Forum Replies Created
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Posts
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Dear Kritou,
Yes, PE is my perfect solution to offline mapping (my initial interest), customization, information availability and ease of use. With the thousands of hours I’ve spent adding info to PE, that is numerically linked to travel research I’ve created as PDFs I store on my iPad for offline reference, I’m going to continue to use PE as long as it offers updating of maps.
The PE interface is fine by me. I know it could use tweaking, but so could any other app use tweaking to satisfy individuals.
I’ll try to stick around as long as I can!
Thank you. Depending on the device/RAM (my iPad Air 2 has 2 GB RAM) PE might have ability to access more RAM, and show more Pins/Tracks/Routes at one time.
It would be handy to have PE show an alert: “Your Pins/Tracks/Routes” are occupying more RAM than we can show at one time.” However, I’m probably one of a vanishing small percentage of users who would experience this problem.
I use PE primarily as an information storage app for traveling. I have probably 5 or 6 thousand Pins, and many Tracks showing geographical information, most of which have thousands of “Waypoints” to construct their infinitely detailed lines on the map. (Bet you a nickel nobody beats THOSE counts!)
And so, I don’t think the devs have any pressing need to consider adding a Too Much Information to the app! But, there it is, and I’ll try to remember not to have all my Pins&Tracks showing at one time. Only those I need for the next trip!
Gawd! Spam crufts.
Dear wilfr:
The map stylings are what they are. When choosing OSM Classic, the whole point is to see what OSM itself decided to do–long ago, hence “Classic,” and provide to users and developers–with colors, line widths, icons, etc. All that stuff is baked into the “Base Layer” map, and the PE developers don’t muck about with it. Why the devs decided to provide OSM Classic view as a map style choice, I’ve no idea! Nor how long ago they decided that, or why other OSM styles haven’t been provided. It’s quite possible the current PE OSM Classic View has been deprecated on OSM itself, hence the color changes. Does OSM still provide a “Classic View” styling choice?Dear Kritou,
The problem of ” tracks and routes often obscure important details details on roads” was discussed ages ago (although I can’t possibly find any threads!). If I recall correctly, the basic issue was somewhat similar to wilfr’s question. That is, the map info from OSM is imported to PE as a kind of “base layer.” Over which PE puts our tracks/routes, Pins, etc. Some of the base layer information can be STYLED: POI icons, for instance. But the OSM map information either couldn’t be, or maybe was couldn’t be without massive, unaffordable programming, pulled up to PE layers to be put over other PE stuff. A fall-back suggestion was to provide transparency to the PE overlays for tracks&routs, but that never went anywhere.OK, problem solved: too many Pins and tracks visible.on an iPad Air 2 with 2gb of RAM. I won’t go through the conniptions, but I did find that PE would open, and stay open, until I tried to move the map. (That was a clue). Opening PE and then, without moving the map, I could open the side menu, open Groups, and Hide lots of Groups, many of which had two or three hundred Pins. That solved the problem!
Dear NSquirrel
Offline maps downloading are now a snap for me, since I changed ISPs. Over-all and in general, I’m good with a new download of PE Pro from the app store. The one blah I had was realizing I hadn’t backed-up my PE since February this year. Lost a few Pins and Groups which I’ve been trying to recreate—my fault entirely!Otherwise, all is well on my iPad. Except, I see the Forum has once again been invaded/infested with spam. Alas!
Thanks for your help!
Yours,
Bucky EdgettTo friends:
I deleted PE Pro from my iPad. Went to App Store an re-downloaded. New copy opened fine. Asked me to Purchase Offline Topo maps for $9.99, which I did.
All my offline maps are gone. Using Restore Purchases did nothing. I am reloading them now, which will take days at the rate they are loading. I hope I’m also getting topo, which I am checking as part of the download.
Downloaded about a dozen of US State maps, with topo. Getting “Queded” when trying to download country maps. Assume that’s a PE server problem? Hope it gets OK soon.
Ah, I hadn’t thought that the map files or my Pins or whatever the problem might be. Blah! OK, I’m busy this weekend but will try to get a grip next week! Thanks for helping me think!
Dear NSquirrel,
Thank you! (I had to look up “soft reset.” My geek friends taught me to call it “power cycle.”)
Yes, that had worked once, a month or so ago. Alas, no longer. Two trys at using that solution; No luck.
I am using the PE Pro, with fairly up-to-date iOS. I used to be a beta tester years ago, before Life Became Complicated. Now that things have settled down, I might sign up again. But just at the moment, I need to somehow replace standard issue PE Pro.
I believe I need to delete it from my iPad, and re-download a new copy? If so, what am I going to lose? I have a backup from February this year, which should include all but a few Pins I’ve added since then, which I can easily do. Will I have to redownload all my maps?
Dear mongrelfish,
I’m not testing. I can’t get the beta on my iPad at the moment. I’ll try to, and in the meantime I’ll look at the posts and see if I can give any advice.
Dear jaapm,
The difference between Tracks and Routes for navigation has been discussed a few times here, but I don’t know how to find the threads!
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Basically, a Track is a file that draws a line over the map. The line drawing instructions contain only one type of information: Latitude/Longitude points/places. So when Pocket Earth reads a Track file, it draws a line from place 1 to Place 2 to Place 3, etc.
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A Route file is much more complicated. I don’t know what-all a Route includes, but basically, it says “Start at the intersection of Something Road and Something Road, go along Something Road until you come to Another Road; turn left on Another Road and continue to Highway 123; take the entrance to High 123 south…” and on and on.
The instructions for a Route allow a mapping engine to give directions. The instructions for displaying a Track have none of that information; the navigating information doesn’t exist in a Track file.
Ah, impulsive me. Before I saw the response, I had I deleted PE from the iPad and re-downloaded it, hoping that might fix the problem. It seems to have fixed the immediate crashing, but unfortunately also must have deleted any associated files. No report log available now.
I’ll have to wait a few days and re-download my maps.
I the meantime, the attached file, when Imported, does not contain my Groups. Guess I’ve created more problems than I’m solving!
Edited to add: [2015-06-24 08h40m13s]Export.pocketearth_archive is too large to send through the Forum, so I can’t attach it to give information about the missing Groups. Sorry!
Yes, the Manual is confusing.
“For GPX Import, you will be given the option to import all data in the GPX file as a Single Track object, or seperately as multiple (possibly thousands, depending on the GPX file) pins and routes into a new Group.”
I’m pretty sure the word “routes” as used above should be “tracks.” In other words, the GPX can come in as one long Track (possibly with Pins if they exist in the GPX) or just a mess of individual objects, Grouped. But not as a Route, which has navigation instructions in it.
Users are asking for the ability to import GPX as Routes-with-navigation. See, for example, http://pocketearth.com/forums/topic/update/ , which explains some of this stuff. But for now, a GPX can’t be imported as a navigation-enabled PE Route.
It sounds, in theory, as if it ought to be possible. But I imagine it would be a nightmare to implement.
“The minimum properties for a GPX file are latitude and longitude for every single point. All other elements are optional. Some vendors, such as Hummingbird and Garmin, use extensions to the GPX format for recording street address, phone number, business category, air temperature, depth of water, and other parameters.” –Wikipedia.
I think GPX, as an XML schema, does not specify how the file is to be constructed. There can be a jumble of tracks, in no particular geographical, logical order. How would PE know what was supposed to the start and end point of a putative route? That way lies madness!
;^) 😉
Dear Friends,
Decided I just had to take the chance, and let PE update everything. Began at 2:00 a.m., during my “Bonus Bytes” night-time data cap. Used most of the month’s BB data allowance, but all is now well. Seems to me something in the non-map data had to be updated.
News Racks are now banished back to their proper places.
The map data downloaded much faster than it has in the past, which allowed me to accomplish the update during one 2:00-8:00 BB time. That was never possible before!
Still would be useful to be able to update the various non-map stuff separately. But perhaps I’m the last guy in the civilized world who has such draconian data caps?
Thanks for your help.
OK, took me a while to remember the Two-Step Map Deleting Procedure, but I finally managed to replace Maine with a new download. Didn’t help. Most POIs are still News Racks.
I also notice that I have Updated Content available. Perhaps I need to update the Map Styles or Other Resources? (Whatever they may be!)
There’s no way I can do a 7 gigabyte download all at one go. Is it possible to do the Styles and/or Resources separately?
Thanks!
Addendum:
At first, I wondered if the problem was caused by bad Map Data updating. As before, I have been trying to update my maps, but it’s not working. (Another story, ignore that for now.)
However, the News Rack Takeover Problem appears in all my maps. Maps that I definitely have had, undisturbed, in PE Pro for months.
Bucky
And, to @jgsblom,
Thank you immensely. You’re a good friend. You might be amused by http://pocketearth.com/forums/topic/importing-csvs-broken-for-me/ where I wrestled for weeks with creating/editing CSVs.
I don’t have Excel on my Macintosh, so I was trying to use Apache Open Office to edit the files in a spreadsheet. That had some –for me– insuperable glitches/defaults, so I switched over to the Database program FileMaker Pro, with which I am much more familiar. After a lot of munging around, that worked very well.
Since then, I have been editing downloaded CSVs, and creating databases from scratch that I then export as CSVs for PE. What fun I am having!
But the conventions of GPX files were a bit beyond me. You’ve shown me the way!
Yours,
BuckyP.S. Attached please find, I hope! an example of an original download, and the FMP-created edited version that went into PE.
Dear Friends,
Wow! You guys are great. I kind of asked the wrong question. But I got good answers, and figured out how to do all kinds of stuff. So this is fantastic!
I have several GPX files that are being imported as tracks, which is good. That’s what I want. (Tracks of trail hikes, downloaded from several web sites. And it’s fascinating to see how well the Tracks match up with trails shown in PE. What a terrific system!)
I wanted to add the trail descriptions from the web sites (and maybe other information) to the Notes section of the PE Track. I realize I could do all this on my iPad by copying and pasting, but sometimes it’s handier/faster to work on my desktop computer.
From @jsgblom ‘s answer, I tried pasting a <desc>blah blah poohbah</desc> in the “header” of the GPX, just after the <name>, and lo and behold, it worked a treat!
I also discovered that I could edit the GPX <name> to be more usefully descriptive, rather than doing that to the PE Track. (I hate editing text on the iPad. It is so clumsy.)
Excellent!
Dear Kritou,
Sounds to me as though you are correct: “Use a track…to create a Route.” And the short answer, I believe, is no. Tracks and Routes are two different things and they don’t translate from one to the other. (Maybe because at the moment, PE isn’t creating Routes? Not sure!)
This has been discussed in other threads. I could search for them if the OP wishes!
Bucky
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