November 14, 2015
Version 3.2 of Traccar GPS tracking system is available for download.
After releasing previous version I have added static code analizing tools to Traccar project. It inlcudes CheckStyle, FindBugs and PMD for Java code and jshint and jscs for JavaScript code. Since then there have been a massive amount effort put into cleaning up all the issues and warnings reported by those tools. There is no visible change to the user and it's hard to measure, but this improvement in code quality should definitely result in less bugs and better performance especially in long term.
In addition to cleaning up code, there have been big changes to unit testing. It should result in better software quality and smaller number of regression issues. There are also two new testing scripts. One simulates specified number of devices and can be used for performance testing. Other one can generate sample data to test user interface.
Now let's move on to the list of new features:
Support for messages without GPS data was one of the most awaited features for a long time. The problem was that some devices (e.g. GT06) report only status information (for example, battery level) when they are not moving and there was no way to support those kind of messages in previous versions of Traccar. Implemented support for those kind of messages also means that Traccar can be extended to support any type of messages that devices send (CAN, OBD, photos etc). The way this feature works is that Traccar appends latest known location to any message without GPS data. In future the plan is to add support for LBS-based locations as well.
Sharing devices is another major feature that have been requested countless number of times. Administrators are now able to share devices between users, including themselves. It means that admin users have the ability to see all GPS trackers if they assign devices to themselves.
There are quite a few small but important changes to the map view. Shape of the markers on map changed from circles to arrows to indicate direction. This required to implement a custom class for OpenLayes library. Above each marker there is a text to indicate name of the device for live locations, or time of the report for historical data. Map markers are now clickable, so you can select them to view more data in state panel. Colors of the markers changed in preparation to support offline/online status for devices. This feature is not implemented yet, but it's going to be included in the next release. And last new thing that doesn't relate to map that much is ability to see all data about historical position in state panel (including all extra attributes).
Support for custom map layers was a relatively small feature in terms of code changes, but it can make a big difference to users. It's possible now to use pretty much any tile server with Traccar without changing any code. It means that Traccar can now use Google Maps, ArcGis, local OSM or any other tile provider. Please read map layers documentation for more info. Another change related to map layers is removal of hard-coded Bing Maps key. In previous versions of Traccar I used my own personal Bing Maps key because Microsoft didn't enforce any restrictions, but starting for October 2015 they started to control the limits. It resulted in a few issues including one with old web interface (version 2.x). I even created a new build of the old UI to fix it. In version 3.2 administrator of the server would have to specify their own Bing Maps key in server settings.
Web interface now supports different layouts for different screen sizes. It means that on small screens (e.g. mobile phones), the UI would look differently to adopt to the available screen space.
As usual this version includes many bug fixes and quite a few new protocols:
Database schema has been changed again since version 3.1. There is a new MySQL upgrade script available on the website.
More new features and improvements are planned for the next release of Traccar server. You can subscribe to the newsletter if you want to receive notifications about project updates. If you want to support Traccar project, you can donate and/or help with translating traccar to your native language.
Discuss it on the forum.