THUNDER - EXPERIMENTAL WINDOWS X64 TEST BUILD

ACTIVATION REQUIRED
Thunder and Bulletin Studio require a signed product key for your device.
Send the device code shown at first launch to your license issuer, then paste
the returned key. One activation covers both apps and survives updates.
Launch the installed app to obtain your device code and request a key.
No key or private signing material is bundled.

Extract the ENTIRE ZIP into a writable folder, then double-click Start Thunder.cmd.
Do not run inside the ZIP or directly from the read-only evaluation DVD.
No Rust compiler or installation is required. The build is unsigned.
Requirements: Windows 10/11 x64, a Direct3D 12 or Vulkan capable graphics driver,
and internet access for live radar, alerts, SPC and uncached map data.
VirtualBox activation automatically uses a compatible native wgpu path. For
diagnostics, run Thunder.exe --software-renderer. Adapter details are saved in
thunder-renderer.json. Software rendering is slower than a supported physical GPU.

MAPBOX: No API token is included. Use your own authorized public token. Save it
as .mapbox-apitoken (not .txt) in your Windows user profile directory, or specify
its file in Map layers > Map studio > Connection and restart. Do not share tokens.
Without a valid public token, Mapbox is disabled and OpenStreetMap is used.
Choose OpenStreetMap or Mapbox in Map layers > Map studio > Map provider.
OSM Standard needs no account. Its roads/labels are baked into map tiles;
Mapbox vector style controls do not apply. OSM requests only on-screen tiles,
with local caching. Bulk/offline region downloads are not supported by this
public tile service. Attribution: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

LOCAL GIS (NO MAP ACCOUNT)
Map layers > Local GIS > Browse & import accepts extracted 2D line/polygon .shp
files and matching .dbf/.prj sidecars. GR .sty Color/Status rules are supported.
You supply the GIS datasets; keep them in a permanent folder. Toggle/style/zoom
visibility controls are per-layer. This is not full GR placefile compatibility.

Starts with live radar, not archived/synthetic warnings. Archive event datasets
are not bundled. Alert appearance provides clearly labeled Test selected alert.

Settings: %APPDATA%/thunder and %APPDATA%/chase-evaluation.
Telemetry: %LOCALAPPDATA%/chase-evaluation/telemetry.sqlite3.
Disposable map/radar caches: data/ in the extracted folder.
Error-only diagnostics: thunder-errors.log in the extracted folder (rotated).
Machine/GPU specifications: thunder-machine.json. Review before sharing.
Application > Settings > Application updates accepts your publisher's HTTPS URL.
See docs/Updates-and-error-logging.md for hosting and installation instructions.
Do not re-zip your used folder to share it: it can contain private configuration,
cached licensed data and diagnostics. Share the original clean ZIP instead.

CURRENT BUILD FEATURES
- Bottom-bar Search / Route; experimental GPS progress, ETA, off-route indication
  and explicitly requested rerouting. Provider permission is required.
- UDP NMEA GPS: use the computer's LAN IP and matching port in your sender.
  Thunder's listen address can be 0.0.0.0:10110 on a trusted/private network.
  Permit inbound UDP only from your sender. GPS settings persist when applied;
  Connect is still required after launch. GGA supplies altitude; RMC heading/speed.
- GPS top-bar fields and live nearest-radar following are configurable.
- Observations: independent RAP analysis and satellite layers, opacity, contours,
  inspector values and radar-time synchronization. Source archive limits apply.
- Storms > Event library: import NOAA tornado records by year. No personal database
  or radar corpus is included. Remote radar links are downloads, not automatic
  replay; Open cached radar frames requires separately prepared local research data.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS
- USB/serial GPS is unavailable; UDP NMEA remains available. No SDR integration.
- Windows timestamps use English month names, local time and an explicit UTC
  offset, with configurable 12/24-hour clocks. Full Windows locale formatting
  is not yet implemented.
- CPU/memory/OS diagnostics are collected with a background Windows system query.
- This is experimental software, not a sole source for operational warnings.
- Volume Sweep has a reported one-to-two-minute lag versus Sweep; investigation
  is deferred. Session-switch GPU device loss may still crash the application.
- This package was cross-compiled; a new native Windows runtime test is not implied.

TEST CHECKLIST
Report Windows version and GPU; whether first live radar loads; switching sites,
REF/VEL and tilts; Static/Playback/Sweep; maximize/resize; map pan/zoom; style
editing and persistence after restart; alert preview readability. Distinguish
download delays from graphics freezes. Review logs for sensitive information
before sharing. No telemetry is automatically uploaded.

Mapbox/OpenStreetMap attribution remains in the app. Third-party notices are
included under licenses/ and dependencies are recorded in Cargo.lock.

SOUND DESIGN
Bulletin Studio is bundled. Open it from Alerts > Sounds
or double-click bulletin-studio.exe. Product recipes save in %APPDATA%/thunder.
Export WAVs and attach them in Thunder. No personal sounds/recipes are bundled.
