Help about Preferences

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The tabbed pages allow you to fine-tune your preferred setting, and how much detail you want shown in the output, for how the program works.. If you want to keep your preferences for later, you should create a user account and log on before changing the preferences to exactly what you want. Then, when you save, they will be associated with your account and next time you log in will be retrieved and used for all your future planning.

The Change Preferences option can be found in Plan a journey, Waterways, and at Places where the menu items are at the bottom of each page.

Display Tab

• Display Options —
• Override national defaults
  Use your choices for distance and dimensions – The format for the output is based on the country you are planning a trip in; it defaults to miles and furlongs for the UK and kilometres for the European mainland. To change the default settings, tick this box.
• How to show distances – allows you to choose what units you want distances shown in:
• Miles
• Miles and furlongs
• Kilometres
• How to show waterway dimensions – select either:
• Feet and inches
• Metres
• For each of these the default setting is "National Default". The format for the output is based on the country you are planning a trip in; it defaults to miles and furlongs for the UK and kilometres for the European mainland
• Display responsiveness —
• Collapse sections – Always, Automatic, Never, Hide
• Simple index page – Always, Automatic, Never
• These allow you to select how pages are presented. Automatic picks what we think is the best option depending on the device you are viewing the site from, but you can force a different display if that better suits you.
  

Output Tab

• Output Settings —
• What to show — Highlight an item and move between the don't show and show boxes using the horizontal arrows. Items can be ordered using the vertical arrows.
• Summary — A summary of your planned route.
• Map — shows a map of your route with overnight stops labelled, the waterways identifiable by hovering and, optionally, waterways you aren't travelling on.
• Map preferences
• Show map for each day in itinerary.
• Style for maps (with additional OS styles available for the UK)
• Route – produces the actual route table showing places and distances.
• Route Preferences
• Display format – select one of:
• Table format
• List format
• List with titles
• How many places to show – This selects what information it gives you and whether you want every place shown or only ones of a certain importance, select:
• All places – show all places between the selected start and end points
• Small places – show only the small places between the selected start and end points
• Large places – show only the large places between the selected start and end points
• There are a number of tick boxes to select what information is shown in the output - they should be self-explanatory
• Totals — shows the length of your route, breaking it down by the type of waterway, and an estimate of the time it will take using the settings on the "Speeds" tab.
• Overnights — is a table of suggested stopping places along the route - they may not be exactly where you stop, but if you keep up with these you know you are on target to complete the route.
• Overnight preferences
• Show information on mooring and suggests others — if the database holds information on the suitability of the calculated stoppping place as a mooring, display it, and suggest other known good moorings nearby
• Show sunrise and sunset times
• Books – shows guides, references and similar books and maps that cover your trip
• Stoppages — Shows stoppages that might affect your route.
  

Planning Tab

• Planning Options —
• Entry wizard — Defaults to using the planning aid.
• Don't use route entry wizard
• Route choice — Select either option.
• Quickest route
• Preferred route
• Consider boat size — allows your boat dimensions to be stored. This is useful as some waterways have lock size restrictions.
• Boat length (feet)
• Boat width (feet)
• Limit Searches to — if you are always planning trips in one geographic region, you can prevent your searches being confused by places in all the others by using this
• Home mooring — Enter or select a place as your home mooring. Both "start from" and "finish at" can be used.
• Location
• Use for "start from"
• Use for "finish at"
• Avoid repeating places
• No
• Moderately
• Very much
• Flexibility in furthest place — Enter as a percentage.
• How much extra
• How much shorter
• Default day length — Enter to restrict your cruising time.
• Hours per day
• Maximum
• Unpowered Craft — several tunnels and similar features have prohibitions on their use by unpowered craft. This allows you to plan around them.
• Travel on — you can restrict your plans to only some days of the week
  

Speeds Tab

These options let you set how fast you typically travel on each sort of waterway, how much you like a particular type of waterway, and how fast you can work locks on each. Note that Seaways defaults to NEVER. You must change this if you want to plan trips around Trent Falls, under the Severn Bridge, across the Wash and similar.
If you like walking the tow-paths then set the lock times to zero and the boat speeds to your walking pace.

• Speeds on Different Waterways — Allows the setting of speeds when travelling on various types of waterways.
• Type of Waterway
• Cruising Preference — Select one of the following:
• Love, Like, Neutral, Dislike, Hate, NEVER.
• Speed (mph) – Set speed in mph to 2 decimal places.
• Time per individual lock — Set time in minutes.
• Time per lock in flights — Set time in minutes.
  

Exclusions Tab — Set which waterways are excluded.

Excluded Places and Waterways — If you want to plan a trip over a waterway that is not normally open to pleasure craft (the Manchester Ship Canal, or a waterway under restoration) then un-check the box for the waterways you want to use.

• Excluded Waterways
• The following waterways are excluded from planning. To allow them to be used for planning deselect the checkbox
• Types of place to exclude
• Places can be set to be of a particular type. Here you choose which types of places you want to be hidden from display
  

Places of Interest (POI) Tab

• POI Options — Select which POI's are shown on maps.
• Select
• Show the following POI on maps — Check boxes for which POI's you would like to show on maps.
• Options — Select how far from a place the POI's should be shown.
  

• Gazetteer —
  

• Gazetteer Options — Select which items are shown on gazetteer pages.
• What to show — Highlight an item and move between the don't show and show boxes using the horizontal arrows. Items can be ordered using the vertical arrows.
• Description — shows which waterway the place is on, how far it is from other places on the waterways and any local information (history, trivia, architecture, visitor's views etc) known about the place.
• Maps — shows a map of the area. You can chose the starting size and initial zoom of the map as well as the style (with additional OS styles available for the UK).
• Photos — shows photographs of the location. You can chose a set of thumbnails, a single large photo, all photos (long, but good for editing captions etc) or a tabbed display (with and without an index page).
• Comments — shows notes and information about the place contributed by users of CanalPlanAC.
• Navigational notes — shows any navigational note about the place.
• Blogs — shows blog posts that refer to the place. Currently this uses Steve's "Canalplan Blogs" only, but other blogs may be incorporated later.
• Wikipedia — shows links to Wikipedia pages that are likely to be about the current place. Checking the Show only when page title matches box will reduce the number of silly suggestions at the risk of missing some good guesses.
• Geograph — Shows photographs (if in the UK)from Geograph.
• Nearest — Finds the nearest facilities (water points etc) to your current location.
  

To make temporary changes to your Preferences use Apply.

To make your Preferences load every time you log on use Save.

To return Preferences to the default settings use Reset to defaults.

To return your Preferences to the last saved settings use Reset to saved.

To cancel these settings use Cancel.

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