How to make "Satellite" appear in "quick map switch"?

So we have a bug, because in my installation, Satellit and Satellit Hybrid make it to that list directly after switching to them, but vanish as soon as my Locus session ends – while maps not provided by Locus like e.g. ÖPNVKarte show up in the list across restarts.

Maybe it is related to Make long tap on "content button" toggle last used maps across restart? There, I provided reproduction steps.

In case it's unrelated: How can I provide some log or the like that helps you to hunt down the bug?

Hi Michal, since the update (currently v4.26.1), I never encountered sat or hybrid missing from the list 🙂 but LoMap "World" is still never shown in "Smart choice - Offline" even tough it is last or 2nd last map I used. Any ideas?

Maybe additional info helps: When Denmark is current view, LoMap & OAM France south are not shown in "Smart choice - Offline" even tough being the latest used maps – but LoMap Italy is shown, which I did not use for weeks. This is not hurting, because if I switch to any LoMap like e.g. Italy, Locus automatically loads the LoMap for current view e.g. Denmark. This mechanic does not work for "World" because it covers whole world, i.e. there is no other map of same type in "Smart choice - Offline". And "World" is much better in overview scenarios e.g. zoom level 7 because it covers whole world, renders quicker and much nicer.

Georg, the logic in "Smart choice - offline" is different than in the online maps. The maps are ordered by the distance from your location. E.g. if you are physically in Italy, Locus Map shows an offline map of Italy in the first position (Austria in the 2nd, Czechia in the 3rd etc.). That is also why any "world" map is not listed there because a local map always has a priority.

Thank you for the feedback, now I understand current concept better 🙂 According to that, a world map shall always be on top because it always covers current location / has distance zero, so I assume current code computes distance to map's bounding box border instead it's content. This has the disadvantage world or even continent maps will never appear in central Europe but only other maps. For reasons mentioned in my last post, I suggest changing code so world maps appear in list – which does not hurt that vast majority of users, having less than 8 world maps, so the others regional maps will still be available through the list. What do you think?

Hello Georg, world maps are excluded from the quick map switch. Main priority in the screen are small local maps, so world maps won't be visible even if enabled (in case of more maps available).

Hi Menion, for me, that seems exactly the opposite of desired functionality 🙁 But maybe I overlook something? 🤷‍♂

As we have "automatic map loading" feature for both raster as well as vector maps, why/when do we need 8 entries for small local maps in "smart choice - offline"? And what is motivation to exclude world maps from "quick map switch"?

It seems I would only need to select the map type – the appropriate region(s)/part(s) of that map type is/are automatically loaded to fill the map screen. Thus I do not see a considerable advantage to show e.g. 5 OAM maps, 2 LoMaps and 1 swisstopo map over just showing 1 entry for OAM, 1 for LoMap and 1 for swisstopo – this would allow to switch between them as fast as with current logic, but would make switching to the 3 different world maps much faster & more convenient. Which is probably the main purpose of "quick map switch".

Interesting idea with excluding maps of the same type. I see there two problems > 1. not all have auto-loading enabled, 2. the app does not see a 100% difference between vector maps. It can correctly see only "LoMaps" vs "others".

World map > why don't you use app settings > maps > advanced features > Pre-load global map?

As your question touches the motivation of the whole thread, I'll answer that first: I did try pre-loading a global map but I did not find a way to switch between different world maps. But which shall I choose? LoMap world is great for overview with clean display, OAM world is great when I want many names (especially peaks), and a sat world map I manually created is great for surface information (vegetation/tundra/desert/ice/water in summer and snow/ice coverage in winter). To be able to easily switch between them, I disabled pre-load map again.

In the thread, we talked about two approaches – and they heavily influence how important your raised points are.

a) "Smart choice" shows a list of offline vector map types, not maps. So user selects a map type, Locus always picks the required map file based on current screen center. I don't prefer this approach:

• Really properly telling apart map types seems very difficult to implement. Besides the technical aspect mentioned by you, also the semantics or users point of view hit heavily: For example, same map technology like mapsforge v5 can be used by different publishers or product lines which can contain quite different content, so user wants to have them distinguished. But based on what? e.g. Filenames can be easily changed., copyright info may distinguish publishers but not necessarily product lines,...
  
• Also map types not covering anything "nearby" current screen center (often thousands of km) can be chosen by user – IMHO, disadvantage prevails.
  Optional reading for more detail: Even with some panning around, usually no map will show. So less knowlable users will ask for support or write bad reviews. Why shall advanced users want to choose a map type that does not cover current region? Probably, in the majority of cases, it's an unintentional choice, so better do not offer this choice.
  
• It's only really meaningful if auto-load is active. You already named this as problem; I see possibilities to make it less problematic but not to reduce it to zero.
  Optional reading for more detail:
  - You could simply activate auto-load and remove it from settings. I assume some veteran users will complain.
  - "Smart choice" could use current logic is auto-load inactive and elsewise proposed logic, but that makes maintenance, documentation, conversions in forum etc more complicated.
  - You can increase the proportion of people having it enabled: For new installations, you may enable by it default. For existing installations, if you can see whether it was never touched/toggled by users, you can activate it similar to new installations, and elsewise you may ask existing users whether they want to keep inactivate.
  

b) "Smart choice" shows a list of offline maps, not types. User selects map file and by this – so as "by-product" – also selects a map type. Only if screen center is moved out of selected map file, Locus may pick another map file of same type. I prefer this approach:

• Your 2nd point (how to distinguish map types?) is not relevant for this approach, so no problem to solve 🙂
  
• Easy to implement as most is already implemented and only a tiny change is needed: Decide visibility in "smart choice" based on distance to map's center (or whether it has data for current screen center) instead distance to map's bounding border.
• Only map types covering something "nearby" current screen center can be chosen by user, so no irritation by empty map sceen.
  
• IMHO it does not really matter whether auto-load is active: "Quick choice" will still give access to many maps covering the region around current screen center, and in the rare situation you need one of the other maps, it's just 2 clicks more to select that map from map manager. Which is still needed anyway, because "smart choice" only offers 8 choices, but many power users will exceed this number.

As written earlier, IMHO, the proposed change of "smart choice" would only hurt those few users having 8 or more world maps. For them, an expert setting "amount of world maps considered for smart choice" could be added.

Deep analysis, thanks Georg.

I got you point of course. You have quite different use-case with a world map then most of users I believe. I expect, most of users use single world map and for this, optimal settings is in the app settings, as mentioned. "Quick map switch" should help quickly find local maps when moving between various areas. In the case, you use single world map and only single type of maps (LoMaps for example), you usually do not need Quick map switch at all. Maybe for testing of online maps ...

There anyway is a space for improvements. For example all LoMaps or OAM maps should be merged into single item and not displayed separately. It anyway does not change my opinion that world maps (maps with huge coverage), should have lower priority than others. In your case, I see no problem in using big Map manager screen for selecting "world maps". With Map manager in functions panel, it is two or three clicks to change the map ...

The user type you have in mind with just one world map won't be affected by my idea if the map selected in "Pre-load global map" is excluded from being shown in "quick map switch > smart choice". We can do that because this map will be automatically used when zoomed out. So nothing would change for the usage you've in mind, while power users having multiple world maps do not need to call up big Map Manager like in Locus 3 but enjoy another UX improvement 🙂

And yes, when in the future it's possible to reliably consider all regional maps of one kind (e.g. LoMaps or OAM) as "one entry" in "Smart choice", things will change completely – for me, the world maps will appear in "quick choice" list despite their current low priority, because I only have 9 types of offline maps and can easily delete one.