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[closed] Create Route - Cannot Edit Place

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Yemble
Posts: 333
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:02 pm

[closed] Create Route - Cannot Edit Place

Post by Yemble »

I'm going to call this a bug, because I do not understand the logic behind the choice of Place when creating a new route.

When you create a new route, the dialog box allows you to edit the name of the route, but not the file in which it is to be stored in. What's worse, is that the default file is set to be the last route file that was opened in AQ.

If I create a new route, then personally, I would always want to store it in a new file rather than adding to an existing file. I can live with AQ suggesting the default name of the last opened route file, but please allow me to change the file name within the Place field of the Route dialog.
Psyberia-Support
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Posts: 6406
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:41 pm

Re: Create Route - Cannot Edit Place

Post by Psyberia-Support »

Hi again,
So, here is a small explanation about the logic of GPX files in AlpineQuest:

Few versions ago, users where able to create GPX routes and points directly inside a folder (with the implicit creation of a new GPX file), but many complained about the complexity of the landmarks handling: you had to 1) click on the GPX file to open it, and 2) click on the route to select it. Users didn't really understood why a GPX file were needed and why a route couldn't be put directly in a folder.
I found this idea very interesting, and that's why I abandoned the GPX format as the default landmarks format. I have replaced it with custom format, that allows you to save any items directly inside folders, and I didn't get complains about that since then.
I have also removed the ability of creating GPX items outside of GPX files, that's why now you have to first create an empty GPX file, and then put items in it.

I think we are faced to a major difference of GPX files handling between MemoryMap and AQ.
I have personally never much used MM, so I not really familiar to the way it handles GPX files, but based on few comments I read it seems that MM considers a GPX file as a single container file, like a GPX route file (single route in a file), a GPX track file (single track in the file), etc.
On the other hand, AQ now considers GPX files as a multiple landmarks container, and never does makes assertions about the content (if it has a single item or thousand of them), and that's why you can only create GPX waypoints and routes when currently being in a GPX file.

When creating a landmark from the map view, the last browsed explorer place is used. You can click on the "browse" button to navigate somewhere else, like create a new GPX file to store your new route.
I know it seems a bit complicated now for GPX files, I'll try to think of a better solution, but it's not always easy given all the various kind of users...
Best regards
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Yemble
Posts: 333
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:02 pm

Re: Create Route - Cannot Edit Place

Post by Yemble »

Actually, I don't think that the way AQ and MM handle POIs, routes and tracks are radically different. If we completely forget about the appalling Android version of MM and consider instead the excellent PC and PDA versions, the main vehicle for handling overlay data is within proprietory MMO files. An MMO file is just a container for all sorts of different data types which can be handled in a similar way. The way MM handles overlays is actually pretty good and the user is given plenty of control over how they are managed within the application. Files in simpler formats, such as GPX, CSV, etc., are only used as a transfer mechanism for importing into and exporting from MMO files.

However, back to my original point. From the POV of a stupid user like myself, when creating a route, if that route needs to be stored then I would expect to be able to define exactly where it is stored in the Create Route dialog box. I would not intuitively think that it should be necessary to take some other action beforehand in a different dialog box, which is what you seem to be suggesting. Why not, at least, give the user (ie. me) the option to define where I would like to store the data, directly in the Place field of the Create Route dialog, saving me both time and a degree of frustration?

Options are good, since individual users have different methods of working. Flexibility is key :-)

Actually, something you said has raised a question in my mind...

When the Place field is displaying an existing GPX file (which it does), does this mean that a new route will be stored into that same file... or as a new file in the same folder? I had assumed the former. If it is the latter, then the Place field should only display the folder and NOT the previously opened GPX file, since this just results in confusion.
Psyberia-Support
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Re: Create Route - Cannot Edit Place

Post by Psyberia-Support »

Yemble wrote:I would not intuitively think that it should be necessary to take some other action beforehand in a different dialog box, which is what you seem to be suggesting.
Yes that's what I'm suggesting, but you are completely right that it's not a good approach (and you're not the first one pointing that to me).
I'll have to rework the create dialog anyway, so I'll take care of changing this point.
Yemble wrote:When the Place field is displaying an existing GPX file (which it does), does this mean that a new route will be stored into that same file
The route will be stored in the displayed GPX file.
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