[APP] - version 3.15.x (27. 1. 2016+)

[joeloc]

I must agree with the other comments here... the new hillshading is a) way too dark and b) waaaaaay too slow. It might be "prettier" and "more detailed", but that doesnt help usability at all. With the latest beta, my state of the art super highspeed phone (note 4) needs more than 10(!) seconds to redraw the map. I would consider this not fit for release.

menion, if you want to keep this new algorithm, I strongly suggest running it *separately* and *after* normal tile rendering. Just render non-shaded standard tiles first, so we can instantly see the map. Then "fade in" the hillshading (or slope coloring) smoothly afterwards (tile by tile, as soon as they finish rendering). Then speed will not matter that much.

The current beta basically cuts Locus map rendering speed in half (or worse)... a horrible idea indeed! You spent so much admirable effort speeding up mapsforge by single percentage values... and now you simply enforce a 100%(!) penalty as if it meant nothing and even call it a feature. Please think twice before releasing this. Almost nobody will notice the increased "prettyness" but everybody will whine about the major slowness.

As for the darkness... that's at least 100% too much! Even with one of the brightest smartphone displays on this planet, I can hardly make out anything in your shaded areas... WHEN I AM OUTSIDE. You users run Locus OUTDOORS in difficult conditions, not on a comfy developers couch with smooth ambient lighting. If you really think that the new look is useful, you must give us a slider to tune it down by an order of magnitude.

[joeloc]

Btw... no complaint without a suggested fix. Apparently this HGT altitude file format is super bitchy, performance-wise. I can't really see a reason to parse and render it over and over (and over and over and over) again for hill shading on every map scrolling operation. Couldn't you simply turn it into a sqlite map with greyscale png tiles, right after download? Like S14W074.hgt becomes S14W074.sqlite? Then your hill shading will simply be as blazingly quick as any map overlay, no more extra work to be done repeatedly, no more users bitching about speed. You could even delete the original file (uncompressed bullshit?) after download and save loads of storage space.

Then the speed of your shading algorithm wouldn't matter at all, because it will only run ONCE. And you could make it super-pretty and super-nice. And we would even get "adjustable hillside darkness" automatically with the opacity slider for overlay maps. Any reason this wouldn't work? Am I missing something? Couldn't hill shading (and also slope coloring) simply be a special kind of pre-rendered map used as overlay?

[Christian]

Danke Stefan. Sounds good.

[joeloc]

Danke Stefan. Sounds good.

If I could, I would vote for a MONTH-OF-PERFORMANCE :-). No work at all put into new features, but instead only focus on snappyness and speed and usability. The most annoying things that Locus does to its users at the moment are IMHO

1) showing a "working..." dialog, completely blocking the app.
2) showing a blank screen, basically meaning downtime for the user.
3) scrolling and zooming choppily by doing too much work on the main thread.

#1 for example makes editing a track on screen a complete nightmare... deleting a few bogus points from a recording is an experience I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

#2 staring at a blank screen waiting for stuff to appear is really annoying. sad enough that Locus still can't pinch&zoom properly in 2016, even though this is arguably the most often used gesture on a smartphone. and now the latest beta more than doubles the "staring at blank screen"-time even for simple scrolling operations. holy moly.

#3 is an ongoing topic since the very beginning due to missing multi-threading. the more data you have, the choppier and more unpleasant your overall Locus experience will become.

Don't get me wrong... I do LOVE features and Locus is the most amazing gps software I have ever seen in that regard. But it really wouldn't suffer from focusing on a snappier user experience for a while. I mean... seriously... even for such a simple thing as tapping the GPS icon... my phone takes a break of nearly one second(!) before anything happens on screen. This might not sound like much... but any tap that doesn't give instant feedback will make you wonder... did I miss the button? was there snow/rain on screen? are my gloves too thick? is my bike shaking too much? was I shaking too much? shall I tap again now or wait some more?

I know stuff like this is hard to imagine on a cosy beta testing couch with perfect lighting... no wind... pleasant temperatures... not wearing sunglasses... not sweating... not freezing... not being in a hurry... not having to operate your 6"-phone single-handed... etcpp.... anyway... long story short:

Locus is an amazing app, but snappy it is not :-/.

[Menion]

Stefan, do for me one test please. Do backup of your "Locus/data/database" directory and then delete it (or just rename it).

Start Locus and check mentioned issues once more. I remember I get from your for some testing your database with tracks, which had around 100 MB and well, work with tracks was really slow for me as well. If app and mainly work with points/tracks will be a lot faster, then issue is in not-well-optimized work with database itself, nothing more.

[Menion]

Well, hope that last Beta in this row is out. Enjoy it and use last chance to fix some remaining problems till release .

And who have loooong evenings, may check our new "secret" feature: http://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=5016.0

[Christian]

I have to agree with Stefan. My db is about 35MB couch size. The first 4 seconds after tapping the Locus icon on homescreen i get always a black screen.
Map scrolling and zooming have lags.
Editing track... ehm... i'm waiting for the rubberband feature.
A project "Locus lubrification" (german joke) for a better performance would be nice. Its imho essential for a mobile app.
I will wait for the next release, read the forum and will than decide to update or not.

[jajaballard]

Tested with 3.15.3.6
- No longer error screen for loading maps
- Darkness for hill shading OK for me
- Rendering performance with hill shading is still not in an acceptable range

[michaelbechtold]

confirm the map loading error is gone.

Gesendet von meinem SM-N9005 mit Tapatalk

[Menion]

@joeloc & @christian and also other who now or will in future complain about performance:

Nice talking Stefan. I'm quite often surprised that mainly you, who previously were an developer, see things as so easy to do. Anyway performance with empty/fresh installation is one thing, performance with few years of collected maps, points, tracks and many various settings is another thing, no matter if you sit home and spend most of time on improving app or you ride a bike in wild countries and just report "it's slow".

So if someone wants to improve performance in cases it make no sense that app is slow (like just a few points on a map, etc), only usable information as I see it now, is reproducibility on own device.

So best
- clear installation and empty Locus directory
- here download and import this X file and do this, bam .. slow

I have not a big "problem " to invest time to some optimizations of performance when I know exactly where and why. On second side, no matter what you think, it is something I invest quite a lot of time into it and I think that speed of Locus is quite well.

Thanks for understanding.

@jajaballard: oki, thanks. I'm worried that current performance is best I may get from device with current algorithm in latest 3.15.3.6

@michaelbechtold: thanks, finally

[john_percy]

@menion But in this case hill shading was modified to improve it in beta. Beta users report that the slowing down was too great for the improvement gained. Isn't that what you have beta testers for?

[Menion]

absolutely agree. Did I said something that is against it? In case of hillshading I spend on it, because of previous reports, almost whole weekend and result is latest Beta version. And on report from jajaballard I wrote, that for now it's unfortunately not possible to speed it more.

[tramp20]

@menion,
I have no problem with hill shading, it is fast enough for me.

[balloni55]

In case of hillshading I spend on it, because of previous reports, almost whole weekend and result is latest Beta version.

we belive that
but i agree with john_percy and for me it´s a step backwards

While playing on sofa with disabeled GPS i noticed that my device temperature grows up ~45°C, so i assume the new shading needs more accu. With PRO i didn´t notice increase of temperature.

With Lomaps Germany and Baden_wurttemberg i see a problem on ZL 10-12 independent on used locus theme, with PRO it work well. N 47°59.940  E 7°50.526
It seams that some tiles ZL hang

[gynta]

It seams that some tiles ZL hang

confirmed
eg

. . .