Web-based autopilot route

[emilecantin]

You say it doesn't make sense to provide wind  angle in the same field as a gps course, but it is just a number.   So what are you gaining by having separate keys besides making all of the clients have to have extra logic?   If there is a single key and target, the +10 button can just add 10 to the target instead of having to check which mode it's in and then update that specific key even though none of the other keys can be used in that mode.  What am I missing?

I understand your point about clients having to re-implement logic, but:

1. I don't think it's that much work to look in a different sub-key for different modes, and
   
2. I think the biggest risk here is a client (control interface) providing an invalid value as target because of a bug / bad implementation. One example scenario I'm imagining is the "current mode" not updating properly on a control screen, and it sending a wind angle when the pilot is following a GPS course. This could easily happen with multiple control screens. Having separate keys for different "kinds" of targets helps prevent that kind of issue.
   

One thing I think we ought to keep in mind is our relative perspectives: The SignalK team is more like a "standards body" in this discussion, and their interest is to minimize the possibility of corrupted data, thus the "single-use" keys. Your perspective is that of an implementer, who wants to minimize the amount of code in his app (a very laudable goal, BTW), so your proposal makes sense in that light. We might have to agree to disagree here, but I hope you can understand my point of view.

Also missing the true-wind mode.

Let's add it, then!

autopilot.portLock
autopilot.starboardLock

I don't understand why there are two unless the boat is assymetrical. pypilot has just rudder.range

They'd probably be the same value on most boats, that's true. I'm guessing they want to support the case where the rudder goes a but further on one side, probably.

As for the rest of your points, I agree with you. I wasn't there for the initial implementation, but I suspect the other parameters were there to support a specific autopilot that had these options over NMEA. We can / should probably sweep them under autopilot.nmea2000 if that's indeed the case.