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Short, frequent posts on what is new in Debrief v4, written in the same pull request as the work they describe.

Traceable figures: every image knows where it came from

A figure in a post-exercise report is only as good as the analysis behind it. Months later, someone asks: which plot is this, and was it before or after the track was corrected? Debrief's exported images now answer that themselves. Each carries an ID naming its plot and the exact step of the plot's history it was exported at, in its metadata and, small, in its corner; and Find source of image… takes the image, or that ID typed in, back to the plot as it was then.

Collation: one plot from many sources

An exercise rarely arrives in one file. The serial comes in from the range, a ship's own navigation log a day later, a colleague's corrected track the week after. Collation is putting them together: seeing which items have data for which platforms and when, choosing which supplies each period, and taking new data as it arrives without losing the work already done on the plot. Debrief now does all of that, from the catalogue, and keeps a record of every choice.

Labels, symbols and arrows

A track on a chart is more use with the times written along it. Legacy Debrief let you label a track's fixes every so often, mark them with its symbol, and put direction arrows along it, each at its own frequency. Debrief now does the same: select one or more tracks, say how often, and the map labels the times on the clock's round numbers, beside each track, thinning them as you zoom out so it never turns into a smudge.

Narrative from Word and PDF

Most of an exercise's narrative doesn't arrive as REP lines. It arrives as Word documents and PDFs: a ship's log typed up with its metadata hidden in the text, a rider's table of times, bearings and remarks, a printout of either. Legacy Debrief read four of these house styles, and Debrief now reads them too, on the desktop and in your browser, asking the questions legacy Debrief asked before it reads anything in. And the Timeline has gained legacy's Narrative viewer extras: words highlighted wherever they appear, choosing an entry without moving time, text size and wrapping, and the columns shown, all tucked into one small menu so the list stays quiet.

Narrative in the Timeline

Every platform in an exercise keeps a log, and reconstructing what happened means reading them side by side, against the tracks. Debrief now holds narrative properly: each entry has its time, who wrote it, what kind of entry it is and its text, and every platform's entries sit on one Zulu time axis. You read them in the Timeline, with notes and periods of interest, and it follows current time as you play, without ever fighting your own scrolling. Choose an entry and current time moves to it. Filter by source or type, search the text, add and correct entries, and see the current one beside its track on the map. It copes with sixty thousand entries.

The Tote

The Tote is back. Choose a primary track, usually your own ship, and add the secondaries you want to watch: for each one the Tote gives the range, the true bearing, the relative bearing, the angle on the bow and the bearing rate from the primary, and its own course, speed and depth, at current time. On the map, a thin line joins the primary to each secondary. Drag current time, step it or press play, and the values keep pace. It's in VS Code's sidebar under Time, and in the playground under the time controller. In the playground every panel down the side now folds away by its heading, as the Tote's does, and your browser remembers which you folded.

Dragging a fix, and dead reckoning

The last of the track operations has arrived. Zoom in on a track and each fix has a small ring of its own: drag one, and only that fix moves. Its time stays, its neighbours stay, and the map tells you, as you drag, how fast the platform would now have to go to reach it and to carry on. And the legacy OTG and DR modes are back, the legacy way: import a REP file and Debrief asks, for each track, whether it is plotted over the ground or dead reckoned from its courses and speeds, and you can tell it to use that choice for future imports. Each change to a plot is one step, and Ctrl+Z takes it back.

Cleaning tracks: jumps, smoothing and marking fixes

Three ways to tidy a track have arrived. Jump removal finds fixes a platform could not have reached in time, shows them to you on the map and in a list, and removes the ones you confirm. Smoothing shows you the track as it would be, and how far it would move each fix, before you apply it. And single fixes can now have a colour, a label or a comment of their own, as they could in legacy Debrief, so legacy plots no longer lose them on import. Each is one step in the plot's history, and Ctrl+Z takes it back.

Moving and splitting tracks

A track can now be moved and rotated on the map: the whole track, or only its fixes in the time window. Drag a handle and the track follows, with the range and bearing (or the angle) shown as you go; let go and it's one step in the plot's history. Tracks can also be split at current time and merged again. Everything can be done from the keyboard or a form, and Ctrl+Z takes any of it back.

Shear and stretch

A track, or its fixes in the time window, can now be sheared: hold one end, drag the other, and every fix in between moves in proportion to its time from the end you held. A straight leg stays a straight leg, with a new course and speed, and the map tells you both as you drag. Stretch does the same with the speed alone. Each release is one step, and the keyboard and two small forms do it too.