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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1, width=device-width">
<title>XCWebPlan help</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="igctext.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id='titlediv'>
<h1>XCWebPlan User Instructions</h1>
<p> © 2016 Richard Brisbourne </p>
</div>
<div class="content">
<p>
XCWebPlan is a web based application for planning cross-country glider flights.
</p>
<p>
XCWebPlan runs on a wide range of devices and operating systems; all you need is an internet connection and a browser with
Javascript enabled. It uses world-wide mapping so can be used for flights made anywhere. Because of the global scope, users need to load in their own list of waypoints. Common file formats are accepted, and this file includes information on where they can be found.
</p>
<p>
Although designed to be as intuitive as possible, the program has one or two features you might miss, so please read this
if you haven't used it before.
</p>
<h2>Getting started</h2>
<p>The opening screen shows a world map that doesn't do much. Don't worry, it will get responsive as soon as you need it to be.
</p>
<p>
As soon as you have cleared the airspace warning, you will be presented with a control enabling you to load in a waypoint list from your local PC or device. Files are accepted in either ".cup" (SeeYou) or ".dat" (Winpilot/Cambridge) format. If you don't know where to find files for your region, see the section below. If the file is correctly formatted, once it is loaded, the display will zoom to the relevant part of the world, you will see some waypoint markers, and the map will become fully interactive.
</p>
<h2>Altering the display</h2>
<p>
You can move around and zoom in or out on the map- if you've ever used Google Earth it works the same way. Click and drag
to move; zoom in using the "+-" bottom right, scroll wheel, or on a tablet, "pinching". To reduce clutter you can
control the airspace clip altitude, or lose the airspace display altogether.
</p>
<p>
Once the waypoint file has loaded, you will also see two pairs of radio buttons, which you can use to show or hide waypoint markers, and also to turn on or off labels showing a short form of the waypoint name. On load, by default, markers are visible, but the labels are not. Whatever the label setting, the full name of the waypoint will be displayed when you hover over it with the mouse.
</p>
<p>
The exception to this is that whatever the setting, the labels will not show if there are more than 400 waypoint markers on screen at once. This is a feature. Apart from the excessive clutter, having too many labels to track reduces the responsiveness of the map, and in extreme cases can lock up the browser.
</p>
<h2>Entering the task</h2>
<p>
Simply click on a waypoint marker to add it to the task- a text description will appear on the display to the right of the map. Click on the buttons to the right of the this text to edit the task, "X" to remove the waypoint, the up arrow to move it up the list. While doing this you will see the proposed task line displayed on the map, and you will be shown a calculated task length.
</p>
<h2>Printing (optional)</h2>
<p>
Buttons bottom right open pages for printing out either a briefing sheet (useful for local competitions) or a declaration. In both cases obviously you will have to fill in some of the data yourself, but all the task data appears automatically.
</p>
<p>
One hint- even if you don't want to print anything, the briefing screen shows the "detail" entries in the waypoint file, which we couldn't fit in the main screen.
</p>
<h2>Waypoint files</h2>
<p>
We don't offer waypoint files because ideas of a standard list vary throughout the world. If your club or national body doesn't have them available for download, an excellent source is the <a href="http://soaringweb.org/TP" target="_blank">Worldwide Soaring Turnpoint Exchange</a>. UK users are strongly recommended to use Jeff Goodenough's <a href="http://www.spsys.demon.co.uk/waypoints/_tpselect/tpselect_load.htm">TP Select</a> which comes pre-loaded with the current BGA list, or better still, use the <a href="xcplan.php?version=uk"> UK version </a> of this application. For clearest results select .cup as the file format.
</p>
<p>As mentioned above, files should be in either .dat or .cup format. The latter is preferred as it has an additional field for a short version of the name, which is then used for the labels on the display. Generally, if it's available at all it's available in one of those formats.
</p>
<h2>Airspace</h2>
<p>
The disclaimer is there for a reason. We maintain the files as up to date as we can; our principal source of data is <a href="http://soaringweb.org" target="_blank">soaringweb.org</a>, but we also use some other sources. There are some countries where we have no data at all. The data is put together by different people, with their own criteria of what to include or omit. As pilots we have to deal with a number of variations of airspace, apart from the normal classes A to G we have to worry about parachute zones, military air traffic zones, transponder mandatory zones, radio mandatory zones and prohibited and danger zones which may or may not have designated activity times and maybe or maybe not accessible with radio clearance. Rather that try to cope with all that on a global basis, we've provided you with some lines on the map which hopefully are the same as those on your chart, and credit you with knowing what you are doing. Always check the chart before you fly!
</p>
<h2>About XCWebPlan</h2>
<p>
XCWebPlan is an open source program. This means that the code is free for anyone to copy, modify and distribute, subject
to the terms of the <a href="LICENSE.txt" target="_blank">licence</a>. It makes use of
other open source program code and libraries also data distributed under Creative Commons.
For a full list of sources and contributors see our <a href="igcabout.html"> about</a> page.
</p>
<h2>Feedback</h2>
<p>
We're interested in how well this works for you. Any ideas, suggestions, and (particularly) bug reports should be added to
the <a href="https://github.com/GlidingWeb/jsTaskMap/issues" target='_blank'>GitHub issue tracker</a> or e-mailed to <a href="mailto:igcwebview@glidingweb.org">igcwebview@glidingweb.org</a>. If you are a developer
interested in the program from a technical point of view, and maybe looking at the code and possibly contributing,
there's more information on our <a href="igcabout.html" target="_blank">"about" page</a>.
</p>
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</div>
</body>
</html>