MoBo - Electronic Maneuvering Board
System Requirements:
Installation of the .Net Framework 2.0 is required to run this application.
The .Net Framework comes pre-installed with Vista and is a free download available from Microsoft. Other than that, if you can run Silent Hunter 3, you're system is plenty adequate!
Installation:
Unzip the MoBo.zip file to it's own directory and you can run the MoBo.exe directly from there.
Quick Commands:
Add Contact: Double-Click anywhere in the map area
Delete Contact: Select Contact and press the Delete Key
Select Contact: Single-Click on it
Move Contact: Use the mouse to click and drag it around
Nudge Contact: Arrow Keys
Adj Speed/Hdg Vector: Double-Click on contact, move mouse to size, single-click to set
Acquire Map: Use the Print Screen button
Menu Commands: All menu items in bold blue are contact-related tools that apply to the currently selected contact. If nothing is selected, nothing will happen.
Your Ship:
All commands above also apply for manipulating your own ship (or sub). You cannot delete your own ship. Your ship always appears in the center of the map at startup. On a real mo-board your ship would always be fixed in the center, and you would plot relative positions around the centerpoint. MoBo is more flexible and easier to use in that it allows you to move your ship around, change relative positions of contacts, and easily add multiple contacts. You'll notice it does all this while dynamically updating the vector-based display.
Map Background Updating:
If you press the Print Screen button a bitmap image is stored in the Windows clipboard. MoBo automatically reads that to use as the background. You can refresh it or remove it using the Map menu item. Multi-monitor users should remember, that a PrintScreen image spans all monitors. If you just want the in-game map remember to use Alt-PrintScreen to capture the game window and not the entire desktop! Single-monitor users; it doesn't matter.
Beta Release 4/25/07 Features:
* Retained Mode Graphics System
* 2D Vector Math-Op Engine
* Easily Add/Edit/Delete and Track Multiple Contacts
* User Adjustable Options Including Default Color Selection
* Auto-loads Map Background from Windows Clipboard
* Contact Data Display Includes:
- Name
- Contact Graphic
- Speed/Heading Vector Graphic
- Speed Display
- Heading Display
- Bearing Line Graphic
- Relative Bearing
- True Bearing
- Angle on Bow Display
* Contact Toolset Includes:
- Rename
- Speed Lock
- Heading Lock
- Course Intercept Plotter
- Connect Contacts
- Disconnect Contacts
- Convert Connected Contact to Relative Position Marker
Next Release (probably some time in May, Beta or 1.0?) Planned Features:
* Contact Data Display:
- Observation Time for Each Contact
- Elapsed Time Between Connected Contacts
* Contact Toolset:
- Map: Pixel Distance to Map Scale Unit Conversion
- TMA: Speed/Heading/Distance Calculator for Connected Contacts
* Whatever other good ideas the beta testers come up with
Also planned for some unknown time in the future:
* Instruction manual including a few relative position mo-board examples
* Menu-Based Help Features
* Appropriate MoBo exe icon and associated graphics
* Some analog display gadgets...
* If you'd like to assist in the development, please let me know...
Things I'm thinking about:
* Map Storage & Recall: automatically store the last n map images
Don't Be Stupid:
* This was developed to use strictly for computer games
* Do not attempt to use MoBo for any sort of real-life navigation...
Last edited by XLjedi; 04-25-07 at 07:22 PM.
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