LK8000 version 2.0  (January, 15th 2011)

Changes from version 1.22b (August 20th, 2010)


NEW FEATURES

. New startup screen management, for all resolutions. User can also customize startup bitmaps.

. SIM mode and FLY mode are now unified in the same executable, with a new startup screen for selection.

. Language support. Preconfigured with 14 languages.

. New PORTRAIT mode for LK8000 supporting new navboxes in ALL portrait resolutions, including 272x480.

. New MULTITARGET OVERLAYS

. New PROFILES menu  allowing renaming and creation of new profiles. Menu Config 3/3 Profiles. Very good!

. NEW thermal Orbiter, for better thermal centering. See manual.
Configurable in Glider menu 5 inside system config
Enable/Disable also with Info 2/2 Embedded Flight Simulator

. New FLIGHT SIMULATOR,  SIM mode menu, new simulator for thermals and navigation .

. New Last Thermal virtual waypoint, appearing as THERMAL in 2.3 TPS pages, and also available as multitarget

. New modality: CAR mode and GA Aircraft.
Car mode will not enter thermalling, and after "takeoff"  landing will be delayed to 15 minutes with no movements.
GA General Aviation is still preliminar, with only a new HSI band.

. New SHADING option for terrain colors in config menu and also in screen view! It is now possible
to activate and deactivate shading in real time.

. NEW parity configuration in port setup, 7 or 8 bit, near Baudrate. This is solving communication problems for some devices.
Normally we use 8 bit, which is needed for binary communications with devices that accept a task declaration.
Some PNA require 7 bit communications, though, otherwise the infamous "NO DATA RX" from GPS is pending.

. NEW NMEA Checksum flag Enable/Disable in port setup. Normally it should be left Enabled.

. The welcome page of LK, where you need to click on center screen, will automatically timeout after 2 seconds,
starting from when a valid GPS signal is detected (for simulator, 2 seconds in total since the gps is simulated).

. CLUB Version mode: if a file called "CLUB" is found inside LK8000 directory, then no profiles can be overwritten and no
waypoints can be edited or deleted.

. Waypoint details page is now replaced by a quick selection page for Goto, Set alternates, get full details.
Big buttons, usable in flight.

. Missing terrain warnings
When terrain is not available, the map scale line will be RED colored with a TERRAIN? shown.
This is to indicate that ground altitude is not available, and thus all obstacales cannot be
calculated. In mountainous areas this of course can be critical.
After about 2 minutes, this warning will auto-disable: no more RED indication and only a T?
is shown to remind the problem. Pilot may not have configured terrain at all, or he might be
flying in an area not covered by current terrain map, thus no reason to continue showing RED alert.
However, if terrain is back available and then back no more available - for example because entering
again the covered area and the back out of it - then LK8000 will raise the 2 minutes warning again.
When no terrain is available, the HAGL value is also showing --- .

. Airfields will be decluttered too on the map, finally. No more screen cluttered of airfield boxes and big names.
This was a problem in some areas, like Germany, where a lot of airports are close to each other.


. More checks and warnings on startup when lk8000 directories and files are not found

. Map Overlays can be configured with Big or Small fonts

. Map waypoint labels can can be limited to 8, 10 or 12 characters long also, in config 3 "Labels"

. Map Overlay Clock configurable on/off . If off, Distance to destination is printed in place. Default is OFF.

. Waypoint engine accelerated  220% .

. NORTH SMART is now working also for portrait mode, shifting aircarft position left and right.

. NEW While flying, QNH selection is with no decimals. Numbers are repeated 100 times to make it easier to set them.
Even in turbulence it is now easy to change QNH.

. NEW  AutoQNH will not only use homewaypoint but any known waypoint closer than 2km away from current position, as a reference altitude to use when calculating qnh. No need to have a valid home waypoint for the automagic QNH.

. NEW Screen View menu has a new OVERLAY toggle

. NEW support for Ilec SN10 . This instrument is sending Wind estimation with a confidence value.
LK is using both, and the pilot should disable auto wind calculation while circling or zigzaggin,
and not use truewind. Otherwise he will be spending much time looking at two instruments giving
out numbers. The suggestions by Ilec about asking the pilot what to use are irrealistic, because
Ilec is sending out the wind once a second!
Supported: wind setting, all NMEA sentences coming from a GPS through Ilec, baro altitude, vario and QNH setup.
NOT supported: polar changes.

. Higher resolution for all PC versions,  and for some PDA/PNA versions

. Optimized loading of CUP waypoints, saving a lot of memory. Comments can now be almost twice larger than before. Previously
a comment could only be max 150 chars, now it can be 250.  It is now possible to load many thousands waypoints with no problems.
The previous border limit to 4000 is no more necessary (tested with over 14000 wps on a MIO400).

. Since the waypoint internal structure has changed, also the task file format has changed. The old format from version 1.20 is no
more valid. Version 2.0 has a new task format, and cannot load old tasks.

. Added experimental drawing of a circle around the thermal center during thermalling. This circle has a diameter
of 200m (650ft), which is optimal for a tight turn of 18 degrees per second (20 seconds for a full turn).
For paragliders, the diameter is 100m.

. On task finish, the following values are printed on screen (like for task start):
Altitude, Speed, Time, Task speed achieved

. New menu button Nav by (HBAR or HGPS)

Multitargets

. New multitarget destination for Team code
. New multitarget destination for Home
. New multitarget destination for FLARM target, available when FLARM is connected
. New multi target overlays: task, alternate1, alternate2, bestalternate

Custom Keys

. New custom key "Team Code"
. New custom key "Multitarget menu" as an alternative to multitarget rotating
. New customkeys : screen corner top left and top right
. New customkey "Panorama trigger": zoom out 20 seconds trigger on/off
. New customkey "Multitarget rotate" to change target on overlays
. New customkey Toggle Baro altitude ON/OFF
. New customkey Basic Setup


Moving map and Overlays

. When terrain is not available a red painted TERRAIN! appears on the map, to remind pilot that
obstacles are not computed!
. New terrain colors: "LKoogle" for lowlands and mountains, Alps low and Alps high with high contrast
. New overlay colors, in addition to old ones: greys, amber, etc.
. New option for map orientation in menu 3 "NorthUp above". Will set North up when map scale is over a chosen value.
. Sun shade is now painted according to sun position during the day. This is only approximated, no real calculations
on sun azimuth. Sun is now rotating from East to West (south or north depending on emisphere) instead of being
in a fixed position.  Rotation is made from -60degrees to 0 (N or S) between 7am and 12am, to the east.
At 12am sun is presumed to be 0 degrees N or S.
Then it is rotating from 0 to 60 during 12am-18  , to the west.
Time is local time. Daylight saving is not calculated, everything is only approximated.
At all effects, you will see the shades from sun shining from east in the morning, and west in late afternoon.
For simulations, between h21 and 7am in SIM mode time will be shifted 12h, so for example at 11pm localtime
we shall assume it is 11am. Because there is no sun in the night, of course.
ATTENTION: sun shade is painted only when wind speed is set lower than 6kmh (3.2knots).
In other words, we are assuming that sun will prevail over a wind of 5kmh on a mountain.
Otherwise, sun won't be used for shading, and only wind will be used. We cannot mix them.


Infoboxes

. New infobox "eqMC" for Equivalent MacCready
. New AutoMC mode "MacCready Equivalent" for automatic setting during flight

System
. New autoinstall system 1.2, improved expecially for PNA devices

New polars

Mini Nimbus
Jantar Std 48-2
Pegase 101A
SZD-30 Pirat
SZD-48-3 Jantar std 3  
SZD-51-1 Junior
SZD-9bis 1E


CHANGES

. Default landscape mode size for PC is 800x480
. Default mode for portrait -first start- is with no glide bar, no vario and half overlays.
. IBOX mode has no more LK8000 overlays and thus no lk8000 look.
In other words, IBOX mode is now "traditional vintage XCSoar".
. RED color changed to AMBER (dark yellow) to accomplish FAR/JAR rules

. When AutoZoom is active, manually zoom in and out will force Autozoom OFF
. In case of problems with BARO altitude on/off, after 10 times the warning message is disabled automatically

Moving map

. Terrain styles improved (mountains, lowlands, and almost all of them).
. Improved terrain rendering and shadowing
. Map with no terrain by default is now painted with light green (LCD green) color.
Previously it was painted blue
. Optimized (faster) map drawing when a lot of small towns (topology items) are drawn.

Menus

. Paraglider have no TRI 1.5
. Basic Settings menu changed, enlarged to make it more usable during flight.
. Wind Settings menu changed, enlarged to make it more usable during flight.
. Wind setting window has a Cancel button now
. Custom keys menu "Top right" is now Read-Only for paragliders.
. MC Overlay configuration in config system 13 Appearance moved to Engineering menu, and forced on.
. Inverse B/W color configuration was misleading. ON and OFF were inverted.
. Enlarged and moved down the button for DUMP/STOP BALLAST in Basic Setup
. Waypoints Out of Range in Config Menu 1 moved to engineering, default "include".
This was needed because we must be sure that changing terrain will not affect the list of already loaded waypoint,
to avoid a preemptive task abort.

. Statute miles Sm changed to Mi
. LD AVR is now decimal up to 99
. Airspace  warning and clipping altitude configuration, changed step size from 100 to 10.
. HP314 SIM link will no more be created on the desktop, since we have no more SIM version

. During thermalling, gliding mode will show TC30S (thermal value of last 30 seconds) in place of current glide ratio,
on overlays position left. Glide ratio was not calculated during thermals, and showing --- .
. Paragliders UTM button will work when the pilot has started the task (valid start) and only one start gate is available.
In this case, no reason to allow a task reset, because there is no other timegate available. So UTM will work.
. Start Gates message set to NOT FLYING on overlay when actually not flying, because the calculations are stopped
and start gates require running calculations to work correctly.
. Airspace Warning window is now a window on the map, and not fullscreen

. Logger time steps moved to Engineering. Default time step for cruise and circling in the logger is set to 1 second
. Logger Replay can now go up to x1000 speed, instead of x10. Over 10x calculations and statistics will be wrong or incomplete.

. Fixed alignement problem of unit in all infopages
. Fixed problem with nearest pages, updating values while moving up and down a selection. When moving a selection
now these values are no more updated (Nearest, Common and History pages)
. Fixed Team Code page, cleaned up a lot, and showing the Team Reference waypoint on top
. Waypoint's details are now showing  Team Ref. button, instead of misleading Teamcode.
. Fixed minor alignement problems with navboxes units in all resolutions , and enlarged some fonts
. MC overlay and wind no more shown if overlays are disabled.
. Wind setting page has no more "SAVE" button: CLOSE is enough to do the save
. ToboBack button is available when vario gauge is enabled, even if terrain is enabled. This is because vario gauge is
using the topo background too..
. CHECK SAFETY ALTITUDE warning message is not issued when paragliding mode is enabled.
. Bigger 320x240 overlays fonts
. Bigger 320x240 bottom bar to improve key touch
. Bigger 480x272 overlays fonts
. Compass icon now outlined better
. Abbreviated ballast LITERS to L
. Changed terrain glide range line's color from black to thinner black and green


BUG FIXES

Critical:

. Critical bug in Common page: leaving common page ON for a long time (1-2 hours) would saturate system resources.
Crash or locks could happen.
. Critical bug when using margins for task start. At task start the computer may lock.
. Bugfix possible problem with airspace warnings leading to possible crashes.

Important but not critical:

. Bugfix bluetooth problem on some device, resulting in rx failure, disconnections, missing data, etc. (HX4700 had this problem also)
. Bugfix PNA not installing correctly Tahoma bold fonts on some devices
. Fixed crashing bug loading DAT or COMPEgps waypoints with no comments or too long comments
. Fixed bug not showing anymore Markers! Since LKMAPS appeared..
. Bugfix Serial line Polling mode was not working correctly. Some devices such as Windows Mobile 6.5 may require this setting.
. Bugfix creating a new waypoint when no waypoint files were configured resulted in sw crash
. Bugfix CAI302 problem with ballast, and missing TrueAirspeed (by Mat)
. Bugfix Volkslogger task declaration
. Bugfix EW MIcrorecorder task declaration
. Bugfix edit/new waypoint using CUP format when longitude or latitude was negative (like W and S), resulting in no more waypoints!
. Bugfix Start Max Height and Start Max Speed not working correctly when using Margins.
. Bugfix history waypoints for negative longitudes and latitudes not saved correctly
. Bugfix some airspace files were not accepted due to very long comment lines
. Bugfix reading winpilot polars, empty lines were not allowed resulting in polar not correctly loaded

Minor problems:

. Fixed limitation to 194kmh for max manouvering speed, now following correctly user's settings.
. Bugfix GPS Altitude Offset not saved when negative
. Fixed bug not showing correctly imperial units for mapscale
. Fixed wind display in LK: would not show wind below 1m/s .. oooops it should have been "below 1kmh or 1knot"..
. Bugfix Start Gates, distance to start could be negative
. Bugfix when changing an LKMAP file in configuration, task was lost.
. Bugfix some topoback colors were appearing white instead of black, or black instead of white.
. Bugfix some MC calculations were accepting impossible values over plane limits.
. Bugfix glide range line must not appear if terrain is not available
. Bugfix HAGL, HGND etc. should display --- if terrain is not available
. Bugfix terrain shading function was assuming flying in southern emisphere, were sun shines from North. In the norhern emisphere, sun of course shines from South!
. Bugfix wing loading in Basic setup sometimes was refusing to set the desired value
. Bugfix AutoZoom: after passing a turnpoint, a very low level zoom was set. Now it is setting the zoom scale used when AutoZoom was last switched on.
. Bugfix Basic Settings changing wing loading was not updating correctly the internal polar calcualtions. Not always.
. Bugfix dumping ballast was not updating internal polar when all ballast was dumped
. Bugfix saving .CUP waypoint after wp edit and change type (airfield, turnpoint..)
. Bugfix paraglider's timegates, required task restart when changing start time from menu dialogue (not from system config) Now task restart is no more needed
. Bugfix logger replay stopping replay crossing 00:00 UTC.
. Bugfix icons for turnpoints were not painted when using in system config menu 3 "Map Display" Labels=None or Names in task.
. Bugfix waypoint details for CUP waypoints, not showing RW len in feet if this unit was selected. (Notice: since runway len is in meters or feet, the Altitude Units selected in system config Menu 9 will be used to decide which one to use, NOT the distance unit. )
. Bugfix wind values and map scale's overlay colors were not inverted correctly on the map

... and many other minor changes/fixes, expecially in menu dialogs.