We did it! And we are “proud like Bolle” (as we say in Berlin) that we brought the project that far! From the first crazy idea, up to a software with a version number 1 in about 8 months.

What does that mean exactly? The goal for a version 1.0.0 was to migrate all features contained in GCC to the new technology and to create an iOS version. The idea was to start with new features only from version 1.0.0.

Is the goal achieved? A clear “yes and no”. In fact there are still some crypto tools available in GCC, which are missing in the GCWizard, and certainly not all symbol tables have been moved over yet. This just takes some time.

However, I think the GCW can step out of the shadow of its predecessor. In contrast to the original plan to add new features only from/after version 1.0, many new features made it into the tool nevertheless. Furthermore, old functions were cleaned, fixed and improved, the input masks were completely renewed – and finally there is the much requested iOS version availble (not to forget the browser version!). That’s reason enough for us to award the app with the version number 1.

Celebration!

What’s new?

Actually, the transition from the last version 0.8.1 should only serve “maturation”. No new features, no changes, only bug fixes. What exists should be stabilized. It wasn’t to be.

Two bigger features came in:

  • The astronomy section from the GCC was added. For me personally, it was the last big chapter, from the GCC. Apart from a few symbol tables, I could uninstall the GCC now.
  • The Unit Converter. A tool that I always wanted to add to GCC, but never got around to it. I often needed to convert kilometers to miles, Celsius to Fahrenheit or hectares to soccer fields.

But the real “big things” of this version are the internal rebuilds of the Formula Solver, the Variable Coordinates tool and the coordinate formats. Things that are not obvious at first sight.

The Formula Solver up to now internally based on a so-called SQLite database. Right for me as a database freak (here for thematic reasons advertising on my own ; another project of mine 😀 ), but not working at the browser version, which couldn’t handle the database. The formulas are now saved as plain text (in a so-called JSON format) and, like the settings, is integrated into the app’s internal memory.

This leads to following: You can now export the formula groups, by QR code or by text copy. Now you can exchange your formulas in your team. Or you can create them at home in your browser and then import them into the app via QR-Code.

Or you can export individual formulas directly to the Variable Coordinates tool. Now you don’t need to copy the formulas and values manually anymore. That’s became possible, because the tool now also stores the formulas, using the same new memory technology.

The coordinate formats had to be changed internally in the storage also somewhat, in order to allow subformats. The trigger was the new Slippy Map format, which requires a value for the zoom level in addition to a coordinate. That means, if you want to convert a normal coordinate to Slippy Map, you have to specify in addition to the desired output format, in which zoom level it should be calculated. It is a subformat. This is now also used for the Gauss-Krueger formats, which were previously all separately in the selection list, but could now be embedded as subformats.

Long speech short: Instead of letting the version mature, it was eventually even destabilized at essential points. But after extensive testing on different devices and by different helpers (Thanks!) we decided to release this version as 1.0 anyway. Hope that works 😀

The full Changelog

[new] Astronomy (#105; Thanks, astronomie.info, jgiesen.de)
[new] Unit Converter (#39)
[new] Beaufort
[new] Some Symbol Tables (Thanks, ‘Geo-Link’)
[new] Formula Solver: Exporter (#106)
[new] Coordinate Format: Slippy Map (#126; Thanks, ‘tebarius’)
[new] Numeral Bases: Show frequent (#125; Thanks, Felix)
[chg] Symbol Tables: Zoom Buttons (#107)
[chg] Map Marker Colors (#111; Thanks, Andy)
[chg] TomTom: Input Buttons (#51; Thanks, Udo & ‘Pamakaru’)
[fix] Flag Alphabet (#121; Thanks, ‘tomcat06’)
[fix] Coordinate Format: MGRS
[fix] Ook Interpreter (#120)
[fix] Variable Coordinate (#117)