Things that I cannot accomplish in Mac BaseCamp

Would a simple select and export directions to text work you think Denny. Maybe there could be selection boxes or deselection boxes for the directions that we want to keep or omit.

Simple text only would not be as useful. I want to be able to print the arrows that show up in the directions. Seems select all, Copy and paste into any word processor should be fairly easy to implement? I dunno I am not a programmer, that is implemented in many applications and the code should be readily available in the open source community. Well maybe it is available.

This is the view in BaseCamp.



This is the View in RoadTrip.



I think if it contained the view visible in RoadTrip it is more useful, especially when there are several more shaping points.

The shaping points are represented by "ariving at ....."
Those really don't need to be in the Directions tab.

Having them in the viapoints Tab is useful, since you can double click on them to get to the point properties pane for editing.

I recently copied a route and tweaked some stuff just to play and experiment without totally damaging the original. Well guess what, the original was all changed as well. I apologize Denny but is this what you were talking about before? Now I have found myself exporting the routes out at given points with clever names just so I can have copies that stay in tact so I can revert when I need to. Such a cumbersome and inefficient way to work IMO.

So staying in line with the thread title... I cannot copy and modify a route in BC without the modifications infecting the original. Sure would be nice if I could do that. Please help if there is a way and I am just not getting it.

Yep, the whole implementation of Data Management is very awkward to me. It does not follow conventional ideas that are standard in all GUI's.

I am still thinking about a way to represent that effectively. I did a few screen shots, but that does not show the things I am talking about so good. I decided to try to do some movies of my screen and get those to Utube in order to better illustrate the things that seem so awkward.

In order to make an editable copy of several Item contained in one of BaseCamp's folders you must.

Create a new Folder
Open the original folder.
Select all Right click, choose Duplicate

That gives you a bunch of new Items with a number appended to their names. At that point all of the original Items will still be selected.
Then Drag all of those to the New Folder.

So then you have editable copies in the original folder, and the originals are in the New Folder.

That is not intuitive, that should just work simply.
This kind of contortions is not understood easily by average users.

It has to work that way because all of the Data is contained in one file and all Items must have Unique names.

The first thing I tried to do with BaseCamp was to Import all of my GDB files from the PC. I had such a mess in My Collection that I just deleted all of it. Still trying to figure out a meaningful way to deal with those files.

Every one of those has a waypoint named Home. When I import them into BaseCamp I end up with several waypoints named Home, Home1, Home2, etc. So the integrity of my original data is compromised because things get renamed.

That is what I want to try to illustrate with a Utube movie. But I've never used Utube before so I have some learning curve. But first I have to learn how to use the new screen capture utility I just bought.

BaseCamp has several cool things it can do. And I have not even explored the 3D views since i don't have any Topo Maps I just turn that feature off.


BUT, HikerDave posted a Screen shot in the Map Drawing thread the other day.

CLICK

In the upper left hand area of that screen shot you'll notice things in MyCollection are not represented as folders. I have hopes that the behavior of those Items is changing some in order to behave more like Items in a conventional GUI, Like the Finder, Windows Explorer, Any Unix GUI, etc.

The overall look of BaseCamp is pretty good it needs some very serious thought put into the way the interface behaves.

Killtimer is talking about a way to turn off the POI system.

Microsoft Streets and Trip has a feature like that. From a dropdown menu you can choose to see Hotels, Fuel, Campgrounds, community services, retail, restaurants, etc. Or you can choose to see all of that.

It's a Great feature. since you can choose to see only the category you are looking for or you can choose to see all of it or none.

So why can't we have that in Garmin's software?

Speculating here.....
Knowing Microsoft, they probably have patents and coprights protecting that. So if Garmin were to try to implement it they would need to come up with a unique enough way to implement it so that they would not be infringing on Microsoft's intellectual property. Or Garmin would just have to pay Mocrosoft for the rights to use that feature.

Maybe that's why we can't have it?


Streets and Trips has some good features. It is a Very Good trip planner. But it is a really lousy Route planner. It does not play so well with Garmin units because it only writes waypoints to a GPX file. It just does not write routing information. So S&T just does not do Custom routes very well.

In a Perfect world it would be Great to take that and some of S&T's other good features and Combine that with Garmin's superior Route planning functions into one Really great application. It seems that is not so likely to happen any time soon.

I hope Garmin got something from Google for copying the drag and drop editing of routes. I believe Garmin had that function first, so Google should be paying for rights to use it.

An information pane with info like total ascent would be great. Or better a sortable column in my collection with total ascent. I'm also missing a text field for remarks for a track. And the map rendering is very poor. Many trails and forest ways are missing...

greets from austria!

So staying in line with the thread title... I cannot copy and modify a route in BC without the modifications infecting the original. Sure would be nice if I could do that. Please help if there is a way and I am just not getting it.

Hope this is not off topic, If I understand the problem correctly, the solution is to duplicate the route, Not a folder but the route (right click and select duplicate). This gives you a new route with an extension number added to the name. Changing this route will not change the original. Just think what a mesh you would have if the developers allowed different routes in different folders with the same name.

Duplicating a folder is an organizational function. If you have a folder with some waypoints and route but what to keep the original folder unchanged, just duplicate the folder and add to the duplicated folder with the number extension. Copy and Past is the same function as dragging routes for My Collection or a folder to another folder.

I'm well aware of the multiple pages already written on the matter (;)), but I'd like to narrow down what the problem is with via points.

Are these the main two issues?

• The route tool will sometimes create waypoints that show up in the user data list, and also on devices.
  This occurs when the user clicks the tool somewhere there is no map data for, generally off road in an area outside of any cities or parks. I'm a bit confused if this is a case lots of you are running into. What are you doing that necessitates placing shaping points off of roads? If you see this behavior for points on roads/POIs, even, then what map are you using?
  
• All via points now show up in the directions view with "arrive at" text.
  I believe this change was initially made to bring the directions more in line with what our devices display. It seems that copy/paste support for the directions text would satisfy your needs here.
  

The via point -> user data behavior's been around for a long time, but is definitely more noticeable given BaseCamp's approach to data management. Denny: I'm curious about your alt+drag solution. Are you creating points on roads and then alt+dragging them off of them? Alt or cmd dragging on the actual route (rather than a point on the route) shouldn't affect the created via point.

The way I create a route.

I start with two waypoints. I drag those into the viapoints tab of an empty Route Properties Pane.

I let BaseCamp do it's autorouting, sometimes I will change preferences and recalculate to see if it will give me something more desirable.

Then I drag the actual route.

If I hold down the option(alt) key while I am dragging the route. [Not Control or Command]

AND IF AND ONLY IF I drop the route Exactly on...
A. An intersection
B. A portion of roadway that does not have an address

The shaping viapoint that is created that way will not be displayed nor announced on My Zumo 550. (I had an opportunity to test this on my brother's Zumo 660 and it does not work there) So it seems the invisible shaping point function depends on the unit software as well as the computer software. There is no difference in the appearance of these points within BaseCamp. The difference is not realized until the route is transferred to the Zumo 550. And that is fine, because if they become invisible on the computer then I cannot delete them if I find I have made a mistake.

This is a Great Function and it mimics the behavior of MapSource.

This is hard to explain in words, and I have decided that since this part of the Garmin forums is dealing with Mac's I should be able to create a QuickTime movie and everyone should be able to view it.

I have discovered one little problem with using the option(alt) key.
And this is also hard to explain in words.

Anyway, I hold down the option key, Click on the route, and start to drag it. There are times when I need to scroll or zoom to find the exact point where I want to drop the route. So since both hands are busy that trick is much more difficult. But I have a programmable mouse with a third button (the scroll wheel), I programmed that third button as Option - Drag that frees up my left hand so I can use the arrow keys and the + and - keys to zoom. But those folks who do not have a programmable mouse will be a little limited.


Your Point number One, I would expect a WayPoint to be created if I click somewhere off of the roads. I don't use shaping points off of roads, but I imagine there are some hikers, and off highway vehicle enthusiasts that would do that.

Your Point number Two, I hope it is possible to include the arrows that show up along the left side in the Directions.
Those are Very useful.

I am so disgusted. The option drag trick that was working for the past few days has stopped working. Tried to do a movie of my screen and It just does not work any more. Tried reinstalling BaseCamp beta and removed MyCollection.
Are there any hidden preference files? Found com.garmin.BaseCamp.plist
Removing that did not help either?

Am I insane or is this application changing it's behavior as I use it? :(

Alt or cmd dragging on the actual route (rather than a point on the route) shouldn't affect the created via point.

Perhaps only the location you were dragging the route to was affecting your vias? A point with no POI that's still on a road seems like something the Zumo would take to be a shaping point rather than a destination.

Is there no visible difference at all in BaseCamp between via points that show up as flags on your Zumo and those that do? Sending a GPX of a route that has this issue and another of a route that doesn't would be pretty helpful in figuring out what the actual difference is.