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Subject:Alternate screen layout 

shchenka

7:38
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Hey, I wanted to compliment on the alternate screen layout in the plan and map view options. It's my favourite now. I only I could make the blue ("track") part go away , and have only the green ("waypoint") part there. So far it seems they are both controlled with the single "Loc/Wpt/Rte Info" checkbox. Any hope to have these separated ?
 

Stephen

9:23
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Shchenka,

I'm actually considering changing the overlay yet again, in order to use the new larger fonts for easier reading. Nothing definite yet, but I was thinking of having a menu check-list of available items, eg Speed, Bearing, Waypoint Distance, Wpt ETA, etc. The overlay would then cycle through the selected items, displaying each one (or possibly a group of 2 or 3 items) in turn for a couple of seconds each. You'd then be able to just select the Waypoint items, or whatever info you wanted to see. Do you think this would be useful?

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ChrisM

10:16
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen,

I assume that's just the figures(speeds, headings times etc) in the boxes that will be selectable, the stuff that gets overlaid on the actual map (waypoints, tracks and routes) will stay the same(?)

Regards,

Chris.
 

Stephen

11:05
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Yes, just the text boxes that appear with the Loc/Wpt/Rte View option at the moment...
 

shchenka

11:45
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Yes, in my case, I'd like to conserve the valuable screen space as much as possible, so I'd like to be able to remove any text-boxes that take space but do not contain any information that I'd like to see at the moment. On the other hand e.g. distance to the waypoint is useful for me but currently in order to see it I have to accept also speed, bearing etc. So indeed, it would be great if I could eliminate these with the checkboxes and the space used to display that information would be reduced.
 

ChrisM

13:45
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Just my opinion based on the way I use TMJ, but I'm not sure about this...

Personally, if I want the speed/heading etc to be easier to read, I'd probably just flick screens. I suppose having the option to show a subset of this information in a larger font would be useful on occasion, but speaking for myself, not sure how much I'd acutally use it.
Might start to get complicated by the time you have different catagories(waypoint, current location etc.), different info(speed, distance, heading etc) different (font)sizes etc. But if anyone can make it work, I'm sure you can. :-)

One thing I would say though, If you are planning to increace the size of the text on the overlay, please could you keep the option to leave them as they are too.

Just a thought, would it be possible to make the overlay semi-transparent, so you could still see the map underneath? Not sure how well that'd work mind...
 

shchenka

16:56
Friday
31-Oct-2008

In fact I thought they were transparent but still obstructing the display (my feeling at least). I second that I'd rather use smaller fonts not larger :-)

The major problem that I have with these text boxes, both the "traditional" and the alternative layout, is that when I'm using autopan in the automatic zoom mode, and the selected waypoint happens to be northwards of my location, it gets beneath them and is not visible (or almost not visible, if the box is transparent).

So if the autozoom factor algorithm would take these boxes into account and would not consider them to be a part of the plan area, it would be a major improvement already.
 
 

Stephen

19:05
Friday
31-Oct-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

The old-style boxes are partly transparent already but the new ones are fully opaque - I've found that different phones have very varied 'gamma' curves so the transparency is too clear on some phones and too unnoticeable on others. I guess I could make it an option, but with it off then the map doesn't have to be painted to the whole screen area, potentially improving drawing time...

I haven't yet decided for sure how to implement the 'improved' screen layout, but I was certainly planning on having variable font sizes as well. Might leave it for a bit anyhow...!

" So if the autozoom factor algorithm would take these boxes into account and would not consider them to be a part of the plan area, it would be a major improvement already. "

Yep okay, should be fairly straightforward...
 

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