[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] low.flying.pigs:
Hello Hello Blaustein / Klaus,

Initial compiled feedback and observations below regarding existing functionality of GCC 4.11 beta 5 (running on Widows Mobile 6.5) for your consideration, comment, and constructive criticism. Perhaps these may be addressed as applicable in future versions. Further feedback and observations are in progress and will be provided in due course.

Map Screen:

Gesture Limits:

Currently, gestures within the map area are not confined therein. If a gesture goes over the taskbar at the top, and then the physical edge of the screen, and then returns, the system interprets that as a press in the taskbar with the resultant applicable yet undesired effect. Likewise similar at the bottom with the buttons. Limiting map gestures to the map area in the middle is an obvious solution.

Zoom Limits:

GCC currently allows up to 23 levels of maps. However, GCC will zoom beyond the levels available. Outwards and inwards, it zooms to what seems infinity (outwards 100 million miles easily achieved, further than distance to the sun) (inwards from 0.0001 miles (16.09344 centimetres) and then into infinitesimal ranges of 5E-05, then 2E-05, then 1E-05, then 5E-06, then 2E-06 all the way to 2E-10 easily achieved) What is the purpose of these extremes?

When maps are loaded from memory card and 'Download' is not selected, the levels available are known. Zoom out can be restricted to lowest available level. Zoom in can be restricted to actual level plus 2 or 3 as the magnification effect can be useful within reason.

When maps are being downloaded, zoom can be limited to level 0 and level 23, or separately configured when selecting 'Download'.

Continuous Scroll / Zoom Enhancement:

When browsing the map and scrolling, when the edge of the map area is reached, the map stops scrolling and continuing to hold the finger has no further effect. To scroll further, the finger must be lifted and placed back on the screen to scroll again. Repeating this action over and over is tedious when browsing the map over a wide area. Enabling the map to continue scrolling until the finger is lifted is an obvious solution.

Likewise, when wishing to zoom it can be tedious (up to 23 presses). Enhancing functionality of existing zoom buttons is an obvious solution.

Tap

Up / down one level as present / normal

Double tap

Up / down to preset levels (existing 'default zoom' setting becomes 'upper default preset', new setting required for lower preset)

Tap and hold

Up / down through whole available range

Track to Follow:

Display of direction arrows on the T2F would aid navigation in a number of circumstances.

Using the nearest point available in a T2F instead of 100m ahead (or at least using considerably less than 100m, 5m perhaps) would result in improved directions(?).

Altering the 'data array size' in settings with a T2F loaded clears data as warned, however, waypoints remain on the maps (enforcing GCC to close and restart after changing this setting would resolve this and other odd effects observed)

When miles are selected, on screen directions are shown in meters. For short distances this is desirable. For long distances, 5.839 miles for example displays as 9370m which is not meaningful or user friendly. Obvious solution is usage of large unit (miles) for large distances, and smaller unit (meters) for smaller distances, switching perhaps at 0.25 miles, 400 meters approx (402.3360).

When miles are selected, enable voice navigation in miles instead of km.

When loading a T2F with a start point that is distant from current location:

A line is draw from the current location to the nearest part of the track, not the 'start' or 'finish'. The user should decide between nearest point, 'start' or 'finish'.

That line and 'Distance to T2F [insert distance]' message displayed at the bottom of the screen are only shown when the current location or nearest part of the track are on screen individually or not at all. When both are on screen together, neither line or message is shown.

That line will on occasion (circumstances undetermined) change from the selected colour, to another (observed selected red turning to black, with beta5 only)

Voice - A female English speaking voice, named Jenny, has been created as a proof of concept.

High sound quality version. Tested working without issue on HTC HD2.

352kbps Bit Rate, 16 Bit Audio sample size, 22kHz Audio sample rate, Channels: 1 (Mono)

Lower sound quality version. For older, lower specification devices.

64kbps Bit Rate, 8 Bit Audio sample size, 8kHz Audio sample rate, Channels: 1 (Mono)

Apart from sound quality, both are the same. Each contains 53 .wav files including:

04 alternative words for existing functionality.

18 new additional words in anticipation of future functionality.

Further words can be created as needs be.

Live Logging:

When GCC sends the position, a message is also sent 'Message from [insert user name] [insert time elapsed since message] GpsCC'. This is displayed on the live tracking screen when hovering over the position. This is unnecessary, however, if bidirectional messaging could be implemented, it would be useful to be able to send and receive meaningful messages.

When allowing others to live track your position, '[insert user name]'s Position | Last Update: 01/01/0001' is displayed above the map. Whilst the position updates accordingly, last update does not and remains at 01/01/0001.

When 'Upload GPX file (after saving)' is ticked, after converting the .gcc to .gpx using File/Export, the message '90 - Could not establish a connection to the server!' however, there are no internet connectivity issues.

When 'Upload GPX file (after saving)' is selected, automatic upload on completion of logging would be useful.

When the stop button is pressed 'Do you want to upload GPX file?' would be displayed, following the 'Stop? Are you sure?' when 'Confirm Pause and Stop' is selected. GCC would automatically convert the .gcc to .gpx and upload accordingly. This reduces the 6-7 button presses currently required to just 2 or 3.

When 'Verify login' is selected, 'Please retype your password' is displayed although the password is stored and livelogging functions.

When selecting live logging interval, option to freely set this instead of the current presets would be useful, as would ability to do so below 1 minute.

Logging .gcc filenames, name and descriptions / File/Export:

Facility to enter 'Name' and 'Description' for new .gcc files, and edit / add to existing .gcc files, as shown in Summary Information from Beta 5.

For new .gcc files, could be incorporated in to 'Ask for log file name' feature accessed via 'menu' 'options', on the 'main screen' page, which currently only handles .gcc file name.

For existing files, could also be accessible via File/Export.

Within File/Export, facility to select more than one file for conversion to .gpx or .kml would be useful.

Facility to enter 'Name' and 'Description' for new .gpx or .kml files, and edit / add to existing .gpx or .kml files, as shown in Summary Information from Beta 5.

Input LatLon:

Immediate availability of numeric keypad with '.', ';' and 'delete' would be useful.

Preventing input of other characters by auto rejection or unavailability of other keys would prevent the 'Format error at index 0' error from arising in the first instance. If lat and long were entered in to separate boxes, even the ';' key could be removed.

Within the Input LatLon screen, a 'select from map' button that displays the map and allows the user to then select a place on the map, with those coordianted being automatically entered would be useful.

On main screen, access to Input LatLon by a tap on the coordinates in the GPS section would be useful.

Foreground / Background Colour:

Prevent or warn against selection of same of similar colours for both.

Main Screen:

Altitude Enhancement:

Option for automatic sequential display of gain, loss, max, min and slope, pausing on each for perhaps 4 seconds. This would be useful and allow the rider to see the information with less / or without any, interaction required. A tap in the area would stop the sequence at the presently displayed information until tapping again to resume.

Exit button:

On main screen, after logging completed and stopped, button on left could be Exit instead of Menu, with menu still accessible via tap and hold if required (i.e. same behaviour as when logging with tap and hold map button to reach menu)

Exit button when tapped (main screen or menu) would exit GCC as normal (would have to wait before responding to check for second tap). Exit button when double tapped would exit GCC as normal and also shutdown the device.

Almost always upon completion and stopping logging, my next action is to close GCC. I would envisage most users are the same.

The aforementioned simplifies that process, and the device shutdown that follows when the device is primarily used for GCC. There arises no inconvenience if instead wishing to access the menu after logging.

Menu Screen - Rearrange Buttons:

Grouping the most used features (in normal usage) at the top and related features together would be useful.

There is potential to reduce 21 buttons down to 18. Recall 1,2 and 3 could be removed and replaced with a page in options allowing for 'save current settings as', selection of saved users settings, and option to reset settings to default. This would usefully expand the existing functionality and aid testing.

There is potential some buttons could be made unselectable and / or 'greyed out' to indicate they are currently unavailable as per convention, or even 'hidden' entirely in which case the buttons below would move upwards accordingly, in certain circumstances when they have no function preventing the associated errors if pressed in those circumstances from arising in the first instance.

- ClearTrack/Clear2Follow unless a Track or Track to Follow is loaded.

- Continue unless a Track is loaded. Currently shows 'Error No valid gcc-file loaded. Do you want to start new track? Yes No'.

- Restore unless previous state is available. Currently shows 'Sorry Last state is already overwritten with current state'.

- Heart Rate unless .gcc has data, and / or functionality required and selected under options (requires new option).

- Add waypoint unless logging is activated. Currently shows 'Can't add a waypoint when logging is not activated'.

- Navigate unless T2F is loaded. Currently shows 'no Track2F loaded'

- Altitude unless .gcc has data. Currently shows 'no data to plot'.

- Speed unless .gcc has data. Currently shows 'no data to plot'.

low.flying.pigs