MacDive Forums

Currently the Dive Number is based on the repetitive dive number would be great if this could be changed to an overall dive count.

I still don't quite understand everyones fascination with dive number (no offence to anybody) - it just doesn't strike me as a useful piece of information.

What would you generally use it for ?

The dive number by itself is not the most useful piece of information. It is completely redundant with the date/time info and many applications even have some renumber feature that recreates the dive number using the date/time info. But I think the dive number works well as a short representation to easily identify a particular dive. It's much easier to refer to just dive 123, than having to describe it as the dive on 01/02/03 04:05, at divesite abc and buddy xyz.

I only use it as a personal tracking piece of info. It makes it easy to average how many dives I am doing a year. It is a way to track milestones of my diving. I am lucky that mine happened to be memorable. Dive 50 - The Wexford in Canada. Dive 100 - Spiegel Grove. Dive 200 - The Aquila in Roatan. Dive 300 - U-352 (And just for fun I am going to try and make dive 352 on U-352! I know it is silly, but it is kinda funny.)

Right now I am just adding it as the first thing in the notes, but a specific space I can enter it would be great. The field has to be able to be manually adjusted though incase you dive somewhere without your computer, or if you use different computers for different diving. (Cobra and D9 for dive trips, Vytech and D9 for deco, Cobra in Gauge mode only when working OW classes so the computer does not log 2 or 3 dives on the same one when working with students, No Computer console only when working rescue classes, etc.)

Unless you are taking Rescue, DM or AI your accumulated dives are not really relevant to anything important.

For me accumulated time is a more important measure, but dive numbers add simplicity.

There are better ways to track cumulative time, though. MD2 has a bunch of new ways to view and sort your data - so filtering by a specific year (or month, or day) is all possible (and very easy). This gives you a view of those dives, like any other view in the application, along with total numbers and bottom time.

For a more general view of how many dives you're doing a year, and without caring what they actually are or looking at the profiles, surely it's better to think about some more useful graphs/statistics - such as a bar graph of dives per year, that kind of thing ? Maybe a graph, with the total number of dives plus the total bottom time for those dives combined. To be clear there is nothing like this currently, it's just a suggestion.

For what it's worth, you can also make filters like "the year is 2010 and the computer is a cobra and the gas model is not gauge and the site is not like 'pool' and max depth > 20 and ... " and view that. Again, along with a counter of the total number of dives and the total bottom time, and you can view the individual profiles - they're all dynamic so new dives that match are included automatically.

I'll tell you what - perhaps, when I finally get this version released, you can try it out and see if any of the various new things to md2 help you do what you want to do. And if not, then we'll consider fixing that in 2.1.

At this point there is so many new things, it's so different (and so much better, I like to think) that I am starting to confuse myself a little, simply because 1.5.3 is what you are all using, and I've been using 2.0.0 which lets you work in much more useful ways.

Oops. I didn't mean to write that much, but, well..

Sounds great. I'm looking FWD to the upgrade.

First of all, it is important to keep track of when you will be forced to dive naked.

Second, a lot of clubs around here ask you to sign in including number of dives.

Sure, the total number is available in the statistics section, but it happens from time to time that I would also like to know which number a particular dive has. It is also a good way to keep printed log pages in order.

ArcticMoose wrote: First of all, it is important to keep track of when you will be forced to dive naked.

Hope the water is warm

Second, a lot of clubs around here ask you to sign in including number of dives. Sure, the total number is available in the statistics section

Sure, they do that most places (or at least should). And the dive number has nothing to do with this, you only need a total, which is available.

but it happens from time to time that I would also like to know which number a particular dive has.

That's my point: why?

It is also a good way to keep printed log pages in order.

Well the date and time will keep them in order just as easily.

nick wrote:

ArcticMoose wrote: but it happens from time to time that I would also like to know which number a particular dive has.

That's my point: why?

The best explanation I can give is that it is the easiest way for me to find a particular dive. I can't remember dates or other details and I don't take notes. Without resorting to looking at photos, a dive number in combination with a site name allows me to pinpoint a dive the most quickly or accurately. Doesn't make much sense perhaps, but that is how it works for me.

Does 2.0 allow page number in the footer? That would work for me.

ArcticMoose wrote: Does 2.0 allow page number in the footer? That would work for me.

It doesn't, no. This would be tricky because you can select arbitrary groups of dives and print them, so it would never know what you'd previously printed and what to then number the pages.