CanalPlanAC

[Detling]

Has anyone noticed that canal plan has made lots af changes and can now produces classy pdf documents of the suggested route with lots of pictures by selecting itinerary and print or create pdf. But cannot do a straight forward print, of just the itinerary  Selecting print on the editing page just gives the summary at the top and than the title bars ie. Route, Totals, Overnight stops but no data between the title bars.

Unfortunately my wife is now upset, she used to use the planner to calculate the whole journey and then modify that by breaking it up into individual days, where she chose the mooring points based approximately on the original itinerary. She then produced a page showing just that day. Now we get a heading page, a page with a map and summary, and then the itinerary which has lots of pictures inserted, all very pretty, but it means most days plans now take 5 or more sheets to print out and contain lots of unwanted information. Does anyone know of a way to just get just an itinery with cumulative distances and times,  for the one day, with no pictures. We find this useful so we know the time to the next lock before we put the kettle on etc. and give us some idea of how long we have to go, all usually on one side of A4 not several pages worth.  We have tried both firefox and opera browsers and still have not found a way.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Detling
additional info

[Captain Pegg]

I’ve noticed and it’s a backward step. The photos won’t download fully on my iPad and that prevents it creating a pdf of the itinerary. The photos don’t add any useful information. They just get in the way.

 

JP

 

ETA - I have just got it to work with lots of blanks where photos should be. Last time it wouldn’t even do that. I must have had a slower connection speed.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Captain Pegg

[magpie patrick]

I too have noticed the photos, and I think they are a retrograde step. They clutter what was a very simple factual summary of your route which had everything you needed and nothing you didn't.

 

I have often used CanalPlan AC in much the way Detling describes

 

At the very least it would be helpful to have an option that turned them off

[john6767]

How are you creating the pdf of the route?

[Detling]

click itinerary button then on RHS is a create pdf button.

[1st ade]

It doesn't solve the original problem but the later versions of Word allow editing of pdf's - delete the bits you don't want, add any notes you do and then print.

[ditchcrawler]

Why not contact Nick or Steve, they are always trying to improve it, they are working on an easier input system at the moment for start , finish, and via.

[Hudds Lad]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Why not contact Nick or Steve, they are always trying to improve it, they are working on an easier input system at the moment for start , finish, and via.

yup, always found them most helpful when I had a problem with the site, just pop a message on their board.

[Richard10002]

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

Why not contact Nick or Steve, they are always trying to improve it, they are working on an easier input system at the moment for start , finish, and via.

There are some "dont show" options in the pdf production menu, but it doesnt include photos.

 

However, it looks like it's possible to not show photos for the whole site, so it shouldnt be too difficult for them to include "dont show photos" in pdf production.

 

BTW: I like the new map display!!  

[Arthur Marshall]

I still use the old InfoClub CanalPlanner which works offline.  The final version doesn't work any more but the previous one (6) does.  It's on my website if anyone wants it at http://arthurmarshall.co.uk/canalplanner.html

It's apparently a bit tricky to get it going, but it works fine when you get there.

 

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I still use the old InfoClub CanalPlanner which works offline.  The final version doesn't work any more but the previous one (6) does.  It's on my website if anyone wants it at http://arthurmarshall.co.uk/canalplanner.html

It's apparently a bit tricky to get it going, but it works fine when you get there.

 

Good old Syd

[john6767]

2 hours ago, Detling said:

click itinerary button then on RHS is a create pdf button.

Thanks, found it.  Never looked at itinerary before, not sure what it gives you over the normal output, and on a phone at least the layout of the itinerary in not very good and the pdf seems better than the web page.  I appreciate you don’t want the photos if you are printing it, so why not use the normal output for printing, that is what I have done in the past. 

[Arthur Marshall]

30 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Good old Syd

He really was a helpful bloke. The thing fell to bits when his son emigrated because you had to authorise use of the program via his website, so once you'd changed computer it wouldn't work. Really annoyed me as it wasn't cheap and I couldn't understand why he didn't just issue a universal key or amend the program so we could still use it. I got the impression a few people tried to get into the nuts and bolts of it but never managed to crack it.

[Detling]

3 hours ago, john6767 said:

  I appreciate you don’t want the photos if you are printing it, so why not use the normal output for printing, that is what I have done in the past. 

because it only give the section headings and not the data, it's knackered.

[john6767]

13 minutes ago, Detling said:

because it only give the section headings and not the data, it's knackered.

Hold, you do know that on a phone the output was changed so that the sections are by default collapsed, you click on the section heading to expand that section. 

 

That way you only get the sections that you want to see expanded on a small screen.  You can play with it on a desktop by changing the browser window width, when the width is less that 1000 you get the compact version with the actions on the menu at the top right rather than down the left side and the output sections will be collapsed by default.

 

So on a phone when all you want to see is the Route section you can expand just that section, it is much better.  You can control what see and the format of the Route section in your settings.

[Detling]

Yes but when you click print (or print preview) they are collapsed, even if open on the screen at the time.  I have not found a way to uncollapse them when printing, other than by making a pdf which is very nice, but several pages long including pictures which I don't want.

[john6767]

2 minutes ago, Detling said:

Yes but when you click print (or print preview) they are collapsed, even if open on the screen at the time.  I have not found a way to uncollapse them when printing, other than by making a pdf which is very nice, but several pages long including pictures which I don't want.

how strange, when I do a print I get the sections expanded/collapsed as on the page (as you would expect).  What browser are you using?

[Detling]

Tried firefox and opera both show collapsed. 

edit

I was trying to arrange a screen shot showing the problem, so I took the maximise off the window, to show the browser in a normal window. Print preview now shows what I want. 

Grrr Microsoft deciding all applications will open in a maximised window is the cause of the maximised window, I hate that 'feature' of windows 10 but can't be bothered to frig around in the registry to stop it only for microsoft to reset it, when it feels like.  I don't use microsoft media player either prefering VLC but every few weeks the default is back to Microsoft, it's the same with the picture viewer.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Detling
more info

[restlessnomad]

10 minutes ago, Detling said:

Tried firefox and opera

There is an 'export this route' option, click that... select canalplanAC csv option (which is default) and click 3 checkboxes.... then click 'export this route'... then 'click here' to download.

 

you can open it in any spreadsheet like excel and print it.

you can include extra columns if you need... like cumulative distance(miles)

Edited February 27, 2020 by restlessnomad

[WotEver]

14 minutes ago, Detling said:

I don't use microsoft media player either prefering VLC but every few weeks the default is back to Microsoft, it's the same with the picture viewer.

I have the same problem with Irfanview being regularly reset back to Picture Viewer, but not with VLC Media Player. 

[Nick A]

Quick, but official (from CanalPlanAC), summary response to what is already a long thread...

 

Firstly, I always intended the itinerary to be the equivalent of a traditional canal guide but customised for your specific trip.  For that reason, spot maps and photos are something I like.  I'll think about an option to turn them off, but I think we probably already have too many options for most people to make sense of as it is!   I'm surprised people are so bothered by the size - they aren't big (either physically or electronically).

 

On printing the normal route output, to make  the print-out to be the desktop version rather than the mobile (and I'm glad some people at least like the collapsed version on small screens) should involve a very simple change to the stylesheet - if it's as easy as I think it should be doable in the next couple of days.

[StephenA]

Nick has already replied but as someone else mentioned  : there is a simple forum area on Canalplan where we welcome discussions about things like this.

 

https://canalplan.uk/forums/index.php

[magpie patrick]

18 minutes ago, Nick A said:

 

Firstly, I always intended the itinerary to be the equivalent of a traditional canal guide but customised for your specific trip.  For that reason, spot maps and photos are something I like.  

Thank you - my thoughts are that I have a normal canal guide for that - I use canal plan for scheduling, which is it's USP. I've always used canalplan in conjunction with a guide or map. 

[Rob-M]

5 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

Thank you - my thoughts are that I have a normal canal guide for that - I use canal plan for scheduling, which is it's USP. I've always used canalplan in conjunction with a guide or map. 

Same here, I use canal plan to save me counting locks and miles in my Nicholson guides. I get a rough idea of where to stop each night on a trip and then work from that but use the guide book whilst boating.

[Captain Pegg]

7 hours ago, john6767 said:

Thanks, found it.  Never looked at itinerary before, not sure what it gives you over the normal output, and on a phone at least the layout of the itinerary in not very good and the pdf seems better than the web page.  I appreciate you don’t want the photos if you are printing it, so why not use the normal output for printing, that is what I have done in the past. 

The itinerary gives times from point to point, cumulative time by day and overall time of the trip. The normal output doesn’t do that. As others have said it’s for scheduling that CanalPlan is really useful.

 

JP