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Is there a way to pause the outing? Make it stop the timer and pedometer temporarily? I thought maybe going back to the main screen would do it. After all, there is that "Resume Outing" button. But no, it does not. I have found the timer is still ticking. So, that button does not really mean "resume outing". It means "go back to the outing screen". I have to manually deduct a certain amount of minutes in my desktop records.
I like that idea of pausing by returning to main screen. I will add this feature and update here when completed. Working on getting v5.2 of BD Desktop out the door, so it may be a week or two.
David,
I have spent some time ruminating on this idea.
I am trying to come up with proper Use Case scenarios that warrant this feature. I am not sure that I can come up with supportable situations.
For example, Why do we want this feature? Does it serve a valid use? Are there other ways of accomplishing the desired behavior?
Why are we pausing an Outing? Should we not just Finish the Outing and start a new one when birding resumes again? An Outing definition is general, but involves at a minimum a consistent birding effort over a defined time period.
How would the data differ between a paused Outing that is resumed and the situation where you finish the Outing and start another Outing when you would have resumed the previous Outing? I don't think there is any difference. Back in Birder's Diary Desktop, you manipulate the sightings any way you like, regardless of the two scenarios I describe above.
So, let's dig deeper into understanding a real-World need for this ability to Pause/Resume and see if it can be supported.
As far as I know, other in-field bird-sighting apps do not have this feature, but I did not do a check just now, I just don't remember seeing such a feature.
Let me know,
Jeff
p.s. Marking this as Resolved for now, but if we determine it needs attention, I can reverse that.
If I have to stop birding to make a "pit stop", or I get delayed because I run into neighbors and chat for a while, then I want to pause the outing. The other day, so much of that chatting happened, that I just closed it out and stopped recording the rest of my walk.
Otherwise, I just remember to manually deduct some time when I do the import.
As you know, there is no place in BD Desktop to record some of the data that the app records, like distance and time. I have been sticking that in the comments for the first sighting in "< >".
In my walk lately, I have been doing three laps around the neighborhood. Hence questions on whether to count say, 3 miles, or just 1 mile, for eBird purposes. (We have discussed this before.) If I do just one outing, then I have to make a judgement on whether I already counted that cardinal on the last go round, which I have been doing.
If I do as you say and record three separate outings, then each one would need to have a separate time in BD. There is no way to do that other than to manually change the times the app records to a blanket time for the start of THIS lap. That gets rather complex.
Either way, I get nailed with something.
As you know, there is no place in BD Desktop to record some of the data that the app records, like distance and time. I have been sticking that in the comments for the first sighting in "< >".
This is captured in the Trip that is auto-created if you choose that option in BD Mobile. See attached screenshot. Select this option. Trip is analogous to the eBird Checklist or Outing. Just choose that option, and a trip is auto-created with all the imported sightings attached to it, and this data added to the Trip Comments.
If I do as you say and record three separate outings, then each one would need to have a separate time in BD. There is no way to do that other than to manually change the times the app records to a blanket time for the start of THIS lap. That gets rather complex.
Whether you create a new outing on each lap or not, each sighting has its own timestamp and lat/lng. They are separated into separate Sightings for import into BD Desktop based on your Mobile settings of time and distance.
Jeff
I meant fields in the Trip, not fields sighting.
I have tried the Create Trip on Import, and found it useful!The Trip ID has Date and Time. I manually move it to a year Parent trip (e.g. 2020).
But I would like to see the Outings dashboard separate outings by trip, as well as location/date. That would be even more useful.
I have also found that I can pull up the Trip screen, so I can read the data as I enter it into the eBird export screen. That is a saving grace at least.
The difficulty I see in calling up a trip is knowing what to search for--what to type. I might not know what I called a particular app outing. With practice, I could know to type, say "2020-08", and I could find the date I want. I don't know how that would work yet with the small drop-down and a lot of trips.