Using

From TrekBuddy

Contents 1 General Workflow 2 Keyboard and touchscreen handling 2.1 Keypad 3 Screens 3.1 Map screen 3.2 Compass screen (aka HPS) 3.3 Computer Screen (aka CMS) 4 Waypoints and navigation 4.1 Waypoints 4.2 Record Current 4.2.1 Take a snapshot 4.2.2 Snapshot Options 4.3 Enter custom 4.4 SMS I'm here 4.5 SMS Meet you there 4.6 Stop 5 Tracklog 5.1 Formats 5.2 Which one to choose 5.3 Start a tracklog 5.4 Stop the tracklog 5.5 Things to watch out

[edit] General Workflow

For beginners, this is one possible sequence to get started with TrekBuddy:

1. Install TrekBuddy
2. Start TrekBuddy
3. Maybe: Do initial Configuration by pressing MENU and 4 for settings
4. Maybe: Load map/atlas (if already stored on device)
5. Press MENU and 1 to start listening to GPS receiver
6. Choose YES to log a track
7. Move outdoors where GPS reception is possible and take your device with you
8. Watch for the little dot in top right corner and wait until it turns from yellow (no signals) to green (receiving signals)
9. See your position in OSD (top) and move the curser
10. Press # to change to HPS mode. Check the accuracy of GPS signals.
11. Press 1 for waypoints menu, select "record current", enter some name and save
12. Move a little away, press 1 for waypoints menu, select "waypoints", choose the file just created and in it the waypoint you created, Options, 1 to NavigateTo from your current to former position
13. Play around and have fun :-)

[edit] Keyboard and touchscreen handling

[edit] Keypad

Using the mobile phone's keypad

MENU displays the menu	BACK pause/continue track	C delete last entered character
1 Short: Waypoint menu Long: List wpts of current wpt file	2+UP Map: move cursor north/up HPS: toggle raw / position-averaging mode CMS: none	3 toggle backlight
4+LEFT Map: move cursor west/left HPS: change scale CMS: previous configuration	5+FIRE Center cursor to last received position	6+RIGHT Map: move cursor east/right HPS: change scale CMS: next configuration
7 Change map layer (atlas)	8+DOWN Map: move cursor south/down HPS: toggle raw / position-averaging mode CMS: list configurations	9 Change map (atlas)
* All: Long: lock keypad Map: Short and 0: toggle function of 0 (transparency vs wpt name(s)/cmt(s))	0 Map: toggle crosshair transparency or toggle wpt name/cmt/none HPS: toggle crosshair transparency CMS: toggle background	# toggle map/HPS/CMS

Note: The "Joystick" with LEFT/UP/RIGHT/DOWN on some mobile phones provides the same functions as the 2,4,6,8 and 5 keys.
Note: Blackberry with "full" keyboard have different mapping, please see http://www.trekbuddy.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22

[edit] Screens

[edit] Map screen

All screenshots were made on a Nokia E70

Map Screenshots

Map screen just after starting trekbuddy (light is red)

GPS has been connected but isn't receiving data yet (light is orange)

GPS is "up and running" (light is green)

The map screen mainly displays maps. Those maps have to be installed and possibly selected before (see Maps and Howtos#Maps). On the map screen, a crosshair with a compass rose around it is displayed, with a small arrow displaying the direction of movement. The crosshair's coordinates/position is displayed on the upper border of the screen in degrees, minutes and seconds. Also a small dot, which indicates GPS reception, is displayed in the upper right corner of the screen.

Depending on your configuration, a second line of text will display local time, speed, altitude and number of satellites recieving data from, but only, if GPS is connected and receiving positional data.

On moving around, the map will follow your position until you reach the border of the map. The crosshair will become "stuck" and the text lines on top of the screen will become red if your position is "off the map" and can't be displayed properly.

[edit] Compass screen (aka HPS)

This screen displays the last positions relative to the current one. This is useful to see one's movement (large scale) respective to check accuracity (detailed scale), e.g. for geocaching.

All screenshots were made on a Nokia E70

Map Screenshots

HPS in GOTO mode

HPS in compass mode without WPT selected

With LEFT-RIGHT key/joy user can change scale. Using UP-DOWN key/joy user can switch between raw and position-averaging mode.

[edit] Computer Screen (aka CMS)

This screen can be configured by the user using XML file(s). No default configuration file is shipped. Store the XML files in the directory %data_dir%/ui-profiles, for example cms.simple.xml. You can put more than one XML file, change between them via LEFT/RIGHT and DOWN keys. Since version 0.9.66 TB memorizes the last CMS used. Further you can switch between night and day and change background color with 0 key, specified in the xml.

Details concerning the XML configuration files may be found in the wiki page CMS and the forum http://www.trekbuddy.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=296 Both sources contain a list of available parameters. TODO: Bring all information of the forum threads to wiki and close forum threads

[edit] Waypoints and navigation

In the waypoint menu (accessible via the "1" key) you have several options:

[edit] Waypoints

Shows a list of waypoint files stored in datadir/WPTS folder that have been created by marking points in TrekBuddy or by uploading GPX files from your PC to your mobile device.

You can

• select a waypoint and view it's information like name, comment, location and altitude
• NavigateTo a waypoint; the distance and direction (as degrees and arrow) to the waypoint are displayed on the map screen
• RouteAlong a list of waypoints that may be <trkpt>s contained in a track (!) <trk> in a GPX file. Displays like navigate to, but automatically sets the next waypoint as target when current is reached.
• RouteBack follow the same route as with RouteAlong, but in reverse direction.
• ShowAll waypoints; shows all waypoints in the GPX-file on the map, for as far as they are on the visible part of the map. Pressing shortly * followed by 0 toggles the function of 0 key to cycle through display of waypoints name, comment and neither. Has an effect only in map mode.
• GoTo a waypoint; the cursor moves to this waypoint. Has an effect only in map mode.

[edit] Record Current

Sets a new waypoint using the current coordinates. You can enter a Name and a comment. Time, date and altitude are stored automatically.

[edit] Take a snapshot

If you are using a mobilephone with an integrated camera, Trekbuddy lets you add a snapshot. Once activated you will see the camera preview screen to take a picture. Does not work in most Nokia S40 based phones, but in Nokia 6233 it works fine.

The photos or snapshots are stored in images-<time that matches waypoints gpx timestamp> subfolder and is linked from given waypoint, for further "postprocessing".

[edit] Snapshot Options

Accessible in the main options menu through Setting -> Location

• Capture Locator: enter either capture://image or capture://video - depending on your device

• Capture Format: encoding=image/jpg should work for most users, another option is encoding=image/gif; to specify the resolution of the snapshot add width and height variables in the Capture Format field, e.g. encoding=image/jpg&width=1280&height=1024

[edit] Enter custom

Lets you enter coordinates manually before saving a waypoint. The coordinates of your cursor in the map view are entered by default.

[edit] SMS I'm here

Sends an SMS with your current coordinates. You may specify the recipient and an additional message. A connection to a GPS is needed.

[edit] SMS Meet you there

Sends an SMS with coordinates of your map cursor. You may specify the recipient and an additional message here as well. No GPS connection needed.

[edit] Stop

Only shown when routing is active; will stop navigation.

[edit] Tracklog

Trekbuddy comes with the functionality to log the GPS coordinates in so called track points. This is often called tracklog or routelog. This functionality enables you to use the data for whatever you like. (These calculations can not been made with the current version of TB.) You can

• calculate the distance you traveled
• calculate the average speed
• watch your way on a map
• use the data in OpenStreetMap
• ...

[edit] Formats

NMEA is a raw GPS format. In most cases this is the format your GPS reciever sends to Trekbuddy. This format is understood by many applications and can be converted by gpsbabel to any other format. This is the default logging format.

Internal GPS devices do not send NMEA data to TrekBuddy directly. A software interface (the Location-API) shields the GPS module and provides ready prepared location and speed instead. So natively on devices with internal GPS TrekBuddy does not have NMEA info to be logged. Some implementations of the location API however give some NMEA sentences to application software if it asks for "extra information". In this case at least a bit of NMEA can be logged. If it is enough for your purpose is not sure. Just try and see.

GPX XML is an XML format that can store trackpoints, too. Ideally it should work like NMEA. For more information, see Howtos#GPX_File_format.

[edit] Which one to choose

Many users reported success in logging data in NMEA. It seems to be smaller than GPX. Also it's enabled by default.

[edit] Start a tracklog

First you need to set up your GPS reciever to work with Trekbuddy. After that go on and launch Trekbuddy. Open the menu and select "Start XYZ" (where XYZ is the name of your GPS receiver and might be blank). After that Trekbuddy will ask you if a tracklog should be written or not. The tracklog will be saved in <trekbuddy-dir>/tracks-nmea for NMEA and <trekbuddy-dir>/tracks-gpx for GPX.

[edit] Stop the tracklog

Open the menu and select "Stop".

[edit] Things to watch out

If you lose connection to the satellites (i.e. you're inside a building) the tracklog gets messed up sometimes. The GPS receiver sends incorrect positions to Trekbuddy add invalid trackpoints. You should stop or pause your tracklog (via MENU) when you know that you will lose the connection.