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

another feature request (unless I overlooked its presence): doing a simple address search. Last night, somebody asked about a certain address, and I thought, let me use modrana to show a gogle sat pic. Couldn't figure out how to search for the address other than asking it to give a route to it.

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

I guess both could be done, but I think this functionality should be off by default - the user has probably manually disconnected from the internet or there is no usable connection anyway and the location functionality was also probably disabled manually - so no need to bother the user with needless dialogs (like Ovi Maps do :) if he does not want to.

BTW, there is already a feature request ticket on remembering and restoring connection state.

This is definitely doable - the Google geocoding API modRana uses supports this. I've been planing to do something like this for quite a while already - I just haven't got to actually implementing it yet :)
(It will probably show up in "search" sub-menu as something like "search for an address".)
Similar feature will be also used to upgrade the Address routing functionality - enter a start/destination address, get possible locations for it, look them up on the map, move the target cursor (if needed).

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

Lately, the fact that it doesn't respond to tapping the address (in route page) has started to annoy me greatly.
Right now, 9 out of 10 times I need to restart modrana to be able to enter an address.
(http://modrana.org/trac/ticket/100)

And another issue I already reported: it is really impossible for me to tap the screen to get the menu, and have the map centering still enabled. Even the shortest tap disables centering. I would have no problem that it needs a serious dragging movement to unlock centering....
(http://modrana.org/trac/ticket/42)

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

hadn't used modrana for a while - tried yesterday &can confirm Petur's finding - I entered a route (using custom search for destination). I drove to the destination with navigation enabled. Then I went to enter a new route. I selected "address to address" and then selected "location as start". I then tapped "destination", to enter a postcode, but nothing happened (the tap was registered as I heard/felt it, but the app didn't provide the normal text entry field). I retried several times, tried exiting & re-entering the menu etc. but no joy. Eventually I exited & restarted modrana itself, and I was then able to enter my new destination address.

Petur's other gripe (tapping the screen turns off auto-centring) used to really annoy me too. I'm pretty used to it now but I'd agree that the status of auto-centring should NOT be affected by any "brief" tap if that is possible - IMHO, only a purposeful long tap or drag should be taken to indicate that the user no longer wants to have centring active. I don't know how easy that would be to implement, and TBH it's not a biggie if it would be difficult/time consuming.

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

Thanks for reporting this ! I have found the root cause and it would be fixed in the next release :) Till then, there is a simple workaround: do the address queries while modRana is not in fullscreen.

I finally got to looking at this and it was surprisingly easy to fix - I have just added a threshold (the same that is used to differentiate between click and drag - note you can start a long drag on a button without actually pressing it) before considering if a given drag is strong enough to disable centering.
I have done some testing and it seems to behave very good now - normal presses don't disable centering any more but a slight drag does.
Also this fix will show up in the next release, together with other improvements, like properly synchronized map and position indicator movement while centering is on.

Also, we have an anniversary ! :)
A year ago, on 26th January 2010, after meeting with my thesis supervisor, I have started working on my bachelors thesis, called Flexible GPS Navigation for Mobile Devices with Linux OS. The thesis, which resulted in modRana, was successfully defended the following June. :)

So, happy birthday modRana ! :D
http://www.modrana.org/misc/modRana_resize.jpg

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

Hey! You rule!
Thanks for those fixes, looking forward to the testing.

Going to Fosdem (Brussels)?

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

Hmm, looks interesting! :) Maybe next year :D

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

Martin,

Now you teased us with these fixes, when is the next version coming? I'm doing an xkcd 281 on this (but then refreshing the catalogs) :D

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

The fixes and the new stuff seem to work OK, so I'd like to do a release today or tomorrow :)

BTW, the modRana project website + SVN is currently down due to disk array crash in the lab, they say that everything should be back online soon :)

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

Great... I'll be needing/using it to walk around Brussels this weekend (starting friday evening) - Fosdem :)

Which brought up an idea: How about latitude integration in the routing? The guys I'm meeting with are all using latitude so being able to route to them seems like a fun feature (I know this will not help me this weekend, but maybe next year)