Geopaparazzi 3.9.4 is out

Yes, this is open source development.
You publish a release and after a week of development you feel you need to release again to have them all use the new stuff :)

So version 3.9.4 is out in the google play.

Quickly the news:

1) automatic center on gps is now also on map menu. This is nice if you need to turn it on quickly. You don't want to go all the way to the settings.

2) Fixes:

• fix timestamp on log details in local time (was UTC)
• fix for logging sometimes interrupting without apparent reason
• fix for geopaparazzi not able to deliver SMS on android 4.4

3) Log analysis tool

This is the nice new entry.

Maybe not everyone knows that from the Secret View one can enable 3 levels of logging.

This gives the possibility to have a look at what happened and for example it helped me to solve the aforementioned problem with interruption of logs, since errors are always logged.

If you push the "analyze log" button, you will get:

You can select between different types of log message, of which the most importants might be E (error) and G (GPS related). The others would be I (info), CH (check), A (anomalies) and M (memory related), but they still have to be better defined.

Maybe this tool is more suited to developers than users, but I have seen some advanced users in the geopaparazzi mailinglists that I am sure will be fiddeling around with this.

Enjoy!


PS: remember to clear the log from time to time (clear log button in secret view).

There is also a related feature worth to mention: if you need to convert geopaparazzi data to GIS data, check out this short tutorial.

Geopaparazzi 3.9.3 is out

Well well, jumping from 3.9.0 to 3.9.3.

Not that there haven't been news in the last two releases:

version 3.9.2 (released 2014-02-06)

Fix for two nasty bugs:

• TMS tile map source not working
• form text resets on rotation

version 3.9.1 (released 2014-02-03)

• language updates
• fix for gpx export time bug
• fix for image notes problem
• fix zoom "jumping"
• fix for spatialite info tool
• several enhancements

But well, time is what it is :)

Let's get to the point of this point: version 3.9.3!

Version 3.9.3 brings a couple of nice enhancements, so I will take some time to describe them properly:

1) Labels for spatialite layers

From the layers view it is now possible to access a labels button (second from left):

to select some simple properties for labels: 

This will result in something like (thanks Mark for the screenshot):

Labeling at this time is very simple. No collision detection and labels on lines suffer of steep angles. Also labels in polygons are placed in the baricenter of the polygon, so for strange shapes (or multi-shapes), the label might lie outside the geometry. 

But it is a good and very useful start.

2) WMS mapurls TANTO service

Together with the friends from the geospatial blog TANTO and in particular Giovanni, after having seen all the problems that the creation of a mapurl for WMS services was causing, we decided to create a small service, that would automatically generate mapurls for geopaparazzi for known services.

For geopaparazzi users everything is transparent, the import view has a new entry: MAPURL

Once you enter that menu, you find the services query view:

Here you can define some filter parameters and start the query. 

In my case I had the gps placed in Italy, so the query returned me:

One can then simply download the service, which will install the mapurl inside your system. The user is prompted for a custom name to name the service after, else the original name will be used. Since the original name could be duplicated in different services, the prefix "tanto_" will be added in that case.

This service is in a very experimental state right now, but it works fairly well. If you experience problems, please report them at the link right here below.

Also to auggest WMS services you would like to see inside geopaparazzi, please follow the link below and read how this can be done.

Documentation about this service will be maintained at the geopapurls homepage. Report any issue there.

3) GPX fixes

GPX data are now imported also with the name and dsecription in it.

4) OSM and GMAP urls are better supported

While geosms is still well supported, I had the need to add some message to it that could be nicely tapped on and create a bookmark. The real problem here is that urls do not allow spaces, so something like:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=45.40658400,10.90924600&GeoSMS place to link

when tapped in the sms app, would not include the "place to link" in the url.

It is now possible to add after a last dash some information without spaces:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=45.40658400,10.90924600#placeToLink

or

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/46.68124/11.13489&layers=N#placeToLink

The above will both result in a new bookmark in geopap with the text: placeToLink

5) new icons

All the icons have bee redone with the Android Asset Studio resulting in very smooth icons on all device I tested them on.

Well well, I wish I had more time to dress this as a 1st April joke as many do, but I think I am just boring today. And if the app doesn't appear on google play, it is just because google play is slow in releasing :)

Enjoy!