BoxCar Pro for Windows, Version 4.0 Readme File

Installation

• System Requirements
• Installing the Program

Installation of the Windows Common Controls

Contents of the CD-ROM

Unsupported Utilities

Special Notes about BoxCar Pro 4.0

New BoxCar Pro 4.0 Plotting Support

Known Issues

BoxCar Pro 4.0 requires a minimum system of a 486/66 MHz processor with at least 16 Megabytes (MB) of RAM running Windows 95/98/NT4 or later. (A Pentium 90 or higher processor with 24 MB of RAM is recommended.) The system must have at least one free COM port for serial communications, and a CD-ROM drive.

The BoxCar Pro 4.0 CD includes an AutoRun feature. Insert the CD into the CD-ROM drive and the Setup program starts automatically.

Load the BoxCar Pro CD into the CD-ROM drive of your computer. Select Run from the Windows Start menu and navigate to your CD-ROM drive. Run the program named setup.exe. Setup prompts you for the directory (C:\Program Files\Onset Computer Corporation\BoxCar Pro 4.0 is the default), and installs BoxCar Pro and other components into the directory.

Setup gives the user the option to choose from four different setup types. Here is a list of what each setup type installs:

TYPICAL: Installs BoxCar Pro, the help file, and BatchExport. Space required: 5571 K
COMPLETE: Installs everything on the CD, including BoxCar Pro, BatchExport (see BEREADME), and the two unsupported utilities (see section 4). Space required: 5815 K
CUSTOM: Gives the user the option of choosing which components to install.
COMPACT: Only installs BoxCar Pro and the help file. Space required: 5278 K

Setup prompts about a desktop shortcut for BoxCar Pro 4.0: click Yes to put a shortcut on your desktop, or No to continue without placing a shortcut on the desktop.

Note: During installation, the setup program asks if you want to automatically update your Windows common controls. This option is recommended. More information about this option is in the section ‘special Installation Notes," in this readme file.

As part of its installation, the BoxCar Pro 4.0 setup program updates the Windows Common Controls. You are asked during the installation if you want to perform this update. This section provides more information about what this update does.

The common controls update involves updating a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) called COMCTL32.DLL. BoxCar Pro 4.0’s setup performs the update using a Microsoft-supplied program called the Windows 32-Bit Common Controls update program. The update program is an executable file that detects the DLL version number of the "COMCTL32.DLL" file in the Windows System directory, and updates that file if its version is less than Version 4.72. The file was distributed by Microsoft, and is necessary for software to make use of the advanced features of the Windows Common Controls.

Trouble-shooting the Common Control Installation

In a few isolated instances, BoxCar Pro’s update of the Common Controls will cause older software

to stop functioning properly. This is not a problem with Microsoft, or with Onset software. A problem with older software indicates that software is no longer working correctly and the best solution is to

update the older software. If this proves impossible, try this solution:

1) BEFORE INSTALLING BoxCar Pro:
COPY the "COMCTL32.DLL" file out of the Windows System (or System32) directory, and put a COPY on the side for later.

2) INSTALL BoxCar Pro, and select the "Update Windows Common Controls" checkbox.

3) If any software fails to operate properly after performing the Microsoft Common Controls Update, put the SAVED "COMCTL32.DLL" file into the SAME DIRECTORY where the EXE file is located for the software that is not working anymore, and try it again. If you forgot to save a copy of the "COMCTL32.DLL" file, try to find one on the distribution disk(s) for the malfunctioning software, and if there is one there, use that one.

4) If it still won't work right, the only way to reverse the controls update is to completely re-install Windows, and re-install the older software.

Note: BoxCar Pro will not work without the updated common controls (as will be the case with nearly ALL new programs being released by software vendors.)

The following important files are on the BoxCar Pro 4.0 CD-ROM. Note: Other files not listed here are also on the CD–ROM, but these are used internally by the BoxCar Pro 4.0 Setup program.

The following list assumes that your CD-ROM drive is drive H. Make the necessary translations if your CD-ROM drive is some other letter.

H:\Setup.exe
The main setup program

H:\BCReadme.htm
This readme file in an HTML version.

H:\BCReadme.txt
This readme file in ASCII text.

H:\Batch Export \Setup.exe
The setup program for the Batch Export utility

H:\Batch Export\BEReadme.htm
See this file for help about how to use the Batch Export utility

H:\Batch Export\BEReadme.htm
Text version of BEReadme.htm.

The following two datafile manipulation utilities are on the BoxCar Pro 4 distribution CD as unsupported utilities. These utilities make possible the correction of two specific types of errors made by the users of H08 and H07 loggers, and save data that would otherwise be lost. These two utilities were originally written for specific users to solve specific problems, but they may prove useful to a wider audience.

The H07ValCvt utility is used to change the "Event Value" parameter in a HOBO Event (H07) datafile.

This utility can be used to swap the "event" values in the datafiles to make each datafile display the proper amount of rainfall.

The H08FileCvt utility is used to change the "Selected Sensor" in H08 datafiles from loggers with external sensor ports.

This utility saves collected data from being lost because of improper sensor selection on launch.

Onset Loggers do not currently carry time zone information or daylight savings time information on board. Time in the logger is stored as seconds from 1980 in standard time. A logger’s start time will appear the same if read out on multiple machines, in multiple time zones, or on different versions of the software.

Recent versions of Microsoft ® Windows ™ automatically compensate for daylight savings time changes when the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight savings changes" checkbox is checked. (This checkbox is in the Date/Time properties window.) The checkbox is only enabled when you are set to a time zone that uses daylight savings. Windows does this compensation during the actual display of the time values and keeps the internal Windows time format stored in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time or GMT).

Since our loggers are independent devices that don't store time zone or daylight savings information, they don't know if or when they moved from one time zone to another. Because of this, Onset’s host software must de-compensate the internal time in various places in order for the time to show up correctly in BoxCar Pro and to be compatible with older versions of BoxCar and BoxCar Pro.

The launch time on the logger is moved forward an hour so it will be launched as if it had been launched in standard time.

The logger is launched normally because it is already standard time.

The start time on the logger is moved back an hour because it will be moved forward an hour by Windows during display.

The start time on the logger is left alone because Windows isn't doing any compensation.

When the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight savings changes" checkbox is on, the compensation is handled automatically by Windows and the plots in BoxCar will represent this. 1 AM will be seen twice during the "Fall Back" and 1 AM will be followed immediately be 3AM during the "Spring Forward" transition.

When the checkbox is off, the graph will not show the fall back and spring forward. 1AM will continue to 2AM during those times as it does normally every other day of the year.

If a data file passes over one of the daylight savings to standard time transitions (or vice versa), please keep in mind that it could appear as if the data is an hour off.

BoxCar Pro 4.0 contains a number of new features when compared with previous BoxCar software. Many of these features come under the umbrella of plotting support, and are covered in the manaul. This section gives further details about series properties and data filters.

This section discusses some details about BoxCar Pro’s Series Properties options. Additional information on how to access Series Properties is described in both the on-line manual (select Help Contents from the Help Menu) and the paper BoxCar Pro 4.0 User’s Guide. This section describes three Series Properties: Show Lines as Steps, Alarm lines, and New Time Axes in more detail.

Show Lines as steps will connect every sequential point in the series with a step line. A step-line is actually two connected lines. Starting at any point in the series (other than the final point), a step line is a horizontal line drawn from that point until it crosses over the location of the next point in the series. Then a vertical line is drawn up or down to that next point. That line is meant to show that the starting point's vertical value is valid until the next point is found in the sequence. Step lines are used by default for the HOBO State and HOBO Event loggers (which measure time above all), because connecting the points directly would show intermediate values that don't really make sense for those logger types. Step lines are also used in filtered series to simulate a bar graph using only lines.

Enabling the Alarm Lines property will draw two horizontal lines in the series area. They are meant to indicate out of range values for the series. The vertical location of these lines are indicated by the Min Line and Max Line fields, described below. They will draw if they are in vertical range of the value axis that is used by the series. Alarm lines are best used when other series are not using alarm lines. Otherwise, it can be hard to tell which alarm lines go with which series. The default setting is off unless the logger is capable of storing alarm lines and they were on during launch.

The Min Alarm Line is the vertical location of the horizontal and is blue. The default value is 0 unless the series obtained alarm lines settings from the launch parameters of the logger.

The Max Alarm Line is the vertical location of the horizontal Max alarm line. The line is red. The default value is 100 unless the series obtained alarm lines settings from the launch parameters of the logger.

The Value Axis combo box is a list of all value axes in the plot. The user can choose which axis the series will use, or create a new value axis based on the current axis that the series is using. Note: If the user chooses another axis, and the axis that was previously used by the series is no longer being used by any other series, that axis will be removed from the plot. Default is the current value axis used by the series. If a new series is being inserted into an existing plot, it will use any axis it finds in the plot that shares its unit name; otherwise, it will create a new axis.

The Time Axis combo box is a list of all time axes in the plot. The user can choose which axis the series will use, or create a new time axis based on the current axis that the series is using. Note: If the user chooses another axis, and the axis that was previously used by the series is no longer being used by any other series, that axis will be removed from the plot. Default is the current time axis used by the series. If a new series is being inserted into an existing plot, it will use the available time axis unless the name of the time axis has been changed to something other than blank.

In BoxCar Pro 4.0, data filters can convert the raw sample data from a logger into something that is more friendly to use in tabular format. Filters can use used to reduce the data to an amount you can use, or (in the case of the HOBO State and HOBO Event loggers), convert the data into values that look better when plotted on a line graph. A filtered series will often contain fewer points than the source series, and therefore take up much less memory and draw faster than the raw sample data.

Each filter takes one series in and produce one series out, without the need of additional input parameters.

The Standard Filters are for the standard type of series from loggers that sample data at a fixed interval and usually get readings from sensors. This includes every logger except the HOBO State and the HOBO Event.

State Filters are for State or On/Off or Open/Close Loggers. Closed in this case stands for Closed Circuit, which is represented by 1 in the plot. State loggers do not have a fixed time Interval and for the most part record time duration. For the filters that calculate time duration, time is calculated from the start of each sampling interval to the end of each sampling interval. This includes sampling intervals that have no sample points. Example: A state logger samples an open point (0) at 4:13. This is followed by a close point (1) at 4:21. The Percent open time on a 5 minute sampling interval from 4:15 to 4:20 would be 100 percent or 5*60 = 300 seconds.

This filter will create a new series based on the percent of time that the logger is in the Closed State (1) during each sampling interval.

This filter creates a new series based on the percent of time that the logger is in the Open State (0) during each sampling interval.

This filter creates a new series based on the number of seconds that the logger is in the Closed State (1) during each sampling interval.

This filter will create a new series based on the number of seconds that the logger is in the Open State (0) during each sampling interval.

Event filters are for HOBO Event loggers, including tipping bucket rain gauge loggers.

We call this section ‘known issues’ rather than known "bugs," since these notes don’t describe serious defects. This section describes tips on making some BoxCar Pro features easier to use.

Sometimes it is difficult to select a series with the arrow tool when the line segments in the series are mostly vertical or when they are very close to another series. If you are having trouble selecting a series, use the contextual menus or the plot items at the bottom of the "Plot" menu.

Gridlines are drawn in two ways. If the printer tells BoxCar that it can only draw two colors, then boxcar will draw gridlines as hairlines for major gridlines or dotted hairlines for major gridlines. If the printer reports that it is capable of printing color, the lines are drawn as solid lines in varying shades of gray. There have been some situations discovered in which postscript drivers capable of displaying multiple shades of gray report back as only being able to display two colors. In these situations, the gridlines will be drawn as dashed and solid hairlines.