A different pop-up appears when the cursor hovers over the top left corner of the screen. The Chart Select pop-up window lets you click to change chart scale, to split the display screen or to flip between daytime, dusk or nighttime screen illumination (see photo). Again, the pop-up window disappears as you move the cursor away, returning the majority of the screen to the chart.TIKIThe Chart Select pop-up window lists all charts in the displayed area. Additionally, you can choose one, two, or three split window views; horizontal or vertical chart display; day, dusk, or night lighting; and six zoom levels.

Hover the cursor over the bottom left of the screen and the Quick Buttons pop-up window appears. This strip menu displays twelve QuickButtons with their text descriptions, such as dropping an MOB marker. Buttons are numbered from one to 12 and match the function keys on your keyboard for even faster access.

TIKI includes many useful shortcuts covering many of the functions. Pressing the F2 key brings up the Keyboard Help pop-up window, which shows a list of actions and their corresponding shortcut. Alternatively, typing F3 brings up the Shortkey Strip pop-up window, listing all Shortkeys alphabetically.

Although TIKI uses menus and pop-up windows, it is fundamentally a mouse and cursor interface. Most features can be accessed easily using the mouse, with keyboarding only for function keys, shortcuts, or naming waypoints or routes.

TIKI relies on contextual menus, where menu choices vary depending on the cursor's location. For example, a mouse-click on a route waypoint brings up the Route Menu pop-up window, with contextually relevant choices to edit, rename, delete or cancel the route. Right-clicking anywhere in the chart window brings up the Chart Panel pop-up window, with buttons to zoom for more detail on the current chart, scale in or out to change the chart scale or center the boat on the best chart.

We were initially concerned about remembering all these right-click and left-click commands, but we found they quickly became second nature. Remember, the price of removing menu clutter from the screen is that you need to memorize common cursor commands. To help you accomplish this, TIKI includes integrated help, called Mousehelp, which can be toggled on or off with the F1 key. We recommend turning Mousehelp on when you start with TIKI, and at the beginning of each boating season.

With Mousehelp on, hovering anywhere in the program–on the chart, a graphic item or any button–displays what left and right button functions are available at that location (see photo).TIKIMousehelp is activated by toggling the F1 key. Hover over any menu or chart item to quickly see what left and right button functions are available.

Although TIKI is a heavy mousing program, there are several "smart mousing" design elements, including large hover zones, "lock mouse" and intelligent cursor placement. The large display areas are designed to not only read easier underway, but to be an easier cursor target in rough conditions. If you need even more mouse control, the "lock mouse" option locks the mouse inside the main and chart panels, preventing the cursor from slipping and sliding all over the screen. We also really appreciated TIKI's intelligent cursor placement, a subtle mouse-friendly bit of programming that places the cursor automatically on the default button of a window prompt. This is a fantastic detail that replaces moving the mouse for each window. Once you become familiar with the window choices, rather than playing the familiar game, "click...chase the window...click," you can simply double click without physically moving the cursor.

WORKING WITH CHARTS

TIKI's biggest limitation is that it only reads raster format charts. This means many of the "intelligent" features of vector charts–such as integrated alarms based on reading chart features and navigation feature queries–based on chart features are not available. However, TIKI intends to add Navionics vector chart support, and eventually S-57 vector support, to accommodate the needs of its international customers.

TIKI gets very high points for chart display. We've already mentioned its maximized display area. In our assessment, this feature is very important for all charting and navigation programs. If you can't see the chart on a laptop screen, there is not much point in laptop charting. TIKI's chart images were also exceptionally sharp–in fact, some of the best looking charts we've seen. Remember these are the same BSB charts used by all applications, so Jenssen has achieved this by putting quite a bit of programming work into chart rendering.