Feedback to PV*SOL premium 2021 R1

[Jimmy]

Hi Martin and the rest of the PV*SOL team,

So first off I'd like to say that it's always nice when you launch a new update (although there are often some issues that comes with that). I've just downloaded it and tried it out for 20 minutes.

I very much like "time step of simulation" option. Might I suggest adding a some extra steps in there for the next update, a 5, 15 and 30 minute simulation shouldn't be too hard to implement. That way users can choose better between accuracy and time.

I also like the circle diagrams that you've added to the presentation, looks a lot nicer with just that small change.

Now we come to the things that I think needs correcting.

First off, and this is very important for me (so important that I'll go back to 2020 R9 if I can't get a fix very quickly) the 3D modeling is now broken for me. The buttons are almost completely hidden and they weren't before. I know that you've had this issue before since I've installed the trial version on another laptop long ago and I had the same issue then, but I can't have this issue with this laptop since I use this laptop for all my work.

The second issue is the "parts list". I see that you've added some options, the delete button (I'm assuming that there should be a delete button where it says delete) doesn't work.

Third is the map selection in 3D view. When I first start the map selection the page is just white and it won't load. The drop down menu for the map provider is also broken so I can't change map provider (luckily google satellite is the default now). I had to type in an adress and hit search before the map rendered anything.

It's good that you can now save the module degradation as default, I wish you implemented the default saving for a lot of other stuff that I have to change every time I make a new project.

I'd like a default for;

1. Country, Location (with changing the location also comes the tariff prompt, which is set to German , every time).

2. Financial analysis. I'd like to be able to save all the stuff to default. As it is now I first have to set all the financial parameters that I use, everything except for the prize is almost always the same. I have to type in the "price of electricity sold to third party" every time. I have to delete the German feed-in tariff. I have to add the Swedish feed-in tariff. I have to change the from-grid tariff. Every time I do a new project I have to do all of those things and I almost always change them to the same thing. Now that I think about it I should probably just write a macro for it until it's fixed.

Anyway. I got a bit frustrated as I was looking through all the issues that I have with the program and all the things that I have to do repeatedly just because there isn't a "save as default" option for most things. I hope that I don't come off as rude.

 

But I seriously need a fix for the buttons in the 3D modelling, quickly.

 

Best regards,

Jimmy 

[developer_mh]

Hi Jimmy,

just a short hint for the issue with the small/unusable buttons in 3D. Could you try to apply the work-around that is described here and see if it helps, please?

Also, another one here:

 

The paths need to be adjusted for 2021, of course. Please let us know if that helps. Concerning the rest I will get back to you - for now, thanks for the feedback!

Kind regards,

Martin

[Jimmy]

Thanks Martin,

The button issue is resolved (I changed the DPI settings and always run as admin).

 

Now, concerning the default things. If you're gonna work on it could you at the same time create "profiles" that one could pick to set a whole lot of default values at the same time. So if I'm working with a private house I can load one set of defaults and if I'm working towards something commercial I can load another set of defaults.

 

I also realized that my work around to all of this right now isn't to create a macro but to just save a template where I've done all the settings except the 3d modelling. Can't believe that I didn't think of this earlier.

 

Kind regards,

Jimmy

[developer_mh]

Hi Jimmy,

I was just about to ask you if creating template projects wouldn't be an option for the default value issue. Glad that this way works for your needs. But I will put the wish of more default options on our list.

Concerning your other points:

• Parts list: We didn't change this for 2021, the delete buttons were always there, but only for items that you user created
• "Third is the map selection in 3D view. When I first start the map selection the page is just white and it won't load. " - Does this happen all the time when you open the map view?

And then thanks for your words about the features you liked We are always doing out best to deliver a software product that is really helpful for the users. But no matter how hard and intense we test (we have a huge bunch of automated tests, and we do nothing but manual testing weeks before we release), there are always issues in the first releases of a major version that we do not find. Sorry for that.

Kind regards,

Martin

[Jimmy]

No need to apologize Martin. I've dabbled a bit in programming myself so I have an idea of how many unforeseeable things there are that only show up after release.

 

Concerning the parts list, must have been my mistake. Although it does seem a bit buggy to me with things like the mouse pointer changing for every pixel i move across the parts list. It might just be on my end though. 

Concerning the map, I checked again today after a restart. The map loads well now, although I'm still having issues with the drop down menu for choosing the map provider.

 

So, just to show you. Here's (a part of) the normal view.

 

And here's what happens when I click on "switch map provider"

 

 

Which looks fine until I try to mouse over different providers to switch to them, then it looks like this:

 

 

I've managed to select Bing as a map provider once and then I wasn't able to switch back and had to restart to get Google satellite (which works best for me).

[developer_mh]

Hi Jimmy,

Quote

No need to apologize Martin. I've dabbled a bit in programming myself so I have an idea of how many unforeseeable things there are that only show up after release.

Ja, you wouldn't believe the multitude of errors that you can have when programming Windows applications. It is like fighting against wind mills But anyways, the important thing is that we can identify the errors quickly and provide bugfix updates.

Quote

Concerning the map, I checked again today after a restart. The map loads well now, although I'm still having issues with the drop down menu for choosing the map provider.

This is really one unlikely bug. It is built deeply into the GUI components of WPF (the GUI element framework that is used for this dialog), but only affects this dropdown list for high DPI monitor scaling settings. But I guess we found a work-around for that. We will release it with R3 of PV*SOL premium 2021.

Thanks for your feedback, kind regards,

Martin

[Jordn]

Hi there 

 

it seems like PV Sol 2020 cannot open PV Sol 2021 files.

Yours,

Jordan

 

[developer_mh]

Hi Jordn,

yes, this is true. This is often the case when we switch to new major versions, as we often have to change something in the internal structure of the project file.

Kind regards,

Martin

[timgreen13]

Hello

what can be the reason that the maps are not shown?

 

[developer_mh]

Hi Tim,

does this happen all the time or only after you do something special (like search coordinates, for example). As a side note: it is best to use the semicolon if you search for coordinates, not the comma, to separate latitude and longitude.

Kind regards,

Martin

[timgreen13]

well this is first time after the update to 2021 ..