab and click get weather to retrieve the reports of all airports entered...it's that simple.
- Flight plan that is entered on the preflight tab will be displayed on the online flight map. Other pilots will be able to copy your flight plan from there if they wish.
- Flight plan appears in the submitted PIREP. Other pilots can also copy the flight plan from there.
- Flight plan appears in the GCP logbook. Double click anywhere on a particular flight's data row to copy the flight plan to the clipboard. Feature intended to make your flight plans easily reusable so you just need to paste to your favorite dispatch generating program.
- Added airport name in addition to the existing ICAO code to the logbook.
- Added "744" (passenger) type. The passenger tail numbers will appear under this listing now.
- When using type "744", the online flight map will display status message: "Boarding Passengers" rather than "Loading Cargo" for cargo operations.
- Added "744" type to PMDG panelstate paths.
- Added option in User Setup to minimize GCP to system tray only (instead of to the task bar)
- Added option in User Setup to disable tooltips.
- Added a primitive error logging. If an error occurs and the error log is created, the file will be automatically uploaded to the server upon GCP exit.
- Added option to delete all error logs. Error logs should be automatically deleted after upload on exit, but just in case...
- Added cargo display to Enroute tab (now displayed on all flight related pages of GCP).
- Added taxi out and in fuel to Postflight tab.
- Added Magnetic Heading display to Enroute tab. Existing heading is True Heading.
- Added Magnetic Variation display to Enroute tab.
- Added Out, Off, On, In times to Enroute tab.
- Added dynamic airline and aircraft types. When a new airline (in the case of Titan or BAW) or aircraft type (such as MD11) joins Globe Cargo an update to GCP was required to allow pilots to use those types. Now, admin has full control via the server of official airlines and aircraft types that GCP is allowed to use. There are a number of subitems that needed to change in order for this feature to work.
- Because of the above airline/aircraft type change, a separate file is available for users own airlines and aircraft types when conducting a private/non GC flight. The Add->Airline/Aircraft Type option in Tools will only function to add non GC authorized airlines and aircraft types. Items added here will not allow the user to send pireps to GC.
- Added current GCP version check at startup. When a newer version of GCP is available you will receive a popup when starting GCP notifying you of that fact.
- Added color coded vertical speed at touchdown. Touchdown rates of 0-300 are green, 301-800 are yellow, and rates 801 and higher are red. The color coding appears on the Postflight tab for the current flight as well as on the logbook tab for the average over all logged flights.
- Added autofill feature when selecting a "new generation" charter flight. Charter flights following the new format will autofill: Airline, Aircraft Type, Registration, Flight Number, Departure, Destination, Cargo. In theory, when selecting one of these new flights, all you have to do is make the selection on Select Flight and press the START LOGGING button as all the required items are automatically filled in. This comes with a word of caution: The intent is not to get lazy with the cargo entry. I added this subfeature with the intent that if the pilot has preloaded their aircraft with the exact weight of the assigned cargo. If I find that pilots are taking this subfeature for granted I will not hesitate to remove it! This is a matter of convenience, not neccessity. If you cannot load your aircraft with the exact same cargo as assigned, please change that in the cargo text box with what is really loaded on your aircraft.
- In the above situation, if the assigned aircraft is out of service, a popup will appear instructing you to select a different registration.
- Added scheduled cargo display under cargo entry box. Works only with new generation charter flights.
As you can see there are many changes in this update. I have a few more words regarding this update:
The autosave file delete was investigated. Thanks to Jay Eklund who got together with me on TS for a few hours of testing, we discovered a situation where running GCP remotely can cause the files to not be deleted. The issue is network path related. If you are having this problem when running GCP remotely, contact me if you want some one on one time to troubleshoot. That goes for anyone for that matter, I am more than willing to address each persons issue in this manner. I just request that these issues be handled over TS or MSN Messenger so that we can communicate in real time which makes for much easier troubleshooting.
Autosave files failing to delete when running GCP on the same machine as FS can sometimes be attributed to not running GCP as administrator in Vista or Windows 7. Please be sure that you are running GCP as administrator on these two OS's. If you don't know how to run a program as administrator, please ask.
I have looked over the code for autosave file delete and I have yet to find the issue there. While it's possible I just can't see a problem with the code where one exists, I am leaning heavily towards the root problem being folder permissions related. One my own machines, the autosave file delete works when running GCP on the same machine as FS as well as when running it remotely.
Until all Atlas and Titan charter flights are edited to the new generation format, some of the autofill feature will not work. To tell if the flight you selected is new generation, on the charter page on the website if the tail number and cargo as well as departure and arrival times appear above the remarks section, it is new generation. If the tail number and cargo still appear in the remarks section, the flight is old generation and the Aircraft Type, Registration, and Cargo section will not automatically fill in. Eventually, all charter flights will be of the new generation and the autofill feature will work for all flights (except Polar).
As always, if you have comments, question, problems, or suggestions regarding GCP you can reach me via the Globe Cargo PIREP forum (which I automatically get an email when there's a new post) or via gcp-at-globecargova.org.
