Merry Christmas!

Ho ho ho!

It's this time of the year again, my own private Swedish Rally starts!

Tomorrow at the break of dawn the first stint goes to Stockholm. I have arranged so the E4 will be free from all other traffic so I can cut the corners as I wish and try to better my personal record. The winner (me of course) will receive something we in Sweden call "julskinka", "glögg" and "sill". After a few days that mainly consists of moving large amounts of white cold stuff from one place to another I will let my back rest for a few days.

Instead I will act as co-driver (mostly watching videos and eating junk food) on the newly developed all-carbon Y-buss - all the way to the arctic test tracks in Härnösand. There I will most probably dive deep into even more "julskinka", "glögg" and "sill".

Then on Thursday I do it all again but backwards.

This is what we in Sweden call vacation. If it wasn't for "julskinka", "glögg" and "sill" I would call it something else...

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy racing (as always!)

/Torkel

New Track Packs added

A total of 10 tracks in South Africa and 16 tracks in Great Britain, Ireland and Wales can now be imported into Tracktimer. My regards to Andy Jamison who sent me this data.
The track packs are found in the Download section. Just download, extract the files and follow the instructions in the readme.txt file to import them.

Possible to download backup data for demo

I finally did something I have thought about doing for - let me see now... - some years! For those of you that have downloaded the demo and haven't bought a license there isn't really much to see and play with. But if you download the newly added backup (actually part of my personal data from 2004-2005) you can play around with the program a lot more, you cannot save anything though.

All data are in Swedish unfortunately, hopefully it will be usable anyway. It is also based on the motorcycle version which means that you have to choose motorcycle as vehicle to be able to open the sessions and the tire list.
If you are a registered user there is of course no need to download this. If you do anyway remember to take a backup of your own data first.

The backup file can be found in the download section, together with instructions on how to use it, enjoy!

The next step for Tracktimer "developmentwise" is to port it to Delphi 2005 from Delphi 6, I am almost there but not quite yet.

Translators needed!

Right now Tracktimer is available in several languages but the only translation that is 100% ready is the Swedish one...

Italian: 800 strings remain
Spanish: 1400 strings remain
German: 420 strings remain
French: 1135 strings remain
Norwegian: 535 strings remain
Finnish: 1400 strings remain
Danish: 1400 strings remain

I need help with this, ordinary translators won't do since it is a lot of motorsport terminology. I think that the best is if it is translated by someone involved in racing. Contact me for more information if you are interested or if you know someone that is.

End of season here in Sweden

The last race of the year was run yesterday in 8 degrees Celcius! I am very happy with my riding, I got third place with a standard Aprilia RS250 among many 250cc and 125cc racers.
I might as well use this opportunity to show how a season export looks.
First show all sessions, sort them on date, select the qualify, warmup and race sessions using Ctrl-Click and the click the button Export sessions. In that dialog select to group by name of event and then you will get something like this: Season 2005 (In swedish this time!)

Ups and downs

Racing is really up and down, during the race at Gelleråsen last Saturday I took my first pole position (thank you!), did a really lousy start and did my first highside on the fifth lap from 5th place!
Now I just have to start practising my starting technique because it is really really bad...
Photographer: Berra Swenson

V3.0 is out!

Now I am finally done with v3.0! It took me more than two years since the last version was released to the public but now I feel that it is as ready as it ever will be.

I'm happy to introduce the Basic versions, they are less feature rich version of the Pro versions. You will not get any Maintenance functionality for instance and can only time one driver at a time. But they cost a fifth of the Pro versions. And if you decide to upgrade to a Pro version you will get the same amount back in rebate.

I have also included a number of flash tutorials at the Download page. In short: they rock! :)

So even though I didn't manage to release this early this spring as I had planned I hope you will like it in it's current form.

Enough of this, have a look for yourselves: http://www.tracktimer.com

It's looking promising!

I will try to go public with the new release this week including the new basic versions. What remains is to activate the new basic products at share-it and to add some new screen shots.
I have done four new tutorials and have about five more to do until I am satisfied. The tutorials are far better than any help file in the world to help newcomers understand how to work with the program.
Take a sneak peak at the ones I have made so far here.

v3.0.0.50 was necessary...

Ouch, maybe I shouldn't have made the power chart a window of its own, lots of problems has been detected due to this. In order to make that work I had to change the Dynobox window from a member variable to a common "auto created" window. Since this window now is created after the main form some functions did not work so well anymore...

First in v3.0.0.48 when the automatic opening of last session was attempted before the dyno box window existed and now in v3.0.0.49 when we try to convert from v2.0.x version before the dyno box dialog existed.
I moved all that code to after all windows have been created so now it works!

Since I raced this weekend myself (5th place and new personal lap record, wheee!) I found that long tire ID's could not be read when updating tire sets from a session so I fixed that one too.
Now I really hope I will not find anymore errors!

v3.0.0.49 - it's better!

Ok, isn't it typical that when you think you are ready you are not?
The change to show the powergraph mapped on each gear in its own window apparently made it impossible to automatically load last session during startup. Thanks to Andy and Cedric for pointing that out to me.

What's new:

* Moved all commandline handling after all forms have been created
* Handles range of selections when making purchase order from partstatus
* Correct calculation of extra rows for ordergrid
* Added properties for sessionfile and load at startup
* Shows powergraph by default
* Moved repaint to after graphs have been added

v3.0.0.48

A new beta (the last hopefully) released today at the usual place!

What's new:
* Uses a dialog to show powerchart on gearing page
* Final gear column wider
* Added tire history splitter
* Better export of tracks
* 3D-look to all tables
* When importing laptimes the date and time is set to the current date and time
* Added minutes when updating part status
* Possible to delete more than one part that is not in consecutive order
* Corrected confirmation message when a setup is opened from a session
* If we have zero items left of a part in the stock grid all specific data is cleared
* Remembers tire nodes better
* A part has to have a qty > 0 to be marked for inspection
* MergePartStatusRows handles various versions of zero better (0, 0.0, 0.000, '')
* When merging two parts the oldest date is used
* New program icon

I cannot think of any additions I would like to do in this version so if I don't get any error reports (or find any errors myself...) this will be the final v3.0 release.

Version 3.0.0.47 is now available

The date format bug mentioned in my previous post has been eliminated! Customers can get the new release at the usual place.
Thanks to Gary and Cedric for pointing this out to me.

Information about the "date format bug"

I got bug reports from two different users about problems to open part status items because the dates were invalid.
To make sorting easier Tracktimer uses the format yyyy-mm-dd for all dates in its tables. What happens is that when Windows XP returns from the screen saver it overwrites Tracktimers date format with the regional format which might be dd/mm/yyyy!
And now the string representation of a date cannot be transformed to "date" representation since the formats doesn't match anymore!

The quick fix if anyone has problems with this is to disable the screen saver until the next version is released. I am planning on showing all dates the way they are meant to be shown to make it even better.
Sorry for any problems this might have caused you.

v3.0.0.46 is ready

Now it is possible to generate a purchase order from selected part status items. Order status rows are also colored depending on delivery status.
Beta testers and customers know where to download it, please do!

Update 13th April:
I found two bugs that made the merging and comparision fail when updating part status. So there is now a new v3.0.0.46 available (no need to waste precious version numbers...;))

v3.0.0.45 released

A number of improvements in this release:

* Added Storage Location to each Part Status item
* Added Price/pcs to each part Status item
* Removed purchase order stuff from Export Part Status dialog
* Added new Export Purchase Order buttons and dialog
* Added AllReceivedCheckBox to Update Order dialog
* Calls UpdatePartStatus and UpdateMaintenanceLog when clicking OK in Update Order dialog
* Handles update of multiple order items
* Added General Notes to main pagecontrol
* Separated ExportPurchaseOrder from Export Part Status
* Updates Gearing page if Engine data has been reloaded
* Uses last selected node for tire list view
* Cosmetic changes for Part Status page
* Added Purchase Order button to Part Status and Order Status
* Can import lap times from AIM Light Analyzer software

Only available for current customers and beta testers right now but I am slowly moving towards the final v3.0... :)

New beta version v3.0.0.44

The latest beta version 3.0.0.44 is now available at the usual place. The biggest change is an improved order handling that connects orders, parts and economy in a way that was previously not possible.
Of course, the two bugs mentioned earlier have been taken cared of. About 70% of all strings are now translated to German (Thanks Rico) and the rest will follow shortly.

Really cool stickers are now available!

I have new very nice stickers and also a weaved patch that I would like to send out to all Tracktimer users out there, free of charge of course!
But to do so I need your postal adress, the last time I got several in return so this time I will try not to do the same mistake again.

The stickers look like this: http://www.tracktimer.com/gfx/stickers.jpg
Closeup on the patch: http://www.tracktimer.com/gfx/patch.jpg
Size of the large sticker is 25 cm (10") and the small ones are half as big.

So please reply to torkel@tracktimer.com with your postal adress and I will send you a kit of 1 large and 2 small stickers and a weaved patch.

Note that this offer is only for customers and sponsored drivers/riders!

Best regards
Torkel Börjeson

Bugs and news

Unfortunately there is a bug in v3.0 that I found out a few days ago:
If you update only mileage on a part status group so that some parts replacement limits are exceeded you will get an empty dialog box. All parts are updated correctly and coloured but they don't show up in the dialog box. This has been fixed but not released.

Another bug was introduced between 3.0.0.42 and 3.0.0.43 that made it impossible to use any other part status exports than Purchase order.
Unfortunately I have to go on a business trip today and directly when I get back home I am leaving for one week vacation so there is no way I will be able to fix this one until I get back the 13th of February. :(

There is also a much improved Order page on it's way that resembles the Completed Sessions page. It will have a tree view to the left to be able to get a better overview of all orders.

Order status

The order handling just got a lot better! For those of you who know where to find the beta releases feel free to get the latest one and try it out.
The key change is that when you make a purchase order you are first prompted to take already made orders (not yet delivered) into account. When the purchase order is done you are prompted to update the Order status table with the new orders.
It works really good and gives a lot better order tracking than before (when there was none!).

Order improvements

Since Charles Wessman will use Tracktimer to keep track of the part handling for a team competing in the German Formula Renault series this year he has found a lot of things to improve. For instance yesterday he asked me if it was possible to remember what parts he had ordered so those parts wouldn't show up again if he did another purchase order before they had arrived.
Hmmm, I have never thought of that but it makes a lot of sense. Another page under Maintenance called "Order Status" will take care of this but it will also keep me busy a few days more.
Who needs television anyway when you can spend all nights programming? :)

Bloglines

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Regarding Tracktimer it is getting the last refinements to the user interface.