Personal Points of Interest
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Sometimes naming a thing gives some insight. I recently posted about limitations of the user POI in the Routeplanner.
What I would love to see is this:
Ability to create Personal Points of Interest based on locations that I have personally researched.
Ability to see these on any route or new routes.
Ability to turn off individual items (as implemented in POI / Manage tab)
Ability to see points at any zoom level, or selected zoom level. I saw this in another user's comments.
Some tagging or sorting so that I could filter for things such as location (US state) or type (Hotel)
Available text fields for comments ("Great BBQ!) and hyperlinks.
Import and export, such as the CSV feature in the current POI implementation.That's all, and I now promise to stop posting on this topic!
Thanks for your consideration. -
Sometimes naming a thing gives some insight. I recently posted about limitations of the user POI in the Routeplanner.
What I would love to see is this:
Ability to create Personal Points of Interest based on locations that I have personally researched.
Ability to see these on any route or new routes.
Ability to turn off individual items (as implemented in POI / Manage tab)
Ability to see points at any zoom level, or selected zoom level. I saw this in another user's comments.
Some tagging or sorting so that I could filter for things such as location (US state) or type (Hotel)
Available text fields for comments ("Great BBQ!) and hyperlinks.
Import and export, such as the CSV feature in the current POI implementation.That's all, and I now promise to stop posting on this topic!
Thanks for your consideration.@Don-Stauffer I wonder, if I understand you correctly. But I can do everything you mentioned, in MRA - except "tagging". But with different own lists of POI, I can achieve what you intend.
But in the end, I will not state each and everything with POI is so excellent, it must not be developed further on. -
Thank you for your comments, Guzzist. I believe it is possible that I am not understanding the features in the current product. However, let me try to explain the difficulties I have with the POI feature.
'Search' has a list with many types of pre-defined Points of Interest. I live in the US, and have not found many entries that are helpful. Some are incomplete (no name, co-ordinates only) and I have found some to be incorrect. I have this type of POI available on my Garmin, and that feature is seldom used.
The next tab is 'Manage'. Here I can use the map to 'Add' locations, select from a number of useful icons, and add a name. Once a name is on that list, I can only delete it, I can't keep the POI but make it invisible. A simple check box would do. They do appear at any zoom level, which can be good or bad. No additional text fields are available for comments. The list is not available in other routes. However, I can export them to create my own POI library that can be loaded into any route.
Which brings us to the 'Library' tab, and here I have a list available of anything saved and reloaded from the 'Manage' tab, or created with an external editor. However, it's not possible to see individual items, so I can't verify that a POI that I am looking for is in my custom library. It follows that I cannot turn on and off individual items. And the POI's are only displayed when zoomed in to a particular level. Also, the only information saved is the co-ordinates and a name.
I think the routing features in MRA are the best of any app that I've tried. But I spend much more time planning a trip than actual routing, and that is where I think additional features would be beneficial.
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Thank you for your comments, Guzzist. I believe it is possible that I am not understanding the features in the current product. However, let me try to explain the difficulties I have with the POI feature.
'Search' has a list with many types of pre-defined Points of Interest. I live in the US, and have not found many entries that are helpful. Some are incomplete (no name, co-ordinates only) and I have found some to be incorrect. I have this type of POI available on my Garmin, and that feature is seldom used.
The next tab is 'Manage'. Here I can use the map to 'Add' locations, select from a number of useful icons, and add a name. Once a name is on that list, I can only delete it, I can't keep the POI but make it invisible. A simple check box would do. They do appear at any zoom level, which can be good or bad. No additional text fields are available for comments. The list is not available in other routes. However, I can export them to create my own POI library that can be loaded into any route.
Which brings us to the 'Library' tab, and here I have a list available of anything saved and reloaded from the 'Manage' tab, or created with an external editor. However, it's not possible to see individual items, so I can't verify that a POI that I am looking for is in my custom library. It follows that I cannot turn on and off individual items. And the POI's are only displayed when zoomed in to a particular level. Also, the only information saved is the co-ordinates and a name.
I think the routing features in MRA are the best of any app that I've tried. But I spend much more time planning a trip than actual routing, and that is where I think additional features would be beneficial.
@Don-Stauffer ...ah, now I've got your point. And yes, you are right with details you described. People who plans great journeys with lot of place to be visited during the journey- sometimes with alternatives (because of local weather conditions) - to get flexibility in the planned journey - such people do missing some features around POI.
Because I'm operating similar to you, I understand your pain.
And yes, to create a own POI is possible but poor. If you set an own POI, you can't make it as a route point too (like the given POI list in MRA).
If own POI are worth to be kept, I also export them from route as gpx file. And import it again as own POI list. Regularly, I enhance my own POI list and add furthermore POI in. I have different collections of own POI - separated by region or by type (viewpoints, monuments, etc.)
The greatest pain indeed is the missing possibility to add more information to a POI (like Garmin is able to).But all missed features you described are often discussed here. Many people are waiting for the big renewal of the website, hoping to get such missing features then.
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Yes, I believe we are understanding each other now. My intention for 'Personal Points of Interest' is to flag locations that I have researched, and might add to my route. It could be a national park, a spectacular section of highway, or a well-reviewed restaurant or BNB. I also am looking forward to new features and in the Routeplanner.
