[lohtse]

lohtse
What would a proper close button look like?

Would you like an 'Exit Program' menu option in the main menu?

Hope someone does something similar for animals, plants and rocks etc....

This is the sort of thing I was thinking about too. Now that the hard work of coding the bird program is done it would be fairly easy to make other 'nature' versions, like Trees, Butterflies, etc.

Yep and exit program option would be good, Close button is could be the X that usually sits in the upper right corner..


OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo looking forward to the possible other guides...

Keep up the amazing work..

regards
Lohtse

Mirror Uploaded.to

QVGA Program 3.4.2 - CAB (WM5/WM6) (1mb):
(Closed Filehost) https://ul.to/q5hpkg

VGA Program 3.4.2 - CAB (WM5/WM6) (1.4mb):
(Closed Filehost) https://ul.to/f0z241

DESKTOP Program Version 3.4.2 (VGA) (0.5mb):
(Closed Filehost) https://ul.to/f0bwal

POCKETBIRDS VGA 3.4.2 - CAB (Beta)

Here is the CAB beta of the VGA version of PBE.

http://rapidshare.de/files/48208965/PBE_342_VGA_ARM.CAB.html (1.4mb)


The VGA beta version screen shot...

Copy to PPC and double-tap to install. It will require the PBEdata folder on your SD card (or the test PBEdata folder).

Note: the current QVGA PBEdata folder has small QVGA images. I intend to release this folder with larger images for this VGA version.

ALSO: Main post with3.4.2 VGA-Desktop version and QVGA version added

Sarah

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for the new version (3.4.2)!

Some additional remarks that may be of some help:

The splash screen has improved. As I mentioned earlier, the previous one was not bad, but this has become better. If I am very picky, still some pixels seem to be missing at the bottom (may become of more important with other VGA screens?) and Aviasoft is hardly visible (see first screendump).



I believe the “Options” deserve a better place than hidden under Habitats. May be you can put Habitats and Groups in an smaller font togerher at the left site at the bottom and let Options take the place of Goups.

Under Options, the About and Help-files are not complete/very clear on my VGA screen (see next screendumps as examples).





“Bird topography” reports missing the file “bird.jpg” (which is there). Renaming this file to “bird.jpx” solves this.

Since the “hart” writes the date to the notes, could it also be possible to add the time?

The GPS needs some more attention (at least in my situation). I have a PDA with no GPS inside. I use an external GPS that connects via Blue Tooth. For flexibilty reasons I use Franson’s GPS gate (v. 2.5.0.159) for that purpose. So far I have been succesful in all cases where I would need a GPS (eg. in navigation programs).

Under Pocket Birds the GPS does not work for me as of yet (from a previous version I just have added the subir “GPS” to the data subdir).

The “GPS setup” does not work properly is this situation. After switching on the GPS, it reports “GPS started COM 1”, which seems to be the message that everything is OK. But in my situation I get this report already without any GPS being connected via Blue Tooth (and the little knob turns red). I suppose this knob it to be used to write the GPS location to a file, but when I touch it, I get a little sound an cannot find any GPS data (also when the GPS is turned on, but I have no prove that there is a connection with Pocket Birds).

regards
Alfred

[squawksarah]

Alfred Wrote..

The splash screen has improved. As I mentioned earlier, the previous one was not bad, but this has become better. If I am very picky, still some pixels seem to be missing at the bottom (may become of more important with other VGA screens?) and Aviasoft is hardly visible (see first screendump).

Easy to fix



I believe the “Options” deserve a better place than hidden under Habitats. May be you can put Habitats and Groups in an smaller font togerher at the left site at the bottom and let Options take the place of Goups.

Ah, we all discussed this with the release of V3.0 where I did exactly what you now suggest. Nobody liked it at all when I put both the Habitats and Groups menus under the left soft menu, and put the Options in the right soft menu. So I changed it back to the current menu system (which I personally like better, too.)

One possibility would be to have an Options on-screen button. Pressing this button would open up a full-screen page showing the options in a finger-friendly display.

The main idea of the design of the screen is that when you are out in the field, birdwatching features are easily available with no need of the touch-pointer.

Under Options, the About and Help-files are not complete/very clear on my VGA screen.

The font size is set too big. I can fix that easily too.

“Bird topography” reports missing the file “bird.jpg” (which is there). Renaming this file to “bird.jpx” solves this.

This sort of error is why I suggested previous version users download the new data folder but this solution works as well

Since the “hart” writes the date to the notes, could it also be possible to add the time?

Yes, I will add the time.

The GPS needs some more attention (at least in my situation). I have a PDA with no GPS inside. I use an external GPS that connects via Blue Tooth. For flexibilty reasons I use Franson’s GPS gate (v. 2.5.0.159) for that purpose. So far I have been succesful in all cases where I would need a GPS (eg. in navigation programs).

Under Pocket Birds the GPS does not work for me as of yet (from a previous version I just have added the subir “GPS” to the data subdir).

The “GPS setup” does not work properly is this situation. After switching on the GPS, it reports “GPS started COM 1”, which seems to be the message that everything is OK. But in my situation I get this report already without any GPS being connected via Blue Tooth (and the little knob turns red). I suppose this knob it to be used to write the GPS location to a file, but when I touch it, I get a little sound an cannot find any GPS data (also when the GPS is turned on, but I have no prove that there is a connection with Pocket Birds).


Alfred: Try manually choosing the PORT your blue-tooth GPS is logged into, and also BAUD RATE - from the GPS menu. Once you have chosen them choose START GPS from the GPS menu. Wait until the gps light is green and then you can click on it to save current gps location to the PBEdata/GPS/GPSbirds.txt file. You won't be able to save until the green light comes on - it means there are enough satillites in use to log an accurate lat/long.

I wondered if a hardware problem would arise. I have a ppc with built-in GPS and the code was written using this arrangement. Without owning a blue-tooth GPS I have no way of coding and testing thais arrangement of hardware.

Someone asked for the GPS option to be added (he has a built-in gps). I personally don't see much use for the option unless birds observations can be converted into POI files for a gps mapping program like Memory Map. The format of POI files for lots of commercial mapping software is not published so converting the data to a mapping program might be really difficult.

Thanks so much for the feedback

I will post a new and fixed CAB tomorrow

Sarah

[squawksarah]

PocketBirds QVGA and VGA new CABs (v3.4.4)


Issues fixed - new cab files here...

http://rapidshare.de/files/48218241/PBE_344_QVGA.ARM.CAB.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/48218260/PBE_344_VGA_ARM.CAB.html

Sarah

Mirror Uploaded.to

PocketBirds QVGA cab v3.4.4
(Closed Filehost) https://ul.to/f4l6s6

PocketBirds VGA cab v3.4.4
(Closed Filehost) https://ul.to/cpe8e4


Mirror Rapidshare.com

PocketBirds QVGA cab v3.4.4
http://rapidshare.com/files/272184192/P ... GA.ARM.CAB

PocketBirds VGA cab v3.4.4
http://rapidshare.com/files/272184343/P ... GA_ARM.CAB

Alfred Wrote..

The “GPS setup” does not work properly is this situation. After switching on the GPS, it reports “GPS started COM 1”, which seems to be the message that everything is OK. But in my situation I get this report already without any GPS being connected via Blue Tooth (and the little knob turns red). I suppose this knob it to be used to write the GPS location to a file, but when I touch it, I get a little sound an cannot find any GPS data (also when the GPS is turned on, but I have no prove that there is a connection with Pocket Birds).


Alfred: Try manually choosing the PORT your blue-tooth GPS is logged into, and also BAUD RATE - from the GPS menu. Once you have chosen them choose START GPS from the GPS menu. Wait until the gps light is green and then you can click on it to save current gps location to the PBEdata/GPS/GPSbirds.txt file. You won't be able to save until the green light comes on - it means there are enough satillites in use to log an accurate lat/long.

I wondered if a hardware problem would arise. I have a ppc with built-in GPS and the code was written using this arrangement. Without owning a blue-tooth GPS I have no way of coding and testing thais arrangement of hardware.

Someone asked for the GPS option to be added (he has a built-in gps). I personally don't see much use for the option unless birds observations can be converted into POI files for a gps mapping program like Memory Map. The format of POI files for lots of commercial mapping software is not published so converting the data to a mapping program might be really difficult.

Thanks so much for the feedback

I will post a new and fixed CAB tomorrow

Sarah

Sarah,

Again, thanks very much for your answers and updates. I will look at the last VGA cab-file later. I lost track of what the last data file is. Could you make an easy reference or post it again?
I (also) found an update for the PC-version, which seems to work fine sofar (not the GPS-part).

On the GPS issue: both on my PDA and PC I have done all kind of experiments but have not been succesfull is these cases. It is good to know that I have to wait for a green light (which I have not seen yet). This may make my experiments somewhat faster.
Could you possibly elaborate on what kind of data are expected. In GPS-gate I sometimes get options like NMEA, COM, virtual-COM, error checks switched on of swiched off and more.

If the (Dutch) people who created a PDA-program for bird registrations (see http://www.waarneming.nl) are reading these discussions (previously they did) they may be of help, because their program detects GPS's including my Blue Tooth GPS. If not, I can try to reach them next week.

regards,
Alfred.

[

Sarah,

Again, thanks very much for your answers and updates. I will look at the last VGA cab-file later.

regards,
Alfred.

Sarah,

I just looked at the last VGA-version 344, but at a quick glance I do not see changes as to VGA 322. Could you specify what changes I have to look for?

regards,
Alfred

[squawksarah]

[

Sarah,

Again, thanks very much for your answers and updates. I will look at the last VGA cab-file later.

regards,
Alfred.

Sarah,

I just looked at the last VGA-version 344, but at a quick glance I do not see changes as to VGA 322. Could you specify what changes I have to look for?

regards,
Alfred

THE LATEST CAB IS 3.44 (above)...

You got me there, Alfred! I have been making so many alterations and changes in the last days I have lost track

I believe I changed some of the things you talked about. Splash picture, etc. I also looked at the GPS code and made minor changes.

The GPS reads NMEA code. It first of all looks to see if it can find the GPS. If it finds one it turns red and waits for 3 sats in use before it shows a green light. I noticed (as you did) that if I let the software auto-select the port it would sometimes show red (found a gps device) when I knew there was no gps on that port. So I changed the code temporarily to manual selection of the gps PORT and BAUD RATE. Once that had been done you should click the START GPS option to test the port @ baud-rate settings. This seems to work fine with built-in gps. The green light simply means there are enough sats (3 or more) to save a reasonably accurate latitude/longitude coordinate. It is very simple really. Nothing special or clever going on with gps data formats or stuff.

Using the Pocketbirds program to link files with the gps bird plotting program you talked about would be a good idea, if it could be done.

I am tempted to write a small test program to show you what a gps port is receiving, etc. So then you would be able to view if there is a gps present on a port, and if it is sending valid data, etc. That might help me change the birds code to 'see' your blue-tooth gps

Would that be of interest to you?

Best wishes

Sarah

Sarah,

I just looked at the last VGA-version 344, but at a quick glance I do not see changes as to VGA 322. Could you specify what changes I have to look for?

regards,
Alfred

THE LATEST CAB IS 3.44 (above)...

You got me there, Alfred! I have been making so many alterations and changes in the last days I have lost track

I believe I changed some of the things you talked about. Splash picture, etc. I also looked at the GPS code and made minor changes.

The GPS reads NMEA code. It first of all looks to see if it can find the GPS. If it finds one it turns red and waits for 3 sats in use before it shows a green light. I noticed (as you did) that if I let the software auto-select the port it would sometimes show red (found a gps device) when I knew there was no gps on that port. So I changed the code temporarily to manual selection of the gps PORT and BAUD RATE. Once that had been done you should click the START GPS option to test the port @ baud-rate settings. This seems to work fine with built-in gps. The green light simply means there are enough sats (3 or more) to save a reasonably accurate latitude/longitude coordinate. It is very simple really. Nothing special or clever going on with gps data formats or stuff.

Using the Pocketbirds program to link files with the gps bird plotting program you talked about would be a good idea, if it could be done.

I am tempted to write a small test program to show you what a gps port is receiving, etc. So then you would be able to view if there is a gps present on a port, and if it is sending valid data, etc. That might help me change the birds code to 'see' your blue-tooth gps

Would that be of interest to you?

Best wishes

Sarah[/quote]


Sarah,

Would be very helpfull!!


Regards,
Alfred

[squawksarah]

I am tempted to write a small test program to show you what a gps port is receiving, etc. So then you would be able to view if there is a gps present on a port, and if it is sending valid data, etc. That might help me change the birds code to 'see' your blue-tooth gps

Would that be of interest to you?

Best wishes

Sarah

Sarah,

Would be very helpfull!!

OK Alfred.

Give me a few days to write something for you.

I will post it here in case it might also be useful for others.

Sarah

Sarah,

Would be very helpfull!!

OK Alfred.

Give me a few days to write something for you.

I will post it here in case it might also be useful for others.

Sarah [/quote]

Sarah,

I did some more experiments comparing the GPS-part of your program with other applications that use GPS on my PDA.

From these experiments I concluded that also your program has contact with my Blue-Tooth (BT) GPS-mouse because - after proper configuration - the GPS-mouse signals (by starting the blinking of the blue BT-light immediately after starting PocketBirds (PB). The "only" (but important) problem is that the light in PB remains red and tapping this light gives a beep (and no information is written to the GPS-txt file).

I hope this information may be of some help.

PS: Additonal notes:
Also in the last version (3.4.4) the help files in the VGA-version do not behave properly:
Screen 1(option help menu) looks OK (but there is more information than can be shown and scrolling is not possible)
Screen 2 and 3 (GPS help en Comparing Birds help) are not OK and are as I have demonstrated in a previous screen dump a few days ago.

regards,
Alfred

[squawksarah]

Sarah,

I did some more experiments comparing the GPS-part of your program with other applications that use GPS on my PDA.

From these experiments I concluded that also your program has contact with my Blue-Tooth (BT) GPS-mouse because - after proper configuration - the GPS-mouse signals (by starting the blinking of the blue BT-light immediately after starting PocketBirds (PB). The "only" (but important) problem is that the light in PB remains red and tapping this light gives a beep (and no information is written to the GPS-txt file).
Alfred

Alfred, I follow you... so try this exe...

http://rapidshare.de/files/48240196/PocketBirds_344x_VGA_GPS_TEST.rar.html

Copy this modified PocketBirds.exe file to your PocketBirds program install folder and run it.

It should allow you to click (and save gps position) the GPS status button (top right of the PBE display) even if it is showing red.

When you feel the program is actually receiving gps signals click the gps light and then view the gps log file in the PBEdata/GPS folder.

The date/time will be logged but you will only get a valid lat/long if the gps signal is getting through ok

If you get a valid lat/long then problem solved

Sarah

Hello Sarah.
After testing v3.4.4 VGA on een WVGA screen (daimond 2) i will stick to v3.3 because the square on the screen ( compared with the screenshots provided by brunokoehler ) is bigger, hits almost the buttons, and the images do fill the square nicely. The only thing thats missing is the search function. If you want my opinion, v3.3 is a WVGA version.

[squawksarah]

Hello Sarah.
After testing v3.4.4 VGA on een WVGA screen (daimond 2) i will stick to v3.3 because the square on the screen ( compared with the screenshots provided by brunokoehler ) is bigger, hits almost the buttons, and the images do fill the square nicely. The only thing thats missing is the search function. If you want my opinion, v3.3 is a WVGA version.

Batto

That sounds like you prefer the v3.3 QVGA version (which isQVGA which is stretched to fit VGA). The images on the new 4.4 VGA program are those for the QVGA program. That's why they seem to be so small when used on the pure VGA program 3.4.4.

I have not yet posted the bigger set of images belonging to the VGA version but I will do so, soon. The VGA images will fit the VGA version much better.

Sarah