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Basecamp Windows Basecamp 3.2.1 track thickness

Basecamp 3.2.1 track thickness

Former Member over 14 years ago

First of all I'd like to thank Garmin and their developers the level of engagement I was pleasantly surprised to find in the forum.

I appreciate the recent efforts to increase usable screen size in basecamp and reduce clutter. Unfortunately for me I find the changes in track line thickness and points to be very hard to use.

In terrains with some serious level curves, rivers, changing terrain types, and a decent number of tracks, the recent change in line thickness makes identifying tracks harder than what it should. Also I use circular tracks to define boundaries and I don't find it feasible to do in basecamp anymore because I find really hard to see them.

I know line thickness may not have been as nice looking on the map as the current ones but it was very practical, and if I wanted to see what was behind I could one click a different list and back.

I'm hoping on next version we can have some global preference setting or at least a toggle between "old style" and "new" in line and point thickness.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

I have to agree. On a topo-map the tracks are hard to discover. Would be nice to make the thichness/color user selectable.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

I too find the fine lines and default color (light gray) sometimes difficult to see unless I am really zoomed in.

I know this is not practical with a lot of different tracks on the map, but for just a few it is fine. Open the Track Properties and on the upper right open the dropdown for different colors. When you choose one for close to the bottom, it is highlighted with black edges--which are similar to a couple versions ago, or choose a darker color to contrast with your map. When you save your track, the color is saved too.

An solution to this is to make the Default track color a choice of the available colors in the dropdown.

Edit: added "and default color (light gray)" to my first sentence.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

...An solution to this is to make the Default track color a choice of the available colors in the dropdown.

Not a workable solution in those instances where the color of the track is used to convey information about some attribute of the track, e.g., its difficulty.

On the other hand, I'm not having any difficulty seeing my saved or drawn tracks on either CN or Topo 2008 but perhaps here in the eastern portion of the United Staes the terrain is not varied enough to cause any difficulty.

[In the interest of complete disclosure I'm one of the guys who requested thinner lines.]

0 JanMart over 14 years ago

I strongly disagree with those who dislike the thin tracks. For me this is exellent because I often have several tracks in the same region, and they used to cover eachother with the former thick tracks. A choice of track thickness would however be welcome.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

I strongly disagree with those who dislike the thin tracks. For me this is exellent because I often have several tracks in the same region, and they used to cover eachother with the former thick tracks. A choice of track thickness would however be welcome.

Good for you. There are those of us, however, that needed the thicker lines because thin tracks blend in with topo map features such as streams and roads. Garmin changing them made the program useless to us.

Garmin! When will this be fixed?!

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Does my 3.2.1 BC work differently than those who want thicker lines. Just double click the Track to get the properties, and in the DropDown on the upper right, which is defaulted to Default, choose a line color Red or below. It's about the same as previous version when it was thick. When you Export your track, it will save the Properties. Pretty nice.

Ron

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Does my 3.2.1 BC work differently than those who want thicker lines. Just double click the Track to get the properties, and in the DropDown on the upper right, which is defaulted to Default, choose a line color Red or below. It's about the same as previous version when it was thick. When you Export your track, it will save the Properties. Pretty nice.

Ron

Agreed, that's nice. But, to those of us who encode track information, e.g., track difficulty, by track color its impractical. The thinner lines work for me, but, based on the hue and cry raised here it seems that provision of a custom trackline thickness control is called for.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

We'll see what we can do about customizing the display.

This will hopefully make it into a future feature release (meaning it will NOT be in the 3.2.2 maintenance release).