Contents

• Introduction
• Requirement
• Main Form
  • Exporting data
  • Importing data
• Maintenances Form
• Preferences Form
• Fuel Fecord Form
• Statistics Form
  • Overall statistics
  • Individual statistics
• Graphics Form

Introduction

Requirement

Main Form

Main form

Main Form with Record Menu

The records menu allows you to do two things: export fuel data to MemoPad and import from MemoPad.

Exporting data

The export form

You can export your data to Memo Pad in a CSV(comma separated value) format. This may be handy if you want to further process the information in a spreadsheet or database. The exported records are the ones from the current category (i.e. the record you see in the table). If you have multiple cars represented as categories, you can export everything by selecting the All category before exporting it.

You can also filter (Figure Export with Filter) the data to be exported by tapping the filter checkbox. When the filter is checked only the records with Date between the two limits will be exported.

The export form with filter set

Here is an example of data written out by the export process.

Data written out by the export process

Importing data

Importing is simply the inverse of exporting the data. It parses fuel data in a Memo Pad record and populates the pFuel DB with the corresponding records. The records are imported in the current category.

All MemoPad records are checked to see if there are pFuel records to be imported. A check is done with the first line of the record. If this line is the same as the first line of the record in Figure Data written out by the export proces then the record is parsed. This implies that all MemoPad record with the given first line will be imported.

Header information includes

the number of fuel records.

the user preference for the number format which is ignored at this time.

Parsing the date back into pFuel poses some challenges. Globally there are many variations of order(month/day/year or day/month/year), delimits(eg, backslash, comma or period) and should it be written short or long format.

To avoid this problems, the date is written out as the number of days from January 1, 1904. This is the epoch on Palm OS.

Main Form with Options Menu

Maintenances

This will send you to the Maintenancess Form

Preferences

This will send you to the Preferences Form

Change ordering

By default the ordering of the table in the Main form is in chronological order. If you select this entry then the ordering will be inverted. The first item in the table will be the more recent one.
This item work has a toggle. You always invert the current ordering.

About

This selection will give you the information about this software.
The version number and the site where you can report bug, have new version, etc.

Maintenances Form

Maintenances Form

Fisrt Column

The first column labelled "D" or done. Can have a check mark in it.
If there is a check mark then the Maintenance item is considered has done and this item can't produce an alert.

Second Column

This column gives you the description of the maintenance item. The description can ahve a maximum of 16 characters.

Third column

This is the most interesting column. It gives you when the next alert will popup.
If the date and the Odometer value was selected the one displayed will be the odometer value.

Adding Maintenance

Adding Maintenance (Basic)

Adding Maintenance (Recurrent)

Maintenance Alert

A Maintenance Alert will show up after adding or modifying a Fuel RECORD. If the odometer value in the record is greater than the one in the Maintenance RECORD. The Fuel RECORD odometer value is checked againts all the Maintenance RECORDS that are active (i.e. not Done).

You have 3 choices,

OK

You can click on the OK button. The Maintenance RECORD will be set as done and no more warning comming from this record will so up.
If the alert was comming from a RECORD with Every xxx selected then a record is created with the odometer value as the current odometer and the date as the today date. The new record is set as done and the internal counter for the RECORD with Every xxx is incremented by one.

SNOOZE

You can click on the SNOOZE button and the alert will show up again when a new pFuel RECORD will be added.
If the alert was comming from a RECORD with Every xxx selected then a new record is created with the odometer value as one the generating The internal counter for the RECORD with Every xxx is incremented by one so the new record will be generating the next time a fuel record is saved.

GO TO

You go to the record generating the alert.

Preferences Form

Preferences Form

Preference Form with Efficiency choice displayed

Fuel Record Form

Form for adding a record

Form for editting a record

Statistics Form

Overall statistics

Overall statistic form

Amount per day

This is the total amount spent on fuel from the first record to the last record divided by the number of days between the first record to the last. ]$_First,...,$_last] /(date_last - date_first). The $ value on the first record is excluded.

Avg dist per tank

This is the average distance done with a tank (total_distance/(number_of_fills-1)).

Avg days between fills

This is the average number of days between two record (last_record.date - fist_record.date)/(number_of_fills-1)).

Max dist per tank

This is the maximum distance between two record (record_(i).odometer - record_(i-1).odometer). When we traverse the list of record, the comparison is done againts the current value only if record_(i) has its full tank checked.

Total distance

This is the distance between the last record and the first record.

Total cost

This is the total cost of all the record. You can also include in the total cost the cost of the Maintenance item for this car category. N.B. For now there is no feedback to tell you if the maintenance cost is added or not so look at the number if it increase when you select it in the menu. (Figure Statistic form Menu)

$/Volume

This is the total cost divided by the total volume put in the car. The unit for the volume is the one defined in the Preferences Form. This item does not include the cost of the maintenance.

$/Km

This is the total cost (including the maintenance cost if selected in the preference) divided by the total distance. The unit for the distance is the one defined in the Preferences Form.

$/Tank

This is the total cost (not including the maintenance cost) divided by the number of record.

L/100Km

Here will be displayed the efficiency in the units chosen in the Preferences Form.The value is calculated between the first and the last full tank records.

Statistic form Menu

Overall statistic form with filters

If you want to have the statistic for only a subset of the records you can use the filters. When the filter checkbox is selected, two date will appear. The first one indicates when should we start taking into account the record and the second when is when to stop.

One utility for this can be to compare the difference in efficiency of you car during the winter and summer. You can also check if the last visit to the garage changed something.

Individual statistics

Statistics for a record

$/Km

Here will be displayed the $/distance in the units chosen in the Preferences Form.The value is available only if this record is a full tank and it is possible to find a full tank record in the previous records.

L/100Km

Here will be displayed the efficiency in the units chosen in the Preferences Form. The value is available only if this record is a full tank and it is possible to find a full tank record in the previous records.

N.B. When a filter is set (Fig. Overall statistic form with filters) only the Stats for the records included by the filter can be displayed.

When an individual record has a note. A note button will appear on the stats form.

Graphics Forms

Graphics of the efficiency

Graphics of the Price/Volume

Graphics Form Menu

You can select the graph you want by going to the menu.

Individual Readings

This is the jaggy graph which plots the data you enter each time you put fuel in the car. If you have a color display, it is red.

Average line

A line is draw across the graphs which represents average MPG. If you have a color display, it is green.

Smoothed average

The curve represents the smoothed average. It is blue, if you have a color display.