What is new in BaseCamp 4.0?

There were a lot of users on this very forum who wanted to maintain a waypoint’s creation date. With 4.0 that should work. The updated time is still available as well. We will send the creation date to the device, and creation time is what gets exported to gpx and gdb. The updated time is currently only used internally in BaseCamp.


You can now see which routes a waypoint is used in by checking the waypoint’s references tab.


This has also been requested numerous times. You can now see which items are “orphaned” in your collection, and belong to no list.

We added intersection search. Pick adress search and then type something like "Main & Washington" and BaseCamp should find intersections of streets with that name.

You can zoom with "Alt" - "+" and "Alt" "-" now. This steps in or out a few zoom levels.

Improvements of existing Features


If you had lots of photos at about the same location on the map, it got convoluted really quickly. We tried to address that by stacking the photos into a single item that you can expand.


The measurement tool values were hard to read in the status bar. We made the measurements appear directly on the map in a nice fashion. You still have the values in the status bar as well.


While BaseCamp offered powerful route options, it was somewhat hard to navigate to these options. Now every route has the Route Options tab enabled, where you can easily change profiles, edit profiles or create custom preferences for that route.


The toolbar had gotten pretty crowded. We tried to clean that up a bit by removing buttons that were rarely used and displaying often used tools more prominently (like the route and track tool which were only accessible via a drop-down menu). You can still turn on the other toolbars via the menu (View/Toolbars). We also added buttons to send and receive data from the device more easily.

Fixes

We tried to fix a few of the most cumbersome bugs and usability issues. If you find that your pet pieve hasn’t been fixed yet, please let us know, and I’ll make sure it’s on our list and try to bump it up in priority if possible.

No more waiting until the find bar is initialized! You should be able to do a find right after starting BaseCamp or switching to a new map.

Many users rightfully complained that when duplicating a route it's not always desirable to also duplicate the waypoints. So now this will be up to the user.

There were quite a few cases reported that the SD card in a device wasn’t visible in BaseCamp, even though it was visible in File Explorer. That should be fixed. Let us know if you are still experiencing this issue.

The annoying behavior that the toolbar in BaseCamp would relocate items every time you started BaseCamp should be fixed.

Now if you close the find bar, BaseCamp should not insist on displaying it again if you restart the application.

You can delete waypoints that are part of a route now. In 3.3 if you tried to do that, the operation would fail with no good indication why. Deleting a waypoint that is in a route will not change the route.

Entering coordinates in the Go-To dialog (Ctrl-T) should be less painful now. BaseCamp will only check for validity after you have types in the coordinates, and we allow to enter coordinates in a lot of different formats. Now e.g. you can just copy paste Google Maps coordinates (like 34.168218,-111.930907) into that dialog and it will work.

Terrific! thanks so much for responding to user requests.

I can see new annoyances - yellow tool bar with enthusiastic messages:

"BaseCamp found some new tracks on your Dakota..." - "Create Adventure.."
"Your Dakota supports BirdsEye Imagery..." - "Launch BirdsEye...".

Sorry, I feel like using ads-supported software.

I was testing the 4.0 beta and found the unlisted data list, which is quite nice. This can come to good use, since Basecamp does not delete items from the database if you delete it from a list (and it is in no other list). So your My Collection is only growing, unless you manually delete items. But if you delete an item there, it will also be deleted from any list it is in. And the Unlisted Data feature will not let you delete anything.

What would make sense:
- an item in the database can be in no, one or more lists (which is the case now)
- the item is deleted from the database if you delete it from the last list it is in (with warning popup?), otherwise it is only deleted from the list you are deleting it from
- the item is also deleted if it is in no list at all and you delete it from My Collection or Unlisted Data (with warning popup?)
- if you try to delete it from My Collection, it is not deleted if it still is in any list OR you get a popup asking you to also delete if from all ists (yes, no, all yes, all no)

Hope this helps to imporve Basecamp. =8-)

I can see new annoyances - yellow tool bar with enthusiastic messages:

"BaseCamp found some new tracks on your Dakota..." - "Create Adventure.."
"Your Dakota supports BirdsEye Imagery..." - "Launch BirdsEye...".

Sorry, I feel like using ads-supported software.

It's a fine line between trying to help people discover features they might otherwise not find, and annoying people by displaying too many messages.

You can disable both of these messages, so at least you will only see it once.

For me distinction seems quiet easy. It is helpful if can be configured and disabled before appearing. It is annoyance if there is no choice and user has to clean up after appearing.

Many programs use hints and context help. It can be done in a useful way. Just make it discrete, don't steal work area and don't expect user to interact.

Been using the 4.0.0.4 (beta) for while now & so far like some of the new functions.

It does crash almost every time I try to divide a route & will crash on some "JOIN SELECTED ROUTES". Lots of crashes on "route divide" though.

I have win 7 & when 4.0.0.4 crashes it locks the Base Camp application so I need to go to Task Manager to stop the PROCESS to get Base Camp working again.

Otherwise seems to function as I need.



-I miss the right click on a route to get route properties (somehow the left click seems against what I use automatically on all other programs). Not a deal breaker but a distinct dislike.

-It would also be nice to have the option of removing the unused filters from the bottom of the left hand box. Some filters I never use & they are just an annoyance to be there.

-Search function seems to work better that 3.3 but still not as good as the old MapSource search function. (old MapSource was great)

- I also dislike all those boxes popping up as I make a route (a pain to keep removing those as I build a route) be nice to have an option to turn those off.

Been using the 4.0.0.4 (beta) for while now & so far like some of the new functions.

It does crash almost every time I try to divide a route & will crash on some "JOIN SELECTED ROUTES". Lots of crashes on "route divide" though.

I have win 7 & when 4.0.0.4 crashes it locks the Base Camp application so I need to go to Task Manager to stop the PROCESS to get Base Camp working again.

Otherwise seems to function as I need.



-I miss the right click on a route to get route properties (somehow the left click seems against what I use automatically on all other programs). Not a deal breaker but a distinct dislike.

-It would also be nice to have the option of removing the unused filters from the bottom of the left hand box. Some filters I never use & they are just an annoyance to be there.

-Search function seems to work better that 3.3 but still not as good as the old MapSource search function. (old MapSource was great)

- I also dislike all those boxes popping up as I make a route (a pain to keep removing those as I build a route) be nice to have an option to turn those off.

Thanks for your feedback! I believe you also contacted us via email and I replied to it.

Short version: route join/divide issues should be fixed in the next version, to get properties use right-click and 'Open' now, no plans to remove unused filters at this time, we will keep working on improving the search functionality, an option to turn off balloons is planned but will not be in 4.0.