auto-export, u1, simple location-sending

[antiplex]

dear community,

this is my first post to this board but i am already a rather long therm user of locus and liked it from the start and even more how it evolved since then.  
however, three issues i was wondering for a while now are still around motivating me for todays posting, maybe someone can point me to a solution:

 :?: 1. auto-backup
what i've been wondering about for a while now is where the settings/menu for the automatic backup on startup is hiding itself.
i have the 'settings for experts' (under settings -> functions & modules) box checked and upon each startup i can see that there is a new backup-.zip created correctly at '/mnt/sdcard/Locus/backup/auto'. within each of those .zip archives there is a single fie called 'tracks' containing my recorded tracks.
when i go to menu -> funtions -> backup manager and scroll down to the bottom of this dialogue i see a section called 'automatic backup' with the following entries:
  automatic backup - enabled
  backup every 1 days
  setting - no
  points - no
  tracks - yes
  wms - no
but there is no option to alter those setting here and i can't seem to find it anywhere else in the settings (e.g. settings -> miscellaneous). also in config.cfg i couldn't spot any keys to configure these. any hints how i might do this?

 :?: 2. sharing to ubuntu one cloud service
when sharing exported data or map-center i get a selection of (compatible) installed applications on my device such as email-programs, skype, dropbox (which i don't use any more) and the like. one link i am missing here is the one of the ubuntu one cloud storage client for android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... roid.files) which i have installed and which works nicely so far. i don't know if programs being listed in these share-selections need to advertise any specific service or identifier or wheter locus has some sort of list of programs it can pass data to. please let me know how this works and if something needs to be changed on the side of the u1-client.
ps: i know i could alter the export-folder in config.cfg and set it to the u1-folder but the problem here is that the current u1-client does not actively sync folder contents but needs to be made aware of files that should be added. its the same with google drive for android, dunno about dropbox but i would like to not use another cloud service in order to keep some overview.

 :?: 3. sending the current position to other locus-user(s)
what would be the fastest way to send a location (point) to another user (e.g. via some xmpp-chat-service) so that user can import this easily to the device running locus and e.g. set a guide to it? i know there is the possibility to easily share the map center (as plain text-coordinates, geohash-url, google-maps-url) or a stored point (as geohash-url) but i am lacking a simple way to import this into locus on the other side. is there a way to do so without too much hassle? i am dreaming of something like a specific locus-namespace-url which directly opens locus with the new point imported so there is no need to save everything to a file (gpx,kml), attach the file to an email, save the attachment on the other device and finally import it into locus.
a typical use case for such functionality would be to guide someone else ad-hoc to a certain location/meeting-point which has no address or visible fixpoint and where a guidance would be the easiest.

thanks a lot for reading all this text and if possible for any hints helping me with this.
regards, anti

[Menion]

Hello,
  I'll answer simply because I think that most of question have answers

1) Backup manager is described here http://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php/manual:backup_manager ... if you want to change auto-backup, just cancel current one and set new one

2) sharing on other places that are listed is not a locus task. In android it works like - you want share something, so you tell locus "hey share me this" and locus for example pack data to zip and say to system "hey, share this file" and that's all. And on application itself is to register in some system database, that they may handle "share request on zip file". And if exist more then one application that allow this, system will offer you list of possibilities. So it's up on applications itself to allow this

3) locus specific namespace is possible but I think that if you share some google link or geohash by email or sms, receiver can simply click on this link on computer to display it on map, or tap on it on phone to display it in Locus! That's what you want right? Locus is registered in system (as description in point 2) to handle google maps url or geohash url so tapping on such link in sms or email should allow to open it in Locus

[antiplex]

hi menion,

thank you very much for your answers!

1) my issues with the backup manager are solved, i simply did not realize that the cancel-button refers only to the auto-backup section, imho it might be more intuitive to name it something like 'clear auto-backup' but of course this is much longer.

2) i will write to the developer of the android u1 client about this issue, great explanation of yours, pretty much how i expected this to be.

3) i thought i tried opening a geohash-link on my device and thought it didn't give me any choice of application to open it with but you a perfectly right, if geohash- (or g-maps-) links can be opened with locus there is indeed no need for another namespace, i will try this soon and report back in case of any problems.

another issue came to my mind that i forgot to mention in my original post... not sure if i should open another thread for it, since its somewhat short i'll describe it here and move it to its own thread if i can't get an answer.

4) for quite a while the gps-averaging app has been a nice companion of locus (available as external plugin) and i used to use it quite a lot. after not having used it for some time i found that it is no longer directly available through the 'add point' menu as i thought it once was but there is the possibility to configure a shortcut on the right panel to it. this shortcut however won't open the gps-averaging app but links to the 'no ads'-version in google-play. so in other words it seems as if there is no more integration of the free (add-supported) gps-averaging-app. is this correct or am i missing something?

regards, anti

[Menion]

hmm as I look into "add new point" and then "new" button (next to coordinates), I see "GPS Averaging" at bottom of list. Do you see it also? If you don't know exactly what I mean, let me know and I'll do screenshot for you

[gynta]

like this:

[antiplex]

hmm as I look into "add new point" and then "new" button (next to coordinates), I see "GPS Averaging" at bottom of list. Do you see it also?

yes, i do see this option and it works fine for me. so this would be a workaround i could somewhat live with.
by the add-point feature i originally meant the way 'main menu' -> 'functions' -> 'add new point' but while playing around with this further, i just found out that even here gps-averaging can be used when one hits the 'new'-button in the coordinates-section. i somehow had a different workflow of this in my memories but i could be wrong.
 
but even though i can access the gps-averaging app like you described, if i configure the right panel to contain a feature-link to gps-averaging hitting it refuses to open it but leads me to google play. pls let me know if unclear / i should describe this in more detail.

thanks @ gynta for the screenshot btw...

[Menion]

probably understand. Try tap on menu > function > set right panel > add link - program! and here from list search for installed GPS averaging. I think that program you're trying to add into right panel is different that you have already installed (free/paid version)

[antiplex]

i was able to add a link by using 'add link - programm' as you described and this one opens the application successfully.
however, when opening gps-averaging through this link there seems no way of sending the coordinates averaged in gps-averaging back to locus. i don't know if this behaves identically when using a feature-link but was somewhat hoping that this would provide a shortcut to directly add an anveraged point to locus.
but of course (as i just found out) i can almost as quickly use the standard add-point feature-link and hit 'new' in the corrdinates section and use gps-averaging through there.

regarding my other issue (no. 2), i finally found time to submit a bug-report where i suggest to have the u1 app register for .gpx and .zip and other useful extensions: //https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-android-files/+bug/1029661

regards,
anti