QuickMapSwitch is hopelessly buggy
USER: QuickMapSwitch please, I need to see where I am and where I am going.
LOCUS: Ok, lets see. You are in the spanish pyrenees and have some mightly fine 25k, 50k hiking maps and a few very pretty 100k, 200k and 500k overview things from Spain and France available in your database. Very useful indeed. HOWEVER, instead I think I might rather show you MIDDLEAMERICA, CYPRUS and CAPEVERDE. Because you know... maybe you didnt actually mean to be in the pyrenees but you want to be in south america instead?! Or the capeverdian islands... arent they much prettier than the pyrenees anyway? You know... beaches... ocean... surfin... etc? You are much better off with MY choices than with what you want to see anyway. I am your undisputed master!
USER: Ok... my fault... I thought I could just leave all my maps in the maps folder because you know... 64GB microsds are cheap and shuffling around data all the time is stupid. But hey... I will just delete all unused vector maps and only keep Spain for this trip. Hope that makes you happy.
LOCUS: You godda be kidding... do you actually think you can trick me into doing something reasonable? If you only have one vector map, I will just KEEP THE FIELDS BLANK instead of showing you more of the other maps. Because you know... EMPTY SCREEN SPACE is always very useful and way more important than an IGN100-Pyrenees.rmap could ever hope to be.
USER: I surrender, you win :-(.
The same problem 
menion... please Please PLEASE... I know you fight the idea of a simple scale-sorted SINGLE list of ALL maps with passion since three years. But cant you at least make QuickMapSwitch a little less stupid? Vector maps cover HUGE areas, a single one is enough to cover even a long trip in almost all cases. It is pointless to reserve five lines or whatever for vector maps, just because the currently used map is a vector map. Even more so when there are no other vector maps available and QuickMapSwitch stays mostly empty!
It is very common to switch between ONE vector map and a dozen RMAPs/SQLmaps. OSM is very good in many places but it isnt the answer to everything.
Quickfix: Fill up ALL empty spaces in QuickMapSwitch with raster maps when there are no vector maps available. That would already help a lot!
menion... please Please PLEASE... I know you fight the idea of a simple scale-sorted SINGLE list of ALL maps with passion since three years. But cant you at least make QuickMapSwitch a little less stupid? Vector maps cover HUGE areas, a single one is enough to cover even a long trip in almost all cases. It is pointless to reserve five lines or whatever for vector maps, just because the currently used map is a vector map. Even more so when there are no other vector maps available and QuickMapSwitch stays mostly empty!
It is very common to switch between ONE vector map and a dozen RMAPs/SQLmaps. OSM is very good in many places but it isnt the answer to everything.
Quickfix: Fill up ALL empty spaces in QuickMapSwitch with raster maps when there are no vector maps available. That would already help a lot!
Hello Stefan,
seems you do everything to make QuickMapSwitch working. Admirable ...
firstly: sorting of vector maps itself is now fine? I see there "World" map which is probably any of your own maps but rest? It was task to current 2.14.0 version, so I hope this part is now fixed
Hello Stefan,
seems you do everything to make QuickMapSwitch working. Admirable ...
firstly: sorting of vector maps itself is now fine? I see there "World" map which is probably any of your own maps but rest? It was task to current 2.14.0 version, so I hope this part is now fixed
The sorting seems fixed now. It didnt really improve the situation much though. Vector maps cover such huge areas that having 5 "near" maps on QuickMapSwitch easily leads to maps many thousand kilometers away and quite pointless.
Also, I think the "logic" behind QuickMapSwitch guesses if my currently used map is a vector map, I want to change to another vector map most likely next. Thats a wrong assumption imho, it is way more likely that I want to change to a raster map after a vector map. There is really only ONE type of vector map available for any given place and that is OSM. Raster maps on the other hand we have plenty.
The sorting seems fixed now. It didnt really improve the situation much though. Vector maps cover such huge areas that having 5 "near" maps on QuickMapSwitch easily leads to maps many thousand kilometers away and quite pointless.
Also, I think the "logic" behind QuickMapSwitch guesses if my currently used map is a vector map, I want to change to another vector map most likely next. Thats a wrong assumption imho, it is way more likely that I want to change to a raster map after a vector map. There is really only ONE type of vector map available for any given place and that is OSM. Raster maps on the other hand we have plenty.
ps, I would much prefer to ignore QuickMapSwitch completely instead of "making it work". Its concept of map guessing and restricting is imho majorly flawed and unpredictably random. A single list of all current maps sorted by scale would be so much simpler and so much better and even non-geeky users wuld immediately understand whats going on. But you seem to hate scrolling too much for this, everything always has to fit on one screen. That is apparent in other parts of Locus UI as well I think :-).
ps, I would much prefer to ignore QuickMapSwitch completely instead of "making it work". Its concept of map guessing and restricting is imho majorly flawed and unpredictably random. A single list of all current maps sorted by scale would be so much simpler and so much better and even non-geeky users wuld immediately understand whats going on. But you seem to hate scrolling too much for this, everything always has to fit on one screen. That is apparent in other parts of Locus UI as well I think :-).
"Also, I think the "logic" behind QuickMapSwitch guesses if my currently used map is a vector map, I want to change to another vector map most likely next. Thats a wrong assumption imho" ... yes, this is something I do. I thought how great this idea is, but you`re correct.
"I would much prefer to ignore QuickMapSwitch completely" .. I know I know. This is not about scrolling. It`s not a big problem for me. Problem is mainly time to create it .. any soon or later, everything changes
"Also, I think the "logic" behind QuickMapSwitch guesses if my currently used map is a vector map, I want to change to another vector map most likely next. Thats a wrong assumption imho" ... yes, this is something I do. I thought how great this idea is, but you`re correct.
"I would much prefer to ignore QuickMapSwitch completely" .. I know I know. This is not about scrolling. It`s not a big problem for me. Problem is mainly time to create it .. any soon or later, everything changes
so what about new version? better?
so what about new version? better?
I can see that Quick Map Switch is progressively better. It guesses my choices much better now, but it is still not perfect. It should definitely remember the last or recently used map. Sometimes when I`m switching to another map just for a while and I want to come back - I can`t because the last used map is not there.
I can see that Quick Map Switch is progressively better. It guesses my choices much better now, but it is still not perfect. It should definitely remember the last or recently used map. Sometimes when I`m switching to another map just for a while and I want to come back - I can`t because the last used map is not there.
And i still only want to see CURRENT maps. Nothing else. And all of them. All beginners want this too, i can guarantee that. Frankly, I never saw the point of a "near" map. And with growing map sizes, they get more useless every day. Even raster maps come as complete states now. The time we used scanned singlesheet hiking maps is definitely over.
And i still only want to see CURRENT maps. Nothing else. And all of them. All beginners want this too, i can guarantee that. Frankly, I never saw the point of a "near" map. And with growing map sizes, they get more useless every day. Even raster maps come as complete states now. The time we used scanned singlesheet hiking maps is definitely over.
Even if you think, showing "near" maps is useful for "planning", it is not. Planning usually consists of
a) scrolling the current map until you reach its edges. afterwards, you want a new list of all maps available at the CURRENT screen position.
b) scrolling to the place you want to go on a larger scale overview map. afterwards, you want a new list of all maps available at the CURRENT screen position.
the whole idea of a "near" map is completely pointless to me and i cant seem to find a single usage case... even after three years of locussing :-).
i still like to point to the idea of a combined list of ALL maps availalabe at the current position, scrollable and sorted by scale. that is also the ONLY thing that will work for beginners. after travelling with a gps-newby for three weeks now and seeing how she handles locus, i can confirm first hand that the current map selection process is a totally random mess. we need less "locus intelligence" here and more predictability.
Even if you think, showing "near" maps is useful for "planning", it is not. Planning usually consists of
a) scrolling the current map until you reach its edges. afterwards, you want a new list of all maps available at the CURRENT screen position.
b) scrolling to the place you want to go on a larger scale overview map. afterwards, you want a new list of all maps available at the CURRENT screen position.
the whole idea of a "near" map is completely pointless to me and i cant seem to find a single usage case... even after three years of locussing :-).
i still like to point to the idea of a combined list of ALL maps availalabe at the current position, scrollable and sorted by scale. that is also the ONLY thing that will work for beginners. after travelling with a gps-newby for three weeks now and seeing how she handles locus, i can confirm first hand that the current map selection process is a totally random mess. we need less "locus intelligence" here and more predictability.
Hello joeloc,
can you give me a short feedback on this 3 years old problem? Quick map switch was since then at least two times completely rewrote so current logic is different to older versions. I'll appreciate any field experiences and in case of remaining problems, something I may use to simulate problem and improve current system. Thank You!
Hello joeloc,
can you give me a short feedback on this 3 years old problem? Quick map switch was since then at least two times completely rewrote so current logic is different to older versions. I'll appreciate any field experiences and in case of remaining problems, something I may use to simulate problem and improve current system. Thank You!
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