[Xcsoar-user] How to create a new waypoint on the map by panning or tapping?

[Ramy Yanetz]

The ability to create a new waypoint on the fly and add it to a task without having to use a computer or waypoint editor is in my opinion an important feature, even though I rarely fly tasks myself, but when I do, I always find the lack of such a feature very limiting, especially when using waypoint files which are mostly consist of airports in the valleys and not waypoints on top of the mountains where the lift is.

However according to Max and apf this feature always existed. See http://bugs.xcsoar.org/ticket/194

Well, after more than 30 minutes of trying and browsing the manual, I still cant find how to create a waypoint on the fly on the map.

Can anyone explain how?

Thanks,

Ramy

[Max Kellermann]

On 2015/07/24 05:08, Ramy Yanetz <rya...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Can anyone explain how?

Using XCSoar's waypoint editor which has always existed (at least
since version 5.0).

For experts: there's an event called "AddWaypoint" which you can add
to your .xci file, to have a shortcut for that feature.

For 6.8_alpha9 users (to be released soon): "Markers" are now regular
waypoints (and the waypoint details dialog has an "Edit" button).

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[Ramy Yanetz]

Max, I don't think the waypoint editor has an option to use the map, at least not in 6.7 and as such does not address this request at all. Entering a waypoint coordinates is not something you can do on the fly at the airport while getting ready to fly after evaluating the latest forecast and realize that there will be thunderstorms over your original intended waypoint but unfortunately there are no other pre defined waypoints to choose from in the desired area.
Perhaps the markers will do if you can create a marker at any point on the map, not just current position. Will 6.8 provide the option to create a marker at any point on the map? If not, I think it is highly desirable.

Thanks,

Ramy

[martin....@gmx.de]

As far as I can see, markers can only be dropped at the current GPS position. That kind of limits this tool for creating waypoints intended as yet-to-reach turnpoints or targets.

If markers could be dropped while in pan mode, this would be a whole different story, though. A user could then pan to the desired location, put the cross hairs right over the chosen place, and drop a marker, then name it and use in his task.

The pan mode menu would only need a 'drop marker' box, then.

Viele Grüße
Martin Kopplow

Mobil +49 171 7984740

---

[Ramy Yanetz]

Yes, this is what the original tickets were asking for 5 years.
They were closed as if this feature exists but apparently it isn't.
As far as I know the ability to create a waypoint on the map on the fly exists in all other flight computers. Winpilot already had it more than 10 years ago.

Ramy

[martin....@gmx.de]

Yes, if that created a waypoint at the map center, we'd be fine, I guess.

Viele Grüße
Martin Kopplow

Mobil +49 171 7984740

---

Am 24.07.2015 um 18:12 schrieb Bryan Hindle <bryan...@gmail.com>:

> You mean like this.

[Andreas Pfaller]

A marker can be dropped at the cross-hair location in pan mode
just like you would do it at the current GPS position in the
normal map mode (well, you will have to use the menu as gestures
will not work in pan mode). This feature is certainly already
available in 6.7.x.

The primary change in 6.8.x was converting a marker to a proper
waypoint.

So please stop speculating and spreading wrong info. A new
6.8.x alpha was just released.

[Ramy Yanetz]

There is no speculation nor spreading wrong info in my posts. The wrong info was actually provided by yourself and Max when you closed the ticket as if this feature was already available. It was not but I am glad it will be available in 6.8.
I tried what you describe in 6.7 and could NOT drop a mark at the cross air location.
Please explain how or point me to the place where it is described in the manual.

Thanks for all the hard work you folks put into XCSoar

Ramy

(Sent from my iPhone)

[Ramy Yanetz]

Just tried it again. Panned out and dropped a marker. The marker was not dropped at the cross air. It was dropped at current location. So if the enhancement in 6.8 is to convert it to a waypoint, it will still not address the need to be able to create a waypoint on any place on the map.

So no, I dont think I am the one speculating and spreading wrong info. Reopening the ticket.

Ramy

---

From: Ramy Yanetz <rya...@yahoo.com>
To: Andreas Pfaller <pfa...@gmail.com>
Cc: "xcsoa...@lists.sourceforge.net" <xcsoa...@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2015 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Xcsoar-user] How to create a new waypoint on the map by panning or tapping?

[martin....@gmx.de]

I also just took the time and tried it.

in 6.8.9 it is possible.

Steps:
1. Enable pan mode.
2. Pan to desired location.
3. Double tap on map while still in pan mode (Took a while until I figured that one out!)
4. Now select NAV 2 and drop marker. You are now in pan mode AND in nav 2 menu.
5. Drop a marker. It is created at the crosshair location and named according to coordinates.
6. Tap on map to get ‚map elements at this location‘ page.
7. Select the marker from the list.
8. Tap ‚Details‘ button to get element info page.
9. Tap right arrow to get waypoint details.
10. Tap ‚Edit‘ button to get waypoint editor page.
11. Make your edits (Rename, etc. ) and quit with OK.

-> Now tap on the new waypoint in map and insert it in task or go to task editor and use it the usual way.

I’d not say that is the most straightforward and intuitive way, but it might be acceptable for pre flight.



In 6.7.x, though, the above is NOT possible, since the marker is not dropped at the crosshair location.

Martin


---

Am 25.07.2015 um 03:59 schrieb Ramy Yanetz <rya...@yahoo.com>:

> Just tried it again. Panned out and dropped a marker. The marker was not dropped at the cross air. It was dropped at current location. So if the enhancement in 6.8 is to convert it to a waypoint, it will still not address the need to be able to create a waypoint on any place on the map.
> So no, I dont think I am the one speculating and spreading wrong info. Reopening the ticket.
>
> Ramy
>

[Ramy Yanetz]

Thanks Martin for confirming that it is not working in 6.7 but works in 6.8.

Ramy

[Ramy Yanetz]

And here is Max arrogant comment on my ticket:
Max really thinks we are all stupid:

"Ramy please stop spamming your off-topic bullshit here. This ticket is
closed because it was bogus from the start, and there's nothing left to
discuss. Take your ego somewhere else, please."

(Sent from my iPhone)

[Max Kellermann]

On 2015/07/26 19:06, Ramy Yanetz <rya...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> And here is Max arrogant comment on my ticket:
> Max really thinks we are all stupid:

That's it, Ramy. You have been annoying the hell out of me and other
XCSoar developers for years. That was your final insult. You are
hereby banned from XCSoar mailing lists, the XCSoar forum and the
XCSoar bug tracker.

Byebye.

Max

[martin....@gmx.de]

I don’t understand the confusion. There either is or isn’t a usable feature.

IF there was already a way to create waypoints from the map in 6.7.x or earlier, I’d appreciate someone point me in towards the workflow. I could not find it in the manual, and couldn’t figure out myself, too. IF there is a way, I’d like to learn and share it with my flying buddies, it could help us a lot.

Which was the number of the ticket mentioned, Ramy? I would like to read it, maybe I get enlightenment from it.
Max, are we actually all talking the same topic or do we have a complete misunderstanding?

Martin


---

[Paul Surgeon]

I'm joining the discussion rather late but in Ramy's defence I agree with this statement, "I tried what you describe in 6.7 and could NOT drop a mark at the cross air location."

I tried it with the 6.7.9 build for Android and no matter where you pan to on the map it always drops the marker where the aircraft is currently located and not at the cross hair location.

i.e.

- Pan mode

- Double tap for menu

- NAV 2

- Mark Drop

I do understand that the 6.7.x builds do not support converting a marker into a waypoint but that doesn't appear to be what Ramy is arguing about.

In 6.7.x markers can only be dropped where the aircraft is currently located - at least with the Android builds I tested.

@Martin: I believe they are referring to ticket 194 ( http://bugs.xcsoar.org/ticket/194 )

apf posted a screenshot where he can place markers where ever he likes in pan mode but this doesn't appear to work for several people using 6.7.x builds so Ramy re-opened the ticket which pissed max off.

[Paul Surgeon]

Update:

I just tested 6.8 alpha 9 on Android and it is possible to drop a marker anywhere on the map.

This is not possible with the 6.7.9 build for Android.

[Ronald Niederhagen]

I confirm Paul's (and others) findings.
However, I wouldn't want to use it in flight.

Ronald

> <mailto:rya...@yahoo.com>> wrote:
> > And here is Max arrogant comment on my ticket:
> > Max really thinks we are all stupid:
>
> That's it, Ramy. You have been annoying the hell out of me and
> other
> XCSoar developers for years. That was your final insult. You are
> hereby banned from XCSoar mailing lists, the XCSoar forum and the
> XCSoar bug tracker.
>
> Byebye.
>
> Max
>
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[martin....@gmx.de]

Given the fact that a marker we cannot navigate to makes only little sense in the context discussed, we need to have both the features: 'Drop marker at pan position' and 'use markers as waypoints'.

So, before the discussion goes on: Is there even the slightest chance of markers used as waypoints making it to any future 6.7.x release? Or will this not be introduced before 6.8.x?

If it was the latter, we could just stop discussing and wait for that release.

If it was the first, we probably have found a bug worth investigating and Ramy was most probably right in pointing out the feature of dropping markers in pan mode was not available (or at least not consistently usable) in 6.7.x. Some of us can reproduce that.

Since most of us are trying to communicate in a language that is not our native language, misunderstandings may happen, and I ask Max to reconsider banning Ramy.

Regarding usability in flight I fully agree with Ronald. While this is an important improvement for pre flight, I believe using it in flight might cause quite a long head down time. It takes an estimated 20 taps or more until you have a usable waypoint to insert in a task.
While I can clearly see reasons to use it pre flight, how likely would it be people use it in flight?

I do not need to speculate a lot, in this case. I have been using a glide computer which provided in flight waypoint creation, and was quite happy with it (quit it for say political reasons, but really really miss this feature). The workflow was very fast and I used it a lot to make 'what if' calculations. I would, for example, put a waypoint on a corner of some airspace to see if my final glide would take me safely around it or if I'd have to request clearance, or tentatively push a waypoint around on the map to optimize for OLC. Or, if FIS told me some ED-R on my route was active, I'd put a new waypoint just outside it to conveniently navigate around it.

That user interface approach did not include a menu for dropping markers, though. Instead each tap on the map would create kind of a tentative item on the map which could then be used as a feference for the next command, such as display airspaces at the location, list map items near the location, list flarm traffic near the location, or also as a waypoint appended or inserted in the task.
With it being very fast, (only tree taps to new waypoint in task) it soon became a convenient tool in flight.
In XCSoar we also tap on the screen, so not much difference here, but then we get the map elements list, which is a different approach. We get items, not commands.

That said, I'd answer Ronald that it could be made be a useful tool in flight, though it is not quite yet.

It would require a slightly different user interaction, such as a context menu popping open instead of the XCS map elements page. I am not sure the manpower required or the motivation to revamp the UI is available jus now. (And this would - of course- be a deeper UI-philosophical discussion.)

Viele Grüße
Martin Kopplow
---

[Neil Allison]

Hi Martin,

> So, before the discussion goes on: Is there even the slightest chance of
> markers used as waypoints making it to any future 6.7.x release? Or will
> this not be introduced before 6.8.x?

I have built a latest version for testing in Windows and used the XCS-test
Android version whixh are 6.8.x. I confirm both Drop Marker at pan
position and using this marker as a waypoint, i.e. "Goto" work well.

I have some more testing to do about how to name these to fit *my*
preferred waypoint naming scheme, likely of no use to anyone else. I use
a customised event file .xci to create a gesture "m" to drop a marker and
I changed
the bottom right menu button in Pan mode to be "Drop Marker" too. This
works for me. YMMV.

Kind regards,
Neil
--
Neil Allison, Christchurch, NZ

[Max Kellermann]

On 2015/07/27 19:07, "martin....@gmx.de" <martin....@gmx.de> wrote:
> So, before the discussion goes on: Is there even the slightest chance of markers used as waypoints making it to any future 6.7.x release? Or will this not be introduced before 6.8.x?

6.7.x is a "stable" branch with a feature freeze. For uttermost
stability, no features are added/removed/changed.

For the same reasons, 6.7.x will not get a new IOIO driver, even
though new Android versions or new IOIO revisions require it - I don't
want to risk breaking anybody's existing setup. It may break at the
transition to the next major release (6.8), and we'll figure it out
then - but during a stable series, nothing must break, even in the
presence of other disadvantages.

That concept has worked very well in the past 6 years (since I took
over XCSoar project management). XCSoar has a good reputation for
being rock stable - something that could not be said about older
versions.

> Since most of us are trying to communicate in a language that is not
> our native language, misunderstandings may happen, and I ask Max to
> reconsider banning Ramy.

It is hard to imagine that Ramy calling me "an extreme type of
arrogant asshole" is something we can have misunderstandings about.

And now Ramy wants ME to apologise to HIM! No, really! See:

"But you owe me a public apology."

That's what he wrote to me last sunday after getting banned. You
can't make that stuff up!

People like Ramy take the fun from XCSoar development. I don't want
that to happen. This is my free time, and nobody pays me compensation
to tolerate Ramy. So I decide I just don't deal with such people
anymore.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/

Max

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[martin....@gmx.de]

Hi Neil,

a gesture might streamline the process a bit, indeed. Next rainy day I’ll look into that.
An „M“ gesture for a marker and a „W“ gesture for a waypoint appears to be a good idea at first glance. Could be problematic if there is no waypoint event, though.

I’m curious if dropping markers in pan mode is a valid scenario anyway. Dropping a marker at current GPS position is okay, there is definitely a strong use case for that, though dropping markers in pan mode? What would that mark? It is pretty deliberate. Wouldn’t it make sense to change that so that in pan mode waypoints are created and saved without the detour via markers?

Anyway, I’m looking forward to using waypoint creation on my device, as it would finally allow leaving the laptop at home.

Best,
Martin
---

[Neil Allison (ATS)]

On 28 Jul 2015 at 8:26, Ronald Niederhagen wrote:

> can you share the .xci file? I'd like to see a working example since I
> don't understand how it works.

The XCSoar manual has a section about input events.

Rather than attach a file for the mailing list, the plain text for
my "drop_marker.xci" is below. This example is 32 lines long,
beginning with "###### Change What's Here to Mark Drop"

Load this file through the System Config Menu: System > Look >
Language, Input > Events field. You need to restart XCSoar for this
to take effect.

As well as an "m" shaped gesture (up, right, down, up, right down),
it also has a simpler "o" or square gesture starting from the top
left corner (right, down, left, up).

This .xci file must be a plain text file that ends with a blank line
including a carriage return.

Kind regards
Neil


###### Change What's Here to Mark Drop

mode=pan
type=key
data=APP4
event=Mode default
event=StatusMessage Dropped marker
event=Logger note Mark
event=MarkLocation
label=Mark\nDrop
location=4

###### Gestures for Drop Marker

# "O" start in top left
mode=default
type=gesture
data=RDLU
event=Mode default
event=StatusMessage Dropped marker
event=Logger note Mark
event=MarkLocation

# "m" start bottom left
mode=default
type=gesture
data=URDURD
event=Mode default
event=StatusMessage Dropped marker
event=Logger note Mark
event=MarkLocation

[Paul Surgeon]

Hi Martin

I agree. Placing a waypoint in pan mode would make more sense than placing a marker.

A marker is to mark something interesting during flight like a thermal source or something on the ground that caught your attention and you'd like to remember where it is.

The only reason why I'd want to place a "point" in pan mode is because the waypoint file I'm using doesn't have a waypoint I require for a personal task.

Placing a waypoint directly in pan mode would speed up the process considerably.

Regards

Paul

[Max Kellermann]

On 2015/07/29 06:40, Paul Surgeon <sur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree. Placing a waypoint in pan mode would make more sense than placing
> a marker.

In 6.8, a marker is a waypoint.

[Neil Allison (ATS)]

Hi Martin,

> An "M" gesture for a marker and a "W" gesture for
> a waypoint appears to be a good idea at first glance.

I thought so too. I've since simplified it to drawing a square "o",
clockwise for dropping a Marker and anti-clockwise for a Waypoint.
In my simple ground based tests I think complicated gestures might
not be reliable when airborne in turbulent conditions.

I think there are several simple gestures that could be used
according to users' preferences.

> Could be problematic if there is no waypoint event, though.

There is an AddWaypoint event as described by Max in a message on
24-Jul:

"For experts: there's an event called "AddWaypoint" which you can
add to your .xci file, to have a shortcut for that feature."

Thus, "event=AddWaypoint" is the entry for an xci file.
In a quick test of extending my .xci file with an additional button
on the pan menu and a gesture, this works as expected.

Regards,
Neil

[martin....@gmx.de]

Am 29.07.2015 um 09:18 schrieb Max Kellermann <m...@duempel.org>:

> In 6.8, a marker is a waypoint.

Hi Paul,

we need to take care and stay current with development. If Max writes that, he probably means it, and there is no more difference between a waypoint and a marker, it's only what we use it for. Could be in 6.8 there is no more need to have different gestures for marker and waypoint, then.

In that case labeling the button "drop marker" might just be misleading, since the term "marker" is historically preoccupied. To keep semantics consistent, and prevent users from expecting old behavior, then scratch their heads, we should therefore name it appropriately. (Make Point, New WPT, save coords, ...?)

Just so we are clear about "a marker is a waypoint": Are markers and waypoints in 6.8 technically identical, or are markers a subset of waypoints?

If markers and waypoints were truly identical, there would be no more use in having two names for the very same thing.

Best,
Martin

[Luke Szczepaniak]

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