v0.8.6

OscarWatch Tracker — Version 0.8.6

New Visualiser and Tracking Features

• Per-Pass Polar Chart Visualiser Added a right-click context menu option to the sidebar pass list to instantly open a dedicated single-station polar sky plot. This visualiser renders the pass track with clear sunlit and eclipse segments, supports interactive mouse-hover to read real-time azimuth, elevation, and time, and includes an option to save a PNG screenshot. It also respects your global local/UTC pass planner preferences.

• Smarter Footprint Motion Arrows The motion arrows on satellite map footprints now use a highly accurate subpoint motion heading estimator (calculating an initial bearing roughly 45 seconds ahead). This makes footprint direction rendering far more reliable.

• Optimised Ground Track Rendering Introduced a map tracking optimisation that limits ground-track rendering exclusively to your currently focused satellite. This reduces background geometry calculations while keeping the visual cache completely fresh.

• Smarter Map-Time Scrubbing Data Separated live operational tracking data from map preview data. When you scrub through map time to preview future passes, the software now accurately retains your real-time "live-now" tracking states in the background for active radio and rotator operations.

Configuration Import, Export, and UI Refinements

• Settings and Transponder Database Import/Export Added file-based import and export features. You can now back up, share, or replace your entire application settings file and your custom transponder database via simple file picker dialogue windows accessible from the main menu.

• GPS Grid Square in Status Bar When using a serial or network GPS receiver with auto-location enabled, your current calculated Maidenhead grid square is now cleanly appended directly into the main status bar label.

• Title Case UI Polish Standardised UI button labels and file picker titles to consistent Title Case (e.g. "View Pass Plot", "Export Settings", "Replace Settings?") across the app.

• HMS Countdown Clock Swapped out the old countdown style for a standardised H:MM:SS format for upcoming passes.

Performance and Resilience Under the Hood

• Hot-Path Allocation Reductions Partnered with g4dpz for another deep round of code optimisations. We eliminated heavy rendering allocations within the world map layout and stripped out collection churn on the satellite tracking list. By assigning static list updates rather than looping clear/add routines, UI binding lag has been drastically reduced.

• Tolerant Partial Pass Predictions Improved pass planning reliability. If a single satellite fails to calculate or has data errors, the tracking engine now catches the error, logs a warning, and returns the successful results for all other satellites rather than crashing the entire refresh cycle.

• Smarter Doppler VFO Changes Refactored rig frequency writes so that the software only issues an interactive VFO selection command to the physical radio if a Doppler shift write actually took place, preventing unnecessary rig clicking when shifts fall below minimum thresholds.

• Lightweight Release Notes Parser Replaced the bulky third-party Markdown rendering package with a custom, high-performance local parser built directly into the application. This strips down the executable footprint while cleanly rendering update release notes.

• Network Timeout Protection Added explicit network timeout safety to Cloudlog lookups, gracefully returning empty data if a slow remote server fails to respond before the timeout expires.

• DATA-LSB Mode Support Added DATA-LSB to the satellite database editor mode selection list to support operations using Lower Sideband data variants.
  Full Changelog: v0.8.5...v0.8.6