The VR3: Extensive Questions & Answers.

[MattS]

Nigel

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

[MattS]

Nigel

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

[Fathoms Down]

Originally Posted by MattS

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

An overlay on the graph to show water temperature would be useful but I get the impresison that the VR3 doesn't record information like that.

[Fathoms Down]

Originally Posted by MattS

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

An overlay on the graph to show water temperature would be useful but I get the impresison that the VR3 doesn't record information like that.

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by MattS

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

Oh. THAT MattS. <gulp>

Please excuse the <winge mode=on>

Well the things that give me problems are having to add the dive locations and dive sites to the database before I can enter them into a dive. I just want to type the name of the wreck so it is easy to find next time. I don't often dive the same place twice. Yellow as a default colour for a lot of gases when it will be plotted on pale grey. Downloading dive by number - why not just start from the most recent and stop when you get a duplicate? Small icons in details and list display would help so you get more on the screen. Remembering the sort order and where you were in the list after an edit. The graphs are lovely but the axis scales need to be in sensible units not just max/10 (52m max so lines at 5.2, 10.4 etc.). The gas management stuff is incomprehensible to me but I guess it's for OC. Why can I delete some gasses and not others? (Air with 1.95 max ppO2 - I looked for a dive using it and there isn't one.) Why do the cylinders that are greyed change depending on whether or not I have looked at the Gas Profiles? Calculated OC values on display surrounds are trivial but surely could be suppressed if the dive was done in CCR mode eg: max PppO2=0.86 and CNS=12 when I told the VR3 the ppO2 and it made the CNS a very different story. Extracting some deco data would be great even if it is just the time when it started showing stops but the requested profile (drawn as a staircase) would be magic as you would see at a glance how far you kept from it. If we're getting into a wish list - ordering of columns so I can have site and date at the beginning then max depth, duration and bottom mix/dil. When you go to the gas tab of a dive profile and you only used one gas don't show air on the right

The purpose of a log is to look up useful information so it needs to be the best possible capture for minimum effort (because you get no pay back at the time of logging) with clearest possible display for when you are going back thinking 'I dived that a couple of years ago...'

Don't worry. You can't please all of the people all of the time and you can never ever please another software writer for even five minutes.

nigelH

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by MattS

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

Oh. THAT MattS. <gulp>

Please excuse the <winge mode=on>

Well the things that give me problems are having to add the dive locations and dive sites to the database before I can enter them into a dive. I just want to type the name of the wreck so it is easy to find next time. I don't often dive the same place twice. Yellow as a default colour for a lot of gases when it will be plotted on pale grey. Downloading dive by number - why not just start from the most recent and stop when you get a duplicate? Small icons in details and list display would help so you get more on the screen. Remembering the sort order and where you were in the list after an edit. The graphs are lovely but the axis scales need to be in sensible units not just max/10 (52m max so lines at 5.2, 10.4 etc.). The gas management stuff is incomprehensible to me but I guess it's for OC. Why can I delete some gasses and not others? (Air with 1.95 max ppO2 - I looked for a dive using it and there isn't one.) Why do the cylinders that are greyed change depending on whether or not I have looked at the Gas Profiles? Calculated OC values on display surrounds are trivial but surely could be suppressed if the dive was done in CCR mode eg: max PppO2=0.86 and CNS=12 when I told the VR3 the ppO2 and it made the CNS a very different story. Extracting some deco data would be great even if it is just the time when it started showing stops but the requested profile (drawn as a staircase) would be magic as you would see at a glance how far you kept from it. If we're getting into a wish list - ordering of columns so I can have site and date at the beginning then max depth, duration and bottom mix/dil. When you go to the gas tab of a dive profile and you only used one gas don't show air on the right

The purpose of a log is to look up useful information so it needs to be the best possible capture for minimum effort (because you get no pay back at the time of logging) with clearest possible display for when you are going back thinking 'I dived that a couple of years ago...'

Don't worry. You can't please all of the people all of the time and you can never ever please another software writer for even five minutes.

nigelH

[MartinS]

Originally Posted by MattS

Nigel

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

Bet he wished he'd never asked

[MartinS]

Originally Posted by MattS

Nigel

What exactly do you want to see in the logging software?

Bet he wished he'd never asked

[MattS]

Nigel no apologies required, feed back is always useful.

I just want to type the name of the wreck so it is easy to find next time. I don't often dive the same place twice.

That is how it worked originally. Unfortunately too many people managed to break it by making typos on the site name and rang support. You can create the location and site on the fly by switching back to the main window. The location and site Notes fields have proved quite popular. The location field is mainly a way to differentiate sites with similar names - I have several 'helicopter', slipway' and 'shark reef' in my log.

Yellow as a default colour for a lot of gases when it will be plotted on pale grey.

Yellow is default for Air. Dark green for Nx <49%, light green for Nx >49%, red for Tmx and black for O2>98%. You can slect any plot colour you like for a gas using the 'Plot Colour' button in the Gas Properties dialog. The chart background can also be set to your choice in Tools\Options\Chart from the main menu. Pale grey is the default only because it was most readable on a 16 colour display.

Downloading dive by number - why not just start from the most recent and stop when you get a duplicate?

IR transmission is relatively power hungry. Imagine someone has 25, 50 or possibly 99 dives in the memory, with each profile possibly several hours long. By the time the comms finished the VR3 battery would be dead.

Small icons in details and list display would help so you get more on the screen.

I am using a 20" monitor at 1600x1200, the icons are small ;-) Seriously, the icons became meaningless splodges when resized smaller than the 30x27 that most of them are.

Remembering the sort order and where you were in the list after an edit.

Agreed. The display refresh code is a tad flaky.

The graphs are lovely but the axis scales need to be in sensible units not just max/10 (52m max so lines at 5.2, 10.4 etc.).

When the graph is initially displayed the Max Depth extent is rounded up to the nearest 5. This value is then /10 for the divisions. so your 52m dive would be displayed as 55, 49.5, 44 etc. If this does not suit you can scroll the profile in increments of 1 which will recalculate the divisions. Importantly the scheme requries no adjustment when working in Ft. The time scale rounds to the nearest 30 seconds. Zooming and unzooming does screw the axis a bit.

The gas management stuff is incomprehensible to me but I guess it's for OC. Why can I delete some gasses and not others? (Air with 1.95 max ppO2 - I looked for a dive using it and there isn't one.)

The rules are;
Gas Profiles
1. A new Gas Profile is created when the gas table for the downloaded dive does not match an existing Gas Profile.
2. Any Gas Profile can be deleted but there must be one Gas Profile in the log
3. A Gas Profile is merely a grouping of gases and deleting a profile does not delete the gases within it.
4. Gas Profiles containing the same gases but with different gases enabled are considered different. This is for compatibility with the old DCV files.
5. All Gas Profiles must contain the default gas Air 1.6

Gas Item
1. The default gas Air 1.6 can not be deleted
2. Gases with similar content but different MaxPPO are considered as different
3. A Gas can not be deleted when a dive in the log depends on it
4. Once a gas is saved in the log it can not be edited

Further than that I would need to see the PDL file.

Why do the cylinders that are greyed change depending on whether or not I have looked at the Gas Profiles?

Well that is a bug, and not one I was aware of until you pointed it out, thanks. It appears that the refresh cocks up when a Gas Profile has been opened for edit. To work around it, click on a different Gas Profile in the tree and then back to the one you are interested in.

A greyed gas is one that has been created but has no dive dependant on it, so it can be deleted. Lets say you do a dive with 10 different gases programmed but only 2 enabled. You then download the dive into a new log file. A profile is created containing all 10 gases. The 8 gases that were not enabled will be greyed.

Calculated OC values on display surrounds are trivial but surely could be suppressed if the dive was done in CCR mode eg: max PppO2=0.86 and CNS=12 when I told the VR3 the ppO2 and it made the CNS a very different story.

If someone wants to buy me a rebreather I am sure the RB displays would be much improved ;-) CCR and SCR displays are already in the list for the next bunch of fixes.

Extracting some deco data would be great even if it is just the time when it started showing stops

There have been lots of requests for this. I can't say anything more at this stage.

but the requested profile (drawn as a staircase) would be magic as you would see at a glance how far you kept from it.

How about allowing a profile plan to be entered and saved, then overlaid onto the graph? That should be fairly straightforward to implement.

we're getting into a wish list - ordering of columns so I can have site and date at the beginning then max depth, duration and bottom mix/dil.

Noted.

When you go to the gas tab of a dive profile and you only used one gas don't show air on the right

When the Gas tab is initially displayed, no gas has been selected and the default (air) is displayed. When a gas is selected from the list the display updates. How about the first gas in the list gets selected automatically - should be a trivial change.

The purpose of a log is to look up useful information so it needs to be the best possible capture for minimum effort (because you get no pay back at the time of logging) with clearest possible display for when you are going back thinking 'I dived that a couple of years ago...'

The current concepts are;
+Data is only typed once
+Typing is kept to a minimum
+Data can be drilled into
You can do quite a lot just by clicking a mouse around. Most items can be double clicked wherever they appear.

I would agree that the package would benefit from better search and reporting features.

Don't worry. You can't please all of the people all of the time and you can never ever please another software writer for even five minutes.

LOL. I am actually surprised at the number of people that really like the software. Have a look at this for chalk and cheese oppinion.
http://www.vr3.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83

I have seen you complain about the software regularly but this is the first time you have detailed why. Thankyou for taking the time.

[MattS]

Nigel no apologies required, feed back is always useful.

I just want to type the name of the wreck so it is easy to find next time. I don't often dive the same place twice.

That is how it worked originally. Unfortunately too many people managed to break it by making typos on the site name and rang support. You can create the location and site on the fly by switching back to the main window. The location and site Notes fields have proved quite popular. The location field is mainly a way to differentiate sites with similar names - I have several 'helicopter', slipway' and 'shark reef' in my log.

Yellow as a default colour for a lot of gases when it will be plotted on pale grey.

Yellow is default for Air. Dark green for Nx <49%, light green for Nx >49%, red for Tmx and black for O2>98%. You can slect any plot colour you like for a gas using the 'Plot Colour' button in the Gas Properties dialog. The chart background can also be set to your choice in Tools\Options\Chart from the main menu. Pale grey is the default only because it was most readable on a 16 colour display.

Downloading dive by number - why not just start from the most recent and stop when you get a duplicate?

IR transmission is relatively power hungry. Imagine someone has 25, 50 or possibly 99 dives in the memory, with each profile possibly several hours long. By the time the comms finished the VR3 battery would be dead.

Small icons in details and list display would help so you get more on the screen.

I am using a 20" monitor at 1600x1200, the icons are small ;-) Seriously, the icons became meaningless splodges when resized smaller than the 30x27 that most of them are.

Remembering the sort order and where you were in the list after an edit.

Agreed. The display refresh code is a tad flaky.

The graphs are lovely but the axis scales need to be in sensible units not just max/10 (52m max so lines at 5.2, 10.4 etc.).

When the graph is initially displayed the Max Depth extent is rounded up to the nearest 5. This value is then /10 for the divisions. so your 52m dive would be displayed as 55, 49.5, 44 etc. If this does not suit you can scroll the profile in increments of 1 which will recalculate the divisions. Importantly the scheme requries no adjustment when working in Ft. The time scale rounds to the nearest 30 seconds. Zooming and unzooming does screw the axis a bit.

The gas management stuff is incomprehensible to me but I guess it's for OC. Why can I delete some gasses and not others? (Air with 1.95 max ppO2 - I looked for a dive using it and there isn't one.)

The rules are;
Gas Profiles
1. A new Gas Profile is created when the gas table for the downloaded dive does not match an existing Gas Profile.
2. Any Gas Profile can be deleted but there must be one Gas Profile in the log
3. A Gas Profile is merely a grouping of gases and deleting a profile does not delete the gases within it.
4. Gas Profiles containing the same gases but with different gases enabled are considered different. This is for compatibility with the old DCV files.
5. All Gas Profiles must contain the default gas Air 1.6

Gas Item
1. The default gas Air 1.6 can not be deleted
2. Gases with similar content but different MaxPPO are considered as different
3. A Gas can not be deleted when a dive in the log depends on it
4. Once a gas is saved in the log it can not be edited

Further than that I would need to see the PDL file.

Why do the cylinders that are greyed change depending on whether or not I have looked at the Gas Profiles?

Well that is a bug, and not one I was aware of until you pointed it out, thanks. It appears that the refresh cocks up when a Gas Profile has been opened for edit. To work around it, click on a different Gas Profile in the tree and then back to the one you are interested in.

A greyed gas is one that has been created but has no dive dependant on it, so it can be deleted. Lets say you do a dive with 10 different gases programmed but only 2 enabled. You then download the dive into a new log file. A profile is created containing all 10 gases. The 8 gases that were not enabled will be greyed.

Calculated OC values on display surrounds are trivial but surely could be suppressed if the dive was done in CCR mode eg: max PppO2=0.86 and CNS=12 when I told the VR3 the ppO2 and it made the CNS a very different story.

If someone wants to buy me a rebreather I am sure the RB displays would be much improved ;-) CCR and SCR displays are already in the list for the next bunch of fixes.

Extracting some deco data would be great even if it is just the time when it started showing stops

There have been lots of requests for this. I can't say anything more at this stage.

but the requested profile (drawn as a staircase) would be magic as you would see at a glance how far you kept from it.

How about allowing a profile plan to be entered and saved, then overlaid onto the graph? That should be fairly straightforward to implement.

we're getting into a wish list - ordering of columns so I can have site and date at the beginning then max depth, duration and bottom mix/dil.

Noted.

When you go to the gas tab of a dive profile and you only used one gas don't show air on the right

When the Gas tab is initially displayed, no gas has been selected and the default (air) is displayed. When a gas is selected from the list the display updates. How about the first gas in the list gets selected automatically - should be a trivial change.

The purpose of a log is to look up useful information so it needs to be the best possible capture for minimum effort (because you get no pay back at the time of logging) with clearest possible display for when you are going back thinking 'I dived that a couple of years ago...'

The current concepts are;
+Data is only typed once
+Typing is kept to a minimum
+Data can be drilled into
You can do quite a lot just by clicking a mouse around. Most items can be double clicked wherever they appear.

I would agree that the package would benefit from better search and reporting features.

Don't worry. You can't please all of the people all of the time and you can never ever please another software writer for even five minutes.

LOL. I am actually surprised at the number of people that really like the software. Have a look at this for chalk and cheese oppinion.
http://www.vr3.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83

I have seen you complain about the software regularly but this is the first time you have detailed why. Thankyou for taking the time.