Preview of pull request #42: Narrative, part A: narrative entries in the Timeline. Built from 9bcd965 on 2026-10-15 11:40 UTC. All previews
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Capability

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.

Annotations

Analysts can now add lines, areas, circles, ellipses, labels, markers and notes to a plot through a form, style them, give them a time, change and delete them. Each is one step in the plot's history, so Ctrl+Z takes it back. Notes are listed in a new Timeline, and legacy plots bring their circles, ellipses and styling with them.

Drawing on the map

Annotations can now be drawn straight onto the map: a line, an area, a circle, an ellipse, a label or a marker, with the range, bearing and size shown as you draw. Select one and handles appear, to drag a corner, move a circle or turn an ellipse. Each finished annotation is one step in the plot's history, and so is each change, so Ctrl+Z takes it back. Everything can also be done from the keyboard.

One file, history included

A plot is now one file an analyst can pass to a colleague, and its whole history goes with it. The colleague can undo a step the sender made, go back to any step, and see who did what, with nothing else beside the file.