Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

liked ur app
just voted!

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Just installed 0.12.6 and it's not working.
/opr/modrana was set 754, as were other directories.
chmod -R 755 /opt/modrana got it running, and no doubt broke some features.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Yes, the N900 build in GPS is supported through the standard method (liblocation), so it should work. You can check a few things:

• is the GPS turned on ? :)
• are you running modRana the right way ?
  • modRana needs to know that it is running on a N900 to turn on the liblocation support
  • this is taken care of by this script: /usr/bin/modrana (this is what you run, when you type "modrana" to the command line)
• was there installation flawless (no error messages during install)?

Well, I can say thats really pretty weird. :) Well, there are a few more things you can try:

• make sure you are root when installing/removing/purging modrana from the command line
• purge modrana
  Code:

  ---

  apt-get remove --purge modrana

  ---

  this should completely remove modrana from your system
• after purging try to reinstall with the app mamanger
• if this fails, purge again and try to install from the command line
  Code:

  ---

  apt-get install modrana

  ---

  this really should not install cloudgps :D
• if launching modrana using the desktop icon fails, try tu run it from the command line (as a user) by typing:
  Code:

  ---

  modrana

  ---

• if you get some (copypastable) errors, when running or installing, please PM them to me :)

Thanks !

Well, it can run even with 777, it doesn't break anything in the app. :)
But following the standard packaging practices, only what needs to be writable should be writable and so on. Therefore I set the permissions for the code to be read only and configs/tracklogs/cache/etc to be writable. So either I set wrong permissions somewhere or the installation failed during the postinst script, which is when the permissions are set.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

i agree with akurtz... when running as user the first step is a cd to /opt/modrana. user needs the x bit for that cd to be successful. chmod'ing /opt/modrana is exactly the correct solution.

EDIT: My orignal post may be slightly ambiguous. /opt/modrana needs 775 permissions, but in case it's unclear, all of the subdirectories under that path also will need this same change.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Damn, that would be it ! I just totally forgot about the folder entry permissions. :D Thanks a lot for noticing!

I just pushed a new build (0.12-8), where this is added to the postinst script:

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I could be wrong but i *think* you need a space between "-" and "exec" in that command. EDIT: I'm an idiot; I don't know why I thought that.

Also, the image that's being used for the desktop shortcut looks like it's much larger than the button size, and it's getting trimmed rather than scaled.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Probably a bit late now. But since you used the command line you would have a running commentary on what was being done. So what did apt-get really fetch and install?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Unfortunately the version of find on stock N900 is even more cut down than the usual busybox one and doesn't support the -exec option. Here's what works:

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Nice looking app! Definitely with a future in store for it, but...
1. New yesterday's update crashes on the icon start (only x-term)
2. Routing poin2point and all others, in fact, don't work but freeze and make the app unresponsive (might be my distant away-from-routable area location is in blame, but why freeze?).
3. "Log track" button....and you get a blank screen forever. Have to terminate the app, because it's the only way out.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Tried to upload route to OSM; OSM said:
Found no good GPX points in the input data.
The log is fine, I can see it in modrana program. But something is wrong with its format.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/G...ad_properly.3F

First, it has a lot of 'ns0' inside it. Second, it doesn't have <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>. Third, it misses timestamps in points.

It was an old version of modrana (when the options weren't saved at all). Later I will try to install the newest version.

Request feature: when logging is on, show new log in green colour as it is recorded so that it is easier to see that it is recorded.

And allow zooming out and seeing the whole world on one screen. It seems it cannot have zoom lower than eight now?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

upd
4. the map scrolling became all jerky and slow after the update

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

OK, looks like its time for 0.12-9. :)

For some reason, the icon in the "scalable" folder was 390x390 instead of 64x64. I added the right size, that hopefully fixes the issue.

ModRana is using the upoints module for inmport and export of GPX. Upoints uses the standard Python ElementTree module for, which is what adds all the 'ns0', which should be harmless but looks ugly. I haven't yet got to testing the files created by modRana in other programs, so I'll look into it now. Considering timestamps, that is planed together with elevation, point name and description.


OK, ticket added.
Yep, its like this to simplify the drawing algorithm. I think it could be extended, but IMO viewing the whole world on the screen is not a very often used feature. :) I added a lower priority ticket for this.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

1. and 3. could be caused by wrong permissions in the old versions, which should be hopefully fixed in the new one.
2. The routing feature uses an online routing provider (currently Google) and needs Internet connectivity to work. Unfortunately, there is no notification or a way to cancel a search in progress yet. Therefore, without connectivity it waits for the results before it times out. This should be fixed/improved when I get to it.

Well, I didn't change anything concerning the the drawing of the map in the new version. You can try to start modrana from the terminal and look to the output if there are any error messages.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

If you're unable to make the query with a own timeout perhapt you're able to make the query using a background process and kill those if there is no response within 30 seconds?

This has the benefit hat your app is not unresponsive during the query. (but I guess more than moving the map should not be allowed during it to avoid a unexpecting state (menu open) when the background process delivers the result)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

ok got modrana working. this is a pretty impressive effort. kudos to martin.

so how do i do i use address search? is this query routed to an online search based on the tile map service i use or something else? every address i key in doesn't work. it would be useful if i can type in an address for search and zoom in to the target location to pick an end point for a route.

right now i am a bit lost because i sometimes know where i am but don't really know the destination location on the map even though i have its address or generic location. having to scroll around the map to find the destination to route to isn't fun when you have no idea where to scroll to.

thanks for all the hard work, martin. really neat app.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

martin, you 12-8 version works great now.


hasnt crashed yet.


awesome job. thanks for making it.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

for some reason, when i do an apt-get upgrade, or an apt-get install modrana, it says i am at the newest version already.


why is it not getting your updates directly?


i better check to see if i have the free non-free in my devel repo settings.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

yup...its set correctly.


do you know why for some reason i cannot get when you update the product without going to the repo in a browser and checking?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I installed this app today for the first time through app manager.
At the end of the installation I got "Unable to install modRana". Wnen I checked the applicatiion uninstall info (inside app manager) it says at status "Broken but able to update". Despite this I could add the icon app and run it just fine. The only problem I noticed is the settings do not get saved.
To fix this I run as root the following:
and
The last one gave me this:
Any idea?

Also, do you plan to have something like bookmarks for places (e.g. home, work, friendshouse, etc)?

Other than that this app is so great it almost brings tears of joy to my eyes, compared to n900 default GPS app!!! Good job!

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Nevermind, I just updated to the .9 version and all is fine! Thanks!!!
Just answer this one:

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Yep, I think I'll spawn a separate thread for the queries + transparent notification (something like "route lookup in progress") + maybe a cancel button. The queries are mostly pretty much instantaneous, BTW.

Modrana uses Google Directions for online routing and support for more routing providers is planed. The routing results do not dependent on the current map layer but on the current mode (can be set from the main menu under "mode"). This means, than when you set your mode as "car", you get a route for a car. When you use the "walk" mode, you get walking directions (if you ever wanted to walk from Prague to Sevastopol is just about 13 days :) ). The "bus" and "train" return results for public transportation and "bike" gets bike optimized routes. Not every routing option works everywhere, the most widely available are the car and walking ones.

Yep, the current implementation is not perfect. I'd like to have it like this:

• first you type an addres for start or destination
• modRana geocodes the address
• and returns a list of possible locations
• you can check where each location is and choose one as the input for routing
• you can also select a point near a location as routing input
  • example: you enter "Paris"
  • modRana shows where it thinks Paris is
  • then you choose from the map some place in Paris for routing
• maybe a list of recently used addresses ?

Any other ideas for address routing improvements ? :)

BTW, in the current version you can already input geographic coordinates instead of an address.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Well, thats strange. Even the web based package browser correctly shows the latest version. Could it be a "feature" of the devel repository ? Or is it because I am currently just incrementing build numbers (0.12-9) and not the major version ? Can perhaps someone with more packaging experience elaborate ?

Yep, this is planed within the scope of the POI functionality.
Basically, the would be POI folders/categories and you would be able to add new points (from current position, coordinates, point on etc map, address, etc.) and categorize them and create new categories. Saved points would be viewable on the map, usable as routing target/destination and exportable (to GPX?). Is this what you meant ? :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Well, right now there is only one timestamp: at the beginning of the file. OSM, if I understand right, needs timestamps on each individual point.

Sorry for giving you the trouble, but I would be glad if in a new version you added an option to restore an old track to OSM-readable view by adding timestamps (like: was this log originally logged every 1 second or every 2 seconds or every 5 seconds? and then add individual timestamps, based on the time-stamp in the beginning of the file)

Thank you! Right now I just have to close the program and to reopen it to see the log.

Thanks! Just sometimes (like when looking at the default included tracks) I cannot know where I'm situated without map, and I cannot get map tiles for high zoom level without knowing where I'm situated. Having a lower zoom would allow to see what continent and country I need. And find out what tracks you put into each installed ModRana map:).

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

MartinK, your suggestions around address searching is spot on. that is how i use it in other gps applications and that is how i would expect modrana to work. the list of possible matches for an address would help a lot. perhaps don't call it an address then as it may give the wrong impression? just call it location?

thank you again!

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Exactly! Thanks!

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Also google knows all about postcodes so try those first.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

F.Y.I. I've purged and reinstalled the latest update, but the image being used for the desktop shortcut is still the over-sized one. But I consider that a low priority issue.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Congratulations MartinK. I started using it yesterday night and it looks perfect so far.
I'd like to download a number of tiles, and my PC has a much faster internet connection. Is it possible to download to the PC than copy to the N900? Itt would help a lot.
Regards.
Roberto

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Yes, it is! It helps me a lot, too!
1. Connect N900 by USB cable as Mass Storage Device.
2. Find folder/directory:

.modRana_tiles

3. You will see here subfolders, like OSM or Mapnik. Here you put the tiles.
For OSM I use:
http://tah.openstreetmap.org/Browse/tile/1/1/1/

Already existing subfolders show what tiles the application (modRana) already needed. It corresponds exactly to the tiles on the page. I just saved them one by one.

P.S. If you want many tiles, then get Python on PC, put modRana on PC, run the file modrana.py, and it will download needed tiles on the PC.

For tiles of other maps (not OSM), google or ask MartinK: he knows where the application takes the tiles from.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Logging of ModRana is fine.

But there is a small bug (or a missing feature?). If I disable GPS manually, then later the map says it looks for GPS, but doesn't mention that it is disabled and that I should enable it. A remainder would be welcome - if you open the map, you most certainly would like to enable GPS.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I'm working on fixing the GPX output right now. I am going to get rid of the unsightly ns0: prefixes and I'll add more info to the header, so it validates (I'm using xerces as recommended on the GPX website). Then with a timestamp for each node OSM should eat it just fine. :)

That should be doable and could be even useful for retimestamping GPX files from other sources.

I thing I fixed this bug in the current unreleased version. The fix should in the next package version/build.

This seems to work even in the current address route search. I tried two postcodes from USA and got a route from Alaska to New York. :)

Yeah, I don't think its that critical either. :) Maybe it gets fixed by itself (icon cache refresh, reboot ?).

Concerning tile download from PC:
On the OSM wiki I found the J tile downloader. I used this version and it seem to be working and the folder/filename structure it creates should be compatible with modRana.

BTW, looks like modRana won the 3rd place in the Location & Navigation category of the Coding Competition ! Thanks everybody !!! :D

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I can not open it on my XP...where do I go wrong? (sorry for off topic)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Its a Java program, so make sure you have Java installed. This is how I run it on XP:

I first went to the properties of the .jar file i downloaded from the OSM wiki (JTileDownloader-dev.jar) and selected "open with" and and set "Java SE" or something like that. Then I just double clicked the file and it started the program.

By the way, there seem to be 2 more tile downloading programs mentioned on the wiki: GMapCatcher and OSMtiledownloader.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

hi,

congratulations for the third prize.. !!!! fantastic app

I had modrana working very fine until i fiddled with some menu options and now i get blank screen on startup..

i started modrana from x-term and i see the following logs with dividebyzero excepttion in loop.. can some one help me resolve this?



m.drawMap(cr)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_mapTiles.py", line 135, in drawMap
cx1,cy1 = proj.pxpy2xy(cx,cy)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_projection.py", line 181, in pxpy2xy
x = self.w * (px - self.px1) / self.pdx
ZeroDivisionError: float division
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./modrana.py", line 210, in do_expose_event
return self._expose_cairo(event, cr)
File "./modrana.py", line 206, in _expose_cairo
self.draw(cr)
File "./modrana.py", line 150, in draw
m.drawMap(cr)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_mapTiles.py", line 135, in drawMap
cx1,cy1 = proj.pxpy2xy(cx,cy)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_projection.py", line 181, in pxpy2xy
x = self.w * (px - self.px1) / self.pdx
ZeroDivisionError: float division
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./modrana.py", line 210, in do_expose_event
return self._expose_cairo(event, cr)
File "./modrana.py", line 206, in _expose_cairo
self.draw(cr)
File "./modrana.py", line 150, in draw
m.drawMap(cr)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_mapTiles.py", line 135, in drawMap
cx1,cy1 = proj.pxpy2xy(cx,cy)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_projection.py", line 181, in pxpy2xy
x = self.w * (px - self.px1) / self.pdx
ZeroDivisionError: float division
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./modrana.py", line 210, in do_expose_event
return self._expose_cairo(event, cr)
File "./modrana.py", line 206, in _expose_cairo
self.draw(cr)
File "./modrana.py", line 150, in draw
m.drawMap(cr)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_mapTiles.py", line 135, in drawMap
cx1,cy1 = proj.pxpy2xy(cx,cy)
File "/opt/modrana/modules/mod_projection.py", line 181, in pxpy2xy
x = self.w * (px - self.px1) / self.pdx
ZeroDivisionError: float division
^CTraceback (most recent call last):
File "./modrana.py", line 315, in <module>
program = GuiBase(device)
File "./modrana.py", line 257, in __init__
gtk.main()
KeyboardInterrupt
/opt/modrana $

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Nice app, testing it for my ramble :D

Some questions :

1) Whats the best map to take ? there is so many hehe

2) While i was walking i not got the trace from where i started recording on map, wich options i missed ?

3) Where are saved logs ? Pluged N900 to computer and just found folder with map.

4) Anyway to add somewhere in menu, some date like weight etc and have a calorie meter in walk mode ?

Ty for your work.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

why did this app install automatically when uninstalled xarchiver???

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I use Virtual Earth-Sat for background map (for my part of the world it can zoom in further than Google Earth) and Google Overlay for map (it has remarkable detail).

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Thanks! :)

And I thought I fixed this one long ago. :D It has something to do with converting current position to screen coordinates for drawing. There is a quick workaround for this, just delete:
/opt/modrana/data/options.bin
This basically reverts modrana to the post installation state and unfortunately also resets all settings to their initial state (because all the settings are stored in this file).
I'll try to harden the position-to-screen-coords function a bit.
Also if you can find sequence of steps needed to cause the issue, I'll be very grateful. :)

Some questions :
I think this depends pretty much on your current activity. :)
Also, as kureyon mentioned, you can use the map overlay function. This basically squares the number of available map layers. :)

Track logging must be explicitely started from the log menu. You should also properly stop the logging, for the log to show up properly in the log category.

Right now, the default tracklog folder is in /opt/modrana/tracklogs but I'm considering moving it to MyDocs like the map tiles n the next release.

Yeah, this should be doable, I'm adding a feature request. :) IMHO, this could be also expanded for fuel usage estimation etc.
Maybe even something like:

• find route
• enter typical fuel usage of you car
• fuel amount needed for the trip is estimated

ModRana has no dependency for xarchiver and I doubt Xarchiver has a dependency for modRana. It is also quite strange that a package would be installed after uninstalling another package.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

As I have noticed, "show the log" can hide the log if it is already visible.

Also, is logs categorisation stored in options.bin? Wouldn't it be better just to have separate folders? Then restoring default settings wouldn't get logs back into one category.

Also, I have one large log which always makes the application to hang. I could send it to you, MartinK. It is about 72KB.

And "show all tracks" have never worked for me.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Thanks for noticing, I changed it so it just makes the tracklog visible and doesn't toggle.

Currently yes, but I think I'll implement your idea. Separate folders will make everything much simpler and more intuitive.

OK, send it to me and I'll look whats wrong. :)

Does toggling one by one and "no track visible" work ?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Ty for response, just about the 2) i was not enough clear :

2) While i was walking i not got the trace from where i started recording on map, wich options i missed ?

If i start log from a place called x and walk to another place called y, on map there is no line traced between x and Y while i m walking and log still recording.


Not look alot, but there is option for change track s color ?

Like i import one log on map in blue and when i walk and record , my way is in red on map.

Ty for your patience :D