Dynon Skyview Checklists

f14av8r · #1 01-24-2016, 06:20 PM

I like the new checklist functionality contained in Rev 14 of the Dynon Skyview software. But, and this is a big BUT, trying to create and successfully upload one of these checklist files is a major PITA! I'm a BIG Dynon fan and love the system in my airplane but I can't believe that Dynon can't provide a little more descriptive error checking for the checklist files.

If you try and upload a checklist file, and it contains one tiny error anywhere in the file, you get a message that simply says "UPLOAD ERROR," or something close to that (I'm too lazy to look up the actual message). You get ZERO feedback on what the problem is or how to correct the error. So, get ready to spend lots of time scrolling through endless lines of text looking for errors, saving the new file, uploading to your Skyview, getting another error message, and trying it over, and over, and over!

The one useful tip they give you is to comment (using the # symbol) any (or all) potentially problematic lines, then try and upload without an error. I spent about two hours today going back and forth with this process and still don't have a completely functional checklist file.

Dynon needs to provide a better checklist development tool or, at a minimum, allow the system software to provide more information about the problem with an uploaded file. I'm guessing any first year college level computer science major could develop an error detection program like this. Why Dynon didn't provide one is beyond me!

RANT OVER!
Randy

Raymo · #2 01-24-2016, 06:44 PM

It will be ok

I work in the IT industry as a software engineer and often deal with similar issues where a customer tries to send a character through an interface that is not expected and causes an error something like you describe. It is very difficult, and yes frustrating, to determine the cause since the code was not expecting the character and therefore simply logs an error. At least they are catching the error (not crashing) so they can improve on this NEW feature with your help.

To be safe, use only upper case, lower case and standard symbols allowed in file names. A list of these can be found online. It is not so much a limitation of the Dynon software but a limitation of the underlying operating system, I suspect.

EDIT: Also noted below is the requirement for UTF-8 file encoding, which allows a wider set of symbols (and languages) versus ANSI.

daviid · #3 01-24-2016, 07:19 PM

Are you writing your checklist in word or notepad? If youre in word, open it and save it via notepad. Look for weird characters. I also read that you cannot use an ampersand.

Pdtofly · #4 01-24-2016, 08:45 PM

I wrote this up on another post the other day, then Dynon posted it on there forum right after I did.

Read the below message, and it will answer how to write and save. The main reason it didn't work is you have to save it as a UTF-8 file, not ANSI which is the default encoding.

Just got off the phone with Dynon to check up on something else, so I had to asked the big question that is on everyone else's mind about the checklist format, and why it won't install. I too was trying to get a checklist installed on my system, and keep getting the ERROR message. After reading the post on their forum, I thought that I might have figured it out, but when I talked to them, they told me that they just figured it out themselves.

Now, I have corrected mine, but can't check it out until I get home next week.

What I was told was this.

After downloading their TXT template, and filling in your checklist, when you save it in notepad or Word, save it in the Encoding format of UTF-8, not ANSI. There is a pull down menu on the SAVE and SAVE-AS menu that will allow you to change it from ANSI to UTF-8. Save the file as checklist.txt, don't include anything else in the file name. They tell me that will fix the installation ERROR and install.

As I said, I have not tried this, and can't until next week, but if anyone tries this and it works, please post for others.

Brian

OK, received note from GucciDan and he said that he followed my instructions and his checklist loaded as advertised, so happy che

dynonsupport · #5 01-25-2016, 08:38 AM

Randy,
Have you used our Excel tool which allows you to graphically edit a checklist, and does all the error checking and formatting for you?

It was released a few days after the v14 software so you may not have seen it:

http://dynonavionics.com/docs/suppor...re_choice.html

f14av8r · #6 01-25-2016, 06:18 PM

I finally got my, fairly complex checklist file to work. No, I didn't use the Dynon Tool. I couldn't get the tool to save a file.

But, I did manage to get my handcrafted text file to work using the troubleshooting technique that Dynon suggested. I sequentially commented out, using the # symbol, each individual checklist section. That helped me find the errors. It turns out that a missing period, and two periods that should have been commas, were causing problems.

The Dynon provided EXCEL tool seems like an excellent aid but I couldn't make it work either. When I tried to save a file, I got this message.

I applaud Dynon for making the editing tool available. It is exactly the sort of approach that a company like Dynon should take. Nobody should have to go through the text file editing process to get a checklist upload to work. The product is just too great for that kind of Mickey Mouse stuff.

I'm sure the Excel tool will be working great soon or they'll come up with some other user friendly editor.

Keep up the good work Dynon!

dynonsupport · #7 01-25-2016, 07:38 PM

Randy,
I can see from the screenshot that you have a Mac....

The reason we started with a text file is so that any computer running any OS can edit it. We knew if we released a proprietary file format and then made a Windows utility, it would be only seconds before we were told by all the Mac and Linux users that they were left out. We're pretty happy that so far, all SkyView updates and files can be done on any OS.

However, the Mac is why the Excel tool didn't work. As we've now found out, all the script functions available on Windows in Excel are not available on a Mac, and they are needed to cajole Excel into making the file we need. See, we try and do a good deed...

We're looking into how to serve Mac users better.

--Ian @ Dynon

Dan Langhout · #8 01-25-2016, 08:11 PM

. . . . . work on my Chromebook either

Quote:

Originally Posted by dynonsupport

Randy,
I can see from the screenshot that you have a Mac....

The reason we started with a text file is so that any computer running any OS can edit it. We knew if we released a proprietary file format and then made a Windows utility, it would be only seconds before we were told by all the Mac and Linux users that they were left out. We're pretty happy that so far, all SkyView updates and files can be done on any OS.

However, the Mac is why the Excel tool didn't work. As we've now found out, all the script functions available on Windows in Excel are not available on a Mac, and they are needed to cajole Excel into making the file we need. See, we try and do a good deed...

We're looking into how to serve Mac users better.

--Ian @ Dynon

vlittle · #9 01-25-2016, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dynonsupport

Randy,
I can see from the screenshot that you have a Mac....

The reason we started with a text file is so that any computer running any OS can edit it. We knew if we released a proprietary file format and then made a Windows utility, it would be only seconds before we were told by all the Mac and Linux users that they were left out. We're pretty happy that so far, all SkyView updates and files can be done on any OS.

However, the Mac is why the Excel tool didn't work. As we've now found out, all the script functions available on Windows in Excel are not available on a Mac, and they are needed to cajole Excel into making the file we need. See, we try and do a good deed...

We're looking into how to serve Mac users better.

--Ian @ Dynon

Hah! No good deed goes unpunished.
When I wrote my excel sheet, I avoided macros for this reason. However, the nested if statements I used in the formulas got pretty wild. I do believe, however, that it is possible to make a universal tool that runs on all platforms wihout macros or scripts.

Maybe I'll try.

dynonsupport · #10 01-25-2016, 10:05 PM

FYI, the scripts are there to do data validation, but also to allow directly saving to a text file in UTF-8 format. It's the UTF-8 call that isn't supported on Macs. I don't think you can trick Excel into saving into a text file with the formatting you want without a script.