OruxMaps

Uncategorized Boards => GENERAL => Topic started by: kech61 on October 11, 2013, 04:53:15 PM

Title: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: kech61 on October 11, 2013, 04:53:15 PM
Hi Orux,



Greetings to the south from a rainy Austria.



Best regards

Christian

www.openandromaps.org
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on October 25, 2013, 10:10:55 AM
I really hope you two guys will collaborate tightly :) because Oruxmaps is powerful as hell and those vector maps are superb and super handy, too.



I already suggested this privately to Orux but here I go again :)

I think that Oruxmaps should behave as an openandromaps client. In simpler words, offering the user to download openandromaps straight from Oruxmaps itself, and caring about the updates as well every month (for instance).



Popup: "a new version of OpenAndromaps is available for this area! Do you want to download it?"

(with checkbox "download on wifi only").



"sure!" :)



"download starting....".



Something similar should happen with themes in my opinion (for instance, simply, the next version of Oruxmaps could come with the openandromaps themes preinstalled and configured).



I have many friends that are not geeks and for them, reading instruction, connecting phone to PC, transfering files, creating folders, reloading programs... are simply steps out of their average users skills. And even for skilled users as we are, those are still pretty much boring steps ;)



That was it. I think that such an integration would help to spread oruxmaps and openandromaps even more (and a lot more).



Cheers and thanks for what you are doing!
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 18, 2013, 09:44:25 AM
Bump. Nobody else thinks that this feature would be SUPER COOL? :-|



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Title: Re: R: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: Maki on November 19, 2013, 01:29:01 PM
Yes, it would be cool. It would be even cooler to have diff upgrades, so that you don't download every time the same stuff that didn't change since last time (think about contour lines).



However, given the typical download size, I have some reserve. After all it's unlikely that most people needs to update very often, making things too easy could put a massive load on servers.
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: Quercus.JB on November 19, 2013, 05:31:06 PM
Después de Oruxmaps, Openandromaps ha sido mi mejor descubrimiento. La combinación es perfecta, al menos para mi. Aunque intuyo que para millones de personas mas.



Gracias a Orux y a kech61.
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: kech61 on November 24, 2013, 11:40:18 AM
Quote from: "febs"Bump. Nobody else thinks that this feature would be SUPER COOL? :-|


Hi Febs,



It would be perfekt possible (from my side) to provide the themes on ftp/dropbox/GDrive or something else for download/update direct from Oruxmaps or any other APP.



The maps itself.....

Well,

Some clear words about this:



The anual costs for driving the OAM are about 2000Euros (Yes indead, look at the prices/TBW-lifetime of a SSD), the donations cover these costs more or (most likely in my experience) less.

If I would provide maps for direct download (without a donation button ever seen for the user) within an APP I would have to charge user for this (like some Apps do with their own maps) or cancel the OAM because of lack of budget.

The only way to provide payed maps for a small fee would be to provide my own APP - this would mean to run behind Orux/Locus and making all bugs they aleready cleared in long years of making these APPs.



Believe me, I'm thinking a lot how to improve OAM and keep it running for everyone with at least a small plus-zero-balance.

I'm aware too that about 1% of the user donate driving OAM for the 99% that newer provided even one coin for this Projekt.



I'm open for any idea how to improve this situation for everyone.



Best regards, Christian
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 24, 2013, 06:01:21 PM
An app like DEM1 could work? It's funded by ads (although I'd rather pay a fee than having ads but that's my taste) and it allows to downoad altitude data separately from oruxmaps. Could it provide a decent revenue?



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Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 24, 2013, 06:05:25 PM
I mean, an app only meant to downoad data, not a cartographic app on its own, just like dem1. Orux allows to call for the externa app. You do, get the dem, see the banner, and get back to oruxmaps with your fresh DEM.



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Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: orux on November 24, 2013, 07:08:47 PM
Hi; all are right;



Openandromaps maps and themes are perfect for oruxmaps, and Christian needs that people visit the web site to receive support for the project.



In the next version I will add an initial link to www.openandromaps.org site, to promote these maps.



I think it is not hard to visit the web site from time to time to update the maps.



orux
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 24, 2013, 07:38:56 PM
It's not only visiting the site, it's also downloading, connecting the phone, unzipping, choosing the folder. For geeks as we are this is super easy (though quite boring anyway!) for ordinary touch and go people that's quite a daunting task.

Two friends of mine, great alpinists, can't use oruxmaps on their own and I have to set up their!



Is the separate, advertisement funded app option not remunerative enough, I guess



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Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 24, 2013, 07:48:31 PM
Why don't you sell them as in app purchase elaewhere? Skobbler works like that. Cheap fees, lifetime licenses. Good model in my opinion.



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Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: Maki on November 24, 2013, 11:37:05 PM
Quote from: "kech61"I'm open for any idea how to improve this situation for everyone.


I already suggested on your website more or less what Febs is suggesting here, but you declined. I perfectly understand the reasons why you can't do that, your time and family are more important than our maps. However that seems the only way to make money from maps as of today. Have you thought about contacting another programmer to write the app and share the revenue? It's a very simple app, all it has to do is download a file, extract the map and place it in the right folder.

I don't know how many downloads you have in a year, but I'm confident that even at 0.10€/download your expenses would be more than covered and I think that nobody would have problems with such a price, not even occasional downloaders. Just please don't go the way of DEM1, forcing users to click a banner is unethical. I would have gladly paid for that app, but I ditched it instead and got my DEMs elsewhere.



The really cool feature would be the diff upgrades, but I don't know if that's possible with OSM data. Without that I think that the direct download on the phone poses some risks. Some maps are 1GB compressed, so one needs to have more than double that space free on the phone. Also it could eat up a monthly data plan with a single download. Not a problem for the geeks that know what are doing, but for Average Joe who can't remember if a MB is bigger or lower that a GB it could be a problem. On the other side a lot of car navigators on the market are doing this  so I'm probably wrong.



Personally the reason why I'd like the app is the in-app purchase. I got the donate version of OM almost immediately after trying the free one just for the convenience of the Play Store; on the old forum I asked for in-app donations so that I can donate again every now and then. On the other hand I'm still in the 99% of those that haven't paid for the maps, just for Paypal. I made a vow that before Christmas I'll go past my hate for it and make a donation, and I'll do because you more than deserve it, but I'd *much* prefer going trough the Play Store.
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 25, 2013, 08:21:27 AM
For what matters me, I already tipped three euros via PayPal but I would pay more to have the maps readily available on my phone just touching ONE button and supporting the development (both of the maps and the app itself!) at the same time.



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Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: febs on November 25, 2013, 08:22:19 AM
Speaking about donations, I'd happily pay for a fundraising campaign to make OM open source, but that's another story. :-)



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Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: kech61 on November 30, 2013, 04:33:25 PM
Quote from: "febs"It's not only visiting the site, it's also downloading, connecting the phone, unzipping, choosing the folder. For geeks as we are this is super easy (though quite boring anyway!) for ordinary touch and go people that's quite a daunting task.


Hi febs,



You are right - unfortunately, and things get more complicated for users with thoses #'§$'# Android 4.x Devices using RAM, Internal_SD, External_SD aso..

So an App financed by adds would be fine.

I installed Android-Studio, however java is a complete different horse compared to lisp, perl, delphi, clipper, vba, shell, rexx and numerous other I managed to ride during the last 30 years.

AND I'm really afraid to run into all bugs Manufakturers love to implement with their Smartphones.



However, I will (have to) think about ways to provide a solid financial base for OpenAndroMaps - a Downloader would be one of the options to go.



Best regards, Christian
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: Maki on December 01, 2013, 08:53:56 PM
I'm all for ads, as long as you allow me to remove them with a donation. :-)



In addition, have you thought about tracking user downloads on the website and nag the regular downloaders with a message that explains the costs and says a donation would be appreciated to keep thing running?

Or maybe just make this thing more visible to everyone. The simple Paypal "donate" button is everywhere on the web, it just gets ignored automatically by everyone.
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: kech61 on December 02, 2013, 12:37:34 PM
Quote from: "Maki"I'm all for ads, as long as you allow me to remove them with a donation. :-)



In addition, have you thought about tracking user downloads on the website and nag the regular downloaders with a message that explains the costs and says a donation would be appreciated to keep thing running?


Its already running on my local test server.

;-)



BTW: I switched on logging of downloads for a couple of days and the daily average is 1600 Downloads (only maps, themes not counted), where only 20% is done by bulk download tools such httrack.....
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: radioman57 on December 12, 2013, 07:34:54 PM
Hi Christian



What happened to your website? My browser is showing an empty page.



Markus
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: dsvilko on December 20, 2013, 01:59:47 PM
Hi! Don't know if this is the best place to ask...

I am trying to make (tweak) my own theme for your maps and was wondering if you have any plans to add the trail_visibility key to your maps. It seems to me that it could be a useful to hikers and it would encourage mappers to tag more trails with this tag. The 'smoothness' tag is also interesting as, to me, it seems much more informative than the 'surface' tag (grade1-5), even though it's still not very popular. I am guessing it wouldn't be that hard to keep these two tags?

If we render the sac_scale by colour, we could use stroke-dasharray to depict how well the trail is marked. Similarly we could color the tracks by the 'surface' tag (grey, brown, green) and dash them by the 'smoothness' tag.

Your thoughts?



Best regards,

Domjan
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: Maki on December 21, 2013, 03:03:04 PM
I was just about to ask the same thing for same reason. Also wilderness huts are missing too, and winter rooms on alpine huts.
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: kech61 on December 29, 2013, 09:28:01 PM
Quote from: "Maki"I was just about to ask the same thing for same reason. Also wilderness huts are missing too, and winter rooms on alpine huts.


Hi,



Will be both added with the first update 2014.

http://www.openandromaps.org/map-basics-2/tag-mapping



;-)
Title: Re: Greetings from Openandromaps
Post by: dsvilko on January 16, 2014, 10:58:26 AM
I have made a new rendering style for the 2014. maps:

//http://www.oruxmaps.com/foro/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1579



BTW, is the smoothness tag still missing or am I doing something wrong?