walkman
Well Known Member
I've written some extensions to Mike's great Downloadplates.pl (thanks Mike). These are running on the Mac. If anyone wants a copy I can make them available. Totally unsupported and I'm not accepting feature requests. These are set up for my use, which is a mac mini that is on 24x7 saving to an AFP share on a NAS.
1) A plist and a Bourne shell script that runs Downloadplates nightly, checks the current release, and updates your charts as necessary. Can be run without being logged in, and destination is configurable for use with a NAS etc.
2) A plist and a Bourne shell script that will sync a plugged in USB drive with the on-system EFIS data. This does several things:
a) It runs early in the morning (after the above script) and if a volume named EFIS is mounted it updates the charts, data, etc
b) It also runs automatically anytime a volume named EFIS is mounted, such as when you insert a USB key named EFIS.
The idea here is that I leave a key plugged in to the mini, and whenever I go flying I just grab the key and have the latest charts handy. I keep another in the plane and just rotate them.
In addition to updating charts this script also ensures that the EFIS volume contains the latest HXr software, nav db, servo software etc. It doesn't automatically get these updates from GRT, you need to download them and put them in a fixed location.
It copies any new settings.dat files FROM the USB key if newer there, and updates any subsequent USB keys as necessary.
It moves all SNAP*PNG screen shots to a date stamped file and location
It moves all DEMO*LOG files to a fixed location.
There are a few dependencies. if you are a mac user, and you've never heard of "macports", used the sudo tool, don't know what a command line is, or can't use a text editor this stuff is not for you. If you are running some other *NIX flavor you're probably savvy enough to make the minor mods required for your distro. using cron instead of launchd would work no problem, but you'd have to whip up something else to do the auto-sync on insertion.
Otherwise, if you want it, send me a pm and I'll try and get a bundle out over the holidays.
Also, I'm about to embark on doing essentially the same thing for SD cards containing iFly charts. If anyone has any insight about how they do their auto updates clue me in before I run it though a proxy or wireshark or something.
1) A plist and a Bourne shell script that runs Downloadplates nightly, checks the current release, and updates your charts as necessary. Can be run without being logged in, and destination is configurable for use with a NAS etc.
2) A plist and a Bourne shell script that will sync a plugged in USB drive with the on-system EFIS data. This does several things:
a) It runs early in the morning (after the above script) and if a volume named EFIS is mounted it updates the charts, data, etc
b) It also runs automatically anytime a volume named EFIS is mounted, such as when you insert a USB key named EFIS.
The idea here is that I leave a key plugged in to the mini, and whenever I go flying I just grab the key and have the latest charts handy. I keep another in the plane and just rotate them.
In addition to updating charts this script also ensures that the EFIS volume contains the latest HXr software, nav db, servo software etc. It doesn't automatically get these updates from GRT, you need to download them and put them in a fixed location.
It copies any new settings.dat files FROM the USB key if newer there, and updates any subsequent USB keys as necessary.
It moves all SNAP*PNG screen shots to a date stamped file and location
It moves all DEMO*LOG files to a fixed location.
There are a few dependencies. if you are a mac user, and you've never heard of "macports", used the sudo tool, don't know what a command line is, or can't use a text editor this stuff is not for you. If you are running some other *NIX flavor you're probably savvy enough to make the minor mods required for your distro. using cron instead of launchd would work no problem, but you'd have to whip up something else to do the auto-sync on insertion.
Otherwise, if you want it, send me a pm and I'll try and get a bundle out over the holidays.
Also, I'm about to embark on doing essentially the same thing for SD cards containing iFly charts. If anyone has any insight about how they do their auto updates clue me in before I run it though a proxy or wireshark or something.
