New FREE Beta Deco Software for Linux/Mac/Windows - Need Testers

brockbr

Breals,
I assume the Edit button would open the sliders as though editing that particular line?

My concern with doing that is that the UI would get VERY busy VERY quick. You don't like just editing the values right there in text? This is actually a HUGE feature because it lets you play what-if's (change the 25 to a 20 for time and instantly see the result).

The iPhone interface is actually VERY different, and I don't want to spoil the fun, but let's just say you can't tip your monitor

brockbr

Metric Version
Coming along but looking for help. Anyone with an AIM account want to help? Multiple people would be great - Go to the AIM Chatroom "MyDecoPlan"

501ft Stops
I am getting a lot of comments about this - As mentioned earlier in http://www.rebreatherworld.com/gener...tml#post181971, the stops are being worked on.

Descent - Timing
I got some really good feedback via PM (since the person PM'd me, maybe they'll post the info here too) that noticed I calculated the descent separately from the BT. If your waypoint showed 10 minutes, I gave a descent of 1 ATM/min, then did the full 10 min on the bottom. Their point was that typical planning would be 10 min starting from the surface (descent and all).

I wonder how many people would prefer this as an option instead of only allowing one way or the other?

sunnyboy

An option would be great. I actually don't like it when you want 10 minutes "at depth" and you get something less because of descent times - then you have to fudge the bottom time to get what you wanted. Having a checkbox or button to switch would be very nice.

-S

Tienuts

I agree. An option would be nice. Although if it has to be one way or the other, I would make the bottom time include the decent.

Nice work.

pwl4476

Quote: (Originally Posted by brockbr)
Actually, I'm a software engineer of the old school variety - I mention this because the way the algorithm is implemented is ready to port to straight C.

I could just as well port it to C# etc for WindowsCE 5 (Window Mobile). I've written MANY CE apps (matter of fact I have some listed with the patent/copyright office written in straight C ), but in a a painfully ironic (and satisfying) twist, I choose to support Linux and Apple platforms at this point

<SoapBox>
Microsoft has decided that in lieu of actual technology and support of the developers, they want to see how many bullsh!t version of MSDN and the OS's they can create. The day they went from MSDN Universal to MSDN/Humpty Hump/***ity***/AppDev licenses, I decided it was time to move to open source.
</SoapBox>


The reason for this is that MS forgot what built them. Period - End of story.

ps. If you're a VB.Net hack and want to defend MS, be prepared for a flame war from a 20+ year vet

pss. This is like therapy
Too right, mate!

I've been writing software since 1979; FORTRAN, PL/1, Assembler (various micro controllers and PICs), C, C++, Java (plus Perl, Python, Jython, PHP and a host of others...).

I left C++ years ago and have never once regretted the decision. C was an "almost perfect" language, IMO. C++ was it's orphaned bastard child. I hated programming in that language. I absolutely refuse to participate in the "C#, .Nyet, .asp, .whatever" B.S. that MS is now foisting upon programmers.

I'd still rather program in C.
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I'm not quite sure how to use the quote feature, so don't hold it against me.

I'm no MS clone although I know my way around several programming languages. I'm in the mobile industry. I've US patents in networking and conferencing technologies. (I've also noticed that many on this forum are very accomplished when it comes to technology and achievement. It's great isn't it?!) I was looking at it from the network aspect. Data intensive users don't tend to use iPhone (or Blackberry for that matter) because it isn't really supported by what many would consider a top tier mobile data network at this time. Many WinMobile devices are. Many need that data versatility in a device for both business and personal. My interest in WinMobile was strictly selfish. I'd like to use the application on my PDA when available, but couldn't switch to iPhone to do it.

Paul

breals

Hi,

Yes, it could be a bit busy but then again, maybe you wouldn't have more than one depth/gas at a time. I usually plan square profiles for my tech dives as do my friends. I just walked my non-diver visual designer thru this cold and he came out with the same reaction.

However, my first reaction was that you had the sliders and then couldn't use them again, hence the need for an edit button. Plus, having a slider the computes the right values to build text in the correct syntax, keeps the learning curve down. IMHO I don't like making the user learn to do something if it isn't necessary, i.e. correct text syntax for entering dive profiles. Power-users might just type in the text but it took me a few times to get it right and I would put myself in the expert category for these types of things.

In the flash/dhtml calcs that we build for our site, usability showed that people wanted to be guided and having something intuitive, like a slider or radio button to make it easy. The slider interface is also intuitive for doing what if because it provides a feedback mechanism that the trains the user on when values change.

One of the interesting things we found through research is that people expect an explicit action to change something. We had a graph that calculated your tax liability for planning, but it didn't ask the user to confirm/submit the changes as the graph would just update it self as you typed. The test subjects didn't get it that it would change itself. but when we change it to a OK/Submit it changed things.

The other thing that we did was to also allow the users to type in the value that the slider would fill out if they wanted to type it in. We learned that one from Adobe, if you look at the color selector slider in Photoshop, there is a field that the slider updates but you can also just type in the value.

Please don't confuse my feedback with criticism, I'm just trying to give you feedback and have some passion around it.

Yeah, I can just imagine the iphone experience, perhaps shaking it to clear the profile like the Convert application does?

- Bill

nilmol

Nice job, greatly appreciated!

But shouldn't the sum of all gasses be 100% ?

Also I'd like a grid with index also on top side for readability.

/
nils

Attached Images

MyDecoPlan.jpg (48.6 KB, 2 views)

brockbr

No worries breals, your thoughtfulness in your feedback shows.

I think I'm going to prototype a few more techniques for entering data and throw them out there an gauge the response. See what shakes out.

b.

brockbr

Funny how computers do arithmetic... You'd think they could divide properly

And no... That isn't really a joke - What you see is a rounding error due to division... Let me work on it some more to clean it up.

b.

curt

This looks really nice!

I'll give it a spin and send feedback.

Definitely looking forward to the iPhone version.

cheers...

__________________
Curt Harpold
US Representative
Rebreathers Australia
http://rebreathers.com.au/