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Let me link to a related topic on getsatisfaction... I think menion prefers new suggestions there. Vote for it .
https://getsatisfaction.com/locus/topic ... t_approach

i could obviously live with "never show me the thing again" checkmark, but why make things more complex than they need be? i want locus simpler, not more complicated.

single tap should ALWAYS be the most likely immediate action, without extra questions asked. that is not just true for maps but for every other part of the user interface imho. anyway, in case of a map click, the most likely thing is to display it. make a smart (but automatic!) choice about where to display it, like
1) at the current position: when current position is visible in the new map
2) nearest: when current position is not visible but moving map is on
3) centered: otherwise
something like this. but do not force this choice onto the user each and every time.

i dont mind flexibility at all. you can ask a million questions and offer a hundred options on long tap and in popup menus and so on. just not by default and every single time. i didnt even know about the long tapping thing in quickmap btw. maybe because long tapping something and doing something quick doesnt match up in my brain :-). all other android apps that i know use single tap -> immediate action and long tap -> popup menu.

To make things clearer... now I am speaking, not Locus... :-).

When I click a map, I want to see the map. I do not want to be asked more questions. And it should never matter if I click the map in the QuickMapSwitch or in the MapManager or even a .rmap in a file explorer (one may dream). It is important for user interface consistency that Locus always acts immediately and predictably.

Click the map -> Display the map.
No more extra questions, no extra requesters, no nothing.

This is obviously true if the clicked map covers the current position. But even if it is somewhere far away, you should NOT ask that annoying extra question (be predictable!). Just display the map right away at the position that is closest to the current one.

I can not think of a single reason why I ever want to center a map. There is nothing magic hidden in a maps center. If the map does not cover the current position, I probably want to see the are that is closest, not the center. And if I really really want to do see the middle point, there is always that button in Locus that I can use afterwards.

The important thing here really is:

Act first and immediately and predictably by simply doing the thing the user most likely wants. Do NOT ask any additional questions before.

Locus suffers from this excessive question asking in many other places too btw. Gpx import is one, search is another. But it is probably most annoying in QuickMapSwitch because thats really supposed to be QUICK!

I ll get to QuickMapSwitch sorting problems in a different thread. It shows all the wrong maps mostly :-). I know most of you only use OSM and dont switch maps that often so this probably doesnt matter a lot. But when you re out there in less travelled areas, believe me, you will be switching maps constantly.

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Hello User... this is your friend Locus speaking. I know you wanted a QUICK map switch. And I gave you a nice list of maps that are very easy to hit with your finger. And I know that the map you just clicked on is perfectly covering the current gps position. After all, that is probably why you clicked it isnt it?

But hey... you know... I am having a funny day today. "Centering" a map is such a majorly important operation, all maps have a golden treasure hidden right in their center. So I will simply throw another requester in your face before I really switch maps. Maybe 0.1% of you want to really center the map instead of simply displaying it at the current position. So lets just annoy the other 99.9% as well... why not. Its just another click isnt it?

at least you will sleep on a bed. i will sleep outside on some freakishly cold mountain in a very light and very thin sleeping bag...

oops... you were quicker

so about the on/off requester again: it simply feels like locus is making fun of me... and not in a very friendly way .

user: record a track

locus: hey user... you want me to record a track, fine. but do you also want me to enable the gps for this? maybe you meant that i should record a track but not enable the gps instead? i have no idea why you would want this, but i thought i might ask you anyway, just to be sure".

user: thanks locus... go f... yourself for asking me this stupid thing the fivehundreth time. but i have no choice, i will just say yes. again and again and again... and again tomorrow.

ha! now the gps is suddendly consuming battery... enough to bother users . ok... how about adding a third answer then... "yes and never ask that question again"? a lot more work for you than simply killing that requester, but hey... its your time!

as for the messy five-question import... well... you know... i would say 90% of all imports are tracks only (downloaded from track portals). so all those category popups and selections are completely useless and confusing in nine out of ten cases. there is simply a single track and it could quietly go to the tracks database, no questions asked.

i know a gpx can contain more than just a track and this needs to be handled in some way. but you currently handle it by popping up plenty things before that will not matter the slightest in 90% of all cases. this is the wrong approach.

but we maybe should start another topic for this, to keep the forum tidy. this here should be about gps on/off only... sorry i brought up the other thing in this thread.

just a little reminder... every little extra popup and every little extra requester is a great nuisance in the great sweaty sunny bumpy outdoors... much more so than on your beta testing couch .

I agree that the screen takes a lot more power than the gps. Also... Android turns OFF the GPS automatically after a while when the phone does not move when you enable that in system prefs. It is called "use sensor aiding". Thats another slight problem for Locus btw, because Locus interprets that as GPS Signal Lost and alerts everybody in the restaurant loudly.

Anyway, can we at least agree on that: Nobody in his right mind will EVER say NO to the requester I posted above. So why can it not simply go away? When I say "Locus please record a track for me" then Locus should just enable the gps quietly. Even if one in a thousand users will say NO this requester because he wants to record a track consisting of cell id locations(?) or whatever, this can still be no reason to bother the other 999 "normal" people with an additional click.

And the GPS Signal Lost Alert should really only play when track recording is on. It makes no sense otherwise because nothing bad will happen. Call it "Track recording failure" alert if you wish. It is simply annoying to have Locus beeping madly when I pause track recording and walk into a store to buy a candybar.

Menion, you absolutely love those tiny little extra requesters and extra popup menus... am I right ?

Locus GUI is completely overloaded with those. Another example is when I import a simple gpx track: There are about five different popups to answer, one stranger than the other. I just clicked the gpx file and then Locus basically asks me "hey user... i dont really believe you... did you really want to click exactly this file? yes or no?". I mean... come on... Importing is not like Formatting a hard drive... Can I not simply click the file ONCE and be done with it? Please... make things a little more straight forward

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Who has EVER clicked on RECORD and then answered NO here?

GPS on/off, what good is that for? Maybe somebody could explain this to me, I simply dont understand.

I see it like this: Locus offers track recording and it offers a moving map according to current position. These are the two features that need GPS. I, as a user, can turn those two features on and off. Very well, very good.

But why must I, as a user, also take care about the state of the GPS? That is just an additional step which seems totally useless. Why does Locus bother me with that? Why does it not simply turn on the GPS automatically when track recording or moving map is enabled and turn it off just as automatically when both are off?

Maybe I miss the point here, but bothering the user with this GPS on/off business seems simply wrong. For exmaple, I start Locus and tell it to record a track. What happens is: Locus seriously asks me in an additional requester: "Do you want to enable the GPS?". Wtf?! I just told Locus to record a track... why would I ever say NO to this requester? Who would ever click on NO here? Whats the point of enabling track recording and then not enabling the GPS? Thats not a very logical state, why allow it at all?

IMHO, GPS on/off should be completely transparent and automatic. Do not ever bother the user with that decision. The user may decide about Track Recording ON/OFF and Moving Map ON/OFF, not about the state of the hardware.

What am I missing? What good is this additional GPS on/off step? Maybe I forget something really important, but I just do not see it. Please enlighten me...

GlobalMapper has an option to auto-crop these types of borders when loading tiles. It sometimes works nicely and sometimes not at all. Not sure if this is available in the demo version, you d have to try it out.

The old testing version from dropbox expired.

Dropbox folder does no longer work, it appears to hang when I try to enter testing_versions folder. Is it just me?

The link to 2.1.0.3 above does not function as testing version. It only works as free version. When I try to buy locus following the android pit link, it tells me some anroid.app.menion.whatever protocol is not supported. Not good to scare potential customers with an error when they click on BUY

Result: i am fucked,  no longer a working locus while sitting on my bike. What to do?!

i rest my case. nobody agrees with me that simple is better and that a track is always a track. locus will stay as it is then, basically. a sad day .

ok... lets start with something simple.... just the track detail view, not the whole interface around it. that can be fixed later.

a) do not split up the track detail view in tabs (info/chart). tabs are a thing for desktop machines. mobile phones use scrolling views. so simply use one big scrolling view for everything.

b) include cmt and desc fields in this view (eg from gpx import). both are very important! route portals store route descriptions there. i think locus misses out on that completely right now. note that these can be simple ascii text or also html (by using the cdata tag).

c) make the detail view editable! there is no reason whatsoever to have yet another separate "track edit window" with yet another design and yet another layout. when i see a tracks name in the detail view, i want to click on it and edit it. when i see the description, i want to click it and edit it. kill the separate edit window. simple is beautiful and less mess is always better.

d) make the detail view copy/pastable! nothing is more irritating than seeing textual information on screen that i cannot text select. what if i quickly want to send a tracks name or its length/altitude/whatever details to a friend by email? right now i have to manually type them of the locus screen... yuck :-)

all this should easily be doable by designing the detail view as some sort of HTML internally and simply using an appropriate viewing class for display. that would also allow other funny things later. you could for example include a mini-overview-googlemap with the tracks position in just a few lines of code.