Another new user feedback and requests

[sblock]

Hi there,

I purchased MD some time ago when I realised that Suunto would not support the Mac for my Stinger. After not really touching it for some years I have spent the last 6 weeks or so gradually adding my dive log from paper and Suunto Dive Manager to MacDive. General comment: love it! Most importantly I trust it with my data because it appears that it backed up by a well thought our database and all the syncs to my iPhone via Dive Log have gone flawlessly.

Here is my general feedback/requests. I hope this makes sense. Thanks for a great application!

How can I use timezones?
If I import a dive from an alternate TZ will it change the displayed times?

If I manually change the TZ of a time in the database the displayed time changes.
So if I want to update my dive to record the actual TZ it was recorded in I have to change the TZ then modify the time to compensate so that the original times are shown?
If I do this will it adjust all the recorded sample times as well?
And will it see this as a different dive next time I sync with my dive computer and potentially add a duplicate dive at the original TZ?

I guess I can just ignore the TZ functionality but it would be good to record this accurately. Also given that I have recorded GPS locations for all dives, could it not work out the TZ for itself? Also the pulldown for the TZ should have the offset (e.g. GMT +10) and be ordered by TZ offset.

Fixes:
Repetitive Dives:
Auto calculation of repetitive dives for selected dives based on dive time/duration. WHat I mean is for dives that were added manually could there be a menu option to go through the selected dives and calculate and fillin the service interval and mark dives as repetitive if within 24/48 hours?

Paper Log:
I imported most of my paper log by taking a photo of the dive log page and adding this as a photo to the dive. This made the transition much easier. It would useful to have a special picture entry for image of paper log book. Ideally this should have option for PDF as well as JPEG and can be displayed separately to the dive photos.
(I found attaching a photo of my old dive logs an efficient way to transfer the info to MacDive)


It would be great to create a smart dive log based on Longitude and Latitude (e.g. would allow you to show "all dives in Tropics")

Can we edit the "Date options" and add our own criteria?
e.g. Last year
Yes we can create a Dive Log for this but the date shortcuts would be more useful. I find the ones included too limiting to be useful.

Calendar view for dives:
shown on week/month basis?
heat map over a year or multiple years?

Reverse Geocoding:
Place a dive site on the map and have MacDive add the country and approximate place name filled out
I don't think dive site names are served by google maps. I think this kind of works but it could do with a better explanation if one exists?

Add Hyperlink field to site or allow clickable hyperlinks in the description->notes field
e.g for dive lodge/operators, etc

Use Arrow buttons for "Asc" and Desc" for the sort order of Dive Sites and Gear
Put those on the toolbar at the top
Add + to add site/gear on toolbar

Background colours for Dive site and Gear tiles

Hierarchical folders for Smart Dive Logs

Add field for Dive Operator URL

Ability to add a colour to a dive entry (like finder)

Ability to extract dive site from GPS info attached to a Photo (can be determined from auto import)

Sort Gear by type: with collapsable category headings: (Masks, Tanks, Regulators, etc..)

Also the gear view within the dive editor could have these gear category headings. That way it would be more apparent if you have not included and wetsuit or weight belt for example on a dive entry.

[nick]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to post all of this.

How can I use timezones?

Please update to 2.2.0 and then disregard timezones. Including them caused more confusion than it was worth. I have removed them from the interface.

Auto calculation of repetitive dives

Sure I can look at that.

Paper Log:

You can drag it as an image to the Photos section of a dive, which supports PDF and whatever other formats OS X supports natively. I'm not sure a separate place for this is really useful to that many people, when you can already include it under photos.

It would be great to create a smart dive log based on Longitude and Latitude (e.g. would allow you to show "all dives in Tropics")

Easy to add..

Reverse Geocoding

This won't work with google maps. I need a proper source of dive sites that can look at sites within an approximate area. I have spoken to a couple of people but nothing has worked out yet for various reasons. It's on the list.


I left a bunch of other stuff out - all good suggestions, I'll have a look and see what makes sense to include.

Cheers!

[sblock]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to post all of this.

No drama.

How can I use timezones?

Please update to 2.2.0 and then disregard timezones. Including them caused more confusion than it was worth. I have removed them from the interface.

I compiled most of this with the old version and hadn't noticed you had removed TZ's. Good move I think.

Paper Log:

You can drag it as an image to the Photos section of a dive, which supports PDF and whatever other formats OS X supports natively. I'm not sure a separate place for this is really useful to that many people, when you can already include it under photos.

The main issue I have with it under photos is that I would usually like it to be the first image that comes up. Of course you could probably do this by changing the date of the photo, but thats a bit messy. I didn't realise it already supported PDF. I might experiment with this. It was quicker for me to photograph the logbook than feed it through a scanner. I still think it would be useful to perhaps have a single PDF page presented separately to the photo gallery. Also a grid view of the photos would be useful too.

[nick]

If you want it to be the first image, why don't you drag it to the start? If you do this, MacDive retains the order.

[nick]

I added criteria for GPS Lat and GPS Lon so you can create filters based on those.

Auto calculation of repetitive dives for selected dives based on dive time/duration.

I've also added this. If you select a group of dives then right click, you can (re)calculate the surface interval and repetitive dive number.

Both will be in the next update.

[sblock]

If you want it to be the first image, why don't you drag it to the start? If you do this, MacDive retains the order.

Ok I didn't realise you could do that.
I might convert the dive logs to PDF and add/move them as the first image.

Now if you could just add the automated OCR that will read my dive log and fill in the notes field with the interpreted text!

[nick]

I put a new beta up here:

http://www.mac-dive.com/downloads/MacDive_Beta.zip

It contains the lat/lon criteria and the right click to recalculate. Give it a shot and let me know how you go.

[sblock]

All seems to work on a quick test on my work machine. Not keen to try it with my real log at home even with a backup/restore.

I have a Tropics, North Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere logbook. Works ok but it would be good to have more room in the numerical field to type the lat/long values?

Question: if a dive location is still assigned as unknown/unknown/unknown then the flag placement under the map tab of the dive inspector is essentially invalid? I'm assuming these dives don;t really have a location and whatever flag it shows is invalid? Perhaps it should not show one?

I cleared some repetitive dive values and it recalculated them with identical results. I'm assuming MD does this from import or does it come from the computer? Might be a good idea to have a confirmation dialog incase you selected the wrong menu item. Should this be in the Edit menu as well as the context menu?

[honigferd]

Ability to extract dive site from GPS info attached to a Photo (can be determined from auto import)

I really like that idea.

Also, adding a separate picture option for a paper log page: I would certainly love this.

[nick]

Ability to extract dive site from GPS info attached to a Photo (can be determined from auto import)

Maybe this could be done if the site attached to the dive had no existing GPS info already?

Do you have a couple of example images you could send me?


Also, I added a menu item to the Edit menu for calculating the repetitive dive/surface interval. I also made the text entry boxes larger in the smart log window (I was already meaning to do that). I'll probably cut a new release with the changes so far shortly as there are a couple of bugs that need to be addressed anyway.