POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

The more I use Maemo Mapper the more uses I find for it.
Today I was taking the bus to a place I had never been to before and didn't know exactly where to get off. I had already downloaded maps for the area and got a good GPS signal next to the window - and was able to get off at a stop really close to my destination :)

BUT. I am very confused when it comes to how to work with POI's in MM.

I have two 'needs' for POIs:

A) Geo-caching locations as POIs
When downloading .loc files from geocaching.com.
I know how to 'export' this .loc file to a .db file that I can import into MM. That works well.

B) Addresses I'm going to
Often I'm going to an address that is new to me and it would be great to be able to easily create a POI for that in MM.


Questions:
1) My understanding is that MM only uses ONE POI file (the one you define in the settings). When downloading more .loc files and converting them to .db files is there any way that these files can be combined? Right now I have to change the POI file every time I want to look up another geo-cache location. I'd love to have a POI file that contains a lot of them.

2) How on earth do I add an address as a POI? Or is that even the best way to do it? I don't need to create a route to it...I just need a 'pin' on the map I can have the map 'go to' like you 'go to nearest POI'.
Plus: Same question here: If I want to ADD a new POI/address how do I do that without losing the existing ones?

Thanks in advance!

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I haven't spent much time with POI's. I save the GPX files for routes to an addresses. When selecting a route and showing it, green line, you can see where you are relative to the route and where your end address is. That works for me.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

If you have a program or a script to convert "loc" files to something Maemo Mapper can read, technically the same thing should be able to add those POIs to existing database.

POIs are just saved coordiantes with some additional information such as name and category. If you want to add an address as a POI, I'll have to tap-and-hold on the location, optionally replace the coordinates, and set a label. Keeping old POIs isn't an issue, because Maemo Mapper simply adds the POI to existing database. Also see my answer to question 1.

Personally I have some 1000 POIs in the database and I manage them with a Perl script running on my workstation.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

1) I haven't tried it, but this should work. If you export the .db from gpxview, and then load it into Maemo Mapper like your doing, go into the Browse POI menu option and export all your selected POI's from your .db file to a .gpx file. Then, switch the Maemo Mapper POI database back to your default, choose Import POI and choose the .gpx file you just saved. Kind of roundabout, but it should work. I was going to do that, but I just manually added my geocache poi's. I may still try this method, depends which one is faster.

2) This is how you manually add any POI, whether it's an address, geocache, gas station etc.

Click and hold on the map with your finger (or stylus for more precise selection). Go to Tap Point > Add POI....
This will pop up a dialog to add the POI. The Lat and Long coords will already be set by where you clicked and held, you can then give the POI a name, select the category (which will help with either an icon or to find it easier) and you can write a description.
When you tap on the POI after its created, the info box will show the name and the category. To view the description, you'll have to tap and hold on the POI, choose POI > View/Edit...

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Hmm I've noticed that POI downloads from within MaemoMapper is kinda broken. To see, you can try to download some POI within MM and click edit on the newly downloaded ones. Their long lat coordinates are 0,0

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Update:

Exporting the .db into Maemo Mapper and then Exporting and Importing a .gpx file is extremely quick and easy. It positions the POI in the correct place, names it, and puts the geocache code in the description so you can easily search for it.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I can confirm this. Furthermore, I accessed the website, which is used by maemo-mapper to download POIs by a browser and found according 0 values for long/lat in the resulting XML files. Seems to me, that the google/mm-xml converter by gnuite fails in this point starting a few days ago.

Didn't have time to analyze the problem any further yet, but I believe that google changed some format to something gnuite's cgi can't handle yet.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

there are some instructions on here for converting a csv file to format for maemo mapper POI using a software tool. I used it before and it worked fine. It is a little finicky about the formatting of the csv file but got it OK after a few tries. Search the threads.

I am pretty sure from my experience you can add multiple files in the directory where mapper looks for POIs.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I'll have to look into that, managing POIs through Maemo Mapper is just annoying (as well as downloading new POIs from there now with the 0,0 coordinates).

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Did you report this problem to the author?

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

To easily add a point of interest that you have the address for:

Select Maemo Mapper (top left corner), View, Go to, Address.

Type in the address. You can leave out the city and state, but be sure to type the zip code.

Select "OK"

Now the tricky part:

Zoom in to about level "2"

Tap and hold your stylus at the center of the screen.

Select "Tap Point" then "Add POI".

Now edit your new POI by selecting a category, changing the label and adding a description.

Select "OK".

The zoomed-in map will reappear with a colored square for the POI.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I will add this to the HowTo. Thanks -- Den

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Your welcome, George. I just ordered a Globalsat BT-359 gps for my N800. It will be the first time I will be adding gps to my Maemo Mapper.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

That looks like a very good choice. I've an N810 so I make due with the built in GPS even though it's performance lags that of the available bluetooth recievers. Perhaps some time in the future I get around to buying something like the BT-359.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

when I get my gps I will post my experiences.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

What's the fastest and easiest way to setup routes? I want to be able to go to somewhere like mapquest and find a route to a destination, and then export that into a GPX file or something similar and then import that into my maemo mapper so it tells me turns and where to go and so on.

Hmm, nevermind. I appear to have answered my own question. ^_^;;

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I've found the best is use Google Maps with the Gmap to GPX bookmarklet. Paste into text file, replace cmt with desc (use a find all). Then save as a .gpx file.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

That's what I do all the time. Works extremely well.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I've always used http://www.gnuite.com/cgi-bin/gpx.cgi -- no editing required.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post

I've found the best is use Google Maps with the Gmap to GPX bookmarklet. Paste into text file, replace cmt with desc (use a find all). Then save as a .gpx file.

So many tricks, so little time,

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

As much as I do understand what you're doing there I also can't believe that that is the 'easiest' way to do this. I mentioned the process to a co-worker who laughed at that the steps included :(

And honestly, as much as I love the tablet and having maps on it - that workflow is indeed rather ridiculous (or that it is needed).

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Hey, just a stupid thought. Remember the cgi script that Gnuite built for the routes? That's a perl script, which means it can run from the tablet without any need for a webserver. I wonder if there would be a way he could export the database and the script that tool runs on so we could run it off our tablets, thus eliminating any need to go online each time we wanted to build a route.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Yup that works as well and is the default in MaemoMapper if you download a route from there. But the method I use lets you choose custom routes (drag route as you deem fit to avoid certain highways that are usually jam packed) and isn't as picky when it comes to inputting an address. E.g. I can just say university of maryland college park in Google Maps. While if I did that on my tablet it'd report an error and say it's not a specific address thus not letting me use it.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Yeah, true. I like the google maps method too. But some kind of offline method still needs to be developed for Maemo Mapper.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I contacted John (gnuite) today and now it's fixed. Many thanks to him!

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Now I am confused reading this thread. Are you saying that I can install something that will allow me to create a route in Maemo Mapper without going online ?

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

How about a rundown on how to create a route PERIOD?
Something for an utter n00b like me, and others like me.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

If you're a Mapper noob check out http://FragosTech.com/MaemoMapper. I prefer to get my routes from my desktop at http://www.gnuite.com/cgi-bin/gpx.cgi, save the GPX format route and transfer it to the N810.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

You can also create the routes inside of Maemo Mapper. The only thing is, if you're only doing one route, it's best to do it in the tablet to save yourself the extra steps. If not, and you're doing a lot of routes at once, or need more than one stored locally, it's best to build them offline, copy them all to the tablet, and then load them as needed.

For custom, user defined, google routes, first create a bookmark and then put this in place of the address:
Once that's saved, put it somewhere that it's easy to get to. Then simply surf over to google maps, click on "get directions, enter your start and end point, and then click "get directions". You should be presented with 3 possible routes. Pick the one you like best. If none of them are good enough, then simply grab the track that Google Maps presents you, and drag it around until it does. :)

Then click your new GMaptoGPX bookmark, copy the text inside, save as a .gpx file. :) That way you can have custom routes for very little effort. :)

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

I just started using that site with Maemo Mapper on my 770, and it's really slick. :)

My wife thinks I'm crazy ... I drive back and forth to work some days with my 770 and my Navigon GPS both tracking me. It's fun to compare how they do ... Maemo Mapper does a fairly good job given its limitations, actually. :D

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

Hi There,

I am quite new to Maemo Mapper, I seem to have upset the configuration, whenever I start it the following error is initially displayed,

"error with poi database: unable to open database file n810"

I have removed and re-installed Maemo Mapper, still the error persists.
How do I fix this, thanks,

Neville.

Re: POI in Maemo Mapper. Dazed and Confused
 

GeoPoi application is able to add pois into an existing Maemo Mapper database. Geopoi and its command line version called gpxtractor can read .loc, .gpx and .csv files. Gpxtractor is distributed with GeoPoi which is available from Extras Repository.