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Things that I cannot accomplish in Mac BaseCamp

We are very interested in learning about tasks that people are trying to accomplish in BaseCamp, but are unable to.

As most people know, Garmin originally had a very technical application for Windows called MapSource. This application was full-featured, but very challenging to use for many users. For a long time, we wanted to create an application that was easy to use by all of our customers.

When we started designing our route planning application for the Mac, we wanted to start with a good looking, intuitive user interface that all customers could pick up and understand. This includes the soccer mom that is planning her car pool route to the hard core bicyclist that is creating a trail map. As with all re-architecture efforts, every feature from MapSource did not port right over in the first versions of BaseCamp.

So we are asking people to tell us what they are trying to accomplish with BaseCamp and are unable to.

0 Former Member over 12 years ago

We are very interested in learning about tasks that people are trying to accomplish in BaseCamp, but are unable to.

As most people know, Garmin originally had a very technical application for Windows called MapSource. This application was full-featured, but very challenging to use for many users. For a long time, we wanted to create an application that was easy to use by all of our customers.

When we started designing our route planning application for the Mac, we wanted to start with a good looking, intuitive user interface that all customers could pick up and understand. This includes the soccer mom that is planning her car pool route to the hard core bicyclist that is creating a trail map. As with all re-architecture efforts, every feature from MapSource did not port right over in the first versions of BaseCamp.

So we are asking people to tell us what they are trying to accomplish with BaseCamp and are unable to.

I had to laugh out loud when read this! This is the least intuitive and hardest to use software I have come across in 20 years. I cannot even begin to describe the things I can't do with this software.

I'm sure that somewhere there is a way to do these things for the hardcore GPS enthusiast. But for the "soccer mom" average user this is FAR from easy or intuitive.

FWIW, and I'm being dead serious here, I learned 3 different CAD software systems from scratch in less time than its taken me to give up on seemingly simple tasks with Basecamp. Throw it away and start over!! Also, move into this century and make a version that can be used with an iPad and android tablet.

0 Former Member over 12 years ago

This may be the wrong place for me to start, but I can't find how to start a new topic.

My problem: I can't find a way to plan a route which ends at a town centre (I'm in the UK, as you can tell by the spelling). After I select a town name my Nuvi 2545 doesn't give an option of "Town or city centre" but insists on a street name and premises number, neither of which do I have. Picking a street name at random is a recipe for disaster.

0 SUSSAMB over 12 years ago

You need to select Where to>Cities. You may need to scroll down to see it. See page 12 of the manual.

But you're correct, this isn't really the place to ask. You might find http://forums.gpsreview.net/ helpful in future.

0 azdrmn over 12 years ago

Per the title of the thread: Things I cannot accomplish in Mac Basecamp

I would like to be able to adjust the speed preferences for an Activity (which is possible in the Windows version). This is a big deal for me, and having feature parity with the Windows version I think is absolutely critical.

There should be a form of this in the next beta and then in the subsequent release if it works well.

I would like to be able to set number of miles or hours per day I want to drive, and have the overnight stops show up on the map. From there I can search for POIs such as campgrounds or hotels.

BaseCamp 4.2 will have this feature. If you want to try it out, you can download the beta from here.

I would like the ability to selectively display groups of POIs on the map. For example, I have lists of places to visit, campgrounds, restaurants, etc. I would like to be able to show selected lists on the map when I am planning a trip. I know that if I create a List Folder, it will show all the Lists that folder contains when I select it. It would be nice if I could mutli-select several lists and display just those.

How are List Folders not doing what you want?

Thanks for the feedback.

0 Former Member over 12 years ago

I would like the ability to selectively display groups of POIs on the map. For example, I have lists of places to visit, campgrounds, restaurants, etc. I would like to be able to show selected lists on the map when I am planning a trip. I know that if I create a List Folder, it will show all the Lists that folder contains when I select it. It would be nice if I could mutli-select several lists and display just those.

How are List Folders not doing what you want?

Currently (and in the v4.2beta) it's either all Lists within a List Folder or one. I agree with BARRETTJL1027, it would be advantageous if one could select several List's within a List Folder without having to select all of the Lists.

0 Former Member over 12 years ago

I'm sure this has been asked for many times by now, but given the advent of Trip Planner in v4.2, it would be much more efficient if there was a Search (Find) criteria of "Along Selected Route or Track" with a settable distance to search on each side of the Route/Track path.

0 Killtimer_ over 12 years ago

I'm sure this has been asked for many times by now, but given the advent of Trip Planner in v4.2, it would be much more efficient if there was a Search (Find) criteria of "Along Selected Route or Track" with a settable distance to search on each side of the Route/Track path.

An excellent idea. What would be ideal IMO, would be an option box that gave you "Center of Screen", "Near Other" or "Along Route/Track" as options. In addition, an option to add "Containing" would be very helpful. For example, a hotel search for Best Western in Louisville KY, when you have Chicago IL centered on the map, or a Fuel Services search for "Shell" along your route.

0 azdrmn over 12 years ago

I'm sure this has been asked for many times by now, but given the advent of Trip Planner in v4.2, it would be much more efficient if there was a Search (Find) criteria of "Along Selected Route or Track" with a settable distance to search on each side of the Route/Track path.

Have you tried the trip planner's "quick search". It searches around any point on the route. For trip planning it seems more useful to search 275 miles into my trip for gas or at around noon for food than search for all gas or food along the route. The biggest short coming is that it doesn't restrict results to a certain distance from the route. That is something we can look into adding.

0 Former Member over 12 years ago

An excellent idea. What would be ideal IMO, would be an option box that gave you "Center of Screen", "Near Other" or "Along Route/Track" as options. In addition, an option to add "Containing" would be very helpful. For example, a hotel search for Best Western in Louisville KY, when you have Chicago IL centered on the map, or a Fuel Services search for "Shell" along your route.

Although we don't have "search along route", you can click on the map to do a "quick search". Using your two examples:

New in 4.2 is category search. What this enables you to do is type in things like "fuel shell" to do a search for "shell" of type "fuel". Other examples would be "hotels, new york, ny" or "chinese food, dallas, tx".

0 Killtimer_ over 12 years ago

Although we don't have "search along route", you can click on the map to do a "quick search". Using your two examples:
New in 4.2 is category search. What this enables you to do is type in things like "fuel shell" to do a search for "shell" of type "fuel". Other examples would be "hotels, new york, ny" or "chinese food, dallas, tx".

Both useful, but limited to a selected point in the first case, and a bit too broad in the second. When route planning, I can be looking at 2 or 3 different options for each day of a multi day trip. One of the criteria I use to select which route options to ultimately use is specific fuel availability and accommodation availability at the end of the day. Being able to see what is available along a route at a glance would make planning much easier.