MapFactor Forum

hvdwolf

OsmAnd is indeed slow, that's why I abandoned it. However making multi-point (roundtrip) routes in OsmAnd works really, really excellent and it also has the "travelling salesman" optimization algorithm: simply put in a bunch of waypoints, tap "optimize" and it will calculate the best, optimal route. You can also drag&drop waypoints. So I guess you do something wrong there. (I still use OsmAnd for cycling and hiking)

Behind Navit I wanted to add "(do not use)". I forgot that.

Google Maps offline is not ideal. If Google Maps detects you have a connection, it will still use the data connection, so you really have to switch that off. And then you don't have traffic information anymore, or other data connections anymore. I really didn't mean Google Maps.

And using Half of the world? I have space enough, but only use the maps of my country and the neighbor countries (or parts of it). What's the use of having all these maps apart from wasting bandwidth on the MNF servers and wasting time on your site updating them. If I go on holiday I download a "fresh" map in advance.

Actually I meant Here(WeGo) (although maps run behind) or Magic Earth as real alternatives. But if you look in the playstore you'll find more.

However, none of them can beat MNF when it comes to performance, being a light-weight app which still functions fine on an old phone, and being very feature rich.

hvdwolf

sorry. wrong post. I can't delete it.

tomas

I have no such problem, alternative routes work and so does HUD

stavrich

I agree fully with @hvdwolf comment "However, none of them can beat MNF when it comes to performance, being a light-weight app which still functions fine on an old phone, and being very feature rich." .

Although MNF is the best for me there is still competition out there and more room for improvement. I was an OsmAnd fun as well but I found MNF better for my needs. Another factor is the team's willingness to listen to us users. I have some of my suggestions implemented, some very quickly, some took ages and some never.

So, I am taking this opportunity to push forward some of my suggestions. To me are important but to others possibly not - we all have different requirements and mine are more "motorcycle friendly"

1. Waypoints labels. Pronounce/ speak the waypoint label instead of "Waypoint 1 reached" I cannot see why this cannot be done. For motorcyclists voice announcements are very important and safer.

2. Enable grouping of "routes" same as Favourites.

3. Speed limit .. increase the flash rate when speed limit is exceeded. For car drivers the current rate is fine but for motorcyclist is too slow as we quickly glance on the screen and it can be missed quite easily. Option to be user configurable will be fantastic.

Just opportunities to stay ahead of the competition.

2highlander

And not to forget, there is still the wish for a preset with a motorcycle icon!

Matthias

Sorry for off topic..... About OsmAnd"I guess you do something wrong there" I installed it for topographic maps and tested it not much. The last intensive testing made i several years ago. I downloading the Mapfactor OSM Maps only with my windows PC and the Androids and other Windows PCs do i synchronizing with Beyond Compare. So i do not wasting bandwidth on the MNF servers. Sometimes make someone of us a big trip and then is it helpful to have this maps already.

Sorry again @ devs for off topic.

lubos

@stavrich:

Waypoint labels would work with TTS only and in many some cases the naming is so long that it would annoy many users. Anyway I am not right developer to do it, everything about voices is managed by @stepan.

Grouping of routes is planned to be done but there is always something with higher priority. It is quite difficult task also when developers are choosing their task they often prefer to do something else than this function.

I change the blinking period of speedlimit to 0.5s (instead of 1s). I would like to avoid to make configuration for every function. The most other apps have almost nothing in settings and there are good reasons for it.

---

About user interface:

The round icons in menu I personally do not like. Simple design is few years modern but it is big difference how the simple design is done. Even a big companies like Microsoft are able to do simple design quite ugly.

The round icons in map are not so bad but it is very often quite hard to recognize what's the meaning of the icon. The designer used few basic background colors as categories and foreground mostly black. Original icons were in resolution about 32x32, new icons are in resolution 128x128. Sometimes there are so many details that the user need quite long thinking to find out what is on the picture.

Map colors can be edited by users directly in the app but it is true that default colors should be better. A lot of other maps have shading (e.g. http://geologycafe.com/images/usa_shade.jpg - it is just gray and black but the shading by hills gives it much better looking). We had this function implemented but the data were too big and we did not continue in development of the map shading.

About organisation of menu - there is a problem that we have too many functions and it is really hard to make it easily accessible. We have a clickdummy prototype how the new UI should look like but it is a too big change and we are worry about how would users accept it. @tomas wants to have possibility to switch between new and old UI but thats really not good idea (everytime we try to have paralelly two solutions, one becomes sooner or later very buggy and unstable).

chattiewoman

Having two UIs parallel is very difficult to support, because every time you need to depend your answers on the UI the customer proably is using.

@lubos Is it possible to show a preview here, as screenshots? Let the users decide BEFORE you will invest too much time into a dead end, possibly.

lubos

@chattiewoman - I asked if I am allowed to post it here but I did not receive any answer yet. I will update you on my next working day (21.5.)

stavrich

@lubos - Your detailed reply really appreciated and many thanks for changing the speedlimit blinking - it will be very useful to all motorcyclists.

Very glad to hear "route grouping is planned". I assumed is a difficult and lengthy task - just hope there is a developer there that thrives on and not afraid of difficult tasks [-O<

@stepan - re "Waypoint labels would work with TTS only and in many some cases the naming is so long that it would annoy many users"

A solution to the long naming is to have a read limit of say 25-30 characters. This will be more than sufficient and I dont think would be difficult to implement. Most of the code is already there. What do you say Stepan?

I would like to say that a few of my friends with expensive motorcycle Garmins and TomTom are quite impressed and envious of the Mapfactor functions but having spend good money on those devices they are a bit hesitant to jump over but these changes will make it easier for them..... so WELL DONE to all

Roldorf

Search for POI,s no longer works no matter which kind of search is used. Hotels, caravan sites, camping sites, etc, all bring 'No Result' even when I have the symbol centered in the map???

Version 4.0.36 All devices, ALL POI's

tomas

I have no such problem please give more details

jd417

I have same problem when choosing Search - PO I- By address and name. After choosing country then town/city/postcode 'No Result' is displayed even after typing in POI name as displayed on map. Selecting search imports, nearest from map centre/GPS location/destination seems to work fine.

V. 4.0.36 Samsung Galaxy S7. Android 7.

tomas

it works by address for me as well

does it work without choosing town/city/postcode?

jd417

No Tomas. After entering a town/city/postcode the 'No Results' message immediately appears. Typing the name of the POI into the search bar gives the same 'No Results' message.

tomas

it works for me, not sure what is wrong

for example I select POI/by address/germany/hannover/travel/hotel

I am then offered a list of hotels, from a to z and then I can even search this list, e.g. Viva

jd417

I've tried several countries. United Kingdom (London) & Belgium(Brugge) gave no results. Italy (Venice) give a good list of hotels. France (Lille) returned only one hotel.

tomas

please send logs and mark it for my attention

Roldorf

1. Place destination next to hotel icon that you can see on the map display.

2. N.B. Bremen town center, Wachtsrasße. (Raddison Blu hotel).

3. Now search 'POI', 'Nearest from destination', 'Hotel or Motel',

NO RESULT.

Same with 'Map Center' or any other 'method' or 'item' of search (church. shopping, administration, etc, etc, etc).

Android 6.0 Moto G2 Samsung GT-P3110 Android 4.2.2

Used to work fine, used it to find campsites in the area where I was travelling also food fuel shopping etc.

tomas

well it works for me, the only difference I can see that I have Android 7

Roldorf

Hotels, campsites, tourist attractions, work in Hannover on address search, shopping centers, library, theater, etc.

Just tried again with 'Bremen county' and it works, but not with Bremen City (Bremen, Bremen) or any of the suggestions below Bremen county.

Also does not work with any requests for searches other than 'By address and name' e.g.

Nearest from map center, GPS position, Destination.

Place destination in Hannover search nearest destination, hotel.

No Results.

jd417

@Tomas- logs sent as requested.

tomas

logs received and passed to developers

thanks

jd417

@tomas - Just searched for a campsite near Gassin in the south of France. It's called Parc St. James Montana & is on Route du Bourrian. MFN returned no results. In OSM it is marked with the Campsite POI icon. When I checked on the MFN map it shows no POI icon but a number (370). Another campsite further along Route du Bourrian called called Camping Roche Parc also give a number (286) instead of an icon. I've checked a couple of place in UK but they do show icons on MFN map but are not found by a POI search. Hope this helps.

amlumsden

I am currently running 4.0.37 with TomTom maps and noticed that maps do not display if I have selected hardware renderer. Works perfectly when using software. As I haven't used the app for a few weeks and I believe that there were a couple of updates since then not sure when this problem was introduced. Never had this problem before. Anyone else having problems with hardware rendering?

I get similar result if set to automatic rendering.

tomas

I have no such problem

amlumsden

Well, that is strange, @tomas. I have never seen this before on any updates. I currently see it on a Moto G5S Plus running Android 7.1.1. What may be of relevance is that my device was very recently updated with the latest security patch for Android which may have had an impact.

hvdwolf

I also have a Moto G5S plus running on 7.0 with the latest security update. I also have mapfactor 4.0.37.

For me both hardware as well as software render work fine.

Are you also sure you are running on 7.1.1? I checked and can't find a 7.1.1 for my phone.

Are you using a customized color scheme?

Correction: I have a G5 Plus, not a G5S Plus.

jd417

Samsung Galaxy S7. Android v7.0. MFN v4.0.38.

I've tried hardware, software & automatic render. POI search by name still very hit & miss. Returns no results for hotel search in City of London.

lubos

@stavrich - I just implemeted the grouping of routes in myroutes tab. The solution is not nice (because I wanted to keep the XML format to keep compatibility) but from user point of view it is working well. It will be in 4.0.40+

@jd417 - I just fixed the POI search - it will be in 4.0.40+

@amlumsden - Did you receive any answer from anyone? I did not receive logs from Tomas and I did not see any change connected to this in our repository.

@chattiewoman - I am sorry, I forgot about the UI clickdummy last week. Today I asked about it and there was meeting which did not bring any result... Maybe @tomas can comment it?

stavrich

@lubos - Fantastic! I am sure it will be great. Two out of three completed. Well done!. Now if we can get @stepan to look at the "Waypoint labels to work with TTS... " ...

amlumsden

@hvdwolf - I can confirm that I am running Android 7.1.1 (updated some time last year) with Android Security Patch dated 1 April 2018. I am not using customized map colours (selected Day Mode UK, large fonts). I am now on version 4.0.38 and still cannot use hardware (sometimes crashes).

@lubos - do you want me to send a log and if so which one?

lubos

@amlumsden - use send logs function in navigator settings/advanced and send it to lubos@mapfactor.com

amlumsden

@lubos - done. Thanks for looking into this.

2highlander

The new route grouping feature is really awesome and thx to drag and drop easy to handle. Thumbs up!

lubos

@amlumsden - I did not receive any logs

@2highlander - I am glad you like it

stavrich

@lubos - grouping routes - it's perfect. Many thanks.

amlumsden

@lubos, apologies as phone had problem sending. Should be with you now.

lubos

Logs received, I will take a look on it on Monday.

mes

The new route grouping option works good. Great, but I personally do not need this.

Will navigator keep reading routingpoints.xml files without groups in the future??

lubos

@mes - the format is still the same, also yes, it will keep reading routingpoints.xml without groups

2highlander

So, Routes with same names in different groups will overwrite each other when reimporting a backup?

lubos

Route in group has internally name=prefix+id_of_group+visible_name

And if you store two routes with the same visible_name in different groups, it means that they have different internal name, also they can be stored there both without problem.

It will overwrite only if you move the routes with the same name to the same group (or if you overwrite whole routingpoints.xml from backup)

Roldorf

Version4.4.40 Search for POI (From map center, gps position or destination still gives no results

tomas

@Rondolf

it works for me, please give more details

Matthias

Please update the 4.0.40 on http://download.mapfactor.com/mapfactor_navigator.apk this is still 4.0.32.

lubos

@Matthias the link should be now updated

Matthias

No it is not yet updated, also cache clearing help nothing. But i was going with my Galaxy Xcover 4 to the play store and joined the beta program again. So i will downloading it via Google.

Matthias

my quick test of 4.0.40: Loading data need now more time and loading the map after starting finished when hardware rendering forced is now faster, Color sheme was reset after installation, thats not good. House numbers in color shemes do never use the minimal size. Only one size for house numbers for zoom, but this issue was maybe everytime there.

Roldorf

@thomas - 'it seems to work for me'

Re searching under POI for nearest to GPS position, map center, etc, FAILS NO RESULTS FOUND.

I have had this comment from you earlier on the same issue on this thread (see May 15th) . I have gone into a step by step detailed description on May the 17th of how to produce the error.

Please refer to my earlier post.

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