I just updated ro SD 3.0.6 and wanted to try out the option to show airfield IDs on the map. I selected the appropriate option in the map layer setting but still see only the full names. This is true for large, medium and small airfields in several European countries as well as Florida, US.

Is it me or a glitch in the program?

-- Chris.

Hi,

The option works fine. No chart update is required, just a software update. Do ensure you're using the SkyDemon chart style, as that's the one to which we add all new features such as this.

Oh, so this only works in the SD chart style? Too bad, I always use the FAA Sectional style. If this option is not going to work on any other but the SD chart style then the option shouldn't be available in other styles. At least some kind of warning to the user that he isn't going to see what he expects to see when he selected another chart style.

-- Chris.

The option works in the map window but not in the virtual radar window. Would it be possible to have it here too? This would be great, because the small window is overloaded with the full airport name,from my point of view.

Great idea regarding virtual radar, we will propagate the option there too.

Chris, there are plenty of mapping options which do not apply to all chart styles. The SkyDemon chart style contains a huge number more features than all the other styles, which are primarily designed to mimic the old paper-based charts. Having said that, we don't want to get rid of those styles altogether so we'll do some work for the next version to make them inherit some of the extended functionality we develop for our main style.

For me the Skydemon scheme in the maps is the best option, specially if you need a view on the terrain for example if you fly in the alps.

Is the SkyDemon 2 chart style also an "other" style feature-wise?

Just thought a bit about why that statement got me thinking. In general programming terms it is good style (and makes a lot of sense) to keep appearance and function separate. In this example, appearance is the chart style and function is how I can interact with it. I would, therefore, expect that chart styles be implemented independent of the functions available to interact with them. It would seem to be a violation of good programming style to get these concepts confused.

There probably are some good reasons why you did this. However, nothing in the chart style informs me that what kind of functions it implements. So there is another issue, apart from the programming paradigm: user actions aimed at changing how the map is displayed (i.e., airfield identifiers or no) have unpredictable results (i.e., in some chart styles it performs as intended whereas in others it does nothing). This latter inconsistency could be remedied by alerting the user whenever he chooses an action incompatible with the currently selected chart style. Although not pretty, this would at least give the user a clue.

I am a great stickler for GUI design and consistency. SD does much more right than wrong and is better than all of its competitors that I know of. However, being a stickler, I hope I am permitted to stickle.

Greetings, -- Chris.

P.S.: What other options are incompatible with other chart styles than SD?

The chart styles are classes in their own right and take full charge of drawing airspace, waypoints, geography etc, and formatting the display of labels. We do a LOT of work on our SkyDemon (1 and 2) chart styles (they're actually identical now apart from terrain colours) fine tuning them to display every single element in the very best way possible at every different zoom level. It's a huge piece of work with many subtle changes to ensure we're the best vector chart on the market by a long way.

The other chart styles were developed to ease people away from static charts by presenting a simple vector chart - which does not appreciably change at different zoom levels - whose colours and line styles roughly match the paper chart they are used to. They are primitive by design, and I wish we had never included them, because people who are used to them are getting nowhere near the full power of SkyDemon's charts.