Chart Selection Bar. The actual latitude and
longitude of the cursor’s position is displayed
at the bottom of the chart. This is
especially useful when attempting to locate
a specific position for a mark.
CHARTING PREFERENCES
You have the option to change the settings
of your charts. To adjust these settings, from
the menu bar click on the “wrench” Options,
then select Display. One feature that is helpful
is Enable Chart Quilting. Chart quilting
is a way to display parts of several charts
together on the screen, redrawn to the same
scale. Once quilting is on the Options/Display
menu, F9 becomes a toggle switch to
temporarily get into single mode display.
Zooming in, automatically brings up larger
scale charts, if available. Panning reveals
a continuous quilt of the available charts.
For this course, it is recommended that you
enable chart quilting.
The “Quilt Reference Chart” is the
left-most, largest scale chart, highlighted in
the chart selection bar.
Click the next chart blue button
“one-to-the-right” of the current reference
chart. The reference scale of the quilt will
be decreased, but the viewpoint will not
change. The same logic applies if clicking
a chart-to-the left of the present reference
chart, except that the scale of the quilt will
increase. Zooming in/out will also move
the reference chart to the left/right.
TOOLBAR BUTTONS
The Toolbar is floating and can be placed anywhere
on the screen, vertical or horizontal.
Note the “grabber” symbol at the far right of
the Toolbar. (It is hard to see; move the cursor
along the Toolbar and look for vertical white
dots at the extreme right end in the whitish
gray area.) Use this handle to drag the Toolbar
wherever you want it. The default position is
horizontal and docked top and left. It “snaps”
to the edges. Right click on the grabber and the
Toolbar shifts to vertical format. On Windows,
unless in OpenGL (Graphics Library) display
mode, the Toolbar dims down transparently
until you roll over it.
Switch to Larger or Smaller Scale Chart. To
switch scales, use the second set of buttons
from the left in the top row, or use the F7
and F8 keys. You can also click on the blue
buttons at the bottom of the page.
There are many buttons available in
the standard Toolbar (and more counting
the many plug-ins). To control exactly
which buttons to display, hold the cursor
over any button and right-click. A small
box will appear containing the note “Visible
buttons.” When you move your cursor
over the box to the right, a dialog box
appears.
Only the buttons with a ticked box in
the dialog will be displayed. The available
shortcuts are also shown in parentheses to
the right of the button description. When
a toggle button is pressed, it changes and
becomes darker. Traditional style also adds
a stronger outer frame. A brief explanation
of the use of each button is available by just
hovering with the cursor over the button.
See the User Manual for more detailed
explanation of the function of each button.
A separate GPS Status and Chart Orientation
Status is normally in the upper
right corner of the display, unless the floating
Toolbar covers this position. Then the
“Status-Bar” will be moved to the lower left
corner, where it will stay, unless the main
Toolbar is moved to cover this position, in
which case the “Status-Bar” goes back to
the default position.
BASIC FEATURES
OpenCPN provides certain optional settings.
In the Options/Display tab look
under both General and Units.
• Courses are shown as True, but bearings
may be shown in magnetic.
• Distances can be shown in nautical or
statute miles or meters and kilometers.
• Speeds can be shown in knots, mph,
km/hr., or m/s.
RIGHT CLICK MENU
The right click menu is always available
as long as the cursor is somewhere in the
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