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Open Canal Map ANDROID app Beta testers


reg

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Just now, reg said:

I'm just wondering if the marker collision occurs before the download so that the icons don't get downloaded with the map? Just pondering at the moment. Will be interesting to retry when changes are made

Yes, Tom, let us know when the changes are made.

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14 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Yes, Tom, let us know when the changes are made.

Just published an update to the map - no need to update the app - some areas might be cached in your device - either just wait or you can clear the data in Settings -> Apps -> Open Canal Map -> Clear data - but that will remove any downloaded maps you've created.

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1 hour ago, toms1 said:

Just published an update to the map - no need to update the app - some areas might be cached in your device - either just wait or you can clear the data in Settings -> Apps -> Open Canal Map -> Clear data - but that will remove any downloaded maps you've created.

Thanks Tom, will check it this evening. Big footy match coming on!!:)

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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Thanks Tom, will check it this evening. Big footy match coming on!!:)

Yes, its working now - I can see the locks on the downloaded maps. Well done. Only thing I would say is that it is obviously down to marker collisions and they favour text items rather than locks. On the downloaded map centred on Napton, you have to zoom in quite a way to see the  3 locks, so on a phone you are looking in quite close. It would be better if the 3 locks showed up as the 'priority' feature rather than the text about the marina - ie if I look at a zoomed out map, the locks are perhaps the most important things to see. Not sure if it is possible to layer it with the locks a priority.

Good job though. I like it.

....and we smashed them 4-1.......4-3

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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Yes, its working now - I can see the locks on the downloaded maps. Well done. Only thing I would say is that it is obviously down to marker collisions and they favour text items rather than locks. On the downloaded map centred on Napton, you have to zoom in quite a way to see the  3 locks, so on a phone you are looking in quite close. It would be better if the 3 locks showed up as the 'priority' feature rather than the text about the marina - ie if I look at a zoomed out map, the locks are perhaps the most important things to see. Not sure if it is possible to layer it with the locks a priority.

Good job though. I like it.

....and we smashed them 4-1.......4-3

Have to concur with your view, would be happy to see Lock icon on map, under these circumstances ,  even if description wasn't available at the time. 

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On 14/01/2018 at 20:23, reg said:

Have to concur with your view, would be happy to see Lock icon on map, under these circumstances ,  even if description wasn't available at the time. 

Yes - the intention was to have locks as the highest priority, swing bridges should probably be second, followed by the taps and then moorings etc. - I'll alter the zoom settings on the other features a bit more to hide them on the medium zoom levels your referring to. There is a lot of control over how things are displayed - but therefore also a lot of settings to mess about with to get it right.

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8 hours ago, toms1 said:

Just release another Beta - this one should save data to your external storage (SD card) - took a few attempts to get it working but seems OK now.

 

Not on my tablet, I'm afraid. Android 6 allows you to amalgamate the internal and external memory into one lump for most purposes, but it does let you move programs specifically to the external storage in some cases.  It's still not giving me the option here, stores everything on the internal memory still.

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10 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Not on my tablet, I'm afraid. Android 6 allows you to amalgamate the internal and external memory into one lump for most purposes, but it does let you move programs specifically to the external storage in some cases.  It's still not giving me the option here, stores everything on the internal memory still.

My filesysinfo.log after moving app to SDcard shows app goes to mnt/asec which apparently is a secure android mnt point. I don't profess to understand the mysteries of android ever changing file system but I at least now know where the app goes on the SDcard. When I have time I will do a bit of downloading of maps and then check the log again to see which directories have grown this should hopefully show where the database resides, not sure when I will do the testing as my monthly data limit is nearly used up. 

Filesystem               Size     Used     Free   Blksize
/dev                   945.7M    64.0K   945.7M   4096
/sys/fs/cgroup         945.7M    12.0K   945.7M   4096
/mnt/asec              945.7M     0.0K   945.7M   4096
/mnt/obb               945.7M     0.0K   945.7M   4096
/system                  2.9G     1.9G  1001.1M   4096
/data                   10.3G     9.2G     1.1G   4096
/var                    43.2M    31.9M    11.4M   4096
/drm                     3.9M    40.0K     3.8M   4096
/oem                   122.0M     1.9M   120.1M   4096
/cache                 478.5M   648.0K   477.9M   4096
/persist                11.7M   140.0K    11.6M   4096
/firmware               64.0M    51.3M    12.7M   16384
/mnt/shell/emulated     10.3G     9.2G     1.1G   4096
/storage/emulated/legacy    10.3G     9.2G     1.1G   4096
/mnt/media_rw/sdcard1    29.7G    24.3G     5.4G   32768
/mnt/secure/asec        29.7G    24.3G     5.4G   32768
/storage/sdcard1        29.7G    24.3G     5.4G   32768
/mnt/asec/uk.opencanalmap.opencanalmap-1    25.1M    23.5M     1.6M   4096

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I'm not surprised - Android seems to change it's filing systems on a whim between versions, and as no-one ever updates the systems on older tablets (mine must be at least a year old now!) I can't see how anything can work on everything.  I might go back to the old system and see if that works better after all.  I seem to have enough memory anyway to store the bits of map I need.

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11 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Not on my tablet, I'm afraid. Android 6 allows you to amalgamate the internal and external memory into one lump for most purposes, but it does let you move programs specifically to the external storage in some cases.  It's still not giving me the option here, stores everything on the internal memory still.

If the memory is amalgamated then there is probably no need for it to save to SD. I've tested on android 5 and it did as intended. I don't think there is a way to get it to store the application itself on external. All I've been able to set is external storage as a preferred location for data. Might mean it needs a reinstall to start using that as the place since it can't store data in both internal and external storage at the same time. So if you already had data it would carry on using the internal storage. Just to clarify 'move to SD card' option should be disabled but the app should save cache and downloads to external store if it can. Fallback is internal storage for data. Best it lets me do for now I'm afraid unless I can find out otherwise.

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On 14/01/2018 at 12:59, Dr Bob said:

Ditto. Not sure there is anything on the downloaded map that would cause a marker collision. The key issue is the missing locks on the downloaded map and the effect is different for Reg, Arthur and myself who are all seeing different things.

I've done a couple of updates to the map:

1. Locks now show at any zoom level - collisions are ignored for the icon but not the text.

2. The double / triple line of the canal / waterway has been styled out - these paths are now used only in lower zoom levels (zoom out) but the open street map canal route is used when you approach high zoom levels.

 

Screenshot_2018-01-17-10-33-24.png

Screenshot_2018-01-17-10-34-38.png

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4 hours ago, toms1 said:

All I've been able to set is external storage as a preferred location for data. Might mean it needs a reinstall to start using that as the place since it can't store data in both internal and external storage at the same time

That makes sense as app itself is only smallish its the data storage that is the problem, might be useful to be able to set storage location but appreciate it is not an easy problem to solve at the moment. I know this is a particular problem where apps and data are separate I've got duplicate very large files in Locus SDcard and main renaming either version trashes locus so I just leave it as is. Looking at Google I don't think anyone fully understands all of the Android File machinations. 

Just to note that late time I reinstalled I lost all of my previous maps I suspected that this was due to your changes so not an issue in beta but obviously would not want to lose the data when live. 

Tom any indication what the database name is and where it resides would be useful for tracking data usage? thanks. 

Eta

Just a  question is it safe to assume that the app will as a matter of policy now remain in main and the database storage will be looked at at a later date? If so will you need to change the app back and if you do can you let me know when to reinstall, thanks. 

Edited by reg
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3 hours ago, reg said:

That makes sense as app itself is only smallish its the data storage that is the problem, might be useful to be able to set storage location but appreciate it is not an easy problem to solve at the moment. I know this is a particular problem where apps and data are separate I've got duplicate very large files in Locus SDcard and main renaming either version trashes locus so I just leave it as is. Looking at Google I don't think anyone fully understands all of the Android File machinations. 

Just to note that late time I reinstalled I lost all of my previous maps I suspected that this was due to your changes so not an issue in beta but obviously would not want to lose the data when live. 

Tom any indication what the database name is and where it resides would be useful for tracking data usage? thanks. 

Eta

Just a  question is it safe to assume that the app will as a matter of policy now remain in main and the database storage will be looked at at a later date? If so will you need to change the app back and if you do can you let me know when to reinstall, thanks. 

Yea - I think the last update where the storage path was changed will of broken some downloads. Previous updates seemed to retain the downloads but that one changed the "OfflineManager" code - I'll leave the core of that stuff alone from now.

I'll try and figure out where the data is - I don't know where it puts it - bit of a black box :)

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1 hour ago, toms1 said:

Yea - I think the last update where the storage path was changed will of broken some downloads. Previous updates seemed to retain the downloads but that one changed the "OfflineManager" code - I'll leave the core of that stuff alone from now.

I'll try and figure out where the data is - I don't know where it puts it - bit of a black box :)

Found it

root>sdcard>android>data>uk.opencanalmap.opencanalmap>files>mbg-offline.db

Used app

APK ANALYZER

Which gives additional info

Eta

Playing with this shows that moving the app to SDcard only moves the app, the database stays put. 

Edited by reg
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12 hours ago, toms1 said:

Locks now show at any zoom level

Afraid they don't for me in offline mode, show a lower resolution but disappear when zoomed in. 

Did a complete delete and reinstall before testing

Eta

Seem to work on my second download but not my first

Don't work on Hillmorton, Buckby, Braunstone area

Do work on other download Atherstone area

Edited by reg
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15 hours ago, reg said:

Afraid they don't for me in offline mode, show a lower resolution but disappear when zoomed in. 

Did a complete delete and reinstall before testing

Eta

Seem to work on my second download but not my first

Don't work on Hillmorton, Buckby, Braunstone area

Do work on other download Atherstone area

Might just be a time lag kind of thing - when I update in Mapbox it takes a while for the changes to appear on my phone - like maybe an hour or so....

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Maybe an obvious (and a fundamental difference) but the Android app only shows what has been entered (e.g. a pub) but unlike the Google Maps version there's no information behind this -- it's not a clickable link. Other things like some boatyards are also not in the Android app but are in the Google Maps one.

So the Android one is useful for canal navigation (distances, lock, bridges etc) and doesn't need a lot of downloaded data, but not so useful for finding out what is near the canal and what facilities they have (pubs, shops, restaurants, boatyards, attractions etc.).

Edited by IanD
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36 minutes ago, IanD said:

Maybe an obvious (and a fundamental difference) but the Android app only shows what has been entered (e.g. a pub) but unlike the Google Maps version there's no information behind this -- it's not a clickable link. Other things like some boatyards are also not in the Android app but are in the Google Maps one.

So the Android one is useful for canal navigation (distances, lock, bridges etc) and doesn't need a lot of downloaded data, but not so useful for finding out what is near the canal and what facilities they have (pubs, shops, restaurants, boatyards, attractions etc.).

Yep - there is a load of info missing because they're not clickable yet. To make it work that way they need to be stored separately as a table in the app - so that is the next thing to work on. This will then lead into the function to add and edit the markers.

There is a way to query Google to find nearby places - I'll look into that at some point too - but then again I'll never be able to duplicate all the functionality of Google Maps - so maybe not worth doing.

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10 minutes ago, toms1 said:

Yep - there is a load of info missing because they're not clickable yet. To make it work that way they need to be stored separately as a table in the app - so that is the next thing to work on. This will then lead into the function to add and edit the markers.

There is a way to query Google to find nearby places - I'll look into that at some point too - but then again I'll never be able to duplicate all the functionality of Google Maps - so maybe not worth doing.

Nothing is less useful than a map/guide with out-of-date information. If you're going to add more information to the maps (e.g. via clickable links) it would probably be far better to make this open up the Google Maps app with the same zoom area and location as the Android one and use this to get the information -- otherwise you'll end up on an endless treadmill of trying to keep all the info up to date. Then people can use the Android app (which doesn't consume a lot of data) for navigation and planning, and bring up the Google app only when needed to access information.

Don't know if this is possible or you have any plan to do it, but a travel time/distance addition (from current location or a set point) would be *very* handy -- then you could look ahead along the map and see elapsed time (or even arrival time?) to a given place from where you currently are (e.g. you will arrive at Skipton at 6:35pm). There's need to be an assumption about travel speed and time through locks, but even a rough one (or one that can be changed, like canalplan) would be helpful.

Edited by IanD
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7 minutes ago, IanD said:

Nothing is less useful than a map/guide with out-of-date information. If you're going to add more information to the maps (e.g. via clickable links) it would probably be far better to make this open up the Google Maps app with the same zoom area and location as the Android one and use this to get the information -- otherwise you'll end up on an endless treadmill of trying to keep all the info up to date. Then people can use the Android app (which doesn't consume a lot of data) for navigation and planning, and bring up the Google app only when needed to access information.

Don't know if this is possible or you have any plan to do it, but a travel time/distance addition (from current location or a set point) would be *very* handy -- then you could look ahead along the map and see elapsed time (or even arrival time?) to a given place from where you currently are (e.g. you will arrive at Skipton at 6:35pm). There's need to be an assumption about travel speed and time through locks, but even a rough one (or one that can be changed, like canalplan) would be helpful.

Good idea about getting the google map to open in the same place - just figured out how to do that - I'll include that in the next update to the app - cheers :)

There is a API to connect to CanalPlan I believe - don't know if they would mind me adding that - primary focus is on building tools to let users update the maps first off though.

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Connecting to CanalPlan might be fun, somehow trying to tie together the location information (current position and destination) from OpenCanalMap/Google Maps to whatever format canalplan stores everything in -- I wish you the best of luck... ;-)

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I hacked together a little route planner for our journey last year. It was basically a web site which ran locally on android (within the firefox browser).

It used downloaded CSV data from CanalPlanAC (converted to JSON). The "logic" was done in Javascript using the "Leaflet" library and some previoisly downloaded  map tiles.

If it is of any use I can pack the thing together and provide it to the developer. (in its current form it was basically limited to the GU and some "sidearms")

 

Screenshot_20180119-234735.png

Screenshot_20180119-235030.png

Screenshot_20180119-235051.png

Screenshot_20180119-234840.png

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