Locus creates Projects in Google Earth

[JohnCNA]

I've noticed something annoying with the communication between Locus and Google Earth. Let's say I open a waypoint and select navigate. A dialog opens to select a choice; Navigate to, Guide on, Compass, Earth, Navigation Apps, etc. I have the Google Earth app installed, so Earth shows up as a choice.

If I select Earth, it opens GE and creates a Project for that one way point and it gets saved in a Project list in GE. This has resulted in hundreds of Projects showing up in GE and I have to answer a couple dialogs every time I select GE from within Locus.

Other apps do not do this. If I tap the location pin in a Contact listing for example, GE shows as a choice and when selected, just opens and shows the view. No Projects dialogs or lists are created.

I suspect that Locus may not be using the correct API call when opening GE and passing the coordinates to GE.

[Menion]

I do not know how exactly communicates other apps with Google Earth, but Locus Map creates a KML file and shares this file. Thanks to this, you may share more tracks, points with icons etc.

You may try to choose "navigation apps" instead of Earth and in dialog you get should be Google Earth as well. The result should be than similar like in other apps you mentioned.

[JohnCNA]

Thanks for the quick response. In trying to get a clearer picture, I made some adjustments. When tapping navigation apps Earth did not appear. Google navigation and Uber were the choices there. I deleted Uber and now when I select navigate the option navigation apps does not appear and Google navigation appears in the list instead.

I would not be surprised to see that it is a change on Google's end.

[Menion]

Hmm, "not appear". And what about under the bottom menu > Share > Other map apps? Do you see Google earth here?

[JohnCNA]

Yes, GE shows in the Share menus, but does not work properly from there. It opens GE, but does not send the coordinates in the correct format to GE so GE opens at the last known location. See the shots below. First is the waypoint (geocache) in Locus. Using the share option, GE opens but does not move to those coordinates. Now tap the search icon on the GE screen and it shows what Locus sent. (second photo). Locus appended the waypoint name to the coordinates, so the search failed. If I edit out the waypoint name, GE moves to the correct location.

Also, when calling GE through the share menu, it does not create a project in GE like it does when called through the navigate menu.

[Menion]

Hello John,
I'm testing it and unfortunately, I can't help here.

If you call Google Earth directly from the navigation menu, it creates a KML file and shares it with GE. Because of this, GE creates a new project for every file.

If you use share > other map apps, here Locus use basic recommended system "intent" (as defined here: https://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-common.html#Maps) in the format geo:0,0?q=lat,lng(label) .This works fine for other apps and I can confirm, it does not work correctly in Google Earth. It seems to be a bug in GE, not in the Locus Map, sorry.

[JohnCNA]

Thanks so much for looking into this. I can see now that opening a KML or KMZ file starts and saves a project in GE. Very annoying, but Google does what Google wants.

As for the share function, I see what you mean. Perhaps other apps have already seen the change or bug in GE and provided a work-around by not including the waypoint name when they make the call.

As always, thanks for all the work on Locus and taking the time to look into this issue.

[Menion]

Hmm one method that may help is using "Quick bookmarks".
In the latest version(s), you may define your "Url template" parameter as "geo:{mapLat},{mapLon}" or any other that is supported by Google Earth. This should work. It has an only disadvantage, that Quick bookmark insert coordinates defined by the center of the map screen, so you have to firstly "arrange" the map and then use this function.