AlpineQuest & OfflineMaps

When I try and display the list of maps stored on my phone, the application takes several seconds before displaying the list. I do have about 420 maps in one folder, so I assume it is rebuilding information for all the maps. I don't want start having to move map files around to increase the performance by reducing the number in the folder used by the application. The speed of this operation is much slower than the mmtracker application I previously used.

This slow performance is repeated every time I try and load new map, so I assume the rebuild process is repeated each time, I would have thought it would be enough to do this once for each load of the application, rather than each time a map is loaded. MM uses a 'rebuild map list' button on the map load screen for the user to force a rebuild of the list of available maps when they know they have changed them.

Anybody have any suggestions rather than only keep the maps I currently need in the maps folder?

Derek.

Hi,
I guess what's taking time is the generation of the map previews, it's quite fast but I haven't tested it with few hundred of maps...
Also, maps are sorted at each display based on the current area displayed, to first display available maps and then maps covering another area. Maybe that also that.
I can add a user setting to disable the preview generation, to see if it speeds up the display.
Have you tried to check the "recursive scan" option (see button n°6 here), after an initial scan, maps stay in memory so maybe it will be faster in this way.
Please let me know.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I assumed the recursive feature was similar to mm, where subdirectories would be searched for maps, I'll give it a try tomorrow on a walk.

A user preference to disable repeated processing of maps might be useful, I general use the app by loading it frequently during a walk to preserve the battery life of my phone, so maybe a preference to allow the user force a rebuild of map data when they know it is necessary, ie after adding maps or moving to a different area might be of use to people.

Regards Derek.

I have tried checking the recursive scan checkbox, and this has improved the speed the list of stored maps is displayed, so thanks for the tip, however I can't really why this should make a difference as all the maps are in a single directory anyway, so a recursive scan should make no difference, I assume it is also changing some other functionality as well?.

What is the expected sort order of the list of maps, and is there an option to change it?, I seem to get different sort orders sometimes, and it isn't obvious what order the list is in, making it difficult to select the required map, is there some method searching the list for a keyword, with 420 maps its a lot of scrolling to find the relevant map.

Derek

Hi again,
If the option is not checked, the folder is "re-scanned" each time the user opens the Maps Explorer, so changes are taken into account immediately if any. It usually works fine since scanning a single folder is fast (unless you have so many maps)...
When using the "recursive scan" option, the scanned map list is kept in memory because it's not possible to rescan everything each time. It actually act like the "rebuild" option you are talking about.

Concerning the sort order, maps are divided into 2 categories, "in-bounds" and "out-of-bounds" maps. Within these categories, maps are sorted by scale (large scale first, and more detailed maps at the end). Maps with the same scale are sorted by name.
I guess I can add a sort option, I understand that this sort scheme is not obvious when you have so much maps... Let me know.

Thanks for the reply, now I understand why the recursive scan is faster , that will help a lot.

As regards the sort order, all my maps are the same scale and prefied with the word explorer followed by a 3 digit map number followed by the map name, however the displayed order appears more random, ie explorer043_, explorer044, explorer036_, explorer019_, explorer024_ etc.

I don't know how included a screen shot to demonstrate
Many thanks for the help and fast replies.
Derek

Humm yes it seems strange.
Don't bother for the screen shot, I trust you... I guess what's happening it that the application uses it's own computed map scales, that may differ a very little depending on the map areas, resulting in a random sorting, even if they all have the same theoretical scale.
Anyway I'll add a sort option to be also able to sort maps by name, and I'll also display the computed scale.
Best regards