Overview

The Waypoint Manager starts by displaying a world base map, known as the Map View (4), with a set of menu bars at the top of the application window (2), and a set of expandable "panels" at the left of the application (3), containing separate lists of waypoints, trails and routes. A "quick access" menu bar (1), at the very top of the application window, gives one-button access to the load and save file screens, and the options window:

Working with the Waypoint Manager involves loading and saving data files, selecting and editing (or deleting) assets, and creating new waypoints or routes.

The Waypoint Manager is capable of reading a range of different waypoint, trail and route data file formats, including the Lowrance USR format, used by most Lowrance head units, and the widely used GPS Exchange (GPX) format. Before data from a head unit can be loaded into the Waypoint Manager, it first needs to be exported to a memory card and transferred to a PC. To put data back onto a head unit, files saved from within the Waypoint Manager need to be copied to a memory card, from where they can be loaded on to the unit.

The Waypoint Manager can load and display sonar log files that have been recorded on a Lowrance unit. Sonar log files should be recorded directly to a memory card on the unit, and then copied to the PCs hard drive before being opened by the Waypoint Manager (sonar logs are typically large files, and the performance of the sonar viewer is much improved when accessing data from the PC hard drive, rather than directly from a memory card, which is much slower).

Waypoints and routes can be created and edited in the Waypoint Manager. Trails can be imported, and have their attributes, such as colour, edited, but cannot be created within the Waypoint Manager.

General principles apply when editing any asset type, be that a waypoint, trail or route: First, one or more assets, must be selected, which can be done in either the Map View or one of the list views, before being opened for editing. Multiple assets can be selected at one time, and multiple assets of the same type can be edited together.

The menu bars at the top of the application give access to many of the functions within the Waypoint Manager. There are separate menu bars for FILE, VIEW, EDIT and, when a sonar log file is loaded, SONAR.

Note that many of the operations available in the menu bars are also available either via the right-click menu, the asset list panels or keyboard short-cuts.

Hiding the Menu Bars

The menu bar takes up quite a bit of screen real estate, which can limit the space available for the rest of the display, when using a smaller monitor.

To hide the menu bar, double-click on one of the menu headers (any header, except the FILE header), which will hide the menu and convert it to "drop-down" mode. To see a menu in this mode, just click on the menu header with the left mouse button. To lock the menu bar open again, double click once more on one of the menu headers.

The FILE menu gives access to load file, save file and options windows, as well as the "About" window, which contains information about the current version of the Waypoint Manager and licensing details. The About window also contains an option to deactivate a license, so that it can be moved to another PC.

Standard Windows keyboard shortcuts that work throughout the Waypoint Manger include: