Release Notes
Flight Explorer, a Sabre solution
Premier
Version 12.0
December 2012
Software version 12.0
Document Edition 1.0
This documentation is the confidential and proprietary intellectual
property of the Sabre Airline Solution® business. Any unauthorized
use, reproduction, preparation of derivative works, performance or
display of this document or software represented by this document,
without the express written permission of Sabre Airline Solutions is
strictly prohibited.
Sabre Airline Solutions, the Sabre Airline Solutions logo, Sabre
Holdings, the Sabre Holdings logo, Flight Explorer and the Flight
Explorer logo are trademarks and/or service marks of an affiliate
of Sabre Holdings Corp. All other trademarks, service marks and
trade names are the property of their respective owners.
© 2012 Sabre Inc. All rights reserved. 01_2012
Table of Contents
1
Introduction
1.1 Document Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Release Type and Overview .......................................................................................................................... 1
2
New Features
2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 2
2.2 Dynamic Email Notification ............................................................................................................................ 2
2.3 Send Fast Track link by email ........................................................................................................................ 2
2.4 Online Reporting Tool Enhancement ............................................................................................................. 2
2.5 Auto-enable improvements ............................................................................................................................ 2
2.6 My Notes from parked aircraft........................................................................................................................ 2
2.7 My Fleet export .............................................................................................................................................. 3
2.8 Airport Summary query .................................................................................................................................. 3
2.9 Weather drop-down ....................................................................................................................................... 3
2.10 Weather products ........................................................................................................................................ 3
2.11 User-Defined Views ..................................................................................................................................... 4
2.12 General/Miscellaneous ................................................................................................................................ 4
2.13 Graphical User interface (GUI) .................................................................................................................... 4
2.14 Globalization ................................................................................................................................................ 5
2.15 Event System .............................................................................................................................................. 5
3
Defect Fixes
3.1 Fixed defects when ........................................................................................................................................ 6
4
Contact Information
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Table of Contents
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1
Introduction
1.1
Document Overview
This document contains information regarding the release of version 12 for Flight Explorer
Premier Edition.
1.2
Release Type and Overview
Release Identification
Release Version
Date
12.0
November 2012
Approved By
Description of Change
Major Release/Version
Release Type
Type of Release
12.0
Version Release
Update Release
Update Release with patches
Sabre Airline Solutions Release Notes
27 November 2012
1
Introduction
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2
New Features
2.1
Introduction
In this new release of Flight Explorer, users will see many new features added to the overall client,
new weather products, and some usability enhancements. The following section explains these new
features.
2.2
Dynamic Email Notification
If you have set email alerts for events through Event Manager, Flight Explorer now adds the name of
the event in the subject line of the email.
For example, the subject line could appear like the following:
FE Alert: Flight Position Update for AA11.
2.3
Send Fast Track link by email
You can send a Fast Track link to anyone from the client.
You can use the Send Fast Track Link window to send the flight plan through email. You will first
give the flight plan a name (alias) and then click Submit for Flight Explorer to create the link you can
send. Your default email account opens where you can enter the email of the address that you want to
send the route to. When the recipient of the email receives it, they will be able to click on the link in
the email. The link opens Flight Track where the route appears on a map. They can then watch the
plane as it reaches the destination.
2.4
Online Reporting Tool Enhancement
The Online Reporting tool performs a faster query with this new update.
Also, in the search, you can now use a wildcard in the search. For example, if you were to use *B,
*B7, the results would return all aircraft in the B category.
2.5
Auto-enable improvements
In this release, the drawing object functions the same as the drawing object in the toolbar by autoselecting the layer when you draw an object.
Also the weather overlay is enabled when you select a weather product.
2.6
My Notes from parked aircraft
You can now click on a parked aircraft and view, edit, or write notes in My Notes.
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New Features
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2.7
My Fleet export
You can now export all optional fields from the My Fleet aircraft selection window. In the My Fleet
aircraft selection window you can indicate to export Aircraft ID, Scratch pad, Origin, Departure Date,
and Departure Hour. Flight Explorer exports the information in notepad to the folder you designate
on your computer.
2.8
Airport Summary query
When you use the Airport Summary window to search, you can now use an FAA, ICAO, or IATA
code in your search. Flight Explorer recognizes all the codes.
2.9
Weather drop-down
You can now choose the option None from the drop-down.
2.10
Weather products
The following are new weather products offered in Flight Explorer.
•
MeteoStar Caribbean Radar
•
MeteoStar European Radar
•
Telvent South American IR Satellite
•
Updated hot tip and dialog for certain polygon weather objects to be more verbose and detailed.
These changes will be cascaded to other objects in future releases.
•
Updated WSI FPG product to have 7 future animation frames instead of 4.
•
Changed color of WSI convective objects to red and volcanic objects to white.
•
Added new palette option for lightning, with discrete colors (instead of single color faded) so age
of strike can more easily be determined (Weather, Product Properties).
•
Added new symbol option for lightning, to show + or – corresponding to polarity of strike.
•
Added new lightning time frame color coding for 1-minute products which shows finer time
periods for better visualization of the latest strikes and movement of lightning activity
(automatically activated for 1-minute lightning products).
•
Added the ability to disable the hot tip for satellite weather products. Temperature and altitude
values displayed are derived and provided by the particular weather vendor. Some users prefer to
visually exclude this derived information when satellite imagery is displayed. (Options, Weather
dialog).
•
Added ability to enable/disable certain polygon weather objects within products (temporarily put
on the Weather Animation and Alerts settings page)
•
Dynamic airport weather filter based on My Fleet flights. In addition to filtering airport weather
products by filter group (METAR, TAF, RVR, etc.), you can now dynamically filter based on the
origins and destinations of your current My Fleet flights. Origin airports can optionally be
excluded after take-off.
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New Features
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•
All satellite and radar products now support mouse-over tool-tip pop-up to show level under
cursor.
•
Basic NWS products have been enhanced, including NWS Radar Summary, Weather Depiction,
Surface Fronts, Freezing levels.
•
Radar Summary depiction has been enhanced with larger fonts and drop shadow on text for better
clarity and contrast with background.
2.11
User-Defined Views
•
Added color options for Filter Selection lists on all overlays.
•
Added support for a “?” wildcard in the selection and filtering of SIDs and STARs. ? can be used
in place of a digit in the SID/STAR name, and will automatically allow SIDs/STARs to match the
filter criteria even after the number is incremented by the FAA.
•
Added the ability to turn labels on and off for the high resolution background maps (streets and
airports).
2.12
General/Miscellaneous
•
Added the airport’s IATA code to the Airport Summary heading.
•
My Fleet dynamic airport filter (used for filtering of airport based weather objects, Airport List
and Diversion Management Icons) can now, optionally, include alternates if sent to Flight
Explorer via 3PDI (Third Party Data Interface).
•
Added support for additional islands in the base map (UK, SEGS, etc.).
•
After each entry, automatically change focus back to entry field when adding items to Filter
groups.
•
Updated “Source” names for 3PDI providers in position history.
•
My Fleet Airline mode enhancement. My Fleet airline mode now allows up to five airline IDs
to be specified. This is useful for customers not taking advantage of the automated My Fleet
mode and/or supervisors wanting to see entire airline or network flights in My Fleet.
•
Route decode logic. The internal route decoding logic has been enhanced to support partial
routes and routes with non-unique tokens. This corrects issues related to the graphical depiction
of these routes and typical Route Analyzer functions such as distance calculations.
•
Lookup/go to now supports SID and STAR objects.
2.13
Graphical User interface (GUI)
•
Icon refresh. All of the application icons have been redesigned with updated palettes,
transparency and resolution. The result is a refreshed interface which is more modern and
intuitive, while still easily recognizable and intuitive.
•
Ribbon bar interface. A new Ribbon Bar graphical user interface (GUI) is available as an option
under Windows Vista SP2, 2003, 7, and later. This tabbed interface revolutionizes the way in
which features can be accessed in the application. It supports a customizable Quick Access
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Toolbar (QAT) and the ability to minimize the Ribbon, giving the user even more map space.
This is an optional interface. Toolbars are still fully available under all supported Windows
versions.
•
Label drawing. Most labels on the map now have a drop shadow drawn behind them for better
contrast with the background.
•
The outbound request queue of the Desktop Interface was optimized to improve performance.
•
New Block-In, Block-Out times available to be sent in 3PDI and viewed in client application.
2.14
Globalization
•
Filter Groups on additional overlays. Filter group support has been added to all applicable
overlays: Sectors, Airspace boundaries, SUA, TRACONs, Radar, holding patterns, SIDs, STARs,
Flight Service Stations, Communication facilities and weather stations.
•
Multiple filter groups in one View overlay. Now, up to five filter groups can be selected on an
overlay in a User Defined View. This allows great flexibility in setting up customer/region
specific groups of overlay objects and turning on these groups in your Views.
•
Overlays enhanced to support global groups and regional customization. All US centric groupings
have been removed from the overlays. Built in categories are now global in nature (i.e. Low
airways show low airways worldwide and not just in US, etc.). Regional customization can be
achieved through the expanded filter groups. You can now define your own regional filter groups
and select up to five of them at a time in a single View overlay.
•
Airport Summary now includes metric units for altitudes and speeds.
2.15
Event System
Installation now correctly installs FE sound events on all versions of Windows.
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New Features
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3
Defect Fixes
The following section explains defects that have been fixed since the last version of the client.
3.1
Fixed defects when:
•
Save Map As was writing to HTTP and file when it should have only gone to file.
•
Some windows were not appearing on multiple monitor. Map windows not appearing when
multi-monitor configuration changed under Windows.
•
Find Flight toolbar not working for entered aircraft ID.
•
Radial distance for the True distance range rings was not constant.
•
Airways crossing the map boundary were not displaying correctly.
•
Weather Product Properties setting for minimum level of FAA Delay product would not be
observed.
•
Tool tip for planned/scheduled summary icon could cause an application fault. Hot tip now
limited to fifty (50) records.
•
Application would continue to launch without any View selected if application folder was set to
read only and no View file exists. The application will now correctly inform user and exit.
•
Bad airway data within static data update could result in inaccurate route decoding and map
rendering.
•
Installation could fail on non-English versions of Windows due to differences in default security
settings.
•
Resulting flight list from route impact search could show Entry time field as "n/a" and status field
as blank.
•
Added metric unit display to the Airport Summary, Details tab.
•
Added IATA ID to the heading in Airport Summary.
•
Added a suffix to the speed column in the Plane properties, Position history list to correctly
indicate the speed type (MACH, airspeed, etc.)
•
Corrected an issue where country labels would disappear when weather animation was enabled.
•
Corrected an issue where labels would not dim when the background dimming feature was
enabled.
•
Corrected an issue where display of SIDs/STARs could cause the application to fault.
•
Corrected an issue where display of Holding patterns could cause the application to fault.
•
Corrected an issue where some UIR Airspace Boundaries were not showing on screen (this was
corrected in the 10/20/2011 static data update for all client versions).
•
Corrected an issue when filter groups were selected on overlays, only the first 100 objects of that
type would draw.
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Defect Fixes
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•
Corrected an issue with Filter Groups selections, when filter groups were selected and enable
non-sequentially in the UDView dialog, the overlay toolbar drop down menu items would not
correctly enable and disable those groups.
•
Corrected issue where enabling the My Fleet dynamic airport filter for airport based weather
products would cause FE to stop receiving data updates.
•
Corrected issue plotting airway J21.
•
Updated text in the Find Plane dialog to indicate which aircraft can be found and located during
and after flight.
•
Added button to Ribbon, Home tab to access Reroute Advisory list.
•
Added text to UDView Lat/Lon dialog to indicate that dotted degree style for grid lines is not
available in spherical mode.
•
Corrected an issue where FE could fault when the Streets & Places overlay was displayed
simultaneously in multiple map windows.
•
Delayed flight list “Replace with My Fleet…” function was not working properly.
•
Corrected an issue where multiple, rapid event list left clicks would occasionally cause a lock-up.
•
Corrected a bug in the Event List where colored events would not show the proper color gradient,
causing them to not have a clear division between events.
•
Corrected Airport Details Type field which was still showing “USA” incorrectly as the type.
•
Corrected an occasional fault when viewing airport details in look up / go to.
•
Corrected an issue where FE would crash, at times, upon entry or exit of full screen mode on
Windows 7, 32-bit systems.
•
Corrected an issue that would cause a crash, over time, when airport runway drawing was turned
on.
•
Ribbon weather buttons were not causing the View to be marked as Changed, therefore changes
could not be saved.
•
Background images would cause application fault at times when loaded rapidly in slide show
mode.
•
Toolbar icons were rendering with a black background in configurations where application is
accessed remotely (Citrix, RDP, etc.).
•
Corrected country name labels near Africa (static data update).
•
Drawing objects were not being auto-selected after being created using the ribbon interface.
•
Drawing objects were generating inaccurate alerts for flights entering and exiting areas.
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Defect Fixes
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4
Contact Information
For additional help or support please contact the Flight Explorer Support using any of the
following methods:
•
Phone +1 301 634 8201
•
Email FEsupport@sabre.com
•
Fax +1 301 634 8202
The support desk is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is the initial contact for all service
incidents. Upon receipt of the service incident, appropriate personnel are notified.
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