If you caught one of my earlier diary entries, you’ll see I’ve been toying with old discarded mobile devices which have built-in satellite navigation receivers, looking at ways to turn them into fully-fledged free turn-by-turn Sat-Nav devices, for both driving and OpenStreetMap work.

Well, having found some free, previously-mentioned software, Navigator Free, I encountered a strange issue with a HTC Touch Pro2, where despite having an in-built tilt-sensor, it wouldn’t rotate the screen display from portrait to landscape, except when the built-in keyboard was opened or for just one or two particular applications.

Turns out that this device and the Windows ‘phone software it shipped with doesn’t support the sensor for application rotating as standard.. a fact I didn’t account for, assuming that if you shipped a device with a sensor in it, you’d make full use of it…!

I found a way around this, and wanted to pass it on as it’ll work for this and a wide-range of similar devices; download and install the free “G-Config” application (aka BsB_G-Config.cab) to the phone, and you can have it “learn” the applications you wish to display in landscape when the device is rotated, solving the problem in a stroke.

See http://www.xda-developers.com/, specifically this forum post; http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=487991 to download the application.

Took me minutes to “fix” once I’d found this, and hope it might be of some use to other OpenStreetMap editors using similar devices.

Regards

With thanks to Rovastar, I can’t believe I missed off some service roads from my recent mappings; I’d mapped some parking areas, but not connected them to any highways, leaving them in a kind-of “limbo”.

For some reason, I’d got it into my newbie head that I didn’t need to map “across pavements”, even though I could see the new ways I’d created didn’t link to a “main” way…

Must be the medication… ;-)

Anyway, Rovastar very kindly added them in for me on one example (as below), and I’ve now gone back and added them in on some other mappings I’ve done and missed them from.

Great advice from them too; go and look at another example of something, before mapping a new instance of it yourself, as you can pick up lots of tips from other people’s work.

Regards

Just mapping a local branch of the “Harvester” chain of restaurants, and torn as to what type of cuisine to class it as…?

I’ve gone for “cuisine=steak_house”, but what do others use?

See http://www.harvester.co.uk/theploughchelmsford/

and

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:cuisine

“Barbecue” / “American”…? Nothing really sits well as “right” with me for the chain.

I’d be interested in any feedback.

Having grabbed a HTC Advantage X7510 Windows 6.1 tablet-device from out of a skip, and finding it working, I set about looking for things I could practically do with it.

Given it’s touch-screen capability, and large screen generally, it lent itself to being a Sat-Nav device, especially when I found out it also had a GPS receiver built-in.

Trawling the ‘Net, I found “Navigator Free” at http://navigatorfree.mapfactor.com/en/, installed it and I was away. I can heartily recommend it for anyone with a Windows Mobile / PocketPC device who wants to run a Sat-Nav program. The one thing it doesn’t do is speak the names of the actual roads, which is a minor let-down compared to Nokia’s “Drive” Sat-Nav mapping tool, and which they give away free now.

I was using that happily on a Nokia E5 device, and it’s a bit of a trade-off between that, and the larger screen, and ease of use of Navigator Free. Currently, I’m enjoying the bigger screen on the X7510. ;-)

Since finding out more about how the software uses http://www.openstreetmap.org/ to get it’s map data, I thought I ought to register and “do my bit”, and I’ve been merrily mapping away, doing the houses in my own street, updating tags on the local roads to me, and doing the local shops around Springfield, Chelmsford, Essex. UK.

I’ve dived straight in with Potlatch and have found it relatively easy to add buildings, tags, parking areas and the like.

Might have a crack with that local install software next. ;-)

James(UK)