CIQ 3 MapView and MapTrackView Observations

I have been doing some playing around with MapView and MapTrackView in the CIQ 3 beta.

I have a view configured with delegate and all working. I have noticed two things which are not working quite how I would expect.

First, when calling the new map view, I have been successful using the following code to display the map.
WatchUi.pushView(new TestMapView(), new TestMapViewDelegate(), WatchUi.SLIDE_IMMEDIATE);

If I try to use switchToView, the map simulator will not render the map view. For example the following change will not draw the mapview
WatchUi.switchToView(new TestMapView(), new TestMapViewDelegate(), WatchUi.SLIDE_IMMEDIATE);

I thought I was doing something wrong with the command, but was able to use both options with a normal view class and delegate. Has anyone been able to use the switchToView with the new MapView or MapTrackView?

Second observation, if I add text over the top of the map with the background color set to transparent, it will put a box around the text and not show the map underneath. See the attached picture. So it appears that item drawn on top of the map don't really have a transparent background. Am I missing something?

  • BTW I see, that you added support for maps for D2 Charlie to your Hike 2 yesterday. Did you have changes to test it on this device?

    I went purely on faith that it will function on the D2 devices as it does on the f5x and f5+ (I have one of each, and from what I've seen, CIQ wise, they are identical).  I was adding the MARQ devices at the same time, but for them I built with my breadcrumb code instead of maps as a first version.

  • This is helpful info, thanks. Then it is good, as D2 Charlie is essentially rebranded F5x. I installed your app on D2 Charlie yesterday and I can confirm that it indeed worked as expected.

    But your mentioned workarounds for lacking optimisation of MapView is clearly recognisable and they make logic of the app confusing in the eyes of the user, so I hope Maps in CIQ receive some tweaking - this can't be considered as "stable" version in my opinion. 

  • One follow up question regarding differences between MapView and MapTrackView: 

    I saw that MapTrackView renders also recorded track. Does also MapView do this? I can't test it with real device now. 

  • I'm not sure, but I don't think it does.  I use MapView in a couple things when it's really just a static map - get the current location, and draw a map with a pin in that spot for example.  I'd tried MapView in Hike2, but there were a couple things I didn't like with it for a dynamic map, as MapTrackView keeps the map centered on the current location, where with MapView, you could go off the map and the only real way to change that is to leave the map view, and come back so the setMapVisibleArea would take the current location into account.

  • Just tested it now with D2 Charlie and both classes shows track of recorded activity on map.