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Garmin Aviation Checklist Editor

This is, I think, the worst bit of software I have seen that is still on the market. It is just dreadful. When it was written in 2010 it was 20 years out of date.

The prospect of putting my checklists in there (they already exist in Word and TXT formats) is so appalling that I shall probably give up.

You can’t even edit the ACE file in a text editor :-( Presumably because there is some kind of checksum in the header or footer.

Has anyone found a solution to this?

EGKB Biggin Hill

No, I just swallowed the pain and did it.

EGTF, LFTF

To check for a checksum etc, change just one character in the file by one binary place e.g. “a” to a “b” and see if any other bytes change. A checksum then becomes obvious. There may also be a byte count – probably 2 bytes.

Then, any half competent hacker can write a program which computes a new checksum and writes it into the file.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Any half competent hackers out there?

(I can probably pay a little.)

Last Edited by Timothy at 11 Nov 11:12
EGKB Biggin Hill

Generate two files, which differ in only the one character.

Then generate a third one, same as one of the others except it contains an extra byte.

Put them on dropbox.

Then we can have an anorak competition

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The last 4 bytes are a simple, inverted CRC32 Checksum over the rest of the file.
So – writing a more suitable tool should be no problem

If you give me a longer checklist as an .ace file and how it is shown on the display or in the Garmin software,
I might find some time this week to implement something.

EDGH

@yesombre, that would be great, and a great service for the greater good, as I am sure that many more people would use their GTNs and G1000s as checklist managers if the process were less ghastly.

May I suggest that we try to find a convenient time to have a join.me session? Then we can discuss and look at exactly what a change in the UI of the editor looks like in the ACE file, and you can prompt me as to what changes you want to see.

Give me some availabilities in zulu time and we can see if there is a time that suits both of us?

Alternatively you could just download the editor local copy yourself and just play. You will also need to download the Microsoft WinHlp32, as Garmin have used an out of date version of the help system.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Incidentally, you really don’t need to produce a fancy schmancy slick product.

I would suggest that the very easiest UI would be a text file where each line starts with 0, 1 or 2 tabs to indicate which level that line is. That would make conversion from other formats the simplest.

Then you could just do a conversion (an online conversion like this would be best) where we drop the txt file and you deliver an ACE file.

EGKB Biggin Hill

A small online conversion tool would have been my suggestion, too.
I’m on a business trip till Thursday. This involves sitting long hours in the train – perfect for a small coding project.

I will just install the garmin editor and see what works best.

EDGH
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