Alex’ Projects ► Little Navmap 2.6.6 released ► Changelog for 2.6 Versions

Version 2.6.0.beta

This page contains changes for the current version only. See CHANGELOG.txt for a complete log.

► Screenshots of new 2.6 Features

Please do not hesitate to let me know about bugs, inconsistencies and ideas for improvement.

Important

The data exchange protocol has changed. You have to update Little Navconnect (if using remote/network connections) and Little Xpconnect (if using X-Plane) too.
Reload the scenery library database to see fixes and improvements.

Limitations

Translations are not updated yet. The user interface might be a mix of your local language and English. Feel free to send me an email or ask in the Avsim forum if you like to contribute a translation of the program or the manual.
The online and offline manuals are not updated yet. Neither the English nor the translated versions. Help buttons and links are functional but point to placeholder pages. Ask in the Avsim forum if you have questions.

Notable Changes from Release 2.4.5 to 2.6.0.beta

MSFS support. Little Navmap detects MSFS installation paths, can read the scenery library, follows user aircraft and can save/load flight plans also with procedures. See MSFS Limitations below for known issues. Star airports in MSFS get a five star rating in Little Navmap.
Oceanic tracks: NAT, PACOTS and AUSOTS. Visible on map and can be used in flight planning as well as for automatic plan calculation. See Flight Plan -> Download Tracks.
Multi-export: Export more than one flight plan format at once with just one click. Formats and paths are configurable. See File -> Multi Export Flight Plan Options.
Improvements to logbook: A log entry now gets track and flight plan attached which can be saved or shown in preview.
Improved flight plan calculation. Can now calculate across regions which are void of airways. Can use oceanic tracks, avoid RNAV airways and more options. Flight Plan -> Calculate Flight Plan.
Little Navmap now uses its own flight plan format which allows removing most of the warning dialogs. Flight plan saving and loading logic has changed completely.
User can add remarks or comments on flight plan and flight plan waypoints. See tab Flight Plan Remarks in Flight Planning dock window. Right click on flight plan waypoint in plan table or map and select Edit Flight Plan Position Remarks.
Program suggests to create a recommended folder structure on first startup. Click Do not show this dialog again and press Cancel if you do not like this.
Better map context menu with sub-menus for easier selection of actions if more than one map object is below clicked position.
Replaced title bar information for mouse hover in elevation profile with tooltip window showing more information.
User can now select font for user interface and map display. Options dialog on pages User Interface and Map. See b612-font for an open source font used in aviation.
Free user interface language selection (if translation available). Change this in the dialog Options on page User Interface
Fullscreen mode maximizes map on one click or key press of Shift+F11. See Window -> Fullscreen Map.
Save and load window layouts for dock windows. This also saves toolbar positions and the main window size. See menu Window. Layouts are saved separately for both normal and fullscreen mode.
Optionally focus and raise dock windows or main window on mouse hover. Change this in Options on page User Interface.
Option to disallow docking windows from snapping back to main window when moving around. Can be toggled in menu Window -> Show all floating Windows.
Many changes in user interface for more usability. Better error reporting for flight plan and other issues.
Added new map display options. Text size and line width for airways, labels for measurement lines, airport diagram features and more. See dialog Options on pages Map Display and Map Display 2.
Now reading and showing X-Plane frigate and carrier as AI.
Many drawing issues fixed like disappearing lines near the date line, problems with procedures and symbols popping out at the map window border.
Tear off toolbar button menus, e.g. for userpoints. Click the dashed line to move the drop down menu to its own window.
SimConnect library is included now. A FSX SP2 SimConnect installation is not required.

MSFS Limitations

No airport weather or any other weather information since the weather functions in SimConnect are deprecated and can even cause crashes. Weather functionality will be added again once supported by MSFS.
MSFS cannot load transitions and inserts these automatically depending on plan.
No TACAN (all shown as DME) and no VORTAC (all shown as VORDME).
Airways in MSFS are lacking maximum altitude restrictions, one-way restrictions and RNAV attribute. This can result in invalid plans calculated by MSFS.
Distinct airways with same name can appear as a single connected airway opposed to real world in LNM due to MSFS format limitations.
Flight plans for MSFS cannot be saved with a parking spot like ramp or gate selected. Select these in the simulator after loading the plan. Use the dropdown list in MSFS to select a parking position. Selecting a parking position as departure will erase the flight plan.

Notes

Some features like RNAV airways and the new UIR/FIR regions are only available with Navigraph databases from cycle 2008.
Little Navmap will reset some settings like range rings, window layout, search options, order of table columns on first start using the new version.
Range ring radii in options dialog are reset back to default values.
The flight plan short and long format options were dropped. Go to Options on page Flight Plan and adjust the file pattern to your needs.
Little Navmap will ask to create a recommended folder structure for your files in documents folder. Skip this step (Do not show again) if you do not like this.
macOS is supported up from macOS Sierra 10.12 inclusive. Older versions cannot be supported anymore.

Changes

Flight Plan

Introduced the new default LNMPLN flight plan format for saving and loading. Completely changed open/save/save-as logic. All other formats are now only exported and not saved. Removed most of the confusing warning dialogs when exporting to other formats. Little Navmap can still open and export the same flight plan formats as the old version. No limitations were introduced in this regard.
Now showing message below flight plan table if procedures, waypoints or airways could not be found. Details for message can be shown by clicking on message.
Added remarks tab to flight planning window which is saved with the new flight plan format. Adding change indication * to flight plan remarks tab only if it has text.
Added region, name and comment fields for user defined flight plan points (green rectangles) which can be saved in LNMPLN format. Right click on user defined flight plan position in the map or flight plan table to edit.
New option to add comments for waypoints and other navaids in flight plan. Limited to departure, destination and en-route points. Not available for alternate and procedure waypoints. Right click on waypoint in flight plan table or map to edit.
Added columns for wind forecast and calculated altitude to flight plan table.
Added button for column settings to flight plan window.
Fixed issues when loading flight plans with ICAO ids that are different to X-Plane ids. For example ICAO CAT4 versus X-Plane AT4.
Removed route type (VOR, Direct, etc).
Automatic changing of departure position when switching simulator does not alter changed status (* in title) now. This helps to avoid flight plan changed warnings dialogs when changing the simulator database.
Now showing correct approach related ILS frequency for runways with more than one ILS. For example EDDF 25R/07L.
Flight plan table header now shows tooltips.
Preventing crashes when setting cruise altitude to zero now.
Fixed crash when adding procedure after user defined flight plan waypoints.
Fixed problem where flight plan legs inside procedures could be moved.
Disappearing airports fixed when editing flight plan with drag and drop (rubberband).

Flight Plan Export, Save and Print

Added flight plan multi-export with configuration dialog in menu File. Removed now redundant menu items for export.
Removed short and long flight plan name option and replaced it by a more flexible pattern based approach. User can now define own default flight plan name. See dialog Options on page Flight Plan.
Improved style and text display for flight plan table in HTML export, web server and printing.
Added cruise altitude and distance to top of climb as well as top of descent to flight plan table print as well as HTML export.
Attempt to fix issues for X-IvAp, IvAp and vPilot export.
Added flight plan export format for Aerosoft CRJ.
Added support for reading Garmin FPL files (XML format).
Added option to export flight plan without airways using only waypoints.

Route Description

Fixed issue where a SID was wrongly identified as a waypoint. Example: SGES COSTA COSTA A311 VAS A556 VIR W11 PAZ A304 JUL V11 ILMOX ILMO3B SPZO. Where COSTA is the name of the SID as well as the name of the exit waypoint.
Clean up and improvements in route description code to be able to parse tracks. Can read route strings without destination and departure airports now for parsing snippets. Can now optionally match user coordinates to waypoints.
Fixed several issues when reading and writing route descriptions with airways at procedure entry/exit.
More bug fixes in reading and writing route descriptions and cleanup in drop-down menu button.

Fuel Report and Aircraft Performance

Changed aircraft performance file saving to new XML format. Old INI format is automatically detected and can still be loaded. LNMPERF can be saved into old format by selecting another file filter in save dialog if needed.
Issue in performance tab fixed which was not updated after connecting to simulator.

Flight Plan Calculation

Flight plan calculation was completely reworked and can now optionally skip regions void of airways by inserting waypoints into plan.
Added floating dock window for flight plan calculation and options. Removed now useless toolbar buttons and menu items.
New options to use oceanic tracks and avoid RNAV airways when calculating flight plans.
Added progress dialog with cancel option for flight plan calculation.
Fixed issues where airway was erased in flight plan at procedure entry or exit. Now adding extra waypoint in export formats at procedure entry or exit if an attached airway is used. Overlapping departure waypoints are now correctly removed when adding a SID.
Flight plan can now be calculated between or at procedure entry and exit points without the need to add dummy waypoints.
Removed option to force algorithm using the closest radio navaids near start and destination before waypoints. Add these manually if needed.

Oceanic Tracks

Added loading and display of NAT, PACOTS and AUSOTS tracks on map, in information display and for tooltips. Added new toolbar button for track display. See menu Flight Plan and View.
Flight plan calculation can now use tracks.
Added download on startup as well as manual download for tracks.

Elevation Profile

Added tooltip replacing the header text for mouse hover in the elevation profile. Added calculated altitude, course and heading (based on wind) to display text in profile tooltip.
More display improvements.

Options

New shortcut Ctrl+Shift+, for options.
Options dialog now adds scrollbars on pages to avoid window growing too large.
Added option to fill and raise procedure search tab when clicking on airport. Page Map -> Update Procedures on airport click.
Added option to enable or disable loading of aircraft performance file on page Startup in dialog Options.
Moved airport display options to tree view on right side of page Map Display 2. Added options to show runways, taxiways, aprons, parking and boundary separately for airports.
Added customization options for airway line thickness, airway text size and airway text background. Page Map Display.
Added options to disable user and AI aircraft click and tooltip on page Map.
Added option to select map font in options dialog on page Map Display. Uses bold system font per default.
Added option to clear flight plan table selection and highlights while flying on page Simulator Aircraft.
New display option to show true airspeed for user and AI aircraft on tree on the right side of page Map Display 2.
Split page Weather into two new pages Weather and Weather Files.
Tooltips can now be disabled for the whole program except for the map where separate options for disabling exist. See options on page Display and Text.
Fixed issues with online connections when using high update rates.

Procedures

Added fix for DME arc legs where last fix before arc does not match distance. Example: LTBS WESTB LCRA
Fixed issue where intercept position of track to fix legs with an initial fix in between was not calculated correctly.
Display issue for course to fix procedure legs after initial fix solved.
Fixed issue with wrong intercept legs after circular (DME Arc or constant turn radius) legs in procedures.
Problems with manually terminated procedure leg types fixed. Example: CYDC PIGLU3 CYLW. Fixed crashes, display issues and wrong distance calculation.
Increased detail level for procedure drawing to avoid circular legs, holds or turns collapsing into lines too early.
Fixed disappearing holds and/or procedure turns when scrolling map. For example at KSMN, approach VORDME-B IRWAV (VDMB) via LKT.
Many more fixes and improvements when loading and displaying procedures.

Weather

Added download of full VATSIM weather file which results in faster updates. The program can now show nearest VATSIM weather station for an airport.
Changed VATSIM METAR URL to encrypted HTTPS/SSL.
Improvements to METAR reading and weather display.

User Interface

Added saving and loading of window layouts to menu Window including recent file list. Layout files can also be loaded by dropping the files into the main window. Saved state covers window size, position, maximized, full screen, dock windows, tool bars and status bar for both normal main window as well as maximized main window.
Added an option to window menu to forbid dock windows snapping back into main window.
Added options to raise dock windows and/or main window on mouse over.
Tooltips for whole program are now always shown even if window is inactive.
Added startup dialog asking to create recommended folder structure in documents folder. This also sets the default path for all file dialogs where applicable.
Added menu items to open log file, configuration file and database folder. See Tools -> Files and Folders.
New option to keep main window in foreground before other applications. Menu Window -> Keep in Foreground.
Made instructions for installing the GLOBE data more clear in user interface.
Added toolbar for simulator connection, load scenery library and options.
All toolbutton (toolbar and route string) drop down menus can now be teared off by clicking on the dashed line. This allows clicking menu items repeatedly without the need to reopen the menu again.
Tooltips in file histories now show full file path.
Added handling for HTTPS/SSL errors in encrypted connections like they happen for self signed certificates. Now showing a dialog on SSL errors which allows to cancel downloading or to ignore the error.
Added options to select GUI and map font separately in options dialog. Removed old options to change font in configuration file. Note that any custom font like b612-font has to be installed using operating system functions before.
Added log of background messages like weather downloads on the left side of the status bar tooltip. Tooltip with messages can be shown on click. Shows number of messages if no other status bar message is shown.
Moved option to show top of climb and top of descent into View menu and to elevation profile context menu.
Added free language selection in options dialog. Shows all available translations in combo box.
Now overriding locale/region settings after setting language. This fixes an issue where setting region formats like number and date to English also changed the language.
Added Remove all Ranges, Measurements, Patterns and Holdings option to reset all function.
Fixed issues where shortcuts in flight plan menu could be triggered inadvertently even if disabled.
Disabled splitter styling for Linux to avoid messing up user interface themes.
Removed rhumb measurement lines and all other rhumb distance/course options in flight plan legs and flight plan table. Removed rhumb course and distance display settings in options dialog.

Scenery Database

MSFS: Full support to load airports, airways and navaids. SID and STAR cannot be loaded, though.
Changed progress dialog when loading scenery to avoid dialog growing larger than screen size. Added Counting files to describe initial freeze in scenery loading dialog.
Now using airport ICAO ids throughout the whole program instead of the X-Plane internal ids. The X-Plane internal id is still shown in information window if it differs from ICAO id.
Fixed issues with user home folders containing special characters. This caused issues when detecting flight simulators. Path to Scenery.cfg was wrongly requested for X-Plane in this case.
Fixed issue where loading of X-Plane on a blank system without x-plane_install_11.txt failed which can happen if XP was copied manually to the system without starting it. Path to Scenery.cfg was wrongly requested in this case.

Simulator Connection

Reorganized connect dialog user interface. Now using a tab for each simulator.
Added frigate and carrier as boat AI for X-Plane. Added fetch AI ships option for X-Plane.
SimConnect is now included. Enabled loading of a local copy of SimConnect.dll if present. WinSxS and manifest is only used as fallback.
Showing a warning message in connect dialog if FSX SP2 SimConnect cannot be loaded.

Information and Aircraft Progress

Moved all airport information tabs to a separate airport tab. This should make more clear which tabs are updated when clicking on an airport or navaid.
Corrected waypoint from/to display in progress display for next waypoint. Now indicating from/to for certain procedure legs like Fix to altitude. Omitting duplicate waypoint display for manual legs in elevation profile.
Replaced wrong Crab angle label with Heading in aircraft progress. This still shows the same wind corrected heading value.
Now showing fuel and estimated time of arrival for next waypoint.
Added runway smoothness and airport flatten flags from X-Plane to information display.
Showing new X-Plane icing options in user aircraft tab: AOA, inlet, prop, static and window ice given in percent of the maximum in case of multiple sources.

Online Networks and AI

New option to set maximum AI range around the user aircraft in connection dialog for FSX, P3D and MSFS.

Map

Completely reorganized the map context menu. Now showing sub-menus for all objects nearby the right-click position if a menu action can be applied to more than one object.
Now showing more hints why menu items are disabled, like no procedure, hidden on map or is destination.
Added hints for mouse click modifiers like Ctrl+Click to map context menu.
Procedures can now be deleted from the map context menu by right clicking on a procedure waypoint.
Mouse Ctrl+Wheel can now be used to quickly increase and decrease details in map.
Added distance to last flight plan leg to airport and navaid tooltip. This helps when building plans manually.
Compass rose can now be detached from the user aircraft independent of connection status. Detached compass rose remains in screen center. Change this in menu View -> Attach Compass Rose to Aircraft.
Range rings now allow distance rings smaller than one unit. See Options -> Map. Allowed values are 0.01 to 4000 NM, km or miles.
Added tooltip for range ring center with distances.
Font can be changed for map display. This affects the map and the elevation profile. Font is set to a bold variant of the system font on first start of the new Little Navmap version.
Inaccurate map scale overlay corrected. Scale now uses natural range steps opposed to values like 32, 48, 96 before. Scale saves options now.
Now showing five to one degree grid on map if enabled with visible latitude and longitude labels.
Fixed problem with inadvertent zooming when moving the mouse above the navigation overlay on the bottom right while scrolling.
Fixed several line drawing issues around the anti-meridian in Mercator mode. Related to . This also solves issues with ghost tooltips for airways and ghost airspace tooltips in the Pacific Ocean. Range circles now drawing correctly.
Increased VOR and NDB symbol sizes at lowest zoom levels.
Fixed issues where wrong waypoints were shown in tooltip and other selections over procedure points.
Now showing warning if zooming to a position near the poles in Mercator projection.
Disabled loading status (Waiting for update, now Loading) in statusbar for custom maps since it is unusable there. Status Loading is removed after a timeout since some maps do not provide meaningful values.
Changed map settings for AI aircraft. Now visible for higher zoom levels.
Many more improvements and fixes in map display and map handling.

Logbook

Flight plan, aircraft performance and GPX format files for trail and flight plan preview are now attached to a logbook entry. Files are attached upon takeoff and landing and can be opened, loaded and saved from the context menu in the search table or the logbook entry edit dialog. Export to and import from CSV covers these attachments too.
Direct connection, flight plan with waypoints and trail are shown when clicking on one or more logbook entries in the search table. All three options can be enabled or disabled.
Added separate airport search field to logbook search window which filters by both departure and destination. Departure and destination search fields were moved to additional search options line.
Added more airport related menu items to logbook context menu: Show Information, Show on Map, Set as destination, Set as Departure and Add as alternate. Right click on departure or destination airport name or ICAO field in the search table to enable these menu items.
Option for CSV header in logbook export added. Added header detection on CSV import.

Airspaces

Added new FIR and UIR boundary types instead of the merged type Center. New program remains backward compatible with old databases and new databases can still be used with the old program (versions <= 2.4.5). New boundaries need Navigraph databases newer or equal to cycle 2008.
Moved class F and G airspaces to ICAO dropdown button in toolbar.
Fixed display issues of large airspaces and ghost tooltips, especially near the anti-meridian and for airspaces extending to the poles.

Userpoints

New userpoints can now be created as a copy when right clicking on the map. This means that all fields are taken from a present userpoint on the map if you right click on it and select Add Userpoint.
Corrected default types for userpoint when creating a userpoint based on navaid. Now setting types VOR, NDB and others correctly.
Added display of magnetic declination in userpoint edit dialog and userpoint infofmation.
Changed userdata export headers for more readability. Added header option for CSV export in userdata. Added recognition of header on import.
Renamed all occurrences of Userdata in the user interface to Userpoints for more consistency.

See CHANGELOG.txt in atools project for more technical details. Relevant comments were added to list above.