Extra_POI_Editor - A tool to View/Edit/Convert POI/TourGuides (Part 1)

Does this program require Adobe Air to be installed?

no, it comes in a zip file and contains an exe file.

No, you do not need the old versions. The installer is not required if you were able to run the program until now. It is only required when your computer is missing some files and if the program does not run. You seem to be fine.

Done in v2.82 I added a "Replace Field" in the edit menu.

You are able to select any field and do a global replace. Obviously, making a global field replace for the Longitude or Latitude does not make any sense, but I left enough rope in the program for anybody wanting to hang themselves... LOL!

Keep the new field value empty to clear that field in all POIs.

Note: Elevation, Proximity and Speeds values should be in meters and kilometers. Sorry about that. In a next version, I will use the Units in the Preferences and make the conversion for you... Sorry. This is a very dummy replace feature.

file:///C:/Users/Will/AppData/Local/Temp/map9466.tmp

Thank you, that is perfect

Extra_PoI_editor question. I guess you have to be in a certain group to get an answer to a question.

Excellent tool. I am no computer whiz, but I think I can use this tool. Thanks for remembering us less computer savvy people.

johnm405
You will need to download the installer if you get message you are missing the required OCX file.I have not been keeping the older version.Just updated when new one comes out.

Thanks Charlie, that was what I thought but don't like to download anymore than is nessary.

Hi Johnm405,

You should read a couple posts after the beginning of page 2 here... I already answered your question and it was addressed to you directly...

Turbo

Date of answer: Thu, 03/05/2009 - 3:24pm

turboccc.

The program works great.Any chance you could add search for duplicates and it would put them showing all together?Option to pick manually remove or automatic.

I know it's not a great option, but I wrote my GPX Utils (really a gpx to csv converter) for Excel to do just that sort of "bulk" editing. It's still a work in progress but if you have Excel and want to give it a shot before you import into Turbo's prog or GeePeeEx, it's at:
http://gpspois.wikispaces.com/

I'm not sure, but it might work on Excel for Mac?? You can configure the menu that it attaches in Excel to launch two other editors, but I haven't made it launch them with the current Excel/csv file yet.

I will have a look at it too.

Just for my knowledge, what is the problem with duplicates POI name? For example, if I have all Best Buy called "Best Buy", but they have different coordinates, what is the problem of having the same name?

turboccc your reply didn't show on my unread when I read the thread. My appoligies nothing bad intended. Just looked like a answer was posted after andmy question was skipped over.

I believe he was asking about duplicate POIs with the same coordinates. Say I download three separate fast food POI files and they all contain an entry for the same location. It would be nice if the program could automatically highlight entries with the same coordinates so we could decide whether to delete the duplicate entries.

Possible, but what about a fast food court where you can find 10 fast food shops nearly at the same location? You would not want to remove them... If you load more than one file, you could have the same POI in both files, but they may have a slightly different coordinate because one of the POI file was updated.

Here's what I am thinking:

- I can show duplicate names
- I can show POI with same coordinate
- I can show POIs with the 2 combinations above and let the user specify a distance radius (it would be weird to have to McDo's within 100 meters...)
- ...

It is time to think and be creative. One thing that has been bugging me since the beginning of POI files: I download one and correct some of the entries. Then, 6 months later, someone updates the POI file and release it. I download it and update my own: If I do that blindly, I can lose all the changes I made. Maybe the new file contains updated POI info, but it may not contain the specific info I already added. Sometimes, I merge of the 2 POIs may be required.

Anybody has similar issues?

So, please continue to share your opinions about duplicate POIs. If I understand everybody's need, I may come up with something more interesting.

I have checked some csv files in the past and found duplicate coordinates as well as the same information in column 4 duplicated (same address and phone number).

It's been a while since I used VB, but what about a table view window with a few key columns that could be sorted by at least two fields? Not all of the fields showing, but maybe lon, lat, name & comment? That hits the 4 typical csv file fields where there might be dupes. That's mostly how you have to look for them in Excel.

Maybe even have the option to delete rows from there? Just talking out loud.

Of course..then you'll be tempted to also use City, State, and Country to bulk delete/keep groups of POIs by area.

I am looking at TreeView or ListView. Not sure yet. Ideally, I would like to be able to compare all fields, but it becomes awkward when you have 27 POI with the same Lon/Lat. I have a DairyQueen CSV with tons of duplicate. Not sure where it comes from, but a serious clean-up is required.

When I install and try to run it I get this msg. What am I missing or doing wrong. Running Vista.

Component 'richtx32.oxc' or one of it's dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid.

I so want to try this program. Thanks in advance.
Do I need to download Adobe air?

Harpo66,

Read the Troubleshooting section here:

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/Extra_POI_Editor#toc6

It will tell you what to do. Then, use the latest version as usual.

Turbo

Thanks for the great program and I am sorry if I missed this in the faq. When I open csv files that I have created I get this error message. If I open files I downloaded from poi factory they work fine. Any ideas on this?

Run Time Error '9' Subscript out of range

Last time I saw that, it was because there was a blank line in the csv file. In v2.90, I corrected that issue. Please open your csv file in Notepad and look at it. There must be something wrong with it.

Let me know what it is so I can make the proper adjustment in the future. If it happens to you, it will happen to others...

Changes from v2.82 to v2.90

* Added basic find duplicate POIs under the Edit menu. Do not delete POIs ouside the Duplicates window without closing the Duplicates window first.
* Added a French version just for fun. Post feedback about it please. Not tested.
* Display distance between POI after a "Sort by Location".
* Added right click menu "Set as Current Location" which will use the highlighted POI as the current location. All distance will be to that location (no sort involved).
* Improved sort algo speed (but may require more memory) when 1000's of POI loaded.
* Added support for TomTom OV2 files of type 01.
* Corrected Replace Field fct to use units in the Preferences and convert accordingly for elevation, proximity and speed.
* Changes CRLF to in GPX file for compatibility. Not perfect depending on your gps.

Have fun!

Sounds like you covered all the bases.Note: the link will not come up for latest download.

maybe it's just not uploaded yet?

turboccc, awesome contributions overall. Heartfelt thanks!

I just tried the download link and it doesn't work.

One thing I have noticed in playing with raw data files for input. Your program expects the lat/long to be in the first two columns, but you provide the opportunity to specify fields in the CSV input.

It would be nice to pull a CSV file - such as the Travel America Amenities file from their website and use it without mod. Currently you have to move the lat/long columns from the middle of the record to the first two columns, but I can specify a phone number from any column. Why not allow the program to pull the lat/long from the column specified?

I really like the program, it does everything you stated it would do and is easy to use. Congratulations.

Sorry. The link is corrected.

I am not sure to follow you. Longitude & latitude can be specified for any field.
not only the first 2 fields... Please clarify.

turboccc.Great job.Just tested the duplicate process and had good results on a file I knew that had duplicates.

Will the editor support import/export to Magellan units in the future?

Magellan is possible, but I need to know the structure of the file. Reading the file seems possible, but I do not have enough information for writing one.

Edit:

So far, I managed to isolate the categories, the POIs with the symbols, elevation, name, description and coordinates. So reading is easy. I still need to figure out the file checksum (which looks like an odd/even byte checksum) and a binary header at the beginning of certain files.

I downloaded a file from the TA Travel Centers that had all their locations. Lat and Long were in columns other than 1 and 2. When I tried to load the file and convert it to GPX, it told me I had to have the lat/long in columns 1 and 2. This was an earlier version of your tool and you may have fixed it. Since I created the file, I don't need to reload to recheck with the current version. I just wanted to be certain that lat/long could be in any column and the program would recognize their position and build the GPX correctly.

Here is the file location:

http://www.tatravelcenters.com/get_gps.sstg

Edit:

For those of you wanting to test the file, there are errors in the Lat/Long data such as the wrong hemisphere.

I tested your file and it works great in the new version. The Lon/lat are already in the first 2 columns.

Where can I find the latest Magellan POI Editor?

I have 4.1.1.0, but it seems there is a 4.2 something.

Thanks

John, turbocc made a reply on 3/5 to your question. Here is what he said:

"No, you do not need the old versions. The installer is not required if you were able to run the program until now. It is only required when your computer is missing some files and if the program does not run. You seem to be fine."

Hope this helps your feelings?

Hi babago,

You missed my answer to his reply and his reply to my reply... LOL!

Subject is closed! All is good.

You've done a great job, and I like the embedded sense of humor (look down, look left, etc.)

As I have come across various issues while maintaining and supporting the POIConverter JavaScript, I would like to share and exchange notes.

There are a few things that POI Loader allows and handles in the format of csv files, so it would be nice if you could match it, specifically:

- POI Loader allows for a "csv" heading line with the "value name headings" (long,lat,name,desc), which Extra_POI_Editor warns about.

- POI Loader allows blank lines, but Extra_POI_Editor v2.82 gets an error (run-time error 9, subscript out of bounds)

- POI Loader allows for comments with a semi-colon ';' at the beginning, so it would be nice for Extra_POI_Editor to also allow it without warning about it

Both blank lines and comments are nice sometimes to document information on the csv file, when updated via notepad.

Also, one thing I do on the csv to gpx conversion is identify the phone line to map it to the phone tag on the gpx format, this way it can be used for dialing. I find this very useful to use the gpx bluetooth dialing.

By the way, all my comments are based on version V2.82

Thanks for bringing a GREAT PROGRAM to the community.

Thanks for the feedback. Let me re-phrase your request so I am sure I know what to do:

1- Column header in the CSV.

* Do you want me to suppress the warning when I read the file?

* Do you want me to insert the headers when I write to a cvs file?

2- Extra blank like in csv

V2.90 does not crash anymore when a blank lik\ne is encountered, but it pops-up a warning. In the future, I will suppress the warning when a blank line is encountered.

3- Comment line with ;

* Are you saying that any line starting with ; is a comment line? If so, you want me to ignore totally that line and not prompt for an error. Correct?

* Does it need to be the first character on the line or can it have spaces before the ; ?

4- Phone number

I wanted to do that too. I was just bugged by international phone numbers. At least, I could do it for North American numbers.

I guess you would like to remove the phone from the address field and put it in the phone field. This may create an issue when exporting back to a CSV fiel because only 4 columns are supported for now. I would need to merge the phone back with the address. Sometimes, this could cause duplicate phone. What do you think?

Turbo

v2.91

- Added Magellan .MGLN as file input. I extract lon, lat, name, desc, elevation and symbol (when an equivalent exists)

Not much tested, but it works also with multiple categories...

That's what I get for being in a hurry. This is the file I wanted to test.

http://www.tatravelcenters.com/DynamicImages/TAAmenities.xls

Ok. I saved the file from Excel to a CSV. I assignged some fields like:

Col1=POI Name
Col2=State
Col4=City
Col5=Address
Col6-Post Code
Col7=Phone
Col8=Latitude
Col9=Longitude

and I kept all others as (not used). With a bit more time, I would have modified the other columns to replace all 'Y' by their column header to specify what was present at that POI. Then, I would have merged these field into the Desc field using Extra_POI_Editor. The goal is to preserve as much information as possible. Phone and fax number should also be splitted in two columns.

Anyways, this is a very good POI database.

All kind of worked well. I got also a couple warning about the headers and the empty lines at the end. I will correct the empty line problem in the next release.

Turbo

I'll say just suppress the warning when reading the file.

As far as inserting the headers back into the csv file. I don't care about them, neither does POI Loader, but other people might prefer to have them inthere.

Yes, I see no need for the warning, as there is no harm if blank lines were encountered.

Yes, just starting with ; should be considered comment, whether it is followed by space, nothing, or any character.

Now, if you want to allow spaces before the ;, that should also be fine.

Yes, I would remove the phone line from the address field just as you described. The issue when converting back to csv by appending the Phone as a line by itself in a multi-line description should take care of not duplicating the phone since the phone line was removed from the description in the first place.

What I do to determine whether it is a phone is:
- Shift to lowercase the line to be tested
- Remove phone identification words like phone, ph, and tel
- Remove certain typical characters used in phone numbers, including spaces and "= : ( ) - / . + * p #"
- If all that is left are numeric digits, minimun 7 and maximimun 16, then it certainly looks like a phone number.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the effort. As I drive a 4-wheeler, I wasn't interested in all the driver amenities, but I did convert all the fast food storefronts from numbers to names and included them. Once the CSV is built. it needs to be checked for correct locations. There are several files from these company websites that contain major errors as far as location. Some have the longitude in the Eastern hemisphere, though I didn't find any with a southern latitude (sorry OZ, wasn't looking for places down under).

Your program is quickly becoming quite a tool and will make generating POI a lot easier on everyone. If you are looking for another similar file to test with, the Flying J list works as well - albeit with errors that need to be corrected before loading it into your GPS.

I have taken one fast food chain and broken it down by state, close to a 1000 lines in total and I'll use your program to create GPX files for each state. Then we can play with combining the individual states to build regional files.

Changes from v2.91 to v2.93

* Added phone recognition from address field when reading CSV or GPX and phone field is empty.
* Corrected & and other special characters in the 4th column on CSV output.

Please, post feeback about phone number recognition. If you experience problems, just post the ENTIRE address field here so I can see what needs to be changed.

TurboCCC, this is really a cool program!! I am going to try to use it for all my future POI files.

But, I do have a problem...

I would like to convert all my old POI files. I can not get any of them to load without errors, and I use a pretty common structure to create them.

Here is one you could try: http://www.poi-factory.com/node/20389

Thanks,
Chuck

I loaded this file and found a character (cr?) at the end of each line (except the last) in column 4, I removed these and it loaded fine. Of course the whole address (& description etc) was in the address field.

Note: The phone number was extracted from the address field to the Phone field, using ver.2.93

Paul