Discussion: using a Mac for course planning

Hi,
A friend is using a Mac and wishes to use Purple Pen which has a link to an Emulator to download to enable him to use PP. There is Condes and OCAD as well. Does anyone have suggestions of which is the simpliest /easiest way to go to use a Mac for course planning?
Tks.
Jim

I use VMWare Fusion on my Mac. I have a half-dozen virtual machines, some running Windows XP, some Windows 10, and some Linux. You can download an ISO image of Windows 10 from Microsoft for free and boot it in a VM in Fusion. You can download Fusion for a 30-day trial, and if it works for you, pay the license fee and keep going with it.

I use Bootcamp on a Mac to boot directly into Windows, also using Windows10. This way Windows has access to all the resources on the machine. It is really annoying to have to reboot, but it's possible to run the same instance of Windows inside a Fusion VM, so if you need to use something low resource like Purple Pen you can do it quickly without rebooting. For OCAD or a game a reboot is the way to go. Note that it would take two licenses to use OCAD both in Fusion and with Bootcamp, even on the same computer.

@Cristina: If you actually have to use Bootcamp and/or Fusion (or some other virtualization setup), then I would ask OCAD

"Can you please allow me to do this by increasing the max installation count?"

They can only say no, but in my personal experience they are likely to be helpful if you have a good story. I.e. I have had severe machine/disk crashes (solved by a full reinstall of the OS and all programs) 2-3 times over the years I've been using OCAD, and they have allowed me to reinstall each time.

They were helpful when I wanted to switch from one to the other, but not for increasing the count. I've solved this problem by just using bootcamp on an old computer and leaving it running Windows when I am in intense O-planning phase (i.e., leading up to and including the Southwest Spring Week).

Hi folks,


thank you. Jim

I use Bootcamp on a old Mac. Bootcamp is part of the Mac OS.
So my Mac has Mac OS and Windows on it.
When I want to use Condes for course planning I need to restart and select Windows which is why I have it installed on an older Mac. That way I basically keep the old Mac just for Condes and don’t have to switch OSs.

I don’t know of any course planning software for Mac.

OOM has some course planning capabilities.
“ OpenOrienteering Mapper doesn’t have a sophisticated course planning feature. The Course Design symbol set provides basic support for designing maps with courses and control descriptions.”
https://www.openorienteering.org/mapper-manual/pag...

You could search this forum for Apple/Mac course planning or OOM course planning, etc.

Any updates to this info? We're starting a new orienteering group and were disappointed to learn that almost all of the organizers (including me) have Macbooks.

There's always the option of buying a $100 Windows laptop.

We were using an old Mac and several linux laptops. None of the various windows emulators were very satisfactory. When the Mac eventualy failed we decided a replacement was too expensive and bought a used windows laptop with a largish screen. The windows machine runs Purple Pen and SI Config. Map amendments are done on Omap. We use SI-Droid for event managment on a used Android tablet. We dont have the budget to use OCAD, Condes and SI event timing.

For what it's worth I looked into this a few months ago and didn't find a better answer than running Purple Pen on Windows in Bootcamp. Which worked fine.

I'm no expert though and would be pleased to be told I've missed something.

Parallels is not free but is very satisfactory.



I have been wondering about setting up Windows pro on a desktop in my basement and enabling Remote Desktop for our club's other Mac users. Not sure how laggy it is, but some coworkers run test stands remotely this way so maybe it's not all bad.

I keep a headless windows box sitting beside my desk solely for running purple pen and Kartapullautin which I run via RDP from my otherwise linux setup. No noticeable lag, Mac should function equally smoothly
. Plus when processing lidar, I can just start up KP and let it chug away for hours without impacting other stuff I'm doing.

I too find it a bit puzzling that there is no native orienteering course planning software available for Mac OS.

Thus I'm still using Bootcamp on an old Mac to run Windows so that I can use Condes for course planning. Basically I keep the old Mac only for Condes so it's always running Windows.

I'm worried the 16 years old Mac may quit at some point I've got another old Mac lined up just in case because I don't anticipate any orienteering course planning software becoming available to Mac OS anytime soon.

You can also fire up a Windows WorkSpace in AWS for that. Which is nice from an “oops, forgot the old Mac” perspective.

Maybe one day Peter Golde will decide to become a Mac dabbler:). Or Open Orienteering will build something natively. Or Pete can find a way to port Purple Pen over to Open Mapper and unify the experience. Sorry Pete if you’re reading this:). You’ve done so much already that I hate to complain and prefer to be thankful for what you’ve already done!

Hmm, I didn't know about AWS but that could solve the problem of multiple Mac users who don't live close to one another and don't want to run Windows on their Macs. Has anyone with a Mac tried orienteering software with a Windows Workspace in AWS?

I've read all the past discussions on this and was hoping that by now, some developer might have taken pity on all the orienteers who are Mac users. Alas, I guess not. My fear is that if I set up my prized new Macbook to devote a bunch of space to Windows and orienteering apps (already a tough call), I may become the only volunteer who can do certain tasks. That's the exact opposite of my goal for this new group. I want to set things up so that I'm welcome but completely unnecessary for the operation of the group. :)

I believe the other Barb has indeed run orienteering software on an AWS Windows workspace and might be able to share some experience.

And AWS LightSail might be a less expensive option, although I’ve only ever used it for Linux web stacks.

Thanks!