While exploring Spain ...

[Rodolfo]

During the last weeks, I explored about 80 places in the northern half of Spain, mostly isolated hamlets and villages.
The trips required efficient planning of the daily (car) routes (still 3000 km.) and I am happy to say that OsmAnd was really a big help!
Also, this intensive use has brought up some ideas on how to improve an already great app.

1) There is definitely the need to define a "Starting Point" (yes, I have read other recent posts about this).
It should be possible to define the start point independently from the destination point (no message "define destination first") and the start point should be equally persistent as the destination point, so it stays in place after closing the app.

2) When I choose a new destination point and there were waypoints defined, it would be time-saving if a dialog popped up: "Do you want to keep the existing waypoints?". (In the current situation, I get a crazy long route sometimes, because I forgot to remove the old waypoints.)
If also a starting point was defined, the next question should be: "Do you want to keep the existing Starting Point?".
These 2 questions could be combined in one dialog. This is all for the advanced mode only, of course.

3) When I search for a city and have found it, I miss the option "Add as favourite".
Ideally, this option should pre-fill the name of the favourite with the city name (+street name??), so I would not have to type "Peñarroya de Tastavins" twice :)

4) Drag Mode: See separate topic "Drag Mode"

5) Navigation: Emergency Break:
Sometimes, a waypoint is not detected as being reached (GPS inaccuracy?), so the app tries to get you back to that waypoint, no matter how far you are past that point.
Or you decide that you no longer want navigation instructions.
In these cases, it would be nice to have a button to stop navigating. Currently this requires 3 clicks and reading a menu, which cannot be done while driving.
A simple red STOP button on screen would make things a lot easier (and more safe for car navigation).

6) Message font size:
Many of the screen messages are far too small for reading outdoors or while navigating.
The navigation instructions are big enough, but the other Osmand popups / toasts are illegible on my device.
Could the message font size be made user-definable "por favor"?

Well, those were my 6 euros for today :)

[Victor Shcherb]

I think our planning plugin could get evolved because it has common word "planning" with your use case. We need to think what is simplest missing feature to plan and after that start route based on GPX-waypoints.

3) Hardy@ : may be we should add this option to all our search dialogs?

6) I'm not sure that messages should be readable during navigation, but we are using standard tips. So probably we can get help from accessibility and speak these messages.

Victor

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[Hardy]

Victor,
Yes, regadring 3) I think there is no harm we add the action-option "Add as favorite" to

- the address search results,

- the coordinate search result (for geocahchers)

- and the search results history screens, with the "usual" star icon...

 

In general: I am 1-2 steps away from a complete concept here, but reading this and other recent posts I have the following basic ideas:

(A) Let's introduce a Setting / Navigation /Transport mode. It will be the ONLY way where you can preset what any navigation route calculation will be calculated for.
(B) Let's delete the current dialogue with the transport selector. This will save clicks for people who want to quickly start a navigation
(C) Let's move the button (which formerly was on the now deleted dialogue) : "Route via GPX" to the actions-bar and map point context menu.
(D) After pressing Define View/Configure screen, people should explicitly be asked what profile (Map view/car/bicycle/pedestrian) map screen appearance they intend to customize. This will make everybody aware that there are 4 different profiles for the map screen display, and will avoid future questions regarding this fact.

(D1) Maybe let us also re-introduce the 3-way question car/bik/oed when entering the Navigation settings, just to make it clear ... :-)
(F) Let us unify/fix the handling of waypoints when called via the action-bar, see http://code.google.com/p/osmand/issues/detail?id=1929#c2
(G) Looks like we do have valid request for a permanent "Set as startpoint". We can introduce and handle the start point like a waypoint. (Start point should be displayed in the the "waypoint list", (IntermediatePointsDialog) jut like I already flagged the destination there. Can be re-sorted, etc.
(H) Upon deleting the destination or re-selecting a new destination, we could introduce a reminder question (only if SP/WP are present): Do you want to keep existing startpoint and waypoints Yes/no, as suggested here.
 

 

[Nico W]

Hardy, to solve readability issues, why can't we go back to the 6 -item menu box from 1.3 and before? That one was easy to work with with only one hand. Also while driving it was easier to deal with since the boxes were larger than the current lines.

 

I like the fact that you are adding the "set as starting point". Can you also create "calculate route TO here" ? Many people are asking for that too. That way you can set a starting point, scroll the map and set destination (or not) or waypoint and hit "calculate route  to here" without having to go back to the starting point.

[Hardy]

- "Calculate route to here" is already introduced in latests nightlies, it is called "Set as destination" now, (and displays "Add as waypoint" if a detsination is already set. (Former "Set as destination" is now renamed to "Directions")

 

- I understand the like former "button style" menus are being deprecated in Android, new styles increasingly call for the new menu style we have now ...

[Rodolfo]

(D): Good point, D++

(D1): Yes, would be helpful to new users, but please keep the top bar menu also to quickly change the profile scope.

(G): The Starting Point can be present in the "waypoint list" for manual shuffle, but should not participate in the automatic sorting, because in many use cases, the starting point is a "holy" point, e.g. the train station where you arrive or the mountain hut, from where you start walking. It cannot be shuffled around at random like ordinary waypoints. 

[Victor Shcherb]

(A/B) I would be strongly opposite

(D) not clear what if you change something on the screen you currently don't see

(D1) coming back but ok :) 

(F) Yes, I need to understand what is different :)

(G) hmm.... , actually no need to resort for start point(!) I'm not sure there is only one strong use case for start point when there is no GPS fix. If there is GPS fix it is not a start point! If we are talking about planning route, should be part of planning plugin

(H) I think it is fine now 

GO - reset all points and immediately starts navigation

Add point - asks about all "replacement" (replacement also deletes all intermediate points), add as a waypoint should just insert.

 

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[Victor Shcherb]

(A/B) problem should be sorted out by selecting profile during start? Once the profile is selected it should not be asked what navigation to use.

[Nico W]

Hardy, Noooooo!! Keep the "set as destination", but add "set as starting point". "Directions to here" can be anything, being the starting point, the destination, a waypoint or a POI.

Like Rodolfo said, some point needs to be set and stay fixed, which always was the destination, and the starting point should have the same properties. Be it a train station, hotel, cabin. Many times this is where you start and need to come back to (the life saver as I wrote a while back). Even for driving into an unfamiliar city: have your starting point, go to your destination and return to your starting point. Both these 2 points should not be removable until you give it explicit permission.

The menu we have now is fine, just those 2 lines need to be added to it.

The fact that one guy simply wants to hit a dot on the map and says "take me here"( = directions)  might work for him, and it probably works if you drive a car and go straight line from A to B. This will not work for people that go hiking or bicycle riding, most of these follow a somewhat circular pattern and end up at their starting point, which you can set as "destination" Problem until now was that there was no way to navigate away from the destination, that is why the need is there to have a "calculate route to here" to go from "destination" to a waypoint / POI.

 

The way Osmand worked until now was that you first needed to set your destination, than work backwards to your starting point and do "calculate route from here". Most of the time the map will be already at the starting point when you turn on the phone, so what is needed is the "set as starting point", then work forwards and find your "destination" and have the option (not mandatory!) to click "calculate to here"  

On Sunday, June 16, 2013 11:14:15 AM UTC-7, Rodolfo wrote:

[Hardy]

(A/B) Well: The motivation behind A/B was to try to get rid of the intermediate transport mode dialogue which some people seemed to not like. If we leave that in place, there is also no need to move the GPX routing, so we can keep our action bars shorter ... :)

 

Querying the navigation profile only at startup time may not be to good either for 2 reasons: It is probably annoying to be asked everytime at startup. And if you want to later change the transport means, if would be annoying und unconventional to then have to exit the app and restart ...?!

 

I am fine with the interim dialogue, probably no hard reason to change it...

 

(D) If you hit "Define view" then change your current viewing profile in the interim dialogue, let's just switch the profile (same as if the user selected the quick-changer, I guess). Still better than a user changing some widget-appearances in default mode, then wondering why this is not visible once they start navigating (because they did not understand the profile-dependency of the map screen appearance at all). In the fashion I suggest with (D), I guess they would get the notion that the profile question at navigation time and at screen-apearance-config time are somehow related...

 

 

Nico, completely agree with you, we should add one more option "Set as starting point". You must have gotten me wrong, all that happened was a text label change (in English): "Directions" will now start the navigation (someone even suggested "Navigate", but this would not less well cover the "Show on map" option). And "Add as waypoint" now simply says "Set as destination" as long as there is no destination (and no waypoint) set. (Was fomerly hidden in this case).

 

Both destination and waypoints (and the future starting point) must consistently be "add-able" by tapping on a map point, by using the "Use location" contect menu, and by using the favorites or any of the search result screens. That's just consistent, nothing wrong with this.

 

I suggest we just convert the current "show route from here" to "Set as starting point"? (with no automatic subsequent routing, that would have to be invoked after via "Directions" and after a destination and all waypoints are also set)?

 

Please note one additional bug I discovered on the way: Currently if you have waypoints set, then invoke "Directions" from the map content menu, the route is correctly calculated taking all the waypoints into account. But if you have waypoints set, then invoke "Directions" via the favorites or a search result screen, not just the currentl destination is overwritten (which would be expected), but the waypoints are (silently) deleted, and the route goes straight to the new destination. An annoying bug if you had configured lots of waypoints.

[Nico W]

Hardy, no, leave the "show route from here", not making it the starting point. The "show route from here" should work from present GPS position, POI, waypoint, touch-on-map (like we have it now: touch the map, lat/lon shows up, hit "show from here" (and with the new line we can also now "show to here"), starting point OR destination (without changing these two points).

 

It will give a lot more flexibility during planning phases, as well as during navigation.

 

Suggestion: give the starting point a green flag, keep the checkered flag for destination. Both with the same parameters: explicit approval to be removed.

 

On Sunday, June 16, 2013 11:14:15 AM UTC-7, Rodolfo wrote:

[Hardy]

I just notice that something like (A) has already been implemented, apparently for a long time?

Whatever you pre-set under General Settings / User profile is the pre-selected map view upon app start, and is also pre-suggested as transportation mode for the "Directions" dialogue ...

Like it. I guess we could rename that setting to "Default user profile", to make it more clear how it works?

[Hardy]

Nico, I don't like the "flag" circus you are suggesting ... too complex for the 90% of users who will never use all that,but will constanctly come across all these menu options, not finding the important ones they need ...  my 5 cents

 

 

[Rodolfo]

After re-reading this topic, I realize, there will be 5 different types of navigation points! (start / waypoint / destination / from here / to here)
This simply yells for 2 app modes, "Quick Mode" and "Advanced Mode".
In the current situation, I am afraid we could scare off novice users or am I too pessimistic?
But if a "Quick Mode" only consists of hiding features like waypoints, show to here, show from here, and hiding the related settings, it could be done.

@Hardy: About the flags: I hope you agree, the starting point must be visually different from the waypoints, so another flag colour is only logical.

Another idea to make the UI more flexible:
Could it be made possible to add points on the map in any free order?
E.g. you start with placing some waypoints, then add the starting point, then the destination point.
(Optionally you can then re-order the waypoints.)
All this without asking questions and without calculating a route yet.
Then you hit "directions" like usual and there you go... 

Oh well, it is easy to think up new ideas, but I realize it can require lots of work to code!

[Hardy]

Hi Rodolfo, what I am saying is, there shoudl only be _3_ different kind of navigation points:

 - 1 Destination,

 - several waypoints (optional)

 - 1 Starting point (optional)

 

I stronlgy oppose more complications, it is just insane.  :-)  I do not see a need for 

 - "to here":  You can already today click on any point on the map or in favorites/search results, then select the action "Directions" (which will set it as destination and start a navigation), or "Set as destination" (without immediately starting a navigation.

 - "from here" is also obsolete, its behavior is too simiilar to "Set as starting point", we should have either/or. Let's save on screen real-estate and not have tons of options very similar to each other .... 

 

Regarding the "arbitrary adding of waypoints:" Yes, we pretty much have this today: Except that the code requires a destination being present and noit just waypoints, but that is already implemented: The last waypoint is always the automatically the destination. And our dialogue offers deleting ANY point (use the tick boxes) or sorting in any fashion (where the new last waypoint automatically becomes the destination),  Try it out! Adding a "remebered" Start point should be a siimple addition to this system, if this is an agreed request, _instead_ of the just volatile "Show route from here". But I would hate to add even more point-related actions...it will just become a monster ...  :-) 

 

[Hardy]

PS: Fixed the bug that selecting "Directions" on some screens (Favorites, search results) unexpectedly used to killl existing waypoints (while it had always worked as expected to call ""Directions" via the menu on the map screen.)

[Nico W]

Rodolfo: I suggested this a while back: a waypoint menu that can be re-arranged as you want, with an option to calculate a route between selected waypoints:

Other recipients:

Hardy, it should be quite simple to make  an interface to calculate between waypoints. We already have the "Waypoints" feature in the Menu. After clicking on that all your waypoints are listed, with a checkbox behind it to delete them and "OK" and "Change order" on the bottom.

What is needed is a checkbox in front / highlight of each waypoint and a function "calculate route between"

 

So not much needed there . See my suggestion attached.

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013 4:26:13 PM UTC-7, V S wrote:

- show quoted text -

Hello,

It looks no complain in beta release 1.4, please do testing, so we can release on Saturday to bigger community :)

Thinks not yet clarified

- Unexpected crashes/freezes with Download

- How to avoid unpleasant dialog of replace destination point

Regards,

Victor

Show trimmed content

Attachments (1)

waypoint menu 2.png

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On Sunday, June 16, 2013 11:14:15 AM UTC-7, Rodolfo wrote:

[Harry van der Wolf]

Hi,

2013/6/19 Hardy <hm.gg...@gmail.com>

Hi Rodolfo, what I am saying is, there shoudl only be _3_ different kind of navigation points:

 - 1 Destination,

 - several waypoints (optional)

 - 1 Starting point (optional)

 

I stronlgy oppose more complications, it is just insane.  :-)  I do not see a need for 

I completely agree!
Don't make it too complicated. This discussion (and the parallel one)  started because people already had difficulties. OsmAnd is a very versatile, function rich piece of mapping and navigation software. Being such a complete, feature rich piece of software makes it already less user-friendly for the beginning user (as we have seen in several threads). Less options = less confusion.

Please keep it as simple as this. The three options mentioned above by Hardy is all we need.
Please also take a look at some commercial navigation software and dedicated devices. I have been using 3 of them (Tomtom, iGo and Navigon) since 2003 (and I'm sure many of us have) and they all use this simple principle. I definitely don't want to promote this commercial software but they have 7-15 years experience in designing simple to use interfaces.
Some don't even have the starting point as built-in car devices always calculate from the "current" position (as soon as it is known).
But I really do like that starting point to be able to calculate routes in advance.

Harry

[Hardy]

Somebody needed to say that!

 

Thanks, Harry!   :-)

 

[Rodolfo]

Totally agree with your conclusions in this post! Let's not follow Frankenstein!
The latest nightlies already made route management easier.

Just one idea to simplify route management:
If you want to move the destination when there is already a destination defined, you don't have the point context menu option "Set as destination" anymore.
Instead, you must add a new waypoint and then in the waypoints list re-order the points so the new waypoint becomes the destination.
If we would have kept the option "Set as destination" (to replace the current destination) this would be easier, don't you think?

[Hardy]

Rodolfo,

 

fact is that "Set as destination" and "Add as waypoint" is the VERY SAME menu item in our code.

 

All I do is:

 - If there is no destination present, it displays as "Set as destination", and would do just that.

 - If there is already a destination present, it displays as "Add as destination".

 

In the latter case, when called from the map screen, it adds it as the last waypoint, and immeduiately shows the waypoint list overview, so you can verify and change the order.

 

When called from the favorites or search screen, it currently produces the "Set as destiantion / Add as first/ A dd as last waypoint" dialogue. (This is our Issue 1929). We need to make it consistent. Rather than having 2 different behaviors  depending on from where you called the action, or perhaps having BOTH dialogues in succesion all the time (I thought about that first, but think it may be annoying?), I guess I tend towards simplifying and only use the waypoint list (maybe enhancing its functionality, as Nico suggested above).

 

In this fashion once you understood that _new_ waypoints are always added as the _last_ waypoint by default, waypoint users can adjust their input order accordingly and save many clicks in the long run.

 

 

[Rodolfo]

I understand your (technical) point of view.
Just wanted to reduce the number of clicks for this action from 4 to 1.
But never mind, it's alright like it is now :)
Cheers

[Rodolfo]

New idea about the "Starting point". It is not only useful in the earlier discussed use cases, but offers a new and easy way to reverse the route.
For this, the options in the navigation dialog could look like this:

From:
- "Starting point  (lat/lon)"   (default if it's defined)
- "Current position (lat/lon)"   (default if no starting point defined)
- "Map position (lat/lon)"
- "Destination (lat/lon)"      (!)

To:
- "Destination (lat/lon)"   (default. Added the word "Destination", because currently the most important option only says lat/lon)
- "Map position (lat/lon)"
- "Starting point (lat/lon)"    (!)

This will make calculating a route from A to B and later going back from B to A a lot easier, almost effortless :)

[Victor Shcherb]

IMHO, To be honest route from "Destination" to "Staring Position" sounds very weird ;) It is much easier to have tip box "Reverse route" 

[Rodolfo]

I think, my suggestion is more flexible. You can e.g. choose to navigate from "Current position" to "Starting point" or from "Destination" to "Map position" without changing the originally defined route.
Agreed, it may look a bit weird at first, but the options are self-explaining, while a tick box requires thinking, which I try to avoid as much as possible :)

[Harry van der Wolf]

I really like the option as such, but I agree with Victor. Also for consistency. I have used more then 10 navigation aps/devices, etc. the last 10 years and they all call it "reverse route" or a synonym for that (that is: if they have the option). If we want to attract people to OsmAnd let's conform to standards. Let's not be microsoft and define a new standard every 3 months. Switching to OsmAnd should be easy: same commands, same jargon, etc.

 

Next to that: The option Nico mentioned (couple of mails back) to add a starting point and destination point, in the order you choose to do, is very handy.

Sometimes you are sitting on the couch (at home, in a hotel or wherever) and plan a route. As "your couch" is the last point you navigated to, it is most likely the point you will be starting your new trip from. If you open the map it's easy to immediately tap the map on your current position and set it as starting point. Then you search, select a favorite or scroll the map to your endpoint and set that as destination.

 

Harry

2013/8/6 Rodolfo <rodo...@gmail.com>

[Rodolfo]

Yes, a check box with a "standard" description will be more familiar for new users, I agree.
On the other hand, my suggestion goes beyond a simple "reverse route". It offers 4 "From" options and 3 "To" options, so I tried to combine the best of the two ideas.
See picture. Will this be an improvement, IF a "Starting point" is introduced?

On Tuesday, 6 August 2013 00:33:04 UTC+2, V S wrote:

[Victor Shcherb]

What is misleading in Starting Point, that is used in specific way, but after that it starts being used as a normal Marker.

If it is a Marker or named Marker, let's call it like that :) That I don't have any observation to plot route to it or other way around.

The problem of Destination Point, it is always one and it is always end point of route! Once you build new route you loose your Destination Point. Which should be similar to Start Point as well, once you are on the route you miss you Start Point. But what I hear from you, you would like to plan & mark and not to navigate.

Just FYI : To Navigate and to Show Route From a specific point (when location is unknown) is possible today an

Regards,

Victor

[Nico W]

Victor,

The destination point should stay as destination point and only be erased after explicit permission. We have had a discussion about that before. Maybe there is a way (software wise) to calculate a route away from destination to a "waypoint", be that the "starting point" or any other point, without removing the "destination" (= finish flag). The starting point being persistent would not be a bad idea either.

I got very frustrated a few days ago in Amsterdam when I had a hard time finding my starting point (a hotel with an address OsmAnd could not find, only the POI function found it), then in order to create a route I had to find the destination first, and go back to the hotel POI that had disappeared because of the larger scale. After the route calculation was complete I had to leave the app to check some e-mails and make phone calls, next morning when I was ready to walk out of the door the whole route, including starting point, was gone. All I had was the destination and the red triangle pointing to it. I had no time going through this whole process again, and trying to do this while walking in Amsterdam is akin to suicide. On the way back I had not reversed my route, so somehow I ended up a couple of streets off-course and had a hard time getting back to the hotel. I am good at reading maps, had somebody with less situational awareness been in the same situation he /she could have been lost completely. And that is something you don't want to be in a foreign city. The fact that I could not get a satellite signal didn't help. 2 satellites was the most I ever got. Ok I hear all of you: why didn't you save it as a favorite? Because I was too stupid to think about it.

 

 So why can a preplanned route not stay?  That way when you open the app you can start navigating immediately. If you forget there is a route already and create a new route a message "replace existing route?" should alert someone to the fact a previous route already exists.

[Victor Shcherb]

Dear Nico,

If we are discussing about use case, then I could say yes OsmAnd doesn't fit very well into it and doesn't behave nicely. On the other hand I should admit, I never do these operations like that.

First of all, all points I need I create favorites, so I never loose them. Especially it is very easy with POI, just 3 clicks and meaningful name will be given automatically. Of course I'm using categories to not spoil other favorites.

After that I enable Favorite Layer and I select destination only to calculate route or to go there but not to memorize. From Favorites screen (this is not nice, because I need to go away from map screen) I can always navigate to my imaginary start point. 

For example, use case with car parked somewhere, I was long time against it, because you can do the same with Favorites, but in the end this is special use case and it is good to see even distance on screen.

Again, if we are talking about Favorite, Bookmark, Map Pin, this should not be related to Start Point! If we want to introduce very special Favorites with own icons like "Home, Planned Start Point, Planned Visit Point, Car, Work, Hotel" I will be almost for it, if I hear good use case story how to make it nice.

Please don't mix Destination Point with Planning, this was not intentional use case.

Regards,

Victor

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[Hardy]

Please also keep in mind the majority of use cases!

 

Many people would be confused if previoulsy calculated routes or selected start points would stick, because they do not pre-plan routes or use navigation apps like this ...

 

I think I understand what you were trying to do, and see the justification, but in my mind many people would naturally use favorites for that instead of relying on the app "remembering" things it may or may not do ...

 

I dare sday that if we asked more people how they would do what you try to do, many would never have hit on the idea to do it your way ...  :-)   I could be worong, though.  :-) 

[Rodolfo]

OK, the original reason for asking a starting point, was because I did not want to loose it once I closed the app, so in the past weeks I used the workaround for every planned route to first define a favourite, let's say "Start" (even if the starting point is a POI) and then add this favourite as first waypoint. This works and I must admit, I am almost getting used to it :)
So I'll stop annoying you about the starting point ;)

Another part of my suggestion was to be able to simply reverse a route. So I adapted your check box suggestion to make the consequences more visual, but after rethinking, there is probably an even more visual way to make a "Reverse route" by adding a button "Reverse" to the Waypoints dialog (or to the Waypoints >- Change order dialog).
By pressing "Reverse", you instantly see all waypoint in the reversed order, so no doubts about the effect. It also avoids adding another element to the Directions dialog.
Obviously, this only works when there is at least one waypoint set.

Best regards, Rodolfo

[Victor Shcherb]

I really think 'reverse route' makes sense, just need to find good UI, because introduction of new check box makes it more cluttered.

I also agree that Favorites are not so usable as we would like to have them (drag/drop not supported), you can't select it in Navigate Dialog (may be 3 recent or most popular). 

We just need time to find really good and suitable solution. But I think I got your point about favorites improvement.

Regards,

Victor