Messages

Hm, in this case..
..nice again for GC community..
Years ago a forum user wrote, he fears, Locus will be a poor GC tool in next time...
I think now, he was not soo wrong. 
60% work is GC stuff.

Well if that´s the case, then Locus is the best "poor" GC tool I have ever seen ;-)
It´s a big notch above all other Geocaching apps I have ever tried.
I might be wrong, but I would guess that a big part of the Locus userbase are geocachers, so maybe some development in that directed is justified ;-)

@franc
ich habe nur mit Rad- und Wanderrouting getestet, wo die Routenberechnung wahrscheinlich etwas komplexer ist, da es mehr Möglichkeiten gibt. Ausserdem hängt die Berechnungsdauer ja vermutlich auch vom verbauten Prozessor ab und mein Handy ist weder Oberklasse noch neu.
Wegen dem Timeout - in der App Beschreibung steht halt, dass die Brouter App längere Strecken berechnen kann, während die Dienste-Schnittstelle einen Timeout von 60 Sekunden hat. Für mich klingt das so, als gäbe es in der eigentlichen App keinen Timeout. Daher bin ich mir irgendwie nicht ganz schlüssig was denn nun den Timeout verursacht und warum es überhaupt einen Timeout gibt...?
Während ich den Text geschrieben habe, habe ich mal die Auto-Routingfunktion getestet. Bei einer Strecke von 95km (Luftlinie) habe ich die Timeoutmeldung erhalten.
Jegliche Streckenberechnungen waren direkt aus Locus und nicht in der Brouter App.
Beim download der Routinginfos habe ich beide Datein heruntergeladen (also auch das carsubset).

@gynta
the second name bar makes sense, when the name of the point is quite long - which is not unusual with geocaches.
The top bar in the geocaching point screen has some additional symbols (for hint and logging) and has therefore got less space for the name of the POI. On my phone it´s a difference of about 15 letters.
Also, the second bar displays the cache symbol (Tradi, Multi, mystery etc.). So from a geocacher´s point of view the second bar does make sense ;-)

Hallo Arndt,
erstmal vielen Dank für deine Arbeit und die geniale App!
Ich hab die ganze Zeit die Entwicklung von Brouter am Rande mitverfolgt und jetzt wo es die App im Playstore gibt habe ich es endlich ausprobiert.
Die Installation war denkbar einfach - Brouter installieren und Routingdaten herunterladen. Dann bloß noch in Locus Brouter als Routingdienst auswählen und schon kann es losgehen. Und siehe da, der Track wurde problemlos berechnet und erstellt - und das ganz ohne Internetverbindung! Nun kann ich endlich auch mit Locus meine Tracks offline berechnen :-)
Meine einzigen Kritikpunkte wären die Namensgebung der Routingprofile, die ich sehr verwirrend finde, und die generell etwas unintuitive Bedienung der App. Aber das soll jetzt höchstens eine Anregung für kommende Versionen sein, denn die App tut genau das was sie soll.
Was ist eigentlich mit der Anmerkung in der App Beschreibung gemeint, dass die Dienste-Schnittstelle einen Timeout von 60 Sekunden hat? Ist damit gemeint, dass wenn Brouter länger als 60 Sekunden braucht um die Strecke zu berechnen die Kommunikation mit der App (z.B. Locus) abgebrochen wird und daher nur Strecken von ca. 50km berechnet werden können? Die Berechnungsdauer wird dann ja wahrscheinlich je nach Leistungsfähigkeit des Handys schwanken, richtig?
Also nochmals danke, dass du diese geniale Erweiterung für Locus bereitstellst!
Ich wäre auch gern bereit die App zu kaufen bzw. eine Spende per Paypal zu überweisen.

EDIT:
Ich habe jetzt mal ein bisschen mit der Streckenberechnung rumgespielt.
Längere Strecken erreichen tatsächlich das Timeout und die Berechnung bricht ab. Dies lässt sich natürlich problemlos umgehen, indem man die Berechnung in kürzere Teiletappen aufteilt.
@Abrensch: kann es sein, dass Fahrrad schnell und kurz immer die gleiche Route berechnen? Ich habe mal mehrere Strecken berechnen lassen und die waren immer identisch (auch in Städten mit vielen Straßen, wo es durchaus einen Unterschied zwischen schnell und kurz geben sollte). Oder muss ich hier noch eine Änderung an den Profileinstellungen vornehmen?

@Menion
Just downloaded 2.20.1.1 after skipping 2.20.1 and i must say - whatever you did, the new point screen now loads super quick again, no more waiting time.
So I just want to thank you for your constant improvement of locus.
When i look at companies like microsoft, with their multi billion dollar budget, and they still have bugs that have been known for years (!!!) in their mainstream software like Word or Outlook it always impresses me how you sometimes fix bugs within hours of being reported.
Keep up the good work!!

@Bob
l do agree with you and I would be the first to upgrade to Android 4.x if there was a stable version available for my phone.
But at the moment locus still supports Android 2.x so it should also work well on that version.
I can fully understand though, if menion decides to drop support for old android versions at some point. But i think the right way to do so is to have a good and bugfree version for android 2.x and leave that in the play store, but without support and further upgrades and concentrate on the version for Android 4 and higher.
Which is pretty much what menion wrote in some earlier post in this thread.

@atomicdryad 
I have got root access to my phone, but I don´t really like to play with settings when I am not sure what exactly they do. It´s no good for me if the setting increases Locus´stability and decreases stability elsewhere.
Also, until now Locus was working perfectly well, so I´ll wait and see if the next releases will increase stability again.
It´s not a big issue anyway, as I always keep a copy of the last version of locus before installing an update, so I can downgrade if there are problems with the new version.
But thanks for the hint anyway!

@ Menion
Yesterday I was playing around with the new feature of adding points whilst recording a track and attaching pictures to the points. I love the feature, the only downside for me is that it takes a lot of clicks to attach a photo:
Waypoint Button->Attachment Tab->"+"->Take a Picture
Do you think it would be possible to reduce this a bit? My ideas would be:
Add a new button to the track recording bar (the one at the bottom with the stop, pause, add waypoint and settings buttons) that takes you straight to the camera and creates a waypoint after you have taken the picture. So basically a "add picture waypoint" button. Maybe that button could be switched on / off in the settings.
Like this it would be a one-click experience to create a picture waypoint, which i am sure will be useful for many people.
I know that also other files (audio, video) could be attached, but i am guessing that pictures would be the most commonly used.
Another idea, to at least save out on one click - In the attachment tab, instead of having to click the "+", the options ( attach Picture, Video etc.) could also be displayed in the tab itself (where it now says "no attachments available, press + to add"). Once you have added an attachment you would then have to use the "+" to add more, but at least for the first attachment this would save a click.

Rebooting the phone has solved the issue with opening pictures from within locus. Maybe it was a memory problem.
Why i end up with two copies of the pictures i don´t know, but i can live with that.
Guess i´ll have to eventually upgrade to android 4.x then... maybe by the end of the year there will be a stable version available for my phone.

[eldron]

@eldron: thanks. Problem with track details have to be in Locus quite long. Anyway this whole screen (generated description) change during next few months, so please wait a while. I won't fix this issue now due to planned changes.

Ok, I´ll just wait until it´s fixed. It´s not very important, as i can see the whole text in landscape mode.

Picture took with Locus should be stored in Locus/data/media . And since next version, photos attached to waypoints created as a part of track recording, should be exported together with track.
Why they open so slow? Do not know. I expect that when you tap on any attached image in Locus, it then opens image in any external image viewer, so it is not a problem in Locus

You are right, the pictures are stored in Locus/data/media, but ALSO in the DCIM/camera folder. So i guess locus just copies them. Would it be possible to change that so locus deletes the copy in the Camera folder?
I´ll have a look why it takes so long to open them, but it´s only that slow when i open them from within locus.

Yes i am using Android 2.3.6, as the android 4.x version available for my phone is not very stable. So it would be great if the memory problems could be fixed, as I am surely not the only one using android 2.x and locus ;-)

Keep up the great work!!

I have found another display bug that occurs in the point screen of points created whilst recording a track. Some of the text is missing in portrait mode, in landscape i can see it all. See attached screenshot.
I think in future i will use this feature more often, as it now allows to easily attach pictures to points on a track. Will the pictures also show if i export the tracks and look at them on the computer? And is it possible to change the folder in which those pictures are stored? They just end up in the normal camera folder, which is not very practical.
How comes that it takes so long to open those attached pictures? I know i don´t have a high end phone, but 5-8 seconds to open a picture is way too much.
The new version is great, but even though i have only used it a little bit to check out the new features, it has already crashed 3 times. Whereas before i hardly ever experienced any crashes within locus. If this keeps happening i´ll pay more attention as to what i was doing when the crash happened and send the error protocoll.

Screen where you edit track is also planned to rewrite in same way as this point screen and expect, that in the end, "Delete" button will be hidden in same menu as "Cancel" in this point screen.

Please rethink this decision. You yourself wrote that you like things to be obvious. For me it was not at all obvious where to find the delete button for the waypoint and i think i am not the only one. Why would i have the save button at the top, but i have to click on the menu button to find the delete button? And it also looks a bit strange to have just one option when clicking on the menu. To me the bin symbol at the top makes much more sense.
How about a popup windows asking wether you want to save or delete the track/waypoint when you hit the back button?

I agree with Celda that a quicker way to use the guidance-to-point function for geocaches would be great, as it´s 3 clicks at the moment: clicking on the cache (waiting for it to open), clicking the guidance button at the bottom and then another click to activate the guidance.
Especially when doing bigger rounds of traditioncal caches a one-click option without having to open the cache description would be great.

I have just downloaded the new version and i really love the new point screen. I do a lot of geocaching with locus and saving one click now to open the cache info is really great.
I do have some issues though:
I agree with the others, that the loading time is quite high. For example - when entering a waypoint from within the point screen and hitting the back button it takes 3-4 seconds until i get the response... By then i have pressed back a second time and end up back on my map...
In the German version there is a display problem when clicking the menu button in the point screen. Menu Button 4 reads: GC Offlinizer <b><small><font color> (the html tags are being displayed)
Improvements:
When you click the "hint" button in a geocache and there is no hint you get no feedback. I´d prefer a message saying "no hint available", otherwise i can´t be sure that my click was registered.
The hint button changes position (in Waypoints it´s the right button, in logs it´s on the left) - Can´t it always stay in the same position to avoid misclicking?
And one thing that i find important: When creating a waypoint - why do i have to click the menu button to cancel? I actually had to search fo a while to find that and even though i now know where it is i keep searching for it and don´t find it intuitive at all. When creating a track there is now a bin symbol at the top - why not include that in waypoint creation too? Or at least pop up a prompt when pressing the back button that asks wether or not i want to save the waypoint.

[edit]

@ menion
thanks for the quick fix, this is one of the reasons why i love your app so much.
Just thought it would be handy to have the changes listed in the thread, as we are here to discuss these changes and comment on them. I also find it handy to read the changelog before installing an update to decide whether there are changes in it that are interesting to me.
I agree with szebenyib, a long click on the group to change the name or delete is would be more intuitive than using the menu button. Found myself long-pressing the group a few times before looking for a different way to edit / delete it.

edit
I have found another bug which i think has been present for a while but i forgot to report it last time i stumbled upon it.
It concerns the height profile diagram of a calculated track (calculated by Locus this is).
It´s a display error as seen on the first attached screenshot. In the second screenshot i zoomed in and you can see what is causing the problem - for some reason the streetnames and instructions for the track are being shown at the bottom of the diagram.

[edit]

Hi Menion, wouldn´t it make sense to post the changes in this new version in the first post?
Like that people don´t have to look it up in the 2.17.x thread and what about the changes from version 2.17.4.7 to 2.18 ?
Thanks a lot for the frequent updates, the constant improvements and all the new functions that we keep getting!!

edit
Me again,
i just played with the new version and found two bugs:
In a list of tracks the 4 buttons at the bottom (selection, sorting, filter and tools) are greyed out and can´t be clicked as soon as i select or deselect any of the tracks.
I have to leave the screen and go back to it to be able to use the buttons again. I am not sure if this bug is new to this version or has been there before.
The second bug concerns the new groups - the delete button is not displayed, i can only see "rename", but when i click below the rename buton i can delete the group. So it looks like the button is just not being displayed properly.
Phone Info: Android 2.3.6, Galaxy Ace 2

@jusc
Karlsruhe war ja nur ein Beispiel, leider betrifft dieses Problem die meisten Städte und Orte. Ich habe auch schon mit den verschiedensten Karten und Themes experimentiert, aber keine Kombination war wirklich zufriedenstellend.
Bei einer Zoomstufe wird der Ort angezeigt, bei der nächsten dann wieder nicht... Oder bei einer Zoomstufe wird Karlsruhe angezeigt, Mannheim oder Stuttgart (300,000 bzw. 600,000 Einwohner) sind aber nicht da.
Dabei ist es doch Sinn und Zweck einer Karte sich schnell und unkompliziert orientieren zu können.
Auf Zoomstufe 7 z.b. werden mir in Süddeutschland ganze 3 Städte angezeigt - Stuttgart, Frankfurt und Nürnberg. Auf noch kleineren Zoomstufen dann gar keine mehr.
Das ist jetzt mit der Freizeitkarte, aber andere Maps / Themes sind auch nicht besser.
Bei Rasterkarten ist das ein ganz anderes Bild, da sehe ich alle relevanten Städte und sogar noch das Straßennetz....
Bleibt mir nur zu hoffen, dass dieses Problem irgendwann mal behoben wird.