Is it 0.4.2 or 0.4.1?

In any event, thanks for all your work on this. The program is fantastic.

Mine said 4.1 and installed great.

Thanks again for the updates. Please consider some easy way, unless I missed it, to jump to the last point, as that as some of the summary data. Alternatively, the other sumarry data mentioned before would make this not so important.

I just added these requests on your tracker website

1. Can you add marine units ie Knots

2. Is there any way to add a Waypoint (GPS Mark) on the fly to mark say a good fishing point

Great app by the way.

Knots would be nice for aviation too. I used this app for the first time at 37000 feet. And 4.1 installed great here too.

Yeah, 0.4.2 was a typo, of course it's 0.4.1. Fixed in the announcement.

About the knots: yes, adding new units of measurement is rather easy now. So knots will definitely be in 0.4.2, but since I don't know anything about knots (apart from what Wikipedia tells me): What units should I use for length and elevation in this case? Miles/Feet?

Regarding the Waypoints: There are two similar concepts which some call Waypoints.

• Marking a point you've just reached (recorded) with some label and/or a timestamp, so that you can find that interesting point again later.
• Entering coordinates of a point you'd like to reach and let it display the direction and distance to this point

I'd like to implement the first one soon and the second one some time in the future. I think you meant the first one.

Does anyone know of simple terms to distinguish those two? In my mind both are called Waypoints, but that would be confusing, wouldn't it?

Regarding jumping to the last point: Yes, when I started the program no track was so long that using up took very long, but 1000+ Point Tracks are rather common now, so it gets harder.

Should choosing the current point be changed? Is the left/right up/down method to slow? Should up/down go more than 10? Maybe 1%/10% of the track instead? Or is a simple shortcut / menu entry to go to the last point enough?

In aviation, we use the following:
Speed= "knots" or nm/h (nautical miles per hour i.e "460 nm/h" or "460 kts")
length/distance= nm (nautical miles i.e. "50.1 nm")
Altitude = feet


Not sure on the two points. I'll let someone who uses GPS for land navigating/geocaching, etc. give you ideas on that one. I'm sure there are some standards but I can't recall what they are.


Awesome app by the way!

In Oz Marine would be

Speed=Knots (kt)
Distance=Nautical miles (nm)
Elevation/Altitude/Depth= Meters (m)

Yes the first one, and as for the naming they are both the same but used differently.

1. As you said you, during your trip you hit say "center button" and enter your name for that point, eg "Fishing Hole XXX".

then

2. You would have a menu item called say "Find" then "Waypoints" then select your previously named waypoint "Fishing Hole XXX" then you could have 2 options, a) "View" to simply see your point on your track or b) "Go To", this would then guide you to that point.


----------------------------------------------------

• One other enhancement I think would be good for lengthy trips, rather then compress your whole journey on the screen as it becomes cramped, could you have a configuration to show the last 100 points and maybe a time stamp or something similar.

I've been thinking about this as well. I'm just wondering which unit to select here. The last 100 Track Points? The last 10 Minutes? the Last 10 km? Ask each time the user selects "Zoom In".

Another possiblity is to always view n km around the current point, no matter how man Track Points that includes.

Another problem is how this would react when the selected point is changed.

And the implementation won't be exactly trivial, so I assume that's a candidate for 0.5.0 rather than 0.4.2.

You figured out the spacebar and that is great. How about S for Start and E for End.

I know you have a lot of your plate. I would encourage you to finish the two key summary items before you jump ship (knots) or take a trip with JC . That is add the total elevation gain and max and average speed calcs to the summary. At that point you have a very, very effective base app.

Saua,
I've been using this tracking software for a while now. It all works fine once a bluetooth connection is established. However, getting the intial connection is proving to be quite difficult. If any time goes by between uses the program will not connect. I try turning bluetooth off and back on. I try turning the puck off and back on. I've even tried refreshing the service list in Bluetooth device options. The only thing that will make it work is a reboot of the device. Then it will work for a few times and then the next time I want to use it I have the same problem. When this happens I'm able to go into BBMaps and get bluetooth connection and satellite signal. I can go into Google and get it and even TeleNav but the bbtracker app will not pick up the connection.

Do you have any fixes on the horizon for this or any idea why it would not connect when the other apps connect just fine?

Thanks,
John Clark

It took a while. But I finally figured out how to use it. It rocks. I am glad to have an application that will tell me latlong. I figured out how to download to Google Earth and it works just fine.

Thanks for all your work.

I am having the exact same problem. A solution (or even a workaround) would be great because rebooting the BB everytime gets very annoying.

Keep up the good work!

Unfortunately I can't reproduce the problem since I've got no external puck and have never experienced the problem with the internal GPS.

There may be two possible solutions:

• Either I need to tweak the parameters I pass to the Location API, but I don't know what exactly I should tweak there, it all looks fine or
• I'm accessing the bluetooth GPS pucks directly via the Bluetooth API, which will definitely be more work, but might be worth it for more direct control (#34 (Add GPS access via Bluetooth API) - bbTracker - Trac).

Does everyone who experiences this problem use an external GPS puck? Which programs do not have those problems? Which share the problem? Did you try GPSTrack? It only uses the Bluetooth API, if that connects reliably then I'd know that this is a feasible alternative.

Saua,
I just installed GpsTrack, per your suggestion. When BBTracker quits picking up the GPS, GpsTrack will still pick it up every time. If you could incorporate that same bluetooth system into your app it would sure help. Right now it's too unreliable and inconvenient. When it works, it works great. When it doesn't, a reboot is all that will fix it. Hope this info helps.

Thanks for a terrific app!

John

I'll have to modify the code from GPSTrack a bit, since it's based on CLDC-1.0 which is kind of low-tech compared to what the BlackBerry and other modern phones can do, but luckily enough GPSTrack is free software released under the GPL, just as bbTracker, so I can use their code. You can expect the direct Bluetooth access to GPS in 0.5.0 probably (I've still not decided if there will be a 0.4.2 or not).

(I usually increase the second number when any major features are added and the third only for bug fixes and minor features).

Good news: I was able to borrow a GPS puck (Holux GPSlim 236) for the weekend, so I'll work on getting this to work.

Saua, as much as I like the Alpha representation of direction, is it possible to also include the degrees information back again.

Those in the aviation arena might like that too.

I wouldn't mind seeing the direction in degrees. Would be a nice little luxury.

John,

Direction in degrees is displayed on the Details screen along with the user friendly direction.

SIB

All,

I just provided some source code updates to Saua with 3 key changes that I wanted in my version of bbTracker. These are based on my preferences and usage but thought I would let others know what they are in case you are interested so you can let Saua know for his next release.

Nice use of some of my changes. I reviewed the code and you did a nice job of incorporating my changes while making the code more flexible. Anyhow, here is a brief run down on the main things I have changed.

1. Added summary screen as requested to be a static view of information found in the export files. Namely displaying, track name, total distance, total time, start and end times, average speed with moving speed being displayed in parentheticals (similar to how the compass direction and course degrees appear) and min/max elevations.

2. Added Export Tracks option to menu list when track is static either after opening or stopping the track. I found myself not remembering which track I just opened and exporting the wrong track. This allows the user to view the track and if it is the correct track then export directly from the main screen menu.

3. Finally, I also found myself not being able to determine which files were the .bbt files and which were the .kml/.gpx files because they all have the same name with different extensions. So I updated the options to allow for a different export directory from the track directory. If the user only sets up one of the directories the message will indicate that the one directory that was set up will be used for both Track and Export. You get the point.

4. I really like the duration to be on the so I added that back, I am sure you will take it out which is fine but I do like it there so I can see the basic info including time on the plotter screens.

SIB

Be careful with the GPS bluetooth code, I found that when you try to stop tracking it wouldn't release the bluetooth connection and would hang the whole app until it gave an error of "Uncaught Exception: process terminated". I tested everything and came up with it being related to releasing the bluetooth stack.

On that note, I have found that in older version 4.2.0 of the Pearl OS, it had no problems with continuously finding bluetooth GPS but 4.2.1 changed the stack and now for whatever reason it runs into problems with accessing bluetooth gps from a normal GPS call. The only way to fix it is to reboot. It is a pain but that is the issue. Roll back to 4.2.0 and you will see what I am saying. It is an RIM OS issue not a bbTracker issue.

The GPSTrack method actually bypasses the paired devices and just goes out to search for BT devices when you initialize bluetooth. I have had GPSTrack working without my Holux paired so it is not even looking for paired devices but any GPS bluetooth device within range.

I noticed that with the GpsTrack application. It does occasionally lock the app. I can alt-enter back to the home screen and eventually it will give the error and I can go back into GpsTrack. I even had that typed into my response above but backspaced it out before posting because I just figured I was doing something wrong.

Your explanation about the bluetooth stack between 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 makes a lot of sense, too. I noticed the problem with TeleNav after upgrading to 4.2.1. Occasionally, TeleNav will lose the connection. However, with TeleNav I can exit TeleNav, turn bluetooth off and back on and then go back to TeleNav and it will pick up the bluetooth connection again. With bbtracker this isn't the case. As you said, it takes a complete reboot in order to get it.

Does this happen in 4.2.2 code on the Curve or 8830? I'm wondering if RIM may have fixed this in 4.2.2 or 4.3. It has been a royal PIA with TeleNav.

Not sure if this happens on the 4.2.2 of 4.3 on the Curve or 8830. I would love to hear from someone using those models.

Good to know that it's not (only) my fault

I'll be adding the Bluetooth GPS connection anyway, since bbTracker should be useable on as wide a range of cell phones as possible and there are many more cell phones out there with Bluetooth, than there are with Location API/GPS. So addin the direct Bluetooth ability will make bbTracker useable for almost every Nokia user with a GPS puck (BlackBerry owners will probably not care ).

Regarding the degrees on the status tile: I'll re-add them and try to put both the degrees and the alpha direction on there.

7100simpleisbetter: thanks for your ongoing efforts, I'll try to merge it this weekend, when I find the time.

I'm sorry when I'm slow with merging some changes (such as time on the StatusTile), it's not because I don't like it, but rather because I want it integrated really well and on the StatusTile that means that it should be shown correctly both when 2 lines or 3 lines are used (or maybe I'll just get rid of the 2-line layout).

I've got a similar issue with the SummaryTile: Basically it's great to have that and I really want that in bbTracker, but I have to find a way to manage the different screens effectively. Back when there where only 3 views using Space (or 0) was just fine for switching. Now, with 4 views it's getting a bit slow to cycle through all the ones you don't want right now and with 5 views it won't get better.

I'm constantly searching for solutions here, some possiblities are

• make the list of views customizeable and keep the cycling: Not really a solution, a workaround at best
• use seperate hot-keys for each view: a usability nightmare, noone wants to learn that many hotkeys
• avoid adding new views: only possible as long as no more functionality is added, so not desirable
• somehow putting the views in categories: might be a good idea, have to find a good way to navigate those then
• don't seperate the details view and the status view, but just add one such view where the user can choose which items to display. This would add a nasty options screen (bad usability), but would keep the number of views low (good) and displays exactly what the user wants (very good).

So basically my problem is, that I really want to keep bbTracker simple to understand and simple to use, while at the same time adding features (which unavoidably add complexity). Some "design" goals of bbTracker could be summarized like this:

• keep the user interface simple, don't force the user to remember 15 shortcuts
• keep the options page small, choose sensible default values instead (I'm not perfect at that, yet)
• don't force a single mode of operation on the user: let each user choose how he uses bbTracker
• make the user happy
• have fun coding it
• keep the code clean (invisible to the end user, but essential for the previous item)

So lately the designing-and-choosing part of producing bbTracker takes more time than the actual coding (the fact that 7100simpleisbetter produces some great code just adds to the fact ).

With all the changes comming up, it seems like the next version will be 0.5.0.

No software should break in such a way, no matter what the user does. This is a fact that many people don't seem to know, because they are used to programs just failing on them.

In a good program (and I hope that will one day include bbTracker ) no matter what the user does, the program will stay stable. It might display an error message when it really can't go on, but it should never just crash.

Unfortunately even some software developer subscribe to the view that "if it crashes when you do A, then don't do A!", which is a terrible way to develop software in my opinion. Not only do you put a burden of remembering "don't do A" on the user, but you also annoy those users who don't know that A should not be done. It would be at least somewhat nicer if your program said "You did A, unfortunately this software can't do that because ...".

Hm ... today I seem to be in a ranting mood, please bear with me

Thanks again to all. I truly do think this is an awesome community effort. I have just hoped on for a moment so I have to go back and digest the latest. One point on that summary - I wasn't sure if Simpleisbetter's summary had total elevation gain. That is a very desired number for us Mt. Biker/Skier types. JC - no wisecracks. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend.

Stinsonddog,

The summary page only includes Min/Max elevation. I am working on the elevation gain but it was not included in the version provided to saua with the summary screen. Once I get it working I will pass it along to him.

Stinsonddog,

One question, there is some debate over what Total Elevation Gain is. I hope you are looking for the simple definition being that Total Elevation Gain is the sum of all uphill travel on a given route. There seems to be some debate over the elevation gain topic. The code was pretty easy and I will get it over to saua and let him determine the best way to implement in the next release.

SIB

Yes that works fine for me. If I am riding and go up and down various hills, I assume this means all of the ups are counted. That is what I am looking for and that sounds like what you are suggested. In otherwords on the elevation screen, for all the ups what is the total? Thanks again.

saua, whenever I open the Track Manager, I get a "non-fatal exception while getting the list of stored tracks", and the program reverts back to the view page. Can you help me with that?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/114)

JSanders: there should be some more text at the end of the error message. Posting the full message would help me find the cause of the problem.

All: Unfortunately I wasn't able to work on bbTracker during the weekend, so I'll have to let you wait a bit more for 0.5.0. I'll try to make the waiting worthwhile

I'm new at this... sorry if I'm being dense. I d/l the software to give it a shot (as if I had nothing better to do on this busy weekend ). I have set it up to export to sd card. But when I open media manager I cannot find the files... I tried saving to the pictures folder, still nothing. I know it's there because while your app is running it shows the files saved...

I'm sorry, I just can't figure out how to get them off my phone. I read through the thread but still can't quite grasp what I'm doing wrong. Oh dear.

Other than that, nice app! I found that it picked up my gps puck right away the first time. The next time it didn't. So I went into telenav, got a fix on my location, went back to your software and was immediately picked up...

The first thing to note that internally bbTracker stores the tracks in .bbt-files. They are binary (i.e. not normally readable by humans) and in a format that no other software can read (yet, because I simply made it up to have a simple storage format). When you want to view/analyse/modify your tracks in another program, you'll have to export them to one of the two supported formats: GPX (which is a general-purpose format for geographical data) and/or KML (which is used by Google Earth and Google Maps). To do this, simply choose "Export" from the Track Manager while selecting the track you want to export.

After that there should be three files in the track directory:

• trackname.bbt
• trackname.kml
• trackname.gpx

The first one is the bbTracker internal one and not generally usefull outside of your BlackBerry (except when you want to view the file on another BlackBerry in bbTracker or want to send it to me if I should diagnose a problem).

Note that if you use encryption on your device then those files will have ".rem" attached to their name and will be encrypted.

The method I prefer is usually to just put the micro SD card into an adapter and put that into the SD card slot of my Laptop. This only works when you don't use encryption on your SD card, since the Laptop alone will not be able to decrypt the file.

Alternatively you can use the Desktop software to get those files from your BlackBerry, but I can't be of much help here, since I don't use Windows regularly and thus don't usually use this way. I hope someone on here will jump in to help here.

Interesting. I know that there are some problems with external GPS pucks. I will try to look into this for 0.5.0.

Yes, if someone can jump in here and tell me how to get the files off the blackberry through the desktop software, I'd sure appreciate it!

I have used the export = it says exported, I just can't see the files ANYWHERE except in the programs track manager.

Anyone?

If you have a personal email account (yahoo, hotmail, other) set up on your phone my preferred method is to email them to myself. Go to your email and select Compose Email from the menu. Enter you email address and then scroll to the body of the message and in the menu there should be a "Attach Files" option. Select Media Card and get to the directory that you set up for the Track Directory in bbTracker. Select the file and it will attach and hit send. The files are usually not that big. Hope this helps.

SIB

I can see the exported files when I hit Media - all three! For some reason I can't get my email to see them, only jpgs... weird.

thanks for your patience...

t

help - when I hit attach email - it opens my pictures folder from my sd card and there is NO WAY to move it out of this folder to the one I set up containing the three exported files from the tracker (sd card/new folder). How the heck does one browse folders to send attachments on this thing if you don't want to send a jpg?

Anyone?

thanks.

Saua, 4389 Points recorded. Got back from LA to San Francisco. I recorded 289 miles worth of trip miles. I export the file to KML, but the file become pointsblahblah.kml.rem. I renamed it to just .kml and then google earth gave me an error.

Open of file "C:\files\points\pointsblahblah.kml" failed:Parse error at line 1, Column 4. Not well-formed (invalid token)

Above is the error I got, even though I renamed the file to .kml or even leaving to .kml.rem, it still reports it as if it's an .kml in google earth.

Any idea? Is it too big of a file? 1.16MB.

Are you using encryption on your SD Card within your BB? If so you need to copy the file of the SD Card via the blackberry desktop manager as it will de-encrypt the file. Then rename it and it should work, I did you same thing.

The exact error: "Non Fatal Exception, while getting list of stored tracks.
net.rim.device.api.io.fileIOException: File System Error.

I have made some track recently, and saved them and I have no idea where they are. I created a directory in options "Sanders/".

Is there a correct format to type the correct directory in options?

Thanks, love the app, still!

You have to type "SDCard" which then says it in the root directory of the SDCard. Not sure if you make a new directory and type in "SDCard\Sanders" if it works