New option in 'Mark Menu': Mark duplicates in same folder
I am using the new Locus Map 4.x as a "Gold" user, and very much appreciate the new "cloud sync" feature. I have been using two phones with Locus Map for a long time, and none of them is the "Master" phone, meaning none of them contains ALL the tracks/points I collected over the years.
But there are lots of duplicate tracks and points on the two devices nevertheless.
So I chose the kind of initial cloud sync that kept all tracks/points from both devices.
So far, so good, but now I have to clean up all the duplicate tracks and points (on one of the two devices, and then re-sync from time to time...).
Wish:
I would love to see a new feature called "Mark all duplicates in current folder":
When you're inside a folder, and you long-press an entry, you have that "mark menu" icon at the top contains three options:
1) Clear all marks
2) Mark all
3) Invert all marks.
So there should be a new option in the aforementioned "mark menu", called
4) Mark duplicates.
Then all those duplicates could be easily and safely deleted.
As a first step of facilitating duplicate handling, I think focusing on the current folder is a good step, because duplicates in different folders are often made on purpose, whereas duplicates in the same folder are always needless. It's also much easier from a user interaction perspective to focus on one single folder for duplicate elimination.
Additional thoughts:
a)
When marking one duplicate, the entry having less other references (in other folders) should be preferred (because an entry that is less interconnected is less important).
b)
What is the definition of a duplicate? This is a topic for further discussion. I think it should all be about the geo data. So even if the symbols or the names are different, if the geo coordinates of two points or two tracks match, they are duplicate.
c)
Maybe in the future, the matching algorithm could be improved by allowing also small differences in the geo data (point or track) to be considered as duplicate.
d)
The Locus Web Planner would be an ideal interface for the handling of tracks and points, meaning to move them between folders, rename them and so on. But that's a different topic.
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