Active Captain Interface

It looks like Active Captain has "updated" its user interface. I've only played with it for a few minutes but so far I don't like it. Comments?

People on CF are commenting that they do not like the changes. The New ActiveCaptain - Cruisers & Sailing Forums

Later,
Dan

The tab that lists your own routes is gone. I hope my routes are still somewhere in the cloud but I don't know how to access them with the new Live Map interface.

It also says Test Live Map, so maybe it is just a Beta version for all to use ;-).

David

Wifey B: Stooooooooooooooooopid. Want my opinion? Told him we'd never do the ecard thing long ago and it stands, but easy enough to enter garbage and get in. Find marina? I don't want to find a marina. I want to find a city. I don't know the marinas there yet, until I find it. It's like trying to find "pneumonia" in the dictionary when you don't know how to spell it. Guess I can use google maps and find marinas in an area, then go to AC.

Ok, I'm calmer now. Found the way to the old stuff. Click on "More" and then "Live Map (Flash)". That gets you back where you were and all your routes and everything. Now, as long as they don't eliminate that and force you to the new trash.

djmarchand said:

The tab that lists your own routes is gone. I hope my routes are still somewhere in the cloud but I don't know how to access them with the new Live Map interface.

It also says Test Live Map, so maybe it is just a Beta version for all to use ;-).

David

Click to expand...

Wifey B: Go to "More" and "Live Map (Flash Version).

Wifey B: I hadn't looked till you guys mentioned it. Don't mess with things I like. I don't like restaurants that I go to for one thing taking it off the menu or screwing around with it. Like it always came with normal mayonnaise and then one day you order it (menu hasn't changed) and it's got some freaky mayo that tastes like

You can still get to the old though, once you wade through it.

Just tried it again and got a "can't connect to database error" and it won't let me log in. It really is a Beta test system -.

But if it really is a non Flash interface, that is a good thing as maybe it will run on tablets.

Davd

Login does nothing and I don't do Facebook. Now what?
I sent an email via the Contact Us link.

Hmm. Automated response...



Message body

{phrase var='contact.auto_responder_message'}

Regards,

The ActiveCaptain Admin Team
activecaptain.com

We're still logged into it and on the flash site. Working like always there. Haven't tried the beta again.

BandB: you obviously didn't get the msg ( I think there were actually 2) from AC asking that we be patient during the server/new GUI changeover. Its not like you are at a restaurant paying for a restaurant meal...its a free service!! and a pretty complicated one too I'd say.

Aquabelle said:

BandB: you obviously didn't get the msg ( I think there were actually 2) from AC asking that we be patient during the server/new GUI changeover. Its not like you are at a restaurant paying for a restaurant meal...its a free service!! and a pretty complicated one too I'd say.

Click to expand...

Wifey B: I got the message and we also made it clear in the past we didn't like eboatcards and never would participate in them and now you're channeled through eboatcards. All this for them to gather more info on you and be able to market to you. Then trying to push you to their facebook group as well. I also know you don't do your testing on your customers. You do it in some sort of controlled test environment. Free service? Yes, sort of. But my participation does bring the service money and I've probably stayed at as many marinas advertising there as anyone. Also, note, that we've paid and continue to pay plenty to Garmin. I don't like that my normal access without eboatcards was no longer possible.

And that's simply my opinion which I do have a right to express whether you like it or not.

Wifey B: I left this out. I also do not like that he tells you not to send individual complaints or problems, to post them on face book. Well, some of us choose not to be on facebook or not to be in his facebook group.

BandB said:

Wifey B: I left this out. I also do not like that he tells you not to send individual complaints or problems, to post them on face book. Well, some of us choose not to be on facebook or not to be in his facebook group.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about "you know who", he threw me off his Facebook group for disagreeing with him.

That's fine for a personal page but "customers" shouldn't have to kiss his backside to not be locked out of customer support.

Hubby B: The one thing I don't understand is bringing live a new interface but without the functionality of the old, so driving people to still use the old. I understand the move away from flash. We have no flash on any of our websites. However, on the new interface you don't have your routes, you can't search except to search for a marina. You go to a new interface lacking the functionality of the old and you will receive complaints and people will continue to use the old as long as they can. That isn't a matter of new bugs, it's a basic design feature. It's their product, they can do with it as they want, but I don't understand bringing it live in it's current state.

I feel like they will work it out, but perhaps they should have done so before bringing it live. I've also heard issues from those using other chart software and hope that doesn't mean less support for them. We use it independent of any chart software so not impacted.

WesK said:

If you're talking about "you know who", he threw me off his Facebook group for disagreeing with him.

That's fine for a personal page but "customers" shouldn't have to kiss his backside to not be locked out of customer support.

Click to expand...

Well, he's thrown some off AC for comments they made here, not about the product, but toward him. When it was under his ownership, that was his right. Not sure how Garmin would feel if he did so today.

Seems to be working now.

High Wire said:

Seems to be working now.

Click to expand...

Was always working for us. Just the new landing page and the new map were issues for us. But we've had no issue getting in and once we found the old flash, it works like it always did. We couldn't get the functionality we're use to out of the new non-flash map. If anyone has figured out how to get routes up on it or to search by city on it, please let us know, then we'll try it again.

More bug reports as sooner or later AC will see this thread:

The new test Live Map only starts up in full world view and strangely for a marine program, it starts up in Map format, not NOAA chart format. The old one retained your mode preference and zoomed to your last location.

Also the Flash version pans, but sometimes does not zoom. It also opens in a full world, map mode.

David

BandB said:

Well, he's thrown some off AC for comments they made here, not about the product, but toward him. When it was under his ownership, that was his right. Not sure how Garmin would feel if he did so today.

Click to expand...

He kicked people of for either.

BandB said:

Wifey B: I left this out. I also do not like that he tells you not to send individual complaints or problems, to post them on face book. Well, some of us choose not to be on facebook or not to be in his facebook group.

Click to expand...

As we know from AC's esteemed creator, that makes you an ignorant Luddite. Welcome to the club.....

BandB said:

Well, he's thrown some off AC for comments they made here, not about the product, but toward him. When it was under his ownership, that was his right. Not sure how Garmin would feel if he did so today.

Click to expand...

I suspect he still "owns" the Facebook group that's supposed to be the support site.

I was able to go to the flash page but when I posted a review of a marina we stayed in this weekend, it listed "Jeffery Siegel" as the contributor, not me. And of course I was logged in as myself.

Also, if I close Active Captain and reopen it, it comes back to a world map and my "satellite view" choice is a highway map.

Whenever you make a major (or even minor) change to something that other people use, you're supposed to test it before releasing it to the other people.

WesK said:

I suspect he still "owns" the Facebook group that's supposed to be the support site.

Click to expand...

Probably. I have seen some major wars over facebook ownership. Individual sets it up for charity. 5 years later charity fires them. They refuse to give site to charity.

Active Captain just changed the sub url for their Live Map from Test Live Map to just Live Map. They also changed the Flash Live Map sub url. There were no performance changes that I noted. Zooming and panning still buggy in the old Flash version which is the only way to see your routes. I hope that they carry that over to the new Live Map along with the tools to make a new route.

It is rather interesting to see a Beta Test bug fix development in a supposedly ready for prime time system. I would be fine with that if they announced that was what they would be doing for the next few weeks and provided a decent bug report system. But Facebook doesn't do it for me.

Jeff, are you watching? Your new owners aren't looking very good.

David

One benefit that has not gotten very much praise here is moving off of Flash. Now the website is functional for Android devices without having to use a compatible chart plotter app. That is a big deal to me as a Navionics customer -- I have been maintaining copies of C-Map just for AC access on my phone and tablet.

Waywego said:

One benefit that has not gotten very much praise here is moving off of Flash. Now the website is functional for Android devices without having to use a compatible chart plotter app. That is a big deal to me as a Navionics customer -- I have been maintaining copies of C-Map just for AC access on my phone and tablet.

Click to expand...

That's a positive if they'd actually replaced the flash site with an equal one with the same functionality and if they'd migrated all existing information.

Agreed, it just depends on how you have been using AC.


For us, we use it to find marinas/restaurants, look at fuel prices and identify chart issues. We have never saved routes on AC, nor have we put more than the minimum into the ecards. We try to post appropriate content if we feel it would benefit other users and is not redundant.

Waywego said:

Agreed, it just depends on how you have been using AC.


For us, we use it to find marinas/restaurants, look at fuel prices and identify chart issues. We have never saved routes on AC, nor have we put more than the minimum into the ecards. We try to post appropriate content if we feel it would benefit other users and is not redundant.

Click to expand...

But don't you find marinas for an area by entering a location?

Hopefully it is still in a transition phase and the "bugs" will get worked out. Agreed getting off of flash can be good.
Now however when selecting to see "details" of a marina, i don't like how (at least in Safari) it automatically opens the marina as a new tab in the browser. This slows it down and bogs down the browser. I like the old one because the marina details would instantly pop up right on the map screen.
I'd send a critique but (heaven forbid) i don't have a facebook account
I'm with a few of the others- fb is just far too intrusive and orwellian...

Why are so many people in favor of "getting rid of flash"? It has never caused me any problems that I know of. To me it's something that's not broken and doesn't need fixing.