Application Layout

The ReefMaster application is made up of a number of different panels and windows. The basic layout comprises the main work area (2), which holds a tabbed collection of graphical editing windows for individual assets (e.g. tracks, projects) in individual, tabbed displays. To the side of the main edit window, there are collapsible, panels that contain the dashboard (1), the asset edit panel (3) and the waypoints edit panel (the waypoints panel is shown in the collapsed state in the image above).

1. The Dashboard

The Dashboard is contained in a collapsible window (see below) at the side of the main workspace, and holds the Main Toolbar and the The Asset Library. The Main Toolbar contains buttons for system-wide operations, such as importing assets from a GPS unit and opening the Global Settings window. The Asset Library lists all of the workspace assets, such as tracks, projects and waypoint sets, from where they can be opened for editing, exported to a file, deleted etc.

2. The Main Edit Area

The Edit Window takes up most of the application space, and is where individual assets such as tracks and maps are edited.

The main work area, with all side-panels collapsed

The main area of the application contains one or more Edit Windows, which can be selected (brought to the front) by clicking on their Tab Headers. A drop-down list of all open edit windows can be displayed by clicking the downward pointing arrow at the right of the tab display. This can be useful if a large number of assets are open for editing, and the required tab cannot be seen.

Arranging Edit Windows

Edit windows can be arranged within the workspace so that any number of different windows can be viewed at the same time. This can be very useful in a number of situations; for example, when logging a live track whilst generating a map, the track can be viewed alongside the map project.

To arrange edit windows within the workspace, drag a window by clicking on the tab header with the left mouse-button. As the mouse is moved, a purple rectangle is shown, which represents the window being moved. A position grid appears in the middle of the current window (circled) which shows the possible new positions for the window. Move the mouse pointer over the desired position, and release the mouse pointer.

An edit window can also be detached from the main ReefMaster window by dragging it to an area away from the position grid in the centre of the window. "Floating" a window in this way can useful when using a dual monitor display.

The main edit area arranged to show two edit windows; a track and a project

Viewing Edit Windows in Full Screen

Individual edit windows can be viewed in full screen by pressing the F11 key. This provides more screen space by hiding the window frame and side menus. Press the F11 or ESCAPE keys to return to the normal view.

3. The Waypoints and Edit panels

Two further side-panels, Waypoints and Edit are located to the right of the main edit area. The waypoints panel contains the Waypoint Edit Pane in which waypoints and waypoint sets can be edited and managed. The Edit panel contains the editable properties of the active edit window in the main edit area. For example, if the active tab within the main edit area is for a track, then the edit panel will contain the edit properties for that track. The contents of the edit panel will change as the active edit tab changes. Note that for some edit windows (e.g. the Global View), there are no editable properties. When an edit window without editable properties is active, the edit panel will be blank.

Showing, Hiding and Moving Side Panels

The dashboard, asset edit and waypoints side panels are located at the sides of the main edit window, and can be hidden in order to increase the amount of screen-space available to the main edit window.

Expanding a Side Panel

To expand a side panel, click on the side-header for the required window. The panel will open, and will remain open for as long as operations are conducted in the open panel. Once the mouse is clicked in another region of the ReefMaster application, the side-panel will close automatically unless it has been pinned open.

Pinning a Side Panel

To pin a side-panel, so that it remains open whilst you are working in other areas of the application, click the pin button. Click this same button again to collapse a side-panel that has previously been pinned open.

Moving a Side Panel

Side-panels can be moved to either side of the main edit area. By default, the dashboard is shown at the left of the window and the waypoints and edit panels are shown to the right. To move a side-panel to the other side of the window, the panel must first be pinned open.With the panel pinned open, simply drag the header at the top of the panel to the required side. The position of side-panels is remembered across ReefMaster restarts.

The Application Status Bar

Three information panels at the bottom of the main window show update messages;

(1) Map project generation progress information shows a progress bar and a description of the current map generation stage.

(2) The mouse cursor position in latitude/longitude and also, when available, the depth at the mouse cursor position.

(3) The status of the Live Data connection. The live data connection can be started or stopped using the On and Off buttons. If no live data connections have been configured, then clicking the On button will open the Live Data Configuration window.

The Tracer function is selected using the Tracer button. When selected, the tracer function shows the current mouse position in all vsible windows, as a small circle. This function can be very useful for cross-referencing features between different tracks, especially when using the side-scan sonar viewer.