Feedback, features requests, suggestions

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Sat, 2014-03-22 at 15:21 +0000, Marcin Małecki wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I am a new diver and also new to Subsurface. Have been using the 
> application for about 2 months.
> 
> There are several comments and suggestion I would like to make:
> 
> 1) It would be useful if User ID from the GPS android web service could 
> be kept in the xml file. This is because if you use various computers or 
> reinstall operating system to have to look for an email which contained 
> the ID. If it is stored in the xml file you do in once and for all.

That's a good idea. Should be easy enough to implement.
There is a very mild privacy concern when you share the file and don't
pay attention (anyone you send the file could get access to future
locations you are at), but I think that's marginal.

> 2) Yearly statistics. First of all yearly is an arbitrary division which 
> serves only limited purpose.

Let's consider that your opinion. Lots of people think of their lives in
context of years. So "did I dive more this year than last year" is a
reasonable question.

>  Simply having statistics would probably be 
> better - 

We have those in the main tab

> those could but would not have to be divided into years. 

Correct - simply over all selected dives

> Generally sorting by depth or air consumption would be nice to have. 

We have that as well, click on the header in the dive list

> Although since you can see this in all dives list it would be a 
> duplication.

Exactly. It's in the dive list. Now select a subset of dives in the dive
list and you'll get your statistics by criteria. If you want more than
that, you'd need to describe the user experience in a little more
detail.

> 3) Tags - currently they look like work in progress. I am sure it was 
> suggested before that having tags could enable one to say list all dives 
> with a tag "boat" or "pike". This could potentially be added to Dive 
> list view where you could add column called "custom tag" with custom 
> being drop-down box of all used tags.

We actually had this in the past for a much more simplistic
implementation of tags. It's certainly something that we need to add
again.

And as for your remark of this being 'work in progress' - I consider all
of Subsurface as work in progress. There are a thousand things we could
add. If and when we find developers interested in that particular
feature and sufficiently skilled to implement it. In the meantime - feel
free to send patches :-)

> 4) Visibility - in here you have take approach which enables one to 
> select number of stars. Alternatively you could enable one to assign a 
> value say 5m. While starts remain subjective numerical values are not. 
> Say good visibility at Wraysbury lake in the UK would be 5m with 
> excellent being 7m average of 3m and bad being 1m. So if there is a day 
> that I get 5m I should mark it as good (4 stars) but the same visibility 
> at tropical sea would be terrible (1 start). This to me makes the whole 
> idea of starts fairly useless. This probably is a design decision and I 
> am probably only bringing back topic already discussed - if this is the 
> case apologies.

This has been discussed indeed. People are HORRIBLE at estimating
visibility distance and as you say yourself - the distance is
meaningless. If I look at my dives from Lord Howe island and see "12m
viz" - was that good or bad for the site? I'd much rather have relative
star measurements that tell me "good" or "bad".

So yes, I can see both arguments, but unsurprisingly I think we settled
for the correct way to reflect viz and rating.

> 5) Colouring of profile. I use Suunto Helo2 but I also noticed the same 
> situation with Suunto D9 used in the video on the website. I mean the 
> fact that Suunto stops depth recording at 1.2m this means that the final 
> part of all dive profiles is red. Even if your ascent was smooth it 
> shows red ending to the graph. I think it would be good idea to use the 
> same colour of the line immediately proceeding section of the line when 
> no data is available for the final 2m or so.

That's an interesting idea. We could do this for only the "automatic"
last segment that goes from the last real sample up to the surface...
That would make a good enhancement request at trac.hohndel.org

> 6) Average depth. I do not see any point in this line on my dive 
> profile. It would be good if I could switch it off as it does not 
> provide any meaningful information.

You meant to say it doesn't provide any information that you are
interested in? Whether you care about it or not, it sure is meaningful.
Feel free to file an enhancement request at trac.hohndel.org
 
> 7) Location of the dive obtained from the web service can not be changed 
> from the application. In other words if I misspell name of the dive site 
> on my phone and upload it then download it to the application it remains 
> fixed. I tried to changed it in the application but after save it 
> reverts to the original name. I need to go directly to the xml file to 
> change it.

That sounds like a bug. But then, I haven't used THAT mode of the web
service in ages, I usually just run the background service and forget
about my phone on the boat.
Would you please file a bug report at trac.hohndel.org ?

> 8) In the equipment tab you only have cylinder, weight and indirectly 
> exposure suit. It would be a good idea to have more extended equipment 
> choices. Where you could list all your equipment and match particular 
> piece of equipment with particular dives. I was considering this in 
> terms of servicing requirements for example you normally service your 
> regulator every 50-100 dives depending on make and model. If I could 
> easily check which dives have I done with particular regulator then I 
> could forget about it - simply check once a month to see if I reached 
> servicing threshold. Situation is fairly similar with trip planing. If I 
> go on a trip I might want to select what gear do I take in advance so 
> having an "equipment module" in the application I could pick a list of 
> equipment and print it out then tick it off when I pack on outwards and 
> return journeys to make sure I take and bring back all my stuff. To take 
> this idea even further you could add weight of all pieces of equipment. 
> Then you could pick optimal equipment to take full advantage of baggage 
> allowance on a flight or fine tune your buoyancy.

This has been suggested many times. I have no interest in creating asset
management software. That's about as exciting as an ERP system. I'll let
others work on that.

/D