Notices

Could someone please post detailed instructions on how to use Maemo Mapper, with or without a GPS?

For example, if someone could tell me how to 1) get a map from El Paso, TX to Albuquerque NM into the program and then 2) actually do something with the map, like move around on it or get driving directions, I would greatly appreciate it.

Apparently some people are able to get maps into the device with the URL formats listed; but how on earth does one figure out what coordinates to put in to get a map of a certain area?

Obviously some people are using this program but I can not, for the life of me, get even to first base with it. I followed directions given by the developer, but ended up with 6 tiled maps of the same portion of the US on the screen. At least the screen was not blank, thank heaven for small favors, but I could not do anything with the maps (not even delete them from the GUI.)

Am I the only one without a clue as to how to use this program? Do I need to give up and buy a Garmin?

I'll bet I'm _not_ the only one. What would be helpful, really helpful, is real-life use examples for each of the menu options.

For example: Route -> Open. Open what? Where would it be stored?
Route -> Download Route. What format? Where is the information coming from? I typed in Albuquerque NM for the Origin and Santa Fe NM for the destination. After a while I got a message saying "Route Downloaded". Nothing on the screen, no clue where the route went on the device or what format it would be in if I found it.
Save: Where should one save the route (providing you have a route to save)?

Track - > Open: What file format? Where would it be located?

Manage Maps: What do you do from this menu? (Delete maps doesn't work for me, although I got a message saying it did.)

Help!!! Help!!!

Any help is appreciated.

Well, assuming you have net and have the right URLs in place, one way to get maps on the thing is to (1) zoom all the way out to level 15, (2) choose "Maps > Auto-Download", and drag-scroll around the screen to download map tiles for the entire world at the highest zoom level. Now you will always see something on the screen no matter where you are. Now turn off auto-download, zoom in several steps on the part of the world you're interested in, and turn auto-download back on to get maps at that zoom level. Repeat the process for each zoom level and region you care about. For instance, I have maps at zoom levels 15 and 13 of most of the world, at 10 of North America, at 8 of DC, New York City, and New England, and so on down to zoom level 2 of the town I live in, the area around where I work, and so on.

The first time I installed Maemo Mapper I did all this by looking up longitudes and latitudes on one of the Google Maps tutorial sites (http://maptracer.50webs.com/tracer.htm wasn't it, but it has the same functionality) and entering them by hand in the download-map dialogue in Maemo Mapper, but the last time I decided it was a lot easier just to turn on auto-download and scroll around on the map to do it visually.

Routes and tracks are essentially the same thing, stored in the same format, except that the assumption is that a track is a record of where you've been, while a track is a record of where you want to go. If you don't have a GPS, you probably won't use tracks at all. (Another difference is that a route, being intended as directions, might have human-readable directions like "go 50 feet, then bear left onto East Cowpath Lane" embedded in it. However, the file format for routes and tracks is the same.)

There are two ways of getting a route onto the N770. You can use the author's "GPX Driving Directions" page at http://gnuite.com:8080/cgi-bin/gpx.cgi , or you can do the same thing from within Maemo Mapper by choosing "Route > Download...". In either case, though, the form requires valid and explicit addresses (or else latitude/longitude pairs) for the Origin and Destination fields -- you unfortunately can't use a partial address like a city and state. And the address parsing seems to be stricter than Google's own address parsing.

However you produce a GPX route file, it doesn't really matter where you save it to. I save mine to a sibling of my maps directory called "routes", but you can save them in your Documents folder (which corresponds to ~/MyDocs), at the top level of your MMC card, or wherever you like.

Hope that's a useful start!

Thank you for the quick and detailed response, but I got stuck at step one again.
Here's what I have as a URL so far, which I got as a sample from the developer:
http://mt.google.com/mt?n=404&v=w2.99&x=%d&y=%d&zoom=%d, which may be intuitively clear to most as indicating that the %d should be replaced by data, but I doubt it. The actual URL I was given (cutting and pasting here" is:
http://mt.google.com/mt?n=404&v=w2.99&x=4&y=6&zoom=13. This got me the maps I was talking about. (I cannot delete these maps from within Mapper once downloaded; have to go to File Manager to delete them.) I got part of the eastern US.

Then I went to Manage Maps -> Maps -> Zoom and checked 15, and turned Auto Download back on. More maps downloaded. I tried to scroll around to get more maps, but nothing else downloaded, so I wasn't able to get any more maps. Might you be able to give me a URL to use as a starting point for your directions?

I tried to get some of the other functionality to work, regarding longitudes and latitudes. You mention a dialog when using Download Maps, which I am assuming is Maps -> Manage Maps -> Setup -> Download Maps, but it simply downloads without opening any dialog box. I am still not able scroll outside the boundaries of the maps I've downloaded after turning Auto Download back on.

It's very clear to me you know exactly what you're doing. I could certainly use some more help.

Thanks again!

The URL I have configured in "Maps > Manage Repositories..." (for maps; I've also got a repository configured for satellite photos) is "http://mt.google.com/mt?n=404&v=w2.29&x=%d&y=%d&zoom=%d" -- it looks just like yours, except for using a real map version number. I don't know why yours isn't working. What's your "Cache Dir."? I wonder if you're trying to save maps someplace you don't have write permissions to (or someplace that's full). Worth changing the &v=w2.29 bit to see if that works.
Yeah, that dialogue box is a little confusing. You go to "Maps > Manage Maps", and then before you tap OK to download the maps you need to go to the "Zoom" and "Area" tabs to set up the area you want to download. "Area" will be pre-filled with the area that's currently displayed on the screen, and "Zoom" will be pre-filled with the current zoom you're viewing, but you can change them. Then tap OK and (assuming you have "Download Maps" and "By Area (see tab)" selected on the "Setup" tab) the area you've selected on the "Area" tab will be downloaded at the zoom levels you've selected on the "Zoom" tab.

This can sometimes take a very long time, if you're downloading a large area at a high zoom. (And of course you might run out of space, which probably would cause major problems for the whole OS if you were writing to the internal flash rather than an MMC card.)

Let me know if "&v=w2.29" makes a difference, and if not, where you're downloading the maps to.

Jay

Hi,

as far as I remember, the URL should be typed exactly as given you by the author, and MaemoMapper should convert the %d into the real coordinates to ask! Just copy & paste the address he gave you! I configured mine long ago, and after the w2.99 trick I had never to reconfigure it again and it works like a charme

hth

By: John Costigan

If you want to use Google Maps, then this is a

valid URL format:



http://mt.google.com/mt?n=404&v=w2.99&x=%d&y=%d&zoom=%d



(Note: there may be legal issues with using Google

Maps in Maemo Mapper; I cannot be held responsible

for the consequences of such use.)



The differences from your URL format are:

1. Use "mt" instead of "maps".

2. "n" value ("404" vs. your "4048")

3. "v" value ("w2.99" vs. your "2.99")

4. Use "%d" for the "x", "y", and "zoom" values.



The URL format, by the way, cannot simply be

entered into a browser and expected to work.

The %d strings need to be replaced with valid

data. For example, try 4, 6, and 13:



http://mt.google.com/mt?n=404&v=w2.99&x=4&y=6&zoom=13





As for Mapquest, there is currently no suitable

interface for using Maemo Mapper with Mapquest.





I'm sorry that there is no real documentation

besides what is in the ITT forums. I haven't had

the opportunity to develop or maintain any kind

of documentation. If anyone wants to volunteer

to write some, I'd certainly be willing to give

you access to the garage documentation pages

(which are currently empty) and the in-program

Help files (which are basically empty).

*************************************

When he says "a browser" I have no idea whether he means Mapper's browser or Firefox. So I configured the URL in both ways: just as listed, and with the %d.

Your way works, though! I now have a map of the whole world. Thanks, I'm to step one.

I changed the URL back to the %d instead of the numbers, and now I have a map of the world. I'll keep you posted, and thanks again. There is a green dot on the map which corresponds exactly to my location in NM, so I'm guardedly hopeful. I'm going to try to go back now, Jay, and start with the directions you gave me earlier.

Regards,
burque

Thanks, you guys, I have some maps in now at least.
I turned off autodownload, went to Maps -> Manage Maps -> Zoom. I centered as close to NM as I could, unchecked level 15 at zoom and checked level 10. I tried deleting maps, but still can't. My cache is in the memory card, at /media/mmc1/Maps. I checked, and there are a number of directories there, including level 10. I can't get anything from level 10 to display. What should I do? I downloaded about 26M of maps.

Thanks!

I have directory levels at 10, 13, 15 and 16. I have checked and there are valid images in these files. How do I zoom to level 10 from the GUI?
Thanks!

He means Firefox -- Maemo Mapper constructs URLs based on what part of the map it needs to retrieve by filling in the %d strings.

--Jay