Notices

I can't find this info nor can I even figure out how to phrase the problem well. Sorry.

Say I'm in Paris, which I don't know well. Some nice person takes me home for the night; I walk outside the following morning and I promise my new friend that I'll come back at the end of the day. I wander all over the city, and in the evening I want to get back there.

Assuming I had previously downloaded maps of Paris, is there something I could have done in the morning when I left my friend's house -- create a custom POI or a Waypoint or what? -- such that, in the evening, even without internet access, I could find that spot on my map and see where it is compared to my current GPS-indicated location? How, in the evening, do I look up the point that I took a reading on in the morning? (I'm not talking about having a route laid out, which I know requires internet access; I just want to be able to use MM to show me where on the map my friend's house is.)

Or, say I go for a day-hike in a huge park. I have pre-loaded great satellite maps of the park. I park my car somewhere around the perimeter of the park. While I'm standing next to my car, I do something (but I don't know what) in Maemo-Mapper with my N810 and its GPS function. Then I wander all over the park. Later in the day, I want to find my car. What should I have done with Maemo-Mapper when I first got out of my car, and then what do I do when I want to find my car at the end of the day?

Tap and hold, choose Waypoint, then Add POI. I think that should do what you want - mark a location on the map.

Though in Paris, I'd just ask my new friend where the closest Metro is and remember how to get to (and back from) that.

And then how do I look up that Waypoint/POI in the evening?

Hmm, not sure. In fact my suggestion above doesn't work the way I expected either. You could enable logging your track, and then follow your path back to where you started I suppose.

Or just use the Metro suggestion

Anyone else have any ideas?

You can enable tracking which will follow your path with a red line on the map. Tracks can be saved and restored.

This seems like such a simple and basic function! I don't want to have Maemo-Mapper and my GPS receiver running all day just to track my steps, and I don't want to re-trace my steps if I've wandered all over the place like a cartoon character.

It seems I ought to be able to set a point in a map using GPS and have some way to look up and rediscover where it is, even days or weeks later. If MM doesn't have that function, it seems to me it certainly ought to. Gnuite could call it the "Hey, Dude, where did I park my car?" function.

I suspect that Maemo-Mapper does this, and I just haven't figured out how yet.

(For that matter, it seems to me that I ought to be able to look up and find any number of self-created-and-labeled points. Like if I was in Istanbul last year and I ate at a great restaurant, I ought to be able to finish the meal, step outside, mark where I am on an already-downloaded map of Istanbul by using the GPS, label it "Istanbul Restaurant," and find it next time I'm in Istanbul, if I still have all my data and can remember the label I used.)

I see I'm not remotely original in my naming.

Garmin has a "Dude, where's my car" function.

There's an iPhone app called "Where's my car?"

Here's a little "Homing Device" that does what I wish MM did. (OK, less than I want MM to do, but at least it points the direction and says how far; it just doesn't have any maps at all.)

BTW, what I'm actually thinking about is finding my way back to hotels in strange cities or being lost and looking for my car in large city or national parks -- unaided, I've had problems with both of these. I have a terrible sense of direction, and this is what I (ignorantly) figured all GPS devices did and what I figured MM would do.

Tap and hold for a few seconds and it will bring up a menu click tap point, add POI. You can then enter details such as category, Restaurant, hotel, business, etc. This will add a purple square on your map that you can navigate back towards, to find out where you are now turn on tracking and then click the "centre" button. As long as you have a GPS signal it will tell you where you are.

Thanks, Rassilon7. I've done that; where I'm stuck is: how do I look up that specific POI to find it again? If I already know where it is, I can look for it. But in a big city, do I have to drill down to a relatively close-up level and scour the whole area? Or is there a look-up function?

Similarly, other than poking each little purple square, how do I know I have the correct POI if many are displayed? Actually, I guess I've already answered that: I've made a special Category of POIs for the ones I create, and I can uncheck all the other categories.

Hold stylus on point on map (where your GPS says you are), choose "Tap Point", choose "Add POI".

The Add POI window opens, touch "Edit Categories", touch "Add". Create a label for your new category. How 'bout "Stuff I can't remember". Make sure Enabled is checked.

"OK" back to the Add POI window and enter a descriptive name for what it is you can't remember. Maybe "Last Night" or "Ishkabibble's", choose your new category and touch "OK".

Because you chose to "enable" your new category, whatever it is you labeled will show up on your map when the area is panned in M/M.

If you want to find your tryst (or whatever, LoL) again in M/M, go to menu; choose "POI", choose "Browse". When the Browse POIs window opens; select "Use GPS Location", select your new category. When the POI List window opens hopefully what you saved will show up, select it, touch "Go to", enjoy another night in Paris.