[AugustH]

Mr. Tides 4 is coming along nicely. I've got a lot of the core functions up and running - station selection via the list, the various views on the station, exporting values, saving/reading from file, etc. Still have a lot to go (for instance, the date pickers don't work) and the map interface isn't there but it's slowly coming together.

I'm targeting Leopard (10.5) as the minimum OS version, although it would be nice to target Snow Leopard instead. There's a lot of good stuff in 10.6 that I can use, so this might change between now and release.

August

[Jim Innes]

Thanks for the update.

[AugustH]

Another update! Calendar exporting is now working! One more thing off the checklist. Next up is getting the map interface running, which is a biggie as I've dumped the images and gone with a vector map, but I need to speed drawing up as there's a lot of data to parse. I'm aiming for having a beta out soon, and if I can't get the maps running right away then I'll post an alpha build so people can try it out.

Man this is taking longer than anticipated!

[AugustH]

I've posted the first alpha release of Mr. Tides 4 to http://www.mrtides.com/alpha.html. Almost everything is working, with a few exceptions (maps, the auto-updater, integration with MacENC/GPSNavX) and I'm working my way through them. The database has been updated with the latest NOAA current stations, I'm still updating some of the secondary stations but there's a lot of them to go through and this will take a while.

If you're going to try the alpha out, please email me (link is on the website) so I can tell you of updates and progress as I get close to the final build.

August

[AugustH]

I've posted Alpha 2 of Mr. Tides 4 at http://www.mrtides.com/files/MrTides40alpha2.zip. This build has sqlite built-in as some users were getting errors when loading the sqlite framework. Not sure why, but this is an easy fix. The station saves its state now, problems with preferences have been resolved, and I've updated the database with the latest US current station harmonics.

Problems: the option to use UTC time isn't working quite right, and maps won't show up until the next build.

As always, let me know of any problems you come across! I appreciate all the help. If this is the first time for you to download the alpha, please visit http://www.mrtides.com/alpha.html and follow the link to send me an email and let me know you're using the alpha.

August

[AugustH]

Hi! I've posted beta 1 of Mr. Tides 4 to the website, at http://www.mrtides.com/files/MrTides40beta1.zip. Weighing in at a substantial 51 MB, the app is in beta! I finally got the map working (took way longer than expected!), station clusters show up where they're supposed to, you can click on them to get a list of the stations in them, the tide and current icons are there, zooming works, panning too, etc. The size increase comes from the two vector shoreline files that are now embedded in the app. No internet required to search for stations! The drawback is that the map is pretty dull, just lines and icons.

I've fixed a bug or two (or more) from the last alpha, so please give this one a workout and see if anything is amiss. Bug reports, feature requests, comments, concerns, ideas are all welcome!

August

[AugustH]

Update: I've posted beta 2 at http://www.mrtides.com/files/MrTides40beta2.zip. This fixed problems running on pre-Lion versions of the Mac OS. I'm working on performance issues and getting the maps to work better (zooming is particularly troublesome), and addressing issues with reopening stations on Snow Leopard. I have to admit, Lion took some time to get used to but some of its features are very nice (like auto-opening the last open windows - I don't have to do anything to make this work!).