Messages

It would be great if Locus had a
"Always force latin letters"
option somewhere. When a name only has greek or cyrillic writing, you would simply render a 1:1 replacement with latin letters instead. That would be a great help in Greece and other funky non-latin countries.

Sorry to say, but there is no such thing as a 1:1 replacement for different scripts. Not even within Latin - did you know that the English "sh" is written in German as "sch", in Polish as "sz", in Hungarian as simple "s" and in some other Slavic languages as "š"? Or that the pronunciation of Oslo would be best approximated in English as "Ooshloo"? Greek may be reasonably doable, as afaik only one major language uses that script. But Cyrillic already has the same problem as Latin scripts: Special variants that have different transliterations depending on the country or even dialect.
This is a topic that linguists spent years on - I don't think it's helpful if Locus on its own implements some simplified (or "half-a**ed") solution...

Greek would be super easy and not "half-arsed"... almost everything translates exactly 1:1, letter by letter. It's quite pointless to expect the Greek OSM contributors to add "translations" for every single language with latin letters. I understand this is nothing with priority, just annoying. Also, a somewhat readable map is *always* better than gibberish, even if it fails on all your linguistics specialties. But since nobody but me travels in Greece with Locus anyway, never mind. I rest my case :-).

It reminds me a bit of buddy tracking and sharing functions. Apparently Locus users travel alone in general, so nothing ever gets fixed. And even in 2024, we call each other with "where are you now?" and "where are you going?" and "your point is not updating!". And we transfer points and tracks via WhatsApp plenty times every single day.

I know you can set Languages for vector maps. That doesn't help a lot though, since nobody in Greece gives a sh... about adding latin names.

It would be great if Locus had a
"Always force latin letters"
option somewhere. When a name only has greek or cyrillic writing, you would simply render a 1:1 replacement with latin letters instead. That would be a great help in Greece and other funky non-latin countries.

Sharing from Google maps still produces points called "Punkt".

It works nicely when you long tap something, then Google Maps comes up with a name of whatever you tapped, then you share that with Locus. Name is correct.

When you search something by text in Google Maps though, like "Rifugio Auronzo", then share the result with Locus, it will simply be named "Punkt".

Thanks, I've updated the code to handle changes in shared Google link a little.

Btw. nice to see you again

Thanks for fixing.

Too busy with cycling to write much these days. But I could still drown you in enhancement requests regarding altitude-related functions for cyclists and proper support for travelling with a buddy. Oh wait... I've done that for many years already without much success, never mind :-).

We should maybe wait with that until you move to a place with mountains and have plans for bicycle journeys with friends then... just tell me when.

Since a couple of versions, whenever I share a Location from Google Maps to Locus, the resulting Waypoint will only be called "Point". It used to work properly before, ie Locus would name the point for example "Carrefour Supermarket".

The position is still shared correctly.

The google maps point sharing "fix" now extracts the points name from the funny url and does a new Locus "search" for that. It's unfortunately almost as unusable as before. I now tried it 10 times in real world situations (still being on an endless bike journey). 3/10 times Locus didn't find the point (by name) at all. 5/10 times if "found" something completely different by the same or a similar name, sometimes 100km away. 2/10 times it found the right thing.

Verdict: still an almost complete failure. re-searching in that way is not an option. if you cannot extract proper coordinates from a funny url, we're f*cked forever.

Apparently this "workaround point sharing fix app" that people here talk about manages to do it fine though. Too bad it's no longer supported and doesn't install on current Androids without jumping through hoops :-)

Buddy tracking is super unreliable btw, if anybody still cares about that function. It stops working at least least five times per day and we have to manually turn it off and on to see our points again.

It always happens when network reception is bad for a while. Locus seems to mess up internally and never gets back on track.

Btw... if you have code in there like

if phone.isOnline()
  do_stuff();
else
  do_other_stuff();

that might be the main problem. Once you leave your LTE development couch and travel through the real world, your phone will quite often only THINK it's online... like in zero bars 4G or even Edge. Transmitting a single byte might take ages though or come back with a failure after some longish timeout. Quite likely Locus hickups on that... maybe if the network error timeout is longer than the tracking interval? Just guessing.

And nope... we're not in rural India... we're in the mountains of southern France right in central Europe. Buddy tracking still fails plenty.

There are obviously at least a dozen other things wrong with buddy support in general. But unless the likely answer is different from "not a priority" (as for the last five(?) years), I won't bother repeating myself over and over again. Ask if you want two more pages of neccessary fixes... or just go cycling with a buddy, then you might finally notice yourself and do something about it :-)

I don't really know where you want to go with your search. In any case, here are some thoughts from a power user (10 hours every single day, 300 days a year, since day one of Locus, always on the road):

You will never ever be able to compete with Google (or Apple) maps search. Period. This idea is completely delusional, even if you hire 50 more Locus programmers just for search. Here's a few reasons:

Google Maps gives me local results which are most relevant to my current situation. That works in completely foreign languages as well, where I cannot even read the alphabet. Searching for "bike shop" will show me local bike shops, in places with cyrillic writing, who might never have even heard of OpenStreetMap.

Google Maps knows if and when businesses are open.

Google Maps allows me to streetview directly into a stores front window. Very useful in judging whether it's worth taking a one hour detour in brutal heat to go there of if it's just a cheap bullshit shop with a fancy website that cannot help me anyway.

Google Maps sometimes allows me to chat to the store owner directly, including automatic translation. Yes... that is super handy in countries when you're not fluent enough for phone calls.

To be brutally honest, I wouldn't mind if you completely removed online search from Locus. It can never seriously compete with the worlds biggest players anyway, so why bother? Just make the sharing interface to Google Maps as smooth as humanly possible and concentrate on OFFLINE search in Locus... that is still a massive mess as well, leaving a lot to be desired.

For starters... why would I choose BEFOREHAND on where I want to search?! That is so completely last-millenium it's not even funny anymore :-).

When I search for "everest", I want to see
* all my tracks that contain "everest" in name or description or embedded waypoints or their description.
* all my points that contain "everest" in name or description.
* all track or point folders or groups names with "everest"
* all my custom maps that have everest in their name.
* all stuff from mapitems folder with "everest" in filename or contents (kml, gpx, anything)
* dashboards names and contents
* prefs items
* etcpp... you get idea... every(!) single(!) word(!) that locus has access to... anywhere. And you have exactly one search string that does it all. Not a dozen searches hidden all over the place.

You index all that and present the results all at once, immediately, while I'm typing. No clicking on "search" and make me wait for half a minute... and for the life of good... no pre-selection of where I want to search. That was a horrible idea from the start and needs to go.

Sorry for the longish post, that's just my two cents to bring offline search up to speed. Online search should be left to online search companies.

Hi guys, sharing points from Google Maps does not work for years as I know. Somewhere in 2021 maybe even later, they changed the format and the information app receives can no longer be simply converted to any text or coordinates.

Or you had a different experience with Locus Map 4.16-?

@Menion - strange, different to my experience, it (red push pin) had worked ~4.16, stopped working ~4.17, and is now working again. I only started using GMaps recently as a workaround for the broken LM4 online search experience which I now find frustrating. Sorry to complain, but it's just how it feels.

More or less the same for me. Latest version of Locus did not fix anything here though, I still cannot share points from Google Maps app. All I get is a silly URL in the Locus search window.

It used to work nicely for me for a long time, likely before Locus rewrote the Search function. Or before gmaps app changed the sharing... I have no idea. All I know is that it worked for years and not it doesnt.

I also find the new Locus online search useless. It almost never gets anything I want. When I need a "bike shop", I want a list of shops at the town where my map is pointing at. Locus online search gives me mostly utter nonsense from 500 kilometers away though.

To put it mildly: Usability regarding search has gone completely southwards recently.

Good interaction with Google maps is essential on my trips. I need opening/closing times, I need the websites of stores, I need to streetview the store front to judge wether it makes sense to cycle there and look for something. Locus internal search will never be able to compete... and it should not. Google Maps is the perfect tool for that.

Sharing position from a Google Maps entry is still broken, ever since Locus implemented its new search system. It's really quite annoying while traveling to resort to this long tap hack.

Thanks for finally making it possible to hide the Copyright button. Maybe my current Amoled display will live a longer and happier life now :-).

Just need to find a solution for status bar and navbar. In an ideal world, they should probably appear and disappear together with the Locus UI but I can't seem to make that work. There's only one setting for this? Expert settings / immersive mode?

The new search broke a very vital feature: I can no longer locate something in Google Maps and then share the point directly to Locus. That used to work nicely, now Locus simply opens the search dialog and then does nothing.

@joeloc, @tapio - not even a red pin is needed, I just long-tap in Maps > share > LM4.

True, that works for me. Does it share coordinates directly whereas the other method would share the name only and then search again in Locus? Then only the "search again" thing is broken. Not that I need it, now that I know the trick. But it's still weird when you share something to Locus and it comes to front and then does nothing.

Speaking about search: I remember a long time ago being able to search e.g. "bike shops" in Locus. I would then get a list of all shops in a town and could simply multiselect and import them all at once. That was super useful when you had to shop around for parts / repairs on the road. I can't seem to make that work anymore. Has nothing to do with new search, multi selecting search results hasn't worked in years. Or maybe I am just imagining this...

The new search broke a very vital feature: I can no longer locate something in Google Maps and then share the point directly to Locus. That used to work nicely, now Locus simply opens the search dialog and then does nothing.

Is the most useless button in all Locus history properly hideable now like all other UI elements?

Btw, as you may notice, I am still desperately trying to hide every single locus ui element which is permanently visible at a fixed location. The time for permament AMOLED burnin (on Samsung Galaxy devices at least) is measured in weeks or months, not years. Five hours per day at full brightness for a month on a bicycle and you are guaranteed a phone with permament Locus markings... even with the latest and greatest and most expensive devices.

The only thing I cannot get rid of for now is the Copyright button. 50% visibility is not(!) a fix btw, this will only delay the problem.

The cursor will also burn in sooner or later. I cant hide it obviously, it's quite important. My current fix is to change its size slightly every few days, that might help for a while.