Author Archives: frogsparks

MyTrails 2.0 progress

For the past couple of months, development of MyTrails 1.3 has slowed down (though not quite as much as I'd hoped), while I attempted to concentrate on MyTrails 2.0.

The main goals of 2.0 are a full UI redesign of the supporting screens (the map display in 1.3 has continued to evolve, but the supporting screens (Map Manager, Track Manager, etc.) have remained mired in Android 1.6 looks and style of interaction). I'm finally able to share some screenshots of the result of that effort. It's not done by a long shot, but it's coming along nicely.

Here are a couple of screenshots of the Track Manager:

Several tracks shown in Track Manager. In landscape view, this displays the tracks on a map.

Several tracks shown in Track Manager. In landscape view, this displays the tracks on a map.

Track manager with track details. You can swipe to view the track on top of the map. I'll also be adding more track statistics and the track profile.

Track manager with track details. You can swipe to view the track on top of the map. I’ll also be adding more track statistics and the track profile.

And the Graphs screen:

Track profiles. The yellow track is being recorded and is updated in real-time.

Track profiles. The yellow track is being recorded and is updated in real-time.

Let me know what you think… I'm hoping to be able to release by mid-June.

1.3.15

  • Added UtagawaVTT as a track sharing community (download-only)
  • Added support for viewing StreetView (long-tap the map)
  • Tweaked the map icons and scale for better readability
  • Added legend view for IGN maps (long-tap the map)
  • Fixed reading manual
  • Use .noscanandnomtp to prevent indexing of cache by Media Scanner (CM only)

My GPS stopped working

This article has been superseded by this new and expanded version.

GPS signal is tricky: it’s affected by the quality of the phone (the Samsung Galaxy S had notoriously bad GPS reception) and by the environment it’s in (indoors, urban canyons or dense forest reduce the quality of the GPS signal).

However, all other parameters being equal, if your GPS suddenly seems much worse (the GPS arrow no longer appears even if you’re moving faster than 5km/h, MyTrails no longer reports the speed, or the GPS signal quality meter remains red), you may need to reset your GPS.

MyTrails doesn’t do this for you, but you can install the GPS Test app, go into its settings and tap the Clear AGPS, then Update AGPS buttons.

One some devices, setting the Temporal resolution to a value greater than 1s (in MyTrails > Preferences > Behavior) causes the device to stop updating the GPS. This is a bug on your device, and you can work around it by setting the temporal resolution back to its default of 1s.

Some devices disable the GPS when the battery is low. Some Kyocera phones for example, disable it below 20% battery, without any visible indications. This may be configurable in the phone’s battery saving settings.

1.3.14

  • Fixed corrupted tiles on startup with Google Earth and Terrain and incorrectly high zoom for Terrain
  • Fixed too-low average speed in HUD
  • Fixed occasional flicker when loading failed
  • Fixed issue with offline Yandex maps
  • Improved offline download to prevent Android from interrupting
  • Added support for Samsung multi-window

1.3.12

  • Fixed map flashing on pre-Honeycomb devices when turning the screen off, then on
  • Catch some device-specific crashes
  • Fixed target waypoint getting confused when zooming in a lot

1.3.11

  • Fixes for reported issues (mainly offline downloader and widget)
  • Fixed a possible battery drain when MyTrails is running but not recording and the screen turns off

Sorry for the quick succession of updates.

1.3.10

  • Bigger map buttons to better conform to Android guidelines
  • Warning when the GPS somehow stops recording
  • Offline downloader shows previously-downloaded areas
  • Sharing after upload includes a track screenshot and works with Twitter, Facebook and G+
  • EXPERIMENTAL lockscreen widget (also works on homescreen)
  • HUD computes average speed as distance / time spent moving
  • Improved display performance even further and fixed the blurry scale that affected some devices

1.3.9

  • Minor fix for GB Grid Reference formatting
  • Restored the track arrows (they were broken in a previous update)
  • Made tracks more visible on extra high-density devices
  • Fixed difficulty in selecting offline download area in some cases

Ordnance Survey maps update

After a week of intense calculations (8 CPU cores going full blast) and a week of uploading the maps to our servers, the new Ordnance Survey maps (November 2012 release) is available through MyTrails.

In addition to the usual data updates (new paths, roads, etc.) that a new Ordnance Survey release brings, this new drop features improved resolution. Previous versions were scanned/processed by OS at around 300dpi and delivered as a set of 3+1 (25k/50k) compressed DVDs; this new version is processed at 660dpi and delivered as a set of 7+2 compressed DVDs.

The improvement is slight but noticeable, especially on high-resolution displays or when using “overzoom” in MyTrails.

Here are two examples; the top half of the screen uses the old tiles and the bottom part uses the new ones. In particular text is more readable and lines are a lot better defined.

If you’re using online maps, you can clear your cache to cause MyTrails to reload the new tiles as needed: go into Preferences > Map Manager and long tap the Ordnance Survey map, then select Delete cache for map.

If you’re using offline maps, you will have to re-download the maps to take advantage of the new tiles. You don’t need to delete the existing map, as downloading the same area multiple tiles does not consume any credits (one of the benefit of our flexible subscriptions is that you can always get the freshest data and the areas you want, you’re not tied to a given release or area).

Let us know if you find anything amiss.