Favourites, sharing

[Michael Wilkinson]

I use the favourites list to store details of cafes etc that my group of bikers pals and I visit over the course of our weekly ride outs. I also note any places to potentially visit at some future point. I have been asked to share this list with friends who are MRA users. Can I do this - either via MRA or by email?

[Con Hennekens]

@Michael-Wilkinson, it can be done but it is not easy. Especially of you already have an extensive list of Favorites, it will be tedious work...

Create a new route, call it "Bikergroup Favos" or something
Open your favorites list
click a favo you want to share, it will show on the map, zoomed in

Click the X to close the option box and click the Favo on the map now
Click the + symbol and choose "POI"

If you do this for all Favorite points you wish to share, you have created an empty exportable route that contains only these POI. You can share that route, and members can export it to GPX and import it as a POI library. Or you can share the exported GPX directly and others can import it into their POI libraries.

This can be a lot of work to start with, but a lot less once you catch up and only need to add new POI. I believe this is also how @Hans-van-de-Ven-MR-MRA maintains the list of bike closures in the Netherlands.

[Adrian Avram]

@Michael-Wilkinson this is why I prefer Osmand for these things. I have folders with favorite points, from here I can share only one POI at a time, or I can just share the entire folder as .gpx POI list ...

[Jörgen]

@Con-Hennekens Hi Con, when I follow your instruction and open a favorite and click on the X it closes the window. So nothing happen.
How did you get the next windows?

[Nick Carthew]

@Jörgen

[Jörgen]

@Nick-Carthew then my requirements are probably different.
We are talking about favorites that I have accumulated in the favorites area on the left.
I don't always see them on my cards with an icon (like here with the coffee cup).
I only see a favorite when I click on it in the list, then the first window appears to accept it. My favorites have just a star as symbol.

What is different for me? Are we talking about the same?

PS: I am on the website.

[Jörgen]

I think we talk about personal POIs her, right?

With them, I can follow the instrction.

[Con Hennekens]

@Jörgen said in Favourites, sharing:

I think we talk about personal POIs her, right?

Yes we are

[Martin Wilcke]

@Con-Hennekens said in Favourites, sharing:

@Jörgen said in Favourites, sharing:

I think we talk about personal POIs her, right?

Yes we are

But @Michael-Wilkinson asked for a way to share favourites. Do you have any ideas on this?

I haven't found a way to share favos so far...

[Nick Carthew]

@Jörgen @Martin-Wilcke Sharing favourites is not really an option. Favourites in MRA are just a shortcut to use to add a favourite place to a route or to quickly position a regular start point. @Con-Hennekens was demonstrating how to convert favourites to POIs which you can then make a file of and share the file.
No this isn't exactly what was being asked for but it is a workaround albeit a slow workaround!

[Con Hennekens]

@Martin-Wilcke, My explanation above enables you to share your favorites in the form of POI. There is no option for sharing Favorites directly in MRA.
That being said, I expect (or hope actually ) that in the webplanner overhaul planned for next year Favorites will be implemented as a category within POI. And also that sharing POI will be greatly re-invented.

[Martin Wilcke]

@Con-Hennekens @Nick-Carthew

Now I'm just as confused as @Jörgen .

When I click on a favorite, it is displayed as a "star" on the map and I can add it as a waypoint (routepoint) but not as a POI. When I click "X", the favorite disappears from the map:

I don't think you mean favorites, but custom POIs, which are listed under ‘POIs of interest > Manage’.
Right?

EDIT: 'POIs of Interest > Library', not '... Manage'.

[Martin Wilcke]

@Con-Hennekens said in Favourites, sharing:

And also that sharing POI will be greatly re-invented.

We all hope so, and that's how it will certainly turn out!

[Nick Carthew]

@Martin-Wilcke Yes, that is correct. Open the favourite to get the position and then add a custom POI in it's place.

[Martin Wilcke]

Thank's, @Nick-Carthew, I got it now.

I was misled by

Click the X to close the option box and click the Favo on the map now

as no favorite is shown on the map after closing the dialogue box.

@Nick-Carthew said in Favourites, sharing:

and then add a custom POI in it's place.

That's it.

[BertM]

@Michael-Wilkinson

I Had the same question and found no way to get it done in MRA(In a simple way ).

I got myself working in Excel to find a POI solution with the help of the Visual basic inside. Have been programming 15 years ago in VB, so that was for me the short time solution.

When starting a route I mostly use google to find interesting places or get some POI GPX File.

As one of the MRA forum members came with a request I started buiding a tool in Excel that will import GPX data found on the internet and get it in excel to edit to my needs.
As I have a Garmin Montana for Walking I also want to use the POI in the Garmin.
Most of the POI have only one field, and I wanted to add as much as I can in this field, but also use the full POI of Garmin/Basecamp.
Lets get an example of the way I work now.

Working on the holidays I found for example some data in Google My Maps

I can export the KML file and import it in my Excel Tool.
(to be honest, the KML import does not work yet, the export works.)
The imported data looks like this:

Now I can edit the file and look what will be interesting around the lake

In the menu I can look up the coordinates of a row in Google, for example I want to look if Cafe Belvedere is a place I want to visit...

That looks as a place I want to go!
Hotel Berc I will have a look also, as I want to stay there.
So far , so good.

As I have a Google API key, I can ask google to get me the address of both interesting places. I can place brackets on the places I want the adress from and Google will give me those. They are added in Orange between the brackets. If I have only the address of an interesting place, I let google get me the GPS coordinates.
After I get the address I can use this data also in the other colums to fill the Garmin/Basecamp data.

The Symbol row I use to get the Garmin Icons.
After I am happy I can export it to a GPX file and import it into MRA and Basecamp.

Data Imported into Garmin:

With MRA I have to upload the GPX in my POI database and I can use it there to add "My Favorites"

Now I have all the POI in MRA, I can use them in my routes or add it to "My Favorites". You can see, the data from the name field is in MRA.
I can them make a routepoint of the POI and add more data like the picture for example.

This still does not help you to share your favorites with your mates, but you can make a GPX or KML file of you points and share it, they can import them into MRA as POI.
Making a database in MRA is for now a lot of work, and in this way I am flexible untill the MRA team has made a way to export the POI's to the Garmin.

The Google API stuff it not ready yet to share, but the GPX import/Export works OK. If you have excel, I can share the file as it is now.

Regards,
Bert

[Jörgen]

@BertM Hi Bert, I am interested in the Excel-File.

[Con Hennekens]

@Martin-Wilcke said in Favourites, sharing:

I was misled by

Click the X to close the option box and click the Favo on the map now

Yes indeed. I am sorry for the confusion.

[BertM]

@Jörgen

Hi Jörgen, I will clean the file up and translate the Dutch into English.

I think I have the KML import also working, have to do some more testing...

As it is ready I will send you a link to download the file.

Bert

[Jörgen]

@BertM Thank you