Locus Map 4, discussion (alpha)

[freischneider]

I am also in favor of making Locus better for beginners. Simple and clear operation.
But we also have to think of the experts. They want a lot of different design options.
Maybe at the beginning you have to do everything like now. And later make opportunities for the experts. But maybe it is better to know now what should come later.
I currently have an almost empty screen. See image. On the way a great overview.
I do a lot by language. Clicking the screen is bad with long gloves. I do all of this via Tasker and would be happy to control more Locus functions.

[michaelbechtold]

Experts and novices alike will always suffer from changes, yet changes are key to improvements and progress.
Hence - AGAIN - my advise to spend energy into a 21st century help and function (*) search capability. Android settings in many new devices deliver that: you type a word about what you want to do and get a number of matching functions/settings at your fingertip.
That does not address the ongoing UI discussion, I know. But the overwhelming (yet USEFUL!!!) settings have been a reported pain since years.
(*) each function and setting needs to have a number of keywords and synonyms associated. In the selected language and always plus English.

[Ricardo Borges]

How to rotate the map with compass?

I see Locus alpha doesn't have the language bug. Cool!

Also Menion, I think the new top panel could have 2 types of information. I don't like the wasted space at right.

[lor74cas]

Experts and novices alike will always suffer from changes, yet changes are key to improvements and progress.
Hence - AGAIN - my advise to spend energy into a 21st century help and function (*) search capability. Android settings in many new devices deliver that: you type a word about what you want to do and get a number of matching functions/settings at your fingertip.
That does not address the ongoing UI discussion, I know. But the overwhelming (yet USEFUL!!!) settings have been a reported pain since years.
(*) each function and setting needs to have a number of keywords and synonyms associated. In the selected language and always plus English.

I wrote the same a lot of time ago +1

[Menion]

Thanks for valuable feedback guys. I'll have to read more precisely the last post and give some comments.

Meanwhile, new ALPHA version 3.43.3.3 LM4 is out with two new search options for the test .

Latest version for download.

[tapio]

Search (as we type) in Settings - Great!

Bug?
If in route planner I change map from the main map window (not the quick map picker) then it jumps out of route planner.

[tapio]

I've got an idea for the new track and point UI. What if the submenu for tracks and points would already be accessible from the bottom/new UI? In my screenshot it's supposed to be 3 dots 
I feel the popup with its submenu is anachronistic with this new UI.

[tapio]

I wanted to add the dashboard editor to the main menu. Locus says I already use it somewhere, but I don't, what can I do here?

https://youtu.be/7qEw_PXpJ_w

[tapio]

At least if Locus is started as a service, there should be an app->Exit function in the main menu. There's lots of space in the bottom marketing row. My personal opinion for any app is, it should always be there.

[lor74cas]

The search feature in settings is wonderful.
It's language dependent so in my case the search is in italian, that's why I was not able to find "live tracking" 
But my mistake remembers me that today we often use english words for concepts that are translated in local language. "Display" is used in italian but we have the word "schermo" to represent it, so "live tracking" in locus is translated into "localizzazione in tempo reale" (I think It is a translation of mine), for this reason, I think that search feature must look for local language but also english.

[Menion]

@Ricardo Borges
- try the second tap on the center button to start rotation
- top panel: not all information are so short as the one on your screenshot

@tapio
- Route planner, map change over map manager > thanks, I'll look at it.
- context menu in the list of items ... well, there is a huge number of possible functions, so I would rather stay with the current system. Maybe later some most wanted, like "navigate to, hide" ...
- dashboard in the menu > hmm this is an interesting problem. You, maybe, some time ago tried to have more than 3 rows in the main menu and in this fourth, fifth row is probably set a dashboard
- exit button > how many apps has the "Exit" button? This is really something that should not be on the Android. "Home" button is what you are looking for .

@lor74cas
Hmm and why are you looking for "live tracking" when you have Locus Map in italian? . Btw. settings in recording profiles (so "Live-tracking auto-start") are not in the search results. I still do not know how to deal with them as all profiles has exactly same settings and number of profiles is dynamic, so it's little more complicated for me.

[tapio]

As for the context menu I hope there may be a way for you to simply migrate the popups context menu to the new UI.

How can we terminate the app when started as a service? I can, I can add the exit command to the toolbar, but the average user?
IDK, some apps have something like file->exit. Some can't even handle to save settings etc. because, but idk, swiping the app away is like a, say, task kill on Windows and the app cannot react to that.

I am a conservative PC guy, just pressing HOME and having the os organize task processes is not my style. Loss of control is for Apple users 

[Andrew Heard]

@menion - search in settings - bravo.

[poutnikl]

Thanks for settings search too, it is a great help.

I think the route planner should display the scale ruler as well as the main map screen, both following  the ruler ON/OFF settings.

Sent from my Xiaomi MI A2 / Android 10, via Tapatalk

[jonny.blue]

Yes ... search is great ... and will save a lot of time. 😉

With one search I found a strange behaviour:
When searching for " audio" and then selecting "audio trainer" Locus shows a new screen ... and stops. 😯