VarAC - HF discussion forum

Setup: VarAC 16.1.8 and VARA HF 4.9.0 under CrossOver 26.3 (Wine 11) on macOS 27, Apple Silicon. The bottle uses WPF software rendering (Avalon.Graphics DisableHWAcceleration=1), which is the usual setting for WPF under Wine.

The map opens and draws, but none of its controls respond. The CQs, Broadcasts and Lines checkboxes and the band drop-down ignore both the mouse and the keyboard, and turning Always on top off makes no difference. While the map is open, VarAC uses 100–120% CPU; the rest of VarAC then stops responding as well, and in the end the map cannot be closed, so VarAC has to be force-quit.

The problem then repeats on every start. Because MapOpenOnStartup has been saved as ON, VarAC reopens the map and hangs again, until the setting is changed to OFF in VarAC.ini by hand.

Map settings at the time were MapHours=1440 (60 days), MapType=Terrain and a window of about 1900×1000. Apart from the map, VarAC works normally under Wine.

Fix ideas:

1. Keep the map off VarAC’s interface thread. Loading and drawing 60 days of beacons, CQs and QSOs on that thread appears to leave no time for clicks or for the rest of VarAC. Doing the data work in the background, and limiting how often the map redraws, would probably fix both the dead controls and the hang. Under Wine, WPF draws everything on the CPU, so the problem shows up there first; slower Windows machines may see it too.

2. Do not reopen the map at startup if VarAC was closed abnormally while it was open, or offer a way to start without it (holding Shift at launch, for example). Then a map problem could not lock VarAC up on every start.

3. Default to a shorter history, such as the last 24 hours, and load more only when asked. The first view would be light, and each user could widen it as far as their machine allows.

4. Offer a lighter map style, without terrain tiles or animations, for slower machines and for Wine.

5. Test the filter controls under Wine. WPF drop-downs and pop-ups are a known weak spot there, whereas plain checkboxes and lists, or the standard Windows Forms controls used in the rest of VarAC, would avoid the problem.
   

Thanks for the Wine checkbox fix in this release; it is good to see Linux and Mac users looked after. I am happy to test a build.