Messages

If you skort tap a map (not long press), you get a popup menu. One of the commands there is Delete.

Have you guys tried Menion's new Screen Lock? If not, you MUST. This is the most genius unlocking features I have ever seen! And try to move the Screen Lock frame around on the screen. Yes, Locus continues to be something apart from anything else.

phoneguy100:
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 what Menion explains here, works incredibly well! I just tried it again this morning when driving car to work. I took an alternative road one place and the blue arrow showed up with the great guiding line pointing to where the closest point was at the CloudMade route (continuously updating). When I joined the calculated route again, the blue arrow changed back to the car symbol and the navigation was back on track. Works perfectly!

Menion:
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I downloaded your latest version this morning. How great you now have the name of the road in a new window at the top!
I noticed the following:

- the name shown is the name of the road I am currently is driving on. I used Navigon some time back, and it has a similar window. However - but tapping the window, it could change between the name of the road you currently are on, and the name of the road you will turn into. That is very useful. When driving on motorways for example, you have these signs with exits and the name of exit road, and then you really want to see this name on your navigator.
So I really would like to suggest this feature. To tell which mode shown, I suggest an arrow symbol at the left of the road name: a straight arrow indicates that the name of the road you are currently on, is displayed; a 90 degrees turn arrow indicates that the name of the road you are turning into, is displayed. You switch between these two modes by tapping the name window.

- I noticed that the waypoint just before a roundabout is displaying correct text, like "Take 3rd exit". However, the turn window shows a 90 degrees right turn (I guess because that is what you do when entering the roundabout). When in the roundabout, it immediately changes to a 45 degrees right turn for the exit, even if your exit is the 2nd or the 3rd. I understand that you are working on a new roundabout image, so I guess this will be fixed then.

- When in a roundabout, the text in the "road name window", displays "he roundabout".

I tried the CloudMade navigation of the new version 1.10.0, which was released today.

One great improvement I liked very much, is the new color used to high light a CloudMade track when selected for guiding. The new purple color is perfect and should be clearly visible on all kind of map backgrounds.

When guiding is turned on for a track, all the turn text disappear, but I think this is better than it was before (stayed on all the time) since now the map and streets are not covered with text labels. I found a useful feature in Locus: Setting > Map > "Show labels". I changed it from Always to "On hover". This removes all turn text from the map until you hit one guiding point with the map center cross (paning the map manually), causing the turn text for just that point to pop up.I certainly understand that things take time to improve and implement, but in a longer run I still hope that the turn text will be moved into a separate popup window (refer earlier posts).

I found one issue with the turn arrow in the large popup window when it comes to roundabouts: it is just confusing and definitely needs improvements: When you approach a roundabout, the turn indicator is a straight arrow telling you to go straight ahead. And the picture shows an intersection of two roads crossing. When you are in the roundabout, the turn indicator in some cases remains a straight arrow, in some cases changes to show a right turn, even when you shall not take the first exit. The turn indicator in this window should show a roundabout with correct exit arrow. I have no problems in understanding that this may be difficult to improve if the navigation info you get back from CloudMade doesn't tell if this is a roundabout and which exit to take. Anyway, this is just my feedback so you are aware of this issue.

And as said before - distance controlled auto zoom would be very useful.

Keep up the great work! Always very exciting each time a new release of Locus is available!

I used the CloudMade navigation on a long car trip this weekend. I have mentioned some of these points in previous posts in this thread, but I include everything in a summary here:
1) green highlighting of a CloudMade track with Guiding On doesn't work, since on green background, which is extensively used in maps like Eniro, you don't see it at all. Need user selectable color.
2) speed controlled auto zoom is not usable for car navigation. Need distance controlled auto zoom as used in all car navigators on the market.
3) when zoom a bit out, the car symbol orientation is not stable, but rotates 90 degrees to both sides within seconds. Also often is detected off the track, such that the guiding line comes on.
4) the next turn has a nice white arrow overlaying the intersection on the map, but that causes the turn text to disappear. AFTER the turn is made, then the turn text pops up.
5) when zooming out to see a larger part of the track, the many turn text frames covers most of the map such that you see neither the map nor the text
6) item 4 and 5 above clearly show that the the turn text need to be moved away from all over the map and into a dedicated popup that displays the turn text only for the upcoming turn (refer my earlier posts)

Hope you find this feedback useful.

I just installed the new release 1.9.7 and tried the nice improvements of CloudMade navigation. Here is something I found trying an "GPS Off" navigation:

-  when I turn on guiding, both using parameter "Yours" or "CloudMade", the created track SOMETIMES changes color to green with a wide outline, no matter which color it has originally. Green is not a good color when the map background is green. I understand the good intention of changing color when  a track is selected for guiding, but that should either be user selectable or not change. In Settings > Guiding > "Style on map" the user can select a color, but that changes only the color of the guide line, not the track. Either this setting should also apply to the track when guiding is on, or there should be a separate color selection for guided track. "Track width" should be an entry here like similar settings in Miscellaneous and in Track Recording. I created 5 tracks, and the color change only happened on 3 of them. The other tracks changed only color to the inverse (blue --> yellow) as it always does when the the map center is over a track. Weird.

- the new look of the turn popup window is nice. However, SOMETIMES, BUT NOT ALWAYS,  it incorrectly shows a straight up-arrow until it is about 2-4 meters left to the turn. Then the correct turn indicator is shown. On the map (overlaid on the streets) , the turn indicator is correct. The turn indicator in the popup window should show the upcoming turn all the time. This only happened on a couple of tracks I created, and only for the first  turns, After some turns, the indicator behaved correctly.

Auto-zoom, speed controlled:
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You have the auto-zoom feature with auto zooming based on speed. I remember there were a lot of discussions about that feature some time ago. Were this requested by bikers? If so, I guess the speed classes need to depend upon what you are doing - running, biking, driving. User selectable? I do not see how I personally would use speed controlled zooming, so I am just asking what you think?
Question: which zoom level is displayed if it is not available?

Auto-zoom, distance controlled:
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For navigation all car navigators that I know of on the market, use "distance to turn" to control the auto zoom. When you are driving on a motor way at 100km/h and are approaching an exit, you want to see the exit details way before you start slowing down to make the turn. So SPEED controlled auto zoom is not very useful here. Rather DISTANCE controlled zooming is very useful!

That is exactly what you do with "Add new route". Here you specify start point and all via points until target point. For each added point Locus/CloudMade calculates the  route and navigation. When finished with the last point, save the route. Later you select the stored route just like any other track in the Tracks menu.

1) Navigation:
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 My fault. I incorrectly enabled guiding to the first red point as I used to do for guiding on tracks. By selecting guiding to the navigation route (the small turn symbol) I got it right.
THIS IS AWESOME, Menion! You were right in what you said before the relase: I got a smile on my face when I saw what you have implemented! That turn popup window with real time distance is really great. And the guiding line that pops up when you move away from computed route is also really great.

I guess the text next to each red dot may be hard to move into a popup window since you are probably reusing the existing feature of adding points to track recording?
It would have two great benefits if it were possible to move the turn guiding text to the Turn popup window (or probably a new, not that tall popup window next to the Turn window such that it doesn't cover too much of the map area):
 - if you have computed a track over e.g. 100 km distance and zoom out to get an overview of the computed track, there is so much red guiding text covering most of the map area that you do not see the track any more. And this text is only of interest as you approach the next turn, so the right place for it is in a popup window showing one turn at a time.
- this guiding text would be much easier to read if shown in a popup window with a background color. Remember - this is something you need to be able to read with a quick look on the map while driving.

The guiding text today is like "Turn right on Sunset Road 1.3 km". That is 3 items of information: How to turn, name of road, distance. You already have 2 of these (1st and 3rd) covered in your Turn popup window, so you could limit the text to only display the name of the road.

Your moving car is great! You are showing a car no matter if I select navigation for car, bike or walking. Would it be possible to show a bike/walking person if those navigation modes are selected? This is of course not important at all - just a funny thing.

One more thing: the Turn popup window disappears when the last turn is done. However, it would be useful if you kept the window and changed the turn indicator to a Goal symbol with remaining distance.

2) Guiding:
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I see. I was not aware of that. Great.
However, I see two types of guiding:
- Guiding along a computed TRACK: Here you want to be guided along the TRACK and the waypoints themselves are not of particular interest.
   Here your new way of guiding and automatic jumping to next point is really great and better than it was before. No changes here.
- Guiding to a particular WAYPOINT on the track: here you really want to find that point and you want the guiding to that point even if you pass it.

May I suggest the following:
- When you tap a point on a computed track today, you get a popup window with the commands "i <track name>", "i <point>", "Guide On", etc.
     -- Here "Guide On" = today's guiding along a TRACK. No changes here.
     -- Tapping "i <point>" today pops up another window with 4 command/symbols: +, map, tools, navigation. Could you here add a 5th command/symbol - Guiding - just as you have today for a POI?
So when you have found that particular waypoint, you can select "Guide On" to the track again.

Thank you for new release 1.9.6 (released today August 6). Two comments:

1) I tried the navigation with turn directions. You still have all the turn directions on the screen and when you zoom the map out, it is just overloaded with text and you neither can read the next turn direction nor see the streets. Sorry, I still think you would need to move the next turn directions into a separate window, which only shows the upcoming turn and not all the turns at the same time as it is today.  You mentioned something about some improvements in this new release, but I do not see any changes here from the previous release 1.5.4. Am I missing anything here?

2) Guiding: I don't know when the following command disappeared: With guiding on, two commands in the guiding popup window used to be "Nearest point" and "Next point". Now "Next point" is gone. This was a very important command as we talked about when you implemented that a long time ago (if you pass a waypoint at a distance larger than Guiding/"Set next point", then the guiding will never jump to the next point).

Great! What a fast response from you, Menion!

According to Einstein, the speed of light is the fastest speed possible in the universe. But he didn't know about you, Menion - you move faster!!!

Thanks a lot!!

Ok, if that is how most people like it.

I see from the link that people found it annoying the way it was.
I actually find it very annoying the way it is now, since the zoom may jump out when Zoom Lock is enabled, while you actually want to zoom in, and sometimes the zoom in jump is far too much with only some large pixel points.

May I suggest this user selectable in the Map Setting. Something like: "Remember zoom lock" enable/disable

The function of the Zoom Lock button changed several versions ago. I tried to get used to it, but found the previous functionality better.

It was like this before:
- when enabled, it locked the existing map AT THE CURRENT ZOOM LEVEL. From now on you could zoom in further by pixel multiplication starting at the current zoom level using the zoom buttons

It is like this now:
- when enabled, it locks the existing map, BUT CHANGES THE ZOOM LEVEL with the same amount as last time used. You have to use the zoom buttons to zoom back out to see the zoom level you were at when enabled. I do not think that is the intention of the Zoom Lock button. The button info says: "This may be useful if you do not have a particular zoom level and still wish to zoom in". So when enabled, it should only lock, not zoom at the same time.

Is this new way of operating your intention, Menion, or is this a bug? I liked the old way much better. Now the zoom may suddenly jump several levels at the moment you enable the Zoom Lock button, depending upon last time used.

Really great!
However, I have some ideas.
The problem now is that when turns are close after each other, the screen gets overloaded with turn directions, and you do not see what is the actual directions for the next turn.

May I suggest the following:
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- remove all the turn directions from the screen and rather create a popup window at the bottom of the map area (just above the bottom menu line). This window shows the guiding text for the next turn. As soon as you have made the turn, the turn directions for the next are shown.

- with this pop-up window approach, you have given yourself the freedom to add more text info later without messing up the screen (e.g. time to turn, not only distance).

- by having "GPS Off", you could manually move the map along the track and the turn directions could pop up as you move.

Questions:
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 - the distance to next turn, would it be possible to continuously update that number as you are approaching the turn?

 - would it be possible to include the feature of recalculating the route if you miss a turn?

Voice guiding: I think this is not important. I have a Garmin Nuvi car navigator and I usually have voice turned off. I rather keep an eye on the turn directions on the screen.

Regarding read and write speeds - yes they are always quire different for all flash type memory cards. The speed class is always referring to guaranteed write speed. Read speeds are typically 5-6 times faster. This is due to the semiconductor physics how data are stored into the memory locations.

Regarding my 32 GB class 4 card - yes, I measured the speed to be exactly 4MB, so nothing more than min spec..l