NEW BETA 1.7.4! [v1.8.0 uploaded to the market]

Hi all;

There is a new beta, 1.7.

News:
--continue old tracks (previously saved in sdcard).

--exit button.

--more info:
------------->gps accuracy
------------->distance to arrival
------------->estimated time to arrival


--basic geocaching support.


--new cursors:

1.-compass


2.-direction up:


3.-searching a cache:


--new menu:


download 1.7beta:------------__>

more info for this version:

REMEMBER: back to market version after 4/5 days!!!

orux

Congratulations for your work, Jose, Oruxmaps is getting better and better. I liked very much the new cursors.

I've tested the new version, and here is my feedback:
- At first i thought that i had some problems receiveing the gps signal, but i found that it was related to the minimum distance in the GPS settings, which is set by defaut to 20 meters. In OruxMaps 1.6, i felt it was much more sensitive by default. When you are on foot i feel that it's better to set it by to 10 meters, or even a smaller value. This is very personal, but i guess it would be better to set it by default to 10 meters. Would it be possible also to have a 5 meters distance?
- The maps menu (with the menu button) is useful, but i found it at first a little bit confusing. If i understand correctly, by clicking on the autoload maps, you switch to the next mode, but i think it would be clearer to have all the different modes displayed like in the settings. Concerning the 'new map' function, i guess it would be more useful to say 'load map'. This function doesn't seems to work very well for me, sometimes it displays the map i want and sometimes it doesn't but i don't know why.
- As i said before i liked very much the new cursors. There are three different cursors : compass, 'compas+map orientation' and 'direction up' and a fourth one, which would i call an 'off cursor'. It's not possible now to switch directly from one cursor to another one, as you have to switch first to the 'off cursor' before selecting the destination cursor. For example, if i want to switch from compass to direction up, i've first to click on the compass cursor, which disables the compass cursor, and then again i've to click in order to set the direction up cursor. Is there any reason for that?
- I don't understand the use of the 'off cursor' (the one which is not compass, 'compas+map orientation' and 'direction up). If the use is to be able to browse the map with the finger, then i think it would be more usefull to switch off the tracking mode with the left upper button. Right now it's possible to set the tracking to on and set the cursor to off, which seems to disable the tracking, and this doesn't seem logical. Perhaps i didn't understand correctly this cursor mode.
-I think it would be nice if the telephone doesn't receive the GPS signal to set the cursors to a different color. For example grey if we don't receive the signal and green if we have the signal. What do you think?

That's all. Thanks again Jose for all the work you've done, as i find Oruxmaps the best free program for android which manages also raster maps.

asperge wrote:Congratulations for your work, Jose, Oruxmaps is getting better and better. I liked very much the new cursors.

I've tested the new version, and here is my feedback:

Hi, asperge; I appreciate your suggestions.

asperge wrote:
- At first i thought that i had some problems receiveing the gps signal, but i found that it was related to the minimum distance in the GPS settings, which is set by defaut to 20 meters. In OruxMaps 1.6, i felt it was much more sensitive by default. When you are on foot i feel that it's better to set it by to 10 meters, or even a smaller value. This is very personal, but i guess it would be better to set it by default to 10 meters. Would it be possible also to have a 5 meters distance?

1.6 is more sensitive because of a bug
With 1.8, there is better control of power, and gps will be turn off if next gps measurement will be some seconds after.
I am going to add more options: 0 mts. (always) 5 mts. and set default to 10 mts. And add 0 seconds and 0.5 seconds in time options.

asperge wrote:
- The maps menu (with the menu button) is useful, but i found it at first a little bit confusing. If i understand correctly, by clicking on the autoload maps, you switch to the next mode, but i think it would be clearer to have all the different modes displayed like in the settings. Concerning the 'new map' function, i guess it would be more useful to say 'load map'. This function doesn't seems to work very well for me, sometimes it displays the map i want and sometimes it doesn't but i don't know why.

Yes, I am going to add a dialog with the three options.
About the problem opening maps: Opens a different map? or does not open (error) the map?

asperge wrote:
- As i said before i liked very much the new cursors. There are three different cursors : compass, 'compas+map orientation' and 'direction up' and a fourth one, which would i call an 'off cursor'. It's not possible now to switch directly from one cursor to another one, as you have to switch first to the 'off cursor' before selecting the destination cursor. For example, if i want to switch from compass to direction up, i've first to click on the compass cursor, which disables the compass cursor, and then again i've to click in order to set the direction up cursor. Is there any reason for that?

I will modify this behaviour.

asperge wrote:
- I don't understand the use of the 'off cursor' (the one which is not compass, 'compas+map orientation' and 'direction up). If the use is to be able to browse the map with the finger, then i think it would be more usefull to switch off the tracking mode with the left upper button. Right now it's possible to set the tracking to on and set the cursor to off, which seems to disable the tracking, and this doesn't seem logical. Perhaps i didn't understand correctly this cursor mode.
-I think it would be nice if the telephone doesn't receive the GPS signal to set the cursors to a different color. For example grey if we don't receive the signal and green if we have the signal. What do you think?

Hmmm
There are 4 cursors:
--normal: green circle. It has no function. you can scroll the map, with gps on/off. It is like the old cursor.
--compass: wind rose. With or without map rotation. You can scroll the map, and gps can be on/off.
--direction up: green circle + green arrow. Map rotation with your direction.
--geocaching: green circle + blue arrow. Visible when you are "caching" a geocache. The arrow shows the direction of cache. In this mode (geocaching) does not work "direction up" and "only compass" cursors.

About a new color when gps signal is not received, it is a good idea.

Thanks, again

orux

Thanks for your answer. Concerning the 'new map' function, here is an example:
- I have two maps, 1300 and 1301 on my sd card. When i use the 'Search and view a map' and a select one of those map, i have no problem. When i've loaded the map, i try to use the 'new map' function in order to load the other map, it clears the current map, but it reloads the current map.

By the way, concerning the labels of the main screen, what do you think of the following suggestions?:

- Instead of 'Open a map here' -> Display current location
- Instead of 'Seach and view map' > Browse maps.

asperge wrote:Thanks for your answer. Concerning the 'new map' function, here is an example:
- I have two maps, 1300 and 1301 on my sd card. When i use the 'Search and view a map' and a select one of those map, i have no problem. When i've loaded the map, i try to use the 'new map' function in order to load the other map, it clears the current map, but it reloads the current map.

Please, send me the otrk2 files of those maps,. I need to investigate the problem.

asperge wrote:
By the way, concerning the labels of the main screen, what do you think of the following suggestions?:

- Instead of 'Open a map here' -> Display current location
- Instead of 'Seach and view map' > Browse maps.

Perfect! My English is not good, and I have problems to summarize in a few words some expresions

orux

orux wrote:
Perfect! My English is not good, and I have problems to summarize in a few words some expresions

orux

Well, don't accept everything i say, because my english is far from being perfect!

I've sent to you the maps files.

[quote="asperge"]Thanks for your answer. Concerning the 'new map' function, here is an example:
- I have two maps, 1300 and 1301 on my sd card. When i use the 'Search and view a map' and a select one of those map, i have no problem. When i've loaded the map, i try to use the 'new map' function in order to load the other map, it clears the current map, but it reloads the current map.
[quote]

Hi, I have tested both maps, and they work fine.

But there is a "side effect" if you have "autoload map (ON)": OruxMaps loads the new map, but as the cursor continues over the last position; then tries to load the map in this position; result=old map reloaded

If you have disabled "auto load map" function, OruxMaps should work as expected.

But I am going to change this behaviour; if a new map is loaded, and gps is off, and current cursor position is out of the new map, the cursor will be moved to the center of new map.

orux

Ok, thanks for the explanation.
Concerning again the 'auto load maps' : if i change the autoload maps from the settings, i see that it's correctly changed when i click the maps menu, but if i change the autoload maps from the maps menu, i don't see the change in the settings.

asperge wrote:Ok, thanks for the explanation.
Concerning again the 'auto load maps' : if i change the autoload maps from the settings, i see that it's correctly changed when i click the maps menu, but if i change the autoload maps from the maps menu, i don't see the change in the settings.

This is the way it was designed,
PREFERENCES selection-->it is a permanent situation.
MENU selection-->it is a temporal situation, for current map.

But I can change this situation, and make MENU selection permanent. I am going to think about it.


orux

Ok, here is my last remarks for the moment, then i will not disturb you anymore!

- When you select 'Google maps online', would it be possible by default to set 'tracking' as active? In this way, Googlemaps would displays by default the 'current location'.
- In 'Google maps online', if you add some waypoints and try to delete them, it gives an error message.
- When you load saved waypoints, it's not possible anymore to edit or delete a waypoint. Is there a reason for this?
- It's possible to save tracks, but is there a way to delete them? (except by connecting the phone to the computer)

asperge wrote:Ok, here is my last remarks for the moment, then i will not disturb you anymore!

- When you select 'Google maps online', would it be possible by default to set 'tracking' as active? In this way, Googlemaps would displays by default the 'current location'.

yes, it has a lot of sense.

asperge wrote:- In 'Google maps online', if you add some waypoints and try to delete them, it gives an error message.
- When you load saved waypoints, it's not possible anymore to edit or delete a waypoint. Is there a reason for this?

It is possible with offline maps, with google maps there is a bug, that I am going to solve quick!

asperge wrote:- It's possible to save tracks, but is there a way to delete them? (except by connecting the phone to the computer)

Yes, with a file manager, like Astro, or File Manager

Next version I will add more functionality about maps/tracks/geocaches management.

Thanks, asperge;

orux

Ok, as you've posted a new beta, so here is my new feedback :

In the main screen, you have a settings command, but when you are not in the main screen, the settings of the menu means different settings (night mode, display autotoration). In the menu, settings of the main screen becomes preferences. I think it would be more logical to switch in the menu settings and preferences, so it would be consistent with the main screen.

Otherwise i find the application simpler to use, especially when you want to change the cursor with the four different cursors displayed.

a very small detail: when you want to 'erase tracks and waypoints', it displays a dialog screen with 'ok' and 'no' button. But usually the 'ok' comes with 'cancel', and 'yes' with 'no'.

In the menu, the new maps commands allows the user to change mode for Autoload maps. But i feel this relates to configuration changes, and it should be placed in the preferences menu (in my mind preferences refers to 'temporary changes' as 'Night mode' and 'Display AutoRotation').
Except for settings and preferences, i think the other icons in the menu should offer only 'actions'.
This would mean that in the menu, the maps would have only the load command. So to be the simplest possible, when we click on the maps menu, instead of displaying 'load', we could directly display the maps available. So we would have a very fast action in order to load a new map.

Of course this only a suggestion, and in the end you decide Jose

I was thinking about the main screen and the difference between 'browse maps' and 'Display current location'. As it is implemented now i feel they are too similar. The only difference is that in 'Browse maps' you load a map at first, but in 'Display current location' you can also load a new map with the maps menu. Also the other difference is that in 'Display current location' the tracking is set to on by default, but you can change the tracking in 'browse map' too. 'Browse map' should be use really used to browse maps.

In order to really differentiate the two functions, i think it would useful to modify the 'browse maps'. Here is a few suggestions:
1) Remove all the indicators which are located below, except location and zoom level. I don't need speed or altitude when i am just browsing maps.
2) Display only the normal cursor, and don't let the user the possibilty to change it. I don't see the use of others cursors in this mode.
3) Remove also all the buttons which are useless in this mode as 'tracking', 'logging','statistics'. I wonder if it's useful also to let the user add and modifiy waypoints in this mode.

Concerning point 3, i am less sure.

I'm giving these suggestions as i would like the user interface to be the simplest possible.

Hi, asperge;

A lot of work

I will study your suggestions.

About what controls/buttons you see over the map viewer, I want to add "profiles", in next versions. The user will view the controls according to the state (view, tracking,...). If you are seeing a map, you will see coordinates/zoom; when gps enabled, + accuracy + speed,... and so on.

orux

Last beta 1.7.4:

http://oruxmaps.x10hosting.com/OruxMaps1.7.4beta.apk

orux

Excellent! I really love this application. I am looking forward the final version to be available on the android market. I'm sure it will have a big success!

I did a little more testing. Here is my results:
- The autoload maps is set to leaving. The zoom level is set to 20%. If i scroll the maps with my finger and a cross another map, the other map is loaded, but the zoom level is reset to 100%. This happens only when the current zoom level is set to 20% (it's ok with 40%, 60%, etc). Also if i leave the current map, and there is no others maps to load, the autoload maps is set automatically to off. I don't think this is useful.
- I've some maps on my computer with woods. The woods are displayed with green colors. I've converted the maps to omc2 and jpeg formats, but both formats seem to have the problem. The jpeg pictures seem ok on the computer, but when i display them with OruxMaps, the green colors look different, more bluish. But the cursor, which is green, looks fine.
- I enjoyed the fact that OruxMaps could convert and display my oziexplorer maps, but in fact with Trek Buddy Atlas, which supports OruxMaps format, it can support much more offline maps types (openStreetMap, Google maps,etc). I think it would be useful also to advertise this in the android market.

That's all for the moment, and again keep up the good work!

I was thinking about the night mode, which is a cool feature. I'm sure that some people will complain that the default brightness for the night mode is too dark or too bright. What about making a 'brightness' mode instead of a night mode? When you click on this action, you would have at the bottom of the screen a cursor that you could slide to left (darker) or to the right (brighter). When you've finished you could click on small ok button to the right of the slide. I don't know is it's possible to implement easily this function on android. When you slide the cursor, you would have a preview.

asperge wrote:Excellent! I really love this application. I am looking forward the final version to be available on the android market. I'm sure it will have a big success!

I did a little more testing. Here is my results:
- The autoload maps is set to leaving. The zoom level is set to 20%. If i scroll the maps with my finger and a cross another map, the other map is loaded, but the zoom level is reset to 100%. This happens only when the current zoom level is set to 20% (it's ok with 40%, 60%, etc). Also if i leave the current map, and there is no others maps to load, the autoload maps is set automatically to off. I don't think this is useful.

Solved; Autoload Maps stays on, when leaving a map.

But there is still a problem when you jump from a multilayer map to a single layer map. Zoom levels are not similar. I need to study a solution.

asperge wrote:- I've some maps on my computer with woods. The woods are displayed with green colors. I've converted the maps to omc2 and jpeg formats, but both formats seem to have the problem. The jpeg pictures seem ok on the computer, but when i display them with OruxMaps, the green colors look different, more bluish. But the cursor, which is green, looks fine.

It is a problem with jpeg encoder; I am going to add more options to OruxMapsDesktop, and the user will be able to select % of quality, format,...

Next week will be OruxMapsDesktop time.

asperge wrote:- I enjoyed the fact that OruxMaps could convert and display my oziexplorer maps, but in fact with Trek Buddy Atlas, which supports OruxMaps format, it can support much more offline maps types (openStreetMap, Google maps,etc). I think it would be useful also to advertise this in the android market.

TB atlas creator is a good start point. But offline maps are still better for outdoor activities (in Spain we have an online 1:25000 source, sigpac, with very detailed maps).

orux

asperge wrote:I was thinking about the night mode, which is a cool feature. I'm sure that some people will complain that the default brightness for the night mode is too dark or too bright. What about making a 'brightness' mode instead of a night mode? When you click on this action, you would have at the bottom of the screen a cursor that you could slide to left (darker) or to the right (brighter). When you've finished you could click on small ok button to the right of the slide. I don't know is it's possible to implement easily this function on android. When you slide the cursor, you would have a preview.

The slider will be the final solution, in next version, sure. Current is a "first" solution.

In Settings--Application--Night brightness, you can set a value between 0-100, and "Night mode" can be "Brighter mode"

orux

orux wrote:
TB atlas creator is a good start point. But offline maps are still better for outdoor activities (in Spain we have an online 1:25000 source, sigpac, with very detailed maps).
orux

What i meant, is that thanks to TB Atlas you can convert a lot maps from different sources to Oruxmaps format, and then use them 'offline' on your phone with OruxMaps. This is a very good possibility, and i thought that perhaps you could advertise this on the android market.

orux wrote:
In Settings--Application--Night brightness, you can set a value between 0-100, and "Night mode" can be "Brighter mode"
orux

I didn't see the possibility to set the night brightness in the settings. With this option already existing, sliding would be nice, but it's not a necessity.

asperge wrote:
What i meant, is that thanks to TB Atlas you can convert a lot maps from different sources to Oruxmaps format, and then use them 'offline' on your phone with OruxMaps. This is a very good possibility, and i thought that perhaps you could advertise this on the android market.

It is a good idea; I need to add more advertisements, because TB is a very good source of maps.

Thanks,

orux

orux wrote:
It is a problem with jpeg encoder; I am going to add more options to OruxMapsDesktop, and the user will be able to select % of quality, format,...
orux

I did more testing, and i found that the problem is related to my HTC Magic screen. If i connect my phone with an usb cable, and i display the map on my phone with the viewer of windows, it looks fine, but if i display the same map with Astro file manager, it looks more bluish. So the problem doesn't come from OruxMapsDesktop.