E-ink-display-friendly UI
Just back from a 50 mile hike in Yosemite. I installed LocusMap on the Onyx Poke2 color e-ink device which runs Android 9. The Poke2 e-ink display offers an amazing low-power/long-battery large touchscreen alternative to phone or tablet displays. It's my hope that it will replace my Garmin 60Cx which has a 2"x4" screen, painfully slow redraw, bulky and battery burner.
The Onyx Poke2 worked out great, very happy so far except it's e-ink doesn't handle LocusMap panel or button transparency very well. Grey panel transparency renders as nearly-white, so I get white buttons on a light grey background. They're all nearly invisible. I'm still new to LocusMap and wondering if there are ways to modify the UI so that panels aren't transparent at all, just solid gray/black. "Function is beauty" I always say, and honestly nothing is gained by having a bit of ghosted map appear behind the top and bottom panels. Comparing the eink display to LocusMap on my phone allowed me to memorize what buttons were where, but I'll have to relearn them before each trip.
One further problem on the e-ink displays, LocusMap button text renders as a spindly outline so against the dark button background the text is illegible. The same is true with so top panels and buttons in pop-up windows are nearly illegible blobs. I'll attach a couple of pics. You'll notice the clock/wifi/battery text is all legible while LocusMap text is spindly and unreadable. Any hope for a UI tweak that could improve this? Thanks for your suggestions.
I like this idea 
I see this page but alas I'm not an Android developer. Any idea how involved it may be to tackle the two UI glitches described above? Is this major undertaking or a quick line edit?
https://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:advanced:customization:screens&s[]=xml
I see this page but alas I'm not an Android developer. Any idea how involved it may be to tackle the two UI glitches described above? Is this major undertaking or a quick line edit?
https://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:advanced:customization:screens&s[]=xml
Hello James,
this is not an easy task. It seems to be not just about a color. Because on the first screenshot is visible, that some parts of UI has a dark background and some fully transparent. But Locus Map has on all visible components same semi-transparent color.
This looks like a complex task with detection of Onyx device on-the-fly and applying special customized theme to whole app. I understand that it may be useful to use such device in the field, but for us, it looks like enormous amount of work.
So sorry, we do not currently have enough free time for this.
Thanks for understanding,
Jiří M. aka Menion
Hello James,
this is not an easy task. It seems to be not just about a color. Because on the first screenshot is visible, that some parts of UI has a dark background and some fully transparent. But Locus Map has on all visible components same semi-transparent color.
This looks like a complex task with detection of Onyx device on-the-fly and applying special customized theme to whole app. I understand that it may be useful to use such device in the field, but for us, it looks like enormous amount of work.
So sorry, we do not currently have enough free time for this.
Thanks for understanding,
Jiří M. aka Menion
Long overdue followup. In case anyone else is using an Onyx eInk device, I found the problem with transparence in LocusMaps was caused by a setting in the Onyx operating system. The setting is called "whiten apps background" in App Optimization. It should be turned OFF.
The device has been great for backpacking, the passive display saves battery and is much, much bigger and easier to pan/zoom than any Garmin device. But I still struggle to find a good offline map compatible with LocusMap for hiking in California. LoMaps for the Sierra Nevada are missing topo resolution and indeed entire lakes and streams, or when they do appear they lack any name labels. USGS maps have the missing info but are so blurry as to be useless/dangerous for xCountry trekking. Subscription to CalTopo or GaiaGPS or LocusMap is prohibitively expensive. I must be overlooking the old-school solution. I have the old Garmin maps, I guess it's time to slog through the process of converting them to LocusMap compatible format in hopes that resolution and completeness aren't somehow mutually exclusive!
Long overdue followup. In case anyone else is using an Onyx eInk device, I found the problem with transparence in LocusMaps was caused by a setting in the Onyx operating system. The setting is called "whiten apps background" in App Optimization. It should be turned OFF.
The device has been great for backpacking, the passive display saves battery and is much, much bigger and easier to pan/zoom than any Garmin device. But I still struggle to find a good offline map compatible with LocusMap for hiking in California. LoMaps for the Sierra Nevada are missing topo resolution and indeed entire lakes and streams, or when they do appear they lack any name labels. USGS maps have the missing info but are so blurry as to be useless/dangerous for xCountry trekking. Subscription to CalTopo or GaiaGPS or LocusMap is prohibitively expensive. I must be overlooking the old-school solution. I have the old Garmin maps, I guess it's time to slog through the process of converting them to LocusMap compatible format in hopes that resolution and completeness aren't somehow mutually exclusive!
Hello James,
thanks for the info regards the problem with UI > it may be useful to other users with the same problem.
About missing content in the LoMaps > may you please point me to any missing places? I may forward this to my colleague @Petr Voldan who takes care of the content of these maps. Maybe there is something we may improve. Thanks.
Hello James,
thanks for the info regards the problem with UI > it may be useful to other users with the same problem.
About missing content in the LoMaps > may you please point me to any missing places? I may forward this to my colleague @Petr Voldan who takes care of the content of these maps. Maybe there is something we may improve. Thanks.
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