I noticed SUSSAMB said he did not use trip planner and I agree it not the way to create routes. However, thanks to Killtimer who figured out a easy way to take advantage of Trip Planner features using routes not created in trip planner, I use it often. Dragging the dots on the line is an excellent way of viewing your route on the map at any scale. It's the easiest way to search alone the route, add departure - arrival times and dates. Below is a summary I made from Killtimer post and Killtimer post follows my summary.
1. Create routes form waypoints in a list or independent of TripPlanner
2. Create a trip of X days using an arbitrary start and end point, and then delete the waypoints leaving a totally empty trip of X day duration. Answer no to the popup question will give less points to delete. Note: I did not see pops ups in 4.8.4
3. Exit TripPlanner, under On My Computer, select the list that contains you route. If necessary, scroll and click the triangle to show the dates on the trip you created. Drag the routes form the list to the date associated with the trip.
It may be your workflow. I create all of my routes independently of TripPlanner. I then create a trip of X days using an arbitrary start and end point, and then delete the points in the first day leaving me with a totally empty trip of X day duration. I then drag my existing routes into the days I want to travel that route. I do this when the trip planner app is closed, but the trip, as shown in the left pane, is expanded to show the days. Killtimer
A summary of what I have learned from Steve suggestions about dragging routes to trip planner and Workflow. This is not a complaint but Trip Planner (TP) does not allow you to store POI not used in a route. For this reason I start my planning in a My Collection List. TP has several added features I want to use and dragging the route from the list in the left panel to the TP day is a very simple and easy way to get routes into TP. After Steve's post that got me over my frustration of searching to move waypoints and route to TP, I have started creating the routes in TP. My trips are RV camping trips and my workflow may not be appropriate for other type of trips. I enter dates, home, and campground. TP recognizes the campground as logging and ask if I want the enter the campground each day which I allow. All that is left is to drag my day destinations to the TP day and make modifications. It is obvious much planning has gone into TP. If I have a route in a list, I can drag from the list, if I don't have the route I can easily create the route in TP.
I have created a list of 15 day routes and drug the routes into the correct dates on a Trip Planner trip. Life is good except I duplicated a route on two consecutive days. If I delete the duplicated route in trip planner, the route is deleted from the my collection list and the route is deleted from trip planner for both days. If I delete the Trip Planner trip, it deletes all the routes from my list. The list I am referring to is the old my collection list, not any lists associated with Trip Planner. Is there a way to correct my trip without starting over?
Problem solved, exit trip planner, select the date of the trip and delete the route from the list below. When you delete the route from the list, the route remains in my collection but it removed from the day in trip planner.