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

downloads.cloudmade.com offers mostly vector maps (like OSM XML maps). Modrana right now uses mostly tile maps, non-vector.

Ask MartinK about future plans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Experimenting...
Theoretically, using XML, XSL, SVG and OSM files would allow you to open map in XML-supporting browser. Firefox loads it without errors, if the osm file isn't too large. But it shows nothing. Just white page. What does it mean? It should render map, described in data.osm, as SVG. But the page is white.

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

Currently not, but when some map-renderer gets integrated into modRana, the per-country files from Cloudmade can come handy.
They provide per-country POI databases - this could be integrated near-term to provide offline-poi search.
And there are also some Cloudmade provided (tiled) map layers, which could be added.
Concerning adding new map layers, I really have to improve map layer switching. The current toggle method is IMHO no longer suitable for so many layers :D

You mean like converting OSM to SVG by some XSLT magic and then displaying it ?
BTW, try Inkscape, its a vector graphics editor with good SVG support.

Development update
I'm currently doing the POI functionality rework. The database structure should be Mappero compatible, but modRana will use its own database file by default. Like this, users should not mess up their potentially extensive POI database from Mappero without explicitly enabling it in options.
I'd also add automatic import from the old non-db storage.

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

V0.17-1 has been finally released ! Sorry it took so long, but the POI rework was more difficult than anticipated and I had to fix many things in many places :)

What's new ?
The POI functionality has been totally reworked, you can now:

• store POI from multiple sources
• easily route to any POI
• organize your POI to categories
• any "old-style" POI are automatically imported
• CSV POI export (for Wikiwide :)
• optional POI database sharing with Mappero

Also, many small improvements like a new and more flexible listable menu implementation, route info button for all routes, routing from search results or per session debug logs.

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

First - very nice program - totally dumped OVI maps since finding this, a few months ago - congrats!

Second - a quick Q for all users here: since upgrading to this new version, 0.17 (maybe related, maybe not - but on the new PR1.3 platform) the phone completely locks up after a few minutes of having the program up, and nothing, except for taking the battery out, allows me to "revive" it. I also lost all POIs previously created.

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

I had that same issue a few months ago several times, had to remove the battery, don't know it if had to do with my being overclocked and undervolted, but it is not a new issue.

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

I'm neither overclocked nor undervolted, but with version 0.16-4, the issue has just occured to me (first time I allowed ModRana to connect to Internet directly). The screen went black, the LED is green, the device ignores both power key (even long press) and lock slider. Remove battery, start up the device, and everything works fine.

It has just occured in version 0.17-1, with modrana in background and X Terminal in front. GPS is turned off, as well as network positioning. Online mode is on, but neither cellular connection nor WiFi are connected. Screen can dim itself when left for several seconds, light itself when touching it or sliding the keyboard, but ignores the slider, power key and any keyboard keys. Windows cannot be switched or closed. Camera doesn't start when lens opened. "Swipe to unlock" screen and device lock don't start either. The only way out is to remove the battery. Who can recognize the bug?

And a separate issue (in 0.16-4; I haven't encountered it in 0.17-1 yet):
At first, ModRana displayed green "Downloading..." tile each time it downloaded a tile. But sometimes, the tiles are just black until downloaded.
Can it be related to "NameError: global name 's' is not defined"?
And also: "** this exception occured: 'ysat_11_1822_1232'".

I have updated to the newest version; the postinst script is still causing apt-get to claim that modrana is neither fully installed nor removed.

The points-of-interest system is awesome.

By the way, what is options->logging for? Log a track in the main menu is the working button, while options->logging seems to influence nothing.

:)
Misprint in file
directions_filter.csv
St.;Streat

And, when GPS isn't available or "centre map" is off, don't redraw modrana until dragged. I agree that when "centre map" is on and GPS is available, you need to redraw continuously, (even with screen locked), but when GPS isn't available or "centre map" is off, you shouldn't redraw until user drags the map.

Good day, thank you!

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

Qlandkarte caused me similar total lockups, both oc'd and not, pr1.2 whilst logging tracks. So I guess something or other triggers a severe system bug...

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

I mentioned the locking up a few pages back. Since then i've found that undervolting using the power user kernel causes the problem. It may even be just some difference in the kernel itself that causes the problem, regardless of voltage settings. All i know is that i installed and uninstalled the power kernel twice and always had a lock up within an hour with modrana running with the kernel installed, and have experienced only one or no lock ups (can't remember for one case) with vanilla kernel.

I tried increasing all voltage settings somewhat and still had the problem, so for now i've just reverted to vanilla to test without that extra variable.

It's unfortunate because the ideal settings really helped battery life.

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

Its alway nice to hear that modRana is being actively used! :)

Old-style POI should be automatically imported once modRana the new version of modRana is started, they should be in the "Other" category.
ModRana also won't remove the old POI storage file in /opt/modrana/data/poi/poi.txt, it will just rename it to imported_old_poi.txt.
If you don't find your old POI in the "Other" category, you might want to rename the file back, to initiate a new import on next modRana start.

OK, so let's summarize what we know about the freezing:

• happens with bot modRana 0.16 and 0.17
• on both PR1.2 and PR1.3
• undervolting and over/under clocking might trigger it faster but is not a prerequisite
• its not just a modRana issue as Qlandcarte does something similar, I remember someone also mentioning MAME freezing in the same way
• might be related to using GPS/liblocation as QLandcarte freezes while logging GPS coordinates
• its probably not a GUI toolkit issue as modRana uses GTK but Qlandcarte uses Qt

Its pretty weird as there is IMO a hardware watchdog that should either restart the device or maybe even notify the OS about a non-responsive application.

So, what to do about it ?
There may be something in the modRana stdout log. You can enable it in options->debug->Log modRana stdout to file, new log files will show up in MyDocs/modrana_debug_log/ once activated. Each file represents one modRana run.
The log file is flushed every few seconds, so we may get info about what is happening just prior to the freeze or even after, as the freeze might be just a GUI issue.
BTW, it might be interesting to try to SSH to a frozen N900, this might show us if the device is frozen-solid or just GUI-frozen.

Also, a reproducible way of inducing a freeze may be helpful, to either find the cause or a workaround.

Most probably an exception during download is causing the green "Downloading" not ot load, I'll look into it.

You are right, it's an artifact from the old logging system, it will be removed.

Good find ! Will be fixed in next version :)

Well, yeah, good point. The only issues could be the information widgets as they currently don't handle their own redrawing. But your are right that nothing else actually changes so redrawing every second really isn't necessary.

BTW, skipping the redraw with locked screen/window not visible might be doable as the drawing loop is quite separate and output oriented and should be easy to skip when needed.
There might be some issues though:

• reliable "is window visible detection ?" will be needed
• tiles in the currently visible are wont be downloaded - this might be fixed by just testing which tiles are visible without actually drawing them

I'm going to look into this together backlight control soon.

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

Having updated to the lastest modRana, i experienced a lock up (requiring the battery to be removed) and two spontaneous reboots yesterday while using it. Unfortunately i hadn't yet enabled logging because i wasn't having trouble with vanilla kernel in the previous version.

I have enabled the log file now and will see if i can reproduce the error.