Notices

Why should I downlod a map with modrana if allready installed monav maps in the .maps/monav_data folder?
Sorry if I'm being noob

The Monav data is currently used only for routing - it finds & describes a route between two given points. It can't be currently used for rendering the map layer (Monav can do that bud there is no interface for this available to third party applications like modRana).

Still, offline map rendering is also on the routemap, but i can't really say when it will become, as it is quite a bit more complex than offline routing.

By offline routing, you just find an optimal way on the route netowork, by offline map rendering, you have to draw all significant map features (routes, houses, water, labels) directly on the mobile device, at different scales, as quickly as possible. There are already some applications that can do that, such as the Monav client, Navit or the (closed source) Nokia maps. Unfortunately, none of them has an interface that modRana could use to ask for map pictures rendered by the application.

Also, offline map rendering would probably require a separate data package, as the the one optimized for routing (it has probably just routes and nothing more). This might not be that much of an issue as once the infrastructure for Monav routing data generation & distribution is in place, it could be also used for the offline map rendering data packs.

The most promising map rendering engine (from the modRana POV) is called Kothic and written in Python. I plan to investigate it soon.

tl;dr:
Offline map rendering is not yet supported, but planed.

I'm trying modrana for a while and every time it starts, the default settings are re-loaded. In the log appears "Can't save options". Do you have any clues for this?

This is probably related to the file that modRana uses to store settings.
The file is located in:
You might want to check permissions for this file or the .modrana directory (if you ever run modRana as root, it might get owned by root and modRana would not be able to write to it when running under a normal user).

Another possibility is that the settings file got somehow corrupted. But that should cause that settings are not loaded, not that the can't be stored.

BTW, a quick solution/workaround (as root):
This would rename the modRana profile directory, causing modRana to create a fresh one on startup.

It worked perfectly. ModRana has regained rights to the config file again!
Thanks and congratulations!

Do you like modRana ? Don't forget to vote in the Maemo.org coding competition 2012 !
If you like modRana & think it deserves your vote, please go ahead and vote for it in the Updates and development on existing apps category !

The voting opened yesterday (September 19th) and runs to 23:59 September 27th 2012, if you are eligible to vote (Maemo.org karma >=10), you should have already received the voting token to you email address. For further information how to vote, see the competition wiki page.

Thanks a lot for your continual effort to improve the app. I've just voted for modRana. I hope you will win.

Thanks, much appreciated !

Done!

small question while I'm at it: does online routing always use google regardless of the map loaded?

Thanks a lot !

Yes, the routing provider is completely independent of the currently used map layer.

I think I might get what you mean - that with Google, the routes should conform to the tiles, but when using non-Google map layers (such as Mapnik), it might suggest a route that is not visible on the map. IMHO, seems to be not that much of an issue as at least with Turn-by-turn navigation, correct directions are much more important that a little inconsistent map layer.

When more online routing providers are supported, automatically using a provider corresponding to the given layer (Google for Google layers; OSRM & company for OpenStreetMap layers) might be a good optional feature.