Time to use vector add-on ?

[muellmaen]

Hi

I am just new here and also a new user to Locus (Pro) ...

I am curios how long normally that vector add on can be used. in the marked it says, that the add-on will not work longer then March 2012, less then 3 months to go.
I understand that the hosting costs some money, but I would definitely prefer a per year subscription model....

[berkley]

Hi,

First of all: "Welcome"

The add-on for vector maps has to be paid because of hosting costs, as you wrote correctly. It is not really about hosting, it is about traffic costs. As the Vector Maps get updated every 1 or 2 months, there had to be a time-limited solution. I don't know, how the developer wants to handle this. Perhaps there will be soon another add-on for the vector maps valid for the next period of time... But who knows...
To be honest, this add-on isn't really expensive. It is very convenient to download the maps right into Locus instead of downloading them from some website, transfer them to the device and so on...

Cheers, berkley

[Menion]

hmm, that was plan. I wanted to create in-app billing and just sell maps not with some time subscription but something like 1€ per 5GB ... anyway this will take some time and seems like server can still withstand all users (America is now on amazon server) so I'll increase this time, probably to end of June. Anyway, users that buy this addon, will have access to maps no less then 3 months in every case

[berkley]

How much traffic did you cause per month in total?

[Menion]

hmm currently it's more then 2TG, not much but slowly growing ... solution by in-app billing will works fine. I have prepared system - release new version of addon as another application, but this do not solve problems with server limits. So In-app billing where you'll pay for traffic is best solution, because I'll be able to host all data on amazon and when someone will want a lot of data thanks to this addon ... he can have it (if he pays)

[muellmaen]

Thx 4 ur fast reply..

I am waiting what will come

[tommi]

Menion, I guess you will use mapsforge lib 3 in Locus once it is out and stable.
Will this new mapsforge lib be able to read the current vector maps?
I guess it cannot as they write about changes in the binary format.
This would render Locus user's current map collections useless if these changes are not backward compatible.
What is your understanding and your plans with this?

[Menion]

hmm I think there aren't any plans needed. In same day, I'll together with Matthias do:

1. new locus version
2. new generated maps on server (downloadable by addon)
3. same maps uploaded on Matthias vectormaps4locus web page

+ some highlighted notification for people!

[tommi]

Regarding the amount of traffic: You could reduce it at least by ~50% if you provide compressed map files.
Especially those huge maps for areas with very few information shrink down more than 90%.
Should be an easy task for you - compress (e.g. zip) files on server, uncompress in Locus after download.
If you wish, I can add this wish on getsatisfaction, too.

[Menion]

ah, so simply and so useful! Thank you very much - I'll try to implement this!

[Menion]

hi tommi,
  you great idea realized

http://server.asamm.com/locus/maps.html

  here is result! nice, thank you once more

  system will be working in new version (there was need for changes in Locus code)

[tommi]

Menion, thank you, too.
This is the rare case of a win-win idea (on your side saves storage and traffic costs and on Locus' user side it saves download time.

Btw. when downloading America maps I was only able to make successful downloads if I ticked only one map. If I selected more than one map for download the download stopped after the first map (and all the other selections vanished). This seems to have something to do with Amazon S3 because in versions before you used that service the problem wasn't there also for America maps.

[Menion]

the whole system changes so check new version (it will still take at least 10 days to release) but seems like this issue isn't there