TrackExplorer v2 available

[Jon Wildsmith]

Most USB GPS devices can have a virtual com port created for them. Have you had a look at the garmin's device properties in control panel? That's where you'd usually find the options to turn it on if it hasn't happened automatically. It's possible Garmin are being difficult and only want it to work with a more limited number of programs so left that bit out

 

[Gav Peter]

Aye, there's not much to play with in device monger... Garmin has its own section rather than it being listed under the USB list

Under location it has: Port_#0002.Hub_#0004

Floundering around here despite the Laphroig at Pa's...

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Leave it with me but if you go for another one you just want a none garmin USB device and it will show up as a normal com port or do it properly and get an old fashioned Garmin II+ / III / IV with appropriate leads and external antenna bought cheap off ebay and a serial to USB converter which has worked well for nearly 10 years now for my car pc.

 

[Gav Peter]

Might be getting somewhere with this now... Had a mooch around on the Garmin website & found a bit of software called 'spanner' that sets up the mystical virtual com port for you & after getting bogged down on the laptop, I did the download on the carpooter & seems to have been successful on PC Navigator; should now be able to get TE on the carpooter for a play as well

Get me, IT whizzkid extraordinairre!!!

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

If it works for Navigator it should work for TE You'll be changing to a career in IT at this rate Gav

 

[Gav Peter]

Missed that boat by a year at school; should've hopped on it years ago but never mind that...

Just trying to download TE to the carpooter & instead of being a good pooter like the laptop, its telling me to download NET framework blah de blah... I take it this means the carpooter doesn't have DirectX9 on it... Its running Windows XP home media edition with SP3... A little hint here would be appreciated

A very short lived IT high point!!!

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

TE doesn't need .net but I missed the hidden tick box in the installer project that says it does and so the installer will tell you you need .net . If you have the option of ignoring it and still installing then do so. If skipping .net install makes the installer abort then let me know and I'll have to do a new release sooner rather than later. TE should work just fine on XP SP3.

 

[Gav Peter]

The installer just drops out when you click no to install the .net frame Jon...

Downloaded fine on the laptop. Sorry to be a pain...

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Your laptop must have already had .net installed. At least your Garmin work around has made Garmin USB support low priority again so I'll see about an update for the installer for you.

 

[Gav Peter]

Nice one - thanks Jon

 

[Julian Voelcker]

OK, had a brief play with it last night on my CF-19 and have had a few crashes.

I can load it and connect to the Wayfinder site, but every time I try to load a map it crashes - I can select a file and select to load it, but then it just sits there with no indication that anything is happening and then eventually crashes.

It seems to do the same with MMfiles as well as the Opendata maps.

Trying it on my desktop it appears to be loading maps, but there is no indication that the maps are actually loading - I tried to load a map, made a coffee and then it was there in the list.

Is it loading maps into memory or moving them on disk or anything? I have a series of folders with MM 25k, 50k and a stack of other map files - one of the things I like with MM is that you can index them all and then when looking at an area on the map you can flick through the different resolutions.

I have loaded a 25k MM map and can zoom out to a point, but only 2-3 levels.

On the track explorer site the Wayfinder link is to http://www.way-finder.co.uk/ which is wrong.

Is there a legend for the Wayfinder routes?

That's all for now

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

OK, had a brief play with it last night on my CF-19 and have had a few crashes.

I can load it and connect to the Wayfinder site, but every time I try to load a map it crashes - I can select a file and select to load it, but then it just sits there with no indication that anything is happening and then eventually crashes.

It seems to do the same with MMfiles as well as the Opendata maps.

If you look in the 'program' directory within the Track Explorer installation you should see a 'debug Track Explorer' shortcut. Can you run that, try loading a map and then after it has crashed send me the logfile.htm created in the same directory please. That will give me some idea what was going on when it crashed.

Trying it on my desktop it appears to be loading maps, but there is no indication that the maps are actually loading - I tried to load a map, made a coffee and then it was there in the list.

Were you loading a single map or multiples? There is no progress indication for either and it's a fair point that if you're loading a lot of them it can take a while and would be better with some indication of progress.

Is it loading maps into memory or moving them on disk or anything?

It has to load enough of the file to get essential details like the area it covers. Once it has those details cached it only accesses the map file again if you switch to that map.

I have a series of folders with MM 25k, 50k and a stack of other map files - one of the things I like with MM is that you can index them all and then when looking at an area on the map you can flick through the different resolutions.

If you click the maps button, or an unoccupied area of the map you'll get a list of maps that cover that position but you can't 'flick' though them. I don't have MM or I'd know more about what you mean by that

I have loaded a 25k MM map and can zoom out to a point, but only 2-3 levels.

Yes, I find they get illegible after that anyway but I'm aware it might sometimes be useful. I'm used to just switching to a more useful map scale with a couple of clicks

On the track explorer site the Wayfinder link is to http://www.way-finder.co.uk/ which is wrong.

Noted.

Is there a legend for the Wayfinder routes?

the colouring replicates the Wayfinder traffic light system which should be explained in the Wayfinder FAQ somewhere and indicates the suspected level of rights for MPV's e.g. green *should* be legal, amber might or might not be, red *probably* isn't but Wayfinder is only as good as the data people have put into it

That's all for now

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

New version of TrackExplorer v2 available

I have updated Track Explorer with a few new features and released a new version. I've updated the first post to reference the new version and also put a link below.

Track Explorer v2.02

The main updates are:

North or Track up - when you're locked on to the GPS you can choose north up as before or the new track up so the map is orientated to your direction of travel to make it easier to follow roads or tracks.

Faster - done some work to speed it up, works fine on my low spec atom netbook.

GPS cursor shrinking - the GPS cursor is quite big so it's easy to locate at a glance but that can sometimes make it hard to see detail under the GPS cursor. Now when you use the hide overlays button the GPS and user cursors will shrink so you can see what's under them.

Adding map progress display - when you add maps there's now a progress dialog so you know it is still doing something.

Other minor tweaks I've forgotten

 

[SpinDrift]

Thanks Jon. I'll give it try.

 

[Gary Stockton]

Thanks Jon - downloaded. Is this an update-in-place or must I uninstall the first version prior to installing this one?

Cheers

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I had to make some changes to the installer so it may insist you uninstall the previous version with add/remove programs. Subsequent versions should do it for you. The old installer will also remove the files that keep track of the settings when you uninstall, something else subsequent versions should solve.

If you have features you'd like to see, or changes, or just things you think are rubbish just tell me about it, I can take it. The rotating map only got added because someone said I wish the map would rotate so I don't get confused Otherwise I just muck about doing my own thing

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I meant to say I also fixed in that latest release some bugs that might have made it crash at startup on some old low spec graphics hardware that doesn't have hardware acceleration for a lot of graphics functions. Not sure if this covers the crash Julian V mentioned.

There will be another update quite soon because I've already noticed a few things to tweak / fix

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I have updated Track Explorer again and updated the link in the first post. If you have a previous version this should install over the top of it without overwriting your existing overlay or map data.

Track Explorer v2.04

The main updates are:

More waypoint icons to choose from.

Bigger text and buttons on the Overlay and Map dialogs in /q /p mode to be more touch screen friendly.

Supports Garmin USB GPS devices now if you set the com port to 99.

Fixed the 'goto' button in the Overlay dialog so it always finds the 1st waypoint and goes to it.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I have updated Track Explorer again to version 2.17 and updated the link in the first post. If you have a previous version this should install over the top without overwriting your existing overlay or map data. This release is mostly for bug fixes and performance improvements. In /q mode there is an extra 'sun' button lower left that will cycle through some darker display brightnesses, better for night time driving without having to fiddle with the screen brightness controls. There is an extra 'finger' button in some dialogs to go into a folder without having to double click. Some character handling improvements to fix issues with some French IGN 25k maps and accented characters. Other stuff I have forgotten as well

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I have updated Track Explorer again to version 2.18 and updated the link in the first post. If you have a previous version this should install over the top without overwriting your existing overlay or map data.

This release adds continuous zoom rather than fixed large steps, Merge Maps on a new Tools menu to convert and merge maps into TE format and or a big continuous map instead of small fragments, map group names are displayed in the map list now, some key bindings added for navigation of the map list from the keyboard to select maps without using the mouse, minor improvements to the media player in /q mode, miscellaneous minor changes / bug fixes.

I have also added a pdf user manual, accessed from the Help menu, which I will expand as I go but covers adding maps and merging / converting them for now.