Notices

Woot! Well, kinda.

When it went to install it pulled in an extra dependency, which was quite large. Apparently espeak has an "extra languages" pack, which modRana thinks it needs now, even if you're not using it for routing in those languages. I like that it can use Russian and Chinese, but can we make that a "suggested" package, instead of a required one? I can ignore suggested packages, but to ignore required ones requires I hack the deb file, which I dislike doing (but did, for this version. I know, it's "only" 6 or 7 megabytes, but that's a good amount of space, even if it is optified.

That would explain all the boxes I'm seeing? Something busted after I tried to load an older track file, and everything after that, the text was just little boxes. Exiting and restarting it fixed it for now, but I still can't load that track. (It's just a route from google, so I can re-get it.... but I'm holding on to it for now since it reproduces the problem.)

Awesome. I've been able to grab a large number of tiles now without reboots or issues, and have synced the areas I wanted over night finally. This definitely points to GPS being a bit part of the problem on my device. (It's something lots of folks are seeing now with PR1.3.)

I'm hoping to start work on this right after Thanksgiving. I should have a lot more free time right after that, and can get a version out at least that can draw PNG tiles I hope.

I'll try generating a few and will PM you with what I find, again, probably shortly after Thanksgiving.

I'm sure we can find something that takes the vector data and does routing. Once tile production is working, sure... looking at some of those could be nice. I'm quite sure it's doable, as my old Magellan could pull it off in 10 seconds or so on a 300Mhz Arm5 with 256K of ram. It's just the effort of finding the right tools, getting them on the N900 and patching them in. The interface and data massaging is usually the hard part.

Am I the only one with the black-font-on-black-background problem in the dialog windows? I really like Modrana's UI design, but when I can't see the text of the destination I'm entering, it kind of defeats the purpose...

Might be your theme?

Is there something that affects negatively routing on the other side of the globe?

I mean, I tried to pick the farthest away place, so I could theoretically route at home, if I'd know where I'd be going, and then look at the route map, so that it'd download tiles at home. So then, when you're abroad, you don't have to access the web, at least to download tiles...

So, I can do this now, for instance picking two points in Prague, as I'm not there, it routes great.

Then, I tried to do the same for Hawaii, it tries to get the results from google, says it's 12000 km away, but then it just never calculates the route... Left it for a couple of minutes, and every time I touch the display it says it's getting the route details...

Is there maybe some glitch, as it says 12000 km, which it shouldn't, should it, so that it's still maybe somehow calculating how to start the navigation from the closest position, and that being in Russia, 12000 km away, takes forever?

Doubtful. I'm using the default theme, except I changed the background to the Milky Way. No other program has the problem (and I've installed a LOT of stuff).

So went for a test nav drive, and there is a significant problem with the routing as discussed before, if the first navigation point is missed...

What happens, is that the distance to the next turn keeps growing, but when you pass the next turn, I assumed it would update and move to the next point and give proper turn directions from there, but it doesn't happen. The distance just keeps growing.

Therefore I assume this is a glitch whereby it keeps waiting for you to pass the first nav point forever. This is also a problem when the GPS strays a little from your actual position, and you end up missing the turn point, although you've passed it in reality, then again it gets stuck, and the distance to the next turn just grows and no further directions are given.

Finally, the same is true when you take a shortcut, i.e. don't follow the directions exactly, again the distance just grows.

Therefore, the check to see whether the distance has been growing for a couple of seconds, and then moving onto the next nav point, is sorely needed... Or a box you can tap, to move to the next nav point...

Otherwise if you start navigation from a moving vehicle, you almost always miss the first point, the distance keeps growing, and you never get directions - a navigational nightmare :O)

How did you get the second box, i.e. everything in Russian? When I select navigation instructions in English in modrana, i.e. get the `leter a 6 43...' garbage, when I select navigition instructions in Russian, I get your first box and i.e. instructions in English, but the proper pronouncing of Russian names.

How do you get everything in Russian?

a simple workaround meantime would be just to click on the big friendly "reroute" box - that should get you back on track I think?

No it doesn't, that's what I tried obviously, but 99% of the time, I rerouted, it started nav from the closest point, which was already past, same trap... Rerouted like 50 times.

Only one time I was lucky, rerouted between two close points, by the time it got directions from google, the second was closer than the one passed, so nav picked up, that's how I determined the problems with GPS straying from the past, and the nav getting stuck on the last point...

After that, couldn't reroute again, i.e. rerouted, but always the passed point was the closest one, so started from it, and the distance would grow, and the nav is stuck...

So, no that's not a workaround...

Have not opened it in a long time, looks much improved. Is there (I did not see it) and option to close internet connection upon modrana close? as it is now it opens a connection (what I want) but if I am driving I for sure don't want the internet connection if I decide to close modrana for the duration of the drive (and yes I have autodisconnect but I'm talking about an immediate close).