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hmm that sound logical. Oki. And solution for this?

As mentioned above, that's the possibilities I see:

There's two solutions:

- scale tile size with dpi (as mapsforge did starting with 0.4, 256px for 160dpi, 512px for 320dpi etc.), not implemented in Locus (and most other apps)

- use different zoom levels for comparison (e.g. one tile at ZL15 at 160dpi=256px is equal to four tiles at ZL16 at 320dpi=512px) and adapt you theme files accordingly, e.g. extra files for different dpi (disadvantage: zoom-min/max in theme files have also to be adjusted for real conversion, and zoom-appear in map files can't be adjusted)

With the second option I meant you have to use higher ZL at higher dpi devices, so e.g. if ZL15 is fine for you at 160dpi, someone has to use ZL16 for the same area at 320dpi, and someone else ZL17 at 640dpi.

Kann ich mein Elevate Theme weiter verwenden wenn ich mir die karten aus dem Locus Store lade oder ist das Theme nur für die Openandromaps kompatibel bzw optimiert ?

Elevate ist schon für die OpenAndroMaps optimiert, d.h. es gibt einige Sachen, die in den OAM enthalten sind und den LoMaps nicht (und umgekehrt) und dann nicht dargestelt wird.
Grundsätzlich sind aber die Themes kompatibel. Mehr zu den Unterschieden zwischen den Karten hier: http://www.openandromaps.org/oam-forums/topic/unterschied-der-karten-vom-locus-store-zu-openandromaps

Ich hab auch mal gelesen dass Leute die POI Datenbanken der LoMaps mit OAM-Karten verwendet haben, ich weiß aber nicht ob das noch geht.

Viele Grüße,
Tobias

What happens with a scalable theme like my Voluntary UK, where everything is defined in terms of dp?

Same as in column B. Everything with dp gets scaled, but not the tile size which is fixed at 256px. The problem is that lines are getting thicker, but areas stay the same (and are disappearing with too much scaling).

There's two solutions:

- scale tile size with dpi (as mapsforge did starting with 0.4, 256px for 160dpi, 512px for 320dpi etc.), not implemented in Locus (and most other apps)

- use different zoom levels for comparison (e.g. one tile at ZL15 at 160dpi=256px is equal to four tiles at ZL16 at 320dpi=512px) and adapt you theme files accordingly, e.g. extra files for different dpi (disadvantage: zoom-min/max in theme files have also to be adjusted for real conversion, and zoom-appear in map files can't be adjusted)

Modulare Bauweise wäre ein Ansatz aber was lässt Du als Basis?
Der reine Horror als Programmierer.
20 Addons, die du getrennt zu verwalten hast. Das tut sich keiner an.

Muss gar nicht sein, siehe OSMAnd. Einfach die App mit allen Modulen ausliefern, der Nutzer kann sie (de)aktivieren.

Die Parallelentwicklung Elevate/Andromaps ist historisch bedingt, Elevate war immer eher ein Theme mit erweiterten Möglichkeiten. Da es für Christian aufwendiger war, alle Neuerungen selbst einzupflegen hat er einfach das, was seine Themes auszeichnet, in eine Elevate Version eingebaut. Wäre aber mal sinnvoll, das mal grundsätzlich anzugehen.

Und Elevate, die verschiedenen Versionen/Größen - wenn Du mir sagst, wie ich sämtliche mapsforge Versionen (0.3, 0.4, 0.5, Locus) und verschiedene Pixeldichten mit nur einer Version versorgen kann - und jeweils auch die Möglichkeiten ausreize - gerne :-)
Elevate 2 würde ich lieber heute als morgen ins Archiv stecken, dazu müssten aber noch ein paar Apps auf mapsforge 0.5 umstellen.

Eigentlich gibt es für jede App/Smartphone Kombi nur eine sinnvolle Version (ich dachte das geht aus dem Geschriebenem hervor), nur die SVG ist gerade zusätzlich. Da es große Probleme gab, SVG Icons in allen Apps zuverlässig zu rendern, ist die erst einmal zum Testen - langfristig würde ich da gerne ganz darauf umstellen.

Elements - einfach mal ausprobieren. In Deutschland macht das im Vergleich zu Elevate gar keinen Sinn, in Island sehr wohl, und umgekehrt.

- i have locus installed to internal SD and my Vectormaps are stored on extern SD, Elevate theme was installed automatic to internal theme folder. So at first moment Elevate was not available until i´v moved it to external theme folder. Perhaps you can add this info to your instruction file for new users

I just checked, this is fixed with latest updates.
Also the theme switcher works now reliable and remembers the settings. Thanks menion!

Is this the selection menu in the settings, or where do you chose that?

The overlay selector when you hit the map theme chooser for a second time.

I think the answer to your question is no. As you say, you can do something similar with the Elevate theme from OpenAndroMaps.

One simple trick here is to use Elements, and only show the category you're interested in, e.g. "amenities" for drinking water or "car" for parking, and those POIs are displayed as soon as they are contained in the map.

I think Klaus' idea of having two different mapsforge libraries shows some of the ambivalent way the development has taken the last years with mapsforge.
There are community based maps and themes that are made for as many apps as possible, for those are compatibility and an open standard very important (e.g. OpenAndroMaps, Freizeitkarte).
On the other hand Locus built its own proprietary ecosystem with maps, themes and POI database upon mapsforge. For this compatibility is not a big issue, adapting to the needs of this ecosystem is much more important.
Of course there are more sides to it, but with these agendas in mind one library can't really serve both purposes (I'm a bit reminded of internet browsers and html standards ;-)).

What also developed is the usage of mapsforge maps outside of android apps. People are so used to the way they look and appreciate that, so based on mapsforge now there are tileservers, mobac generates raster maps and there are java apps for PCs like Atlas and Route Converter. So route planing even with QuoVadis is possible now.

So of course I would welcome Klaus' idea, as it would take all this into account, but I also appreciate Menion's efforts to at least have some of the new options.

@menion: Just some clarifications on mapsforge development: yes, it was dormant for a while, but last year two major releases were released. Master, which your referred to above, is the stable branch, development happens here and is quite active:
https://github.com/mapsforge/mapsforge/tree/dev

@jusc: As well as Locus has been optimized, mapsforge has been optimized, too, not only new features, and renders differently. Even pure mapsforge 0.3 renders different than Locus nowadays, as Locus is prioritizing captions to symbols (at least it looks so).
Lots of rendering issues have been fixed in mapsforge 0.5. There are so many differences now, not only device dependent scaling and positions of lines vs. fillings. Other things include dy for symbols/captions on areas, dy on ways/pathText/lineSymbol that are scaled the same as stroke-width, automatic position of captions in relation to symbols, priorities that work very well and are very nice combined with a system to switch on/off collision detection per rule etc.
All this gives me more control to get the map rendered without the pitholes and workarounds that were necessary with mapsforge 0.3, and there is more in development (label layer, which solves another big issue with missing POIs/captions).

@fzk: I made a script to convert my mapsforge 0.5 themes, so they work now well with Locus, if you're interested send me your Email.

I got some error reports with the theme chooser. If you use map > offline > details, and hit the theme for a second time here, the mapstyle/overlay menu pops up only for a very short time. It's not the case via the button in the panel or via settings > maps advanced.

I just tested your screenshot, it works fine for me with the 240dpi version,

Fact that you see a blue "i" and not correct icon is probably because Locus is not able to find path to SVG/BMP icon.

If the icon is missing maybe you haven't copied the "ele_res" when you were moving it manually to the external sd card. It is crucial that this folder is up to date, as some symbols have changed. Have a look here for manual installation:
http://static1.openandromaps.org/wp-content/users/tobias/installation.txt

@menion: Is there anything I can do with the xml file here to make it work with custom maps_vector folders?
http://www.openandromaps.org/wp-content/users/tobias/Elevate3_Locus.xml

- install with firefox didnt work, with original Samsung Browser no Problem

Yes, that's a limitation of Firefox, maybe we should add that to the FAQ

- i have locus installed to internal SD and my Vectormaps are stored on extern SD, Elevate theme was installed automatic to internal theme folder. So at first moment Elevate was not available until i´v moved it to external theme folder. Perhaps you can add this info to your instruction file for new users

I think that is a bug limitation in Locus when locus-actions are not using the custom folder you set in the preferences. I use a different setting which works - I added my maps folder on the external SD card via "add local maps" in the maps browser, so the theme folder is on internal SD and locus-actions with automatic install work as expected.

On my device i have problems with following settings
- Hiking + puplic transport
- city + puplic transport network
- cycling + puplic transport
up to ZL 15 a blue " i " label and maptiles are displayed well
on ZL16 and ZL17 tiles where i-labels on top, didnt zoom


one additional question, on screenshot are two labels beside, "Rathaus Nord" and "Rathaus Süd" why that, we have only one "Rathaus"

These are things that I can't influence, some functions of Locus - the blue "i"s and the "Rathaus Nord" popup are not part of the theme. I don't know why the maps don't render at the i-Labels - are you using the SVG theme?

Best regards,
Tobias

I discuss "priorities" with Petr and he confirmed that we tried this system to make labeling better, but it still do not work as we wanted. System was anyway left in Locus. But really, do not expect some better results in Locus.

Thanks for the information. Priority is really an improvement with mapsforge 0.5, label/symbol elimination can now be controlled pretty well. Maybe there's some code you can use.

Theme switcher - directly open a settings is not exactly what I think it is wanted. I'll anyway do some more UI improvements here, so it will evolve over time.

It would be good to pop up a mapstyle switcher as with your native Locus mapstyle system (like I had in Elevate 3.0.1 and John has in his themes), so that at least cycling/hiking/city can be chosen.

And Orux - ah, it needs some beta. Then it's wasting of time for me as I only wanted to see this system working to better understand what you and users expect. In the end, I did it by myself.

It's about the same with OruxMaps (and Atlas/Cruiser), they only have an additional button "check/uncheck all overlays" which is handy sometimes.

I just released Elevate 3.0.2 with overlay support in the Locus version, seems like everything works as expected - except that the selected overlays aren't remembered as mentioned above.
http://www.openandromaps.org/en/new-locus-version-with-support-for-switchable-overlays

Best regards,
Tobias

Hello Tobias,

hmm priorities ... do not know if they works in Locus, I'm worried that they don't.

Oh, I thought you had them in your extension as priority is mentioned here:
http://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:advanced:map_tools:theming
At least it shows no problems if I leave priority values as they are in the mapsforge 0.5 theme.

I've anyway made a first biggest step during last few previous days ...

Follow my steps:
1) add theme for last MapsForge library to Locus/mapsVector/_themes directory
2) select this theme in Locus (keep in mind this: http://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=4601.msg37265#msg37265) - btw: are you using Locus as a common user or just rarely because of creating themes?
3) is theme working for you? If so, fine
4) tap on selected theme once more .

Congratulations, it works :-). At the moment I have very little time at hand but will test it more ASAP.
Two things I noticed: it makes sense to directly open the mapstyle/overlay menu, the same way when an external theme with Locus styles is opened. And if I change overlays for one mapstyle, they are changed for all mapstyles; this shouldn't happen, as my overlays have different id's for every mapstyle.

You're right, I'm not really an active Locus user as I've started with OruxMaps five years ago and am so used to it. But as I design the advanced themes for Openandromaps and we have lots of Locus users I try to fill their needs as well, so I'm here and have been using Locus a lot too :-)

Testing feature, should works fine anyway. I wanted to test this on OruxMaps app, but I wasn't able to find some options to change content of active theme, hmm, quite confusing app for me when I never worked with it .

Yes, very different UI philosophies. You have to use the beta version as mapsforge 0.5 isn't in the playstore version yet: http://www.oruxmaps.com/foro/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2560
Then hit the map button in the top row, "mapsforge theme" chooses the theme, "tweak mapsforge theme" changes mapstyle and overlays.

Are you using an Openandromaps map? In those only significant trees are included, those in your screenshot don't have any of the relevant tags.
Elevate works best with OAM maps.