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

Thanks for the enhancements.

There is no option for whether to write CRLF versus LF record endings on SAVE is there?

Your question about file names when exporting by category means you want to skip any file naming prompt and just generate automatically-named files that are whatever the full category name is, right?

That sounds good but is less flexible than a checkbox option to alternatively use the category name as a suffix to the whole file's name. Would that be the equivalent of what you do when exporting by state?

For example: a POI file named "Wendy's" of all Wendy's locations exported by state to files like "Wendy's - Florida" which effectively becomes a category name in many GPSs, right?

I don't think I understand the usages for exporting categories from a larger file yet to know if category as a suffix to file name would be useful.

In the top-left EPE editor window, it would be standard user feedback for the up arrow button to be grayed out and disabled when on the first POI of the file and for the down arrow to be likewise when on the last POI of a file.

Pretty much like the GPS does in lists.

That way, you don't have to click on them to see if there are more POIs in those directions.

(Sorry, I used to do quite a bit of VB programming in the past.)

yes, I know about those arrows. I completely forgot about them. Same thing with the More button. I need to disable them sometimes. I put more time on cooler features, but I'll get to that soon.

About categories... Charlesd45 has a POI file where he put each POI in a different category: Attractions, Cruise ports, Lodging, ... Extracting categories mean putting all his attractions in a file called "Attractions.gpx" (or csv). Why add a prefix to these categories like charles_attractions, charles_lodging, etc... ?

About CSV line breaks at the end of line. I always use CRLF. That's it. I see no reason to put anything else. Is there?

...I am still using 3.25!

I really like it alot. I agree with the request to make the up arrow and down arrow grayed out when at the top/bottom.

Also getting the POI Edit window to display on a 1024x768 notebook monitor. I say that as I have set my taskbar at double height to accomodate quick links and I have to set the task bar to not be on top when the program is open. Maybe the Decription field can be shrunk by a line or 2, that is about all that would be needed to make it all fit. It is right on the edge.

I know those are kinda petty requests, and I am NOT complaining. Just mentioning because if there are no creative ideas ever passed on, you wont know what might be a cool add-on. I write websites as a hobby, and when I ask if there is anything that they would like to be added or changed, all I usually get is "No, it's fine". That doesnt help much in making the sites even cooler.

Either way, I think the program absolutely ROCKS!!!

Thank you for being so kind to share it with all of us!!!

Vanman

Hi TheVanman,

v3.25? Man, you're missing lots of good stuff.

I agree with you. No feedback = no way to improve. I never see feedback as complaints. The program is there for all of you. You all have a chance to make it suit your every needs just by posting what you do not like. I'll do my best to improve it. We certainly do not have that type of service with Garmin... LOL!

About the desciption field size, well it has been like that since the beginning and I had not much to display back then. I will remove a couple lines. And I'll try to fix those arrows soon...

The only reason I know of for writing LF line endings would be for round tripping. In other words, someone created the file using LFs and they edit it in EPE but cannot get back a file with LF line endings. Not knowing where the LF-terminated files came from, it is hard to say what might be needed. I was just trying to think through the result of EPE now accepting such record terminators.
You probably want to wait to see if anyone asks for it.

As for the categories, I was trying to imagine how someone would use them. The by-state export makes a lot of sense because of GPS memory. Someone wants to make available just one large combined file of all the POIs for a particular business/topic but some users might want to extract and load just those for one or two states. That's a larger set going to smaller subsets. In this case, the base file name is typically meaningful.

For the categories, it sounds like it is just a matter of the author wanting to edit a collection of categories in one big file and then extract them to individual file names so they will show up as individual categories in the GPS. In that case, I agree the main file name is probably meaningless.

I guess I was trying to think of someone trying to use categories export by doing something like creating one POI file that contains a collection of POI categories all for one state or locale for editing convenience and then needing to export them to individually-named category files to load into the GPS. So, a file named "Florida" exported to files like "Florida - Restaurants", "Florida - Amusement Parks" and so on. That way they become sort of sub-categories just like the export-by-state produces the reverse sub-categories.

I am just trying to rationalize the use of the two new features for discussion purposes. Again, it might be best to wait for specific user requests.

Just food for thought

Turbocc, I have occasions where I would like to delete a number of locations in a GPX file at one time. For example, I load a file of all Costco Gas Bars and what to pair it down to just thoughs along the West Coast of the US (California, Oregon and Washington).

In most Windows programs I can use the mouse, along with the CTRL and/or the SHIFT key, to select a number of items at one time and then press the delete key. I can't seem to select multiple items using EPE 4.03 nor can I use the delete key to delete any item. The only options in EPE seems to be to right click an individual item and select 'Delete Highlighted POI'.

My question is, would providing for this type of editing be something you could add to your great program.

4.11 let me just walk right through opening a mix of gpx and csv files and saving/converting them to ov2. I did not have to type anything... just open, save as and done (about 75 files).

Well, another nit picky request, I had to change the default gpx export format to ov2 every time so I was wishing I could make the default be whatever I wanted.

You will probably tell me I already can.

As I converted those POI files to ov2, I encountered some errors I thought I would pass along.

EPE automatically locates the first POI in a file as a result of opening the file and auto-selecting the first item.

For a couple files, I got an "Internet Explorer Script Error" window asking if I wanted to continue running scripts or not.

One example is the following Fairfield Inn file.
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/11743

The error message says at line 1 char 166 there is an "unterminated string constant". When I click No to not continue, it presents one more message that says line 14 char 1 "object expected".

I got a similar thing for the VF Factory Outlet POI file.

I just thought I would let you know in case there was something EPE needed to do to better validate whatever it is passing for location resolution.

Thanks again for all your hard work.

The issue really isnt a big deal at all and will NOT cause me to think about discarding this useful tool. It is only that the Delete Cancel and OK buttons are under the taskbar until I either set the taskbar not to be on top or I drag the upper window frame out of view in my browser. It is SO CLOSE to fitting! I also understand that probably 95+% of users dont set their taskbar at double height....only ME!!!

And as far as the arrows are concerned....I think I can manage just FINE without a fix....

What language are you using to compose the program? I usually stick to just javascript, VB script, html, and SQL/ODBC, as that is all that is necessary for me to write my versions of webpages.

Vanman

@TheVanman

I use Visual Basic 6 for the coding. I removed a couple lines in the POI Edit window. It should fit your screen now. Still I have to test something at lower resolution to make sure the scroll bars will appear normally wieh there is not enough screen resolution.

@KenBushaw

The lon/lat are inverted in that file compared to what I normally parse. I fixed the issue. My fault for being to strick on the syntax.

@t923347

I need to restructure my program a bunch before I can get there, but it is in my plan for the future. The next evolutionary step for EPE is to become a major POI Manager. I'll get there.

@TheVanman, KenBushaw, t923347

Here's for you:

**Changes from v4.11 to v4.12**

* Disable the up/down arrows in the top left POI List window when needed.

* Added some keybord key support (page up, page down and delete) to navigate in the top left POI window.

* Corrected gpx parsing issue when lon/lat are inverted in the file.

* Reduced the size of the POI Edit window for low res desktop.

After editing a POI and saving the change from the detail window if I click the "X" in the upper right corner I get the notice "The current changes not been saved. Do you want to save your changes? Yes No" How about adding a "Cancel" choice for when one hits the "X" by mistake?

You didn't comment on my request for a way to set the default SAVE AS format so I am wondering what you think of that idea.

Is there supposed to be a difference between SAVE and SAVE AS? They both appear to do the same thing which is prompt me for the name and format of the file to save.

Most editors seem to behave like the following:

* SAVE AS always prompts like EPE does

* SAVE with a named file open just saves/writes
the current editor content back to the file
that was opened without asking anything.
(Same format, obviously)

* SAVE without a named file open is the same as
SAVE AS

It may be that EPE does not really have the concept of an open file the user is working with in which case this may not make sense yet. I say that because of our earlier discussion about it always reading CSV using the M-Column profile and saving 4-Column CSV using the 4-Column profile.

Doing SAVE with an open file as described above implies EPE would need to remember how it read the file in and always map it back out the same way. I think opening and saving are probably totally independent of each other right now.

Thanks for the 4.12 changes. They look good!

Hi Panache,

Done for next release (v4.13 when released). You will have "Cancel, No, Yes" choices if you click on "X", or File-Exit or Ctrl-X.

Hi KenBushaw,

"Save" only saves gpx, kml and ov2 fiels without prompting because they are the only file type I can save "transparently" without compromising too much the original file. For anyother file type, I will use the "Save as" prompt.

As you stated, saving as CSV may cause lost of information depending how it was open, the line break setting and the automatic phone/zip/state extraction. People may also do batch reverse geocoding and create new fields. So, how should I know how to save back the file?

I like your idea, because it bothers me as well to specify a file type everytime. Maybe I could simply remember the last file type used. I need to check my API to see if it is possible, but this would be interesting.

I had not considered just making it "last used" but that could be useful. If you do that, you should probably always start out with gpx at startup like you do now. That is, no carryover from one editor session to the next.

What I was thinking of was another selection choice (default save format) on the preferences tab with the choices being the same as the SAVE AS format choices.

Even with that you could still use that selection only for the initial choice after startup and then do "last used" from there on. Or, keep adding more preference checkboxes.

Just ideas to consider.

It appears EPE works best if you start it first and then select a file to open.

Have you considered making an installer with optional registration for gpx and other formats it knows how to open? And make it appear in the right-mouse menu for "Open With" so we could just point it to a file we want to open with it from Windows Explorer?

Along the same lines, I just tried dragging and dropping a gpx POI file on the EPE icon to open it and it kinda seemed to work only the title of EPE's window did not display the name of the file I dropped.

Of course you may want to limit it to only one file to open or let each one open a separate EPE instance.
(I see I can already start as many as I want)

Just more potential features to think about.
Probably not as cool as some others on your list

This function seems to find POIs that have the search string in other than the name field (which happens to be what I wanted to do and thought maybe I couldn't.)

Is that what you intended? The help says it is case sensitive and only in the name field. I just searched a file and got a hit on the search name in a city field.

Maybe some day being able to search all or selected fields would be good to have.

Could you state succinctly here exactly what "All Words" and "Any Word" mean right now?
* Any Word means the word in any field?
* All Words means both words in the same field? in the specified sequence in a field? other?

Thanks

EPE searches in all fields, but more precisely in the "More" window (which contains everything). It has been like that since v2.60:

- Added Edit menu with Find (Ctrl-F) and Find Next (F3). It searches the content of the More display for all words or any word specified. The first occurrence of each word will be highlighted over a purple background in the More page. This is really cool if you are looking for more than one criteria.

If you make a search for "McDo KS", all words means if will find a POI that has both McDo and KS. If you search for any word, it will report POI that has only McDo, only KS or both.

Also, the search is not case sensitive.

Yes, I accept drag & drop, but this is fairly new. EPE has been accepting command-line parameters for a while. It was a user request. It can also accept more than one file. Ex.: epe McDo.gpx TacoBell.gpx

At the time, I was not displaying the last file name opened. I will check that now.

About the extension registration. You can always do that without me doing it in EPE. If you did not register your GPX extension yet, just double click, when prompt, specify you will select an application from a list and browse for EPE. Do not forget to check the box that says you want to use that application everytime and it will work.

I will see if I can do this from within EPE. No need an installation program for that. I think it is not a good idea to register CSV, but gpx and ov2. Maybe MGLN.

Thanks, that's much simpler to understand and use, and I did notice that it highlighted the found term in the More window. I just did not realize it was searching the More window.

You might want to consider the ability to find a specific phrase (sequence/pair of words) as a future option.
For some search engines, that is indicated by enclosing the words in double quotes in the search field.

Thanks. I was aware of being able to do that. I just backed off when I didn't get the same results as opening a file from the File -> Open menu.

Are you keeping a list of changes and additions to the help that maybe rufree4t might be willing to include in an update some time? I usually try to look for what I need before asking but you are making great strides and it's easy for that to get way out of date.

I mentioned the missing file name in EPE's title bar and you said you would check into that. I assume you will try to make the Editor state after opening a file using any method (other than merge) be equivalent.

The way it works now for drag+drop or double-click, EPE appears to consider it to be new content that is loaded in the editor and thus prompts for unsaved changes when I try to exit even though I have not made any changes after "opening" the file.

Is there a tool that will convert a GPI file to a format I can read like a csv? I have an odd GPI file called 006D135900.GPI in the POI folder of my Nuvi 265wt and I'm curious what is in it. I made a copy from the Nuvi (left the original in the Nuvi in case it serves some purpose) and put it in a folder on my computer. I'd love to read what's in it.

I installed the Poi Editor but GPI is not a filetype it will open as far as I can tell. Nice program though. May have other uses for it later.

Thanks for all your help!

EDIT: Never mind. I opened it with WordPad (Thanks Charles) and between the gibberish I got the idea it is airport info. Nothing to do with my problems with TourGuides nor anything that I did.

KenBushaw,

In the next release:

1- With drag&drop, you can drag more than one file and they will be merged. These filed will be added to the history. It will also display the last open file in the title bar. If you just open a single file, you will be allowed to quit without getting a "not saved" prompt.

2- You will be able to register .GPX, .OV2 and .MGLN to EPE so you can double click a file and EPE will open with this file.

3- See other cool stuff!

I will try to do also the search with quotes you mentioned. This is nice.

Turbo

I love this tool, thanks so much for putting it together.

One suggestion, if you are open to saving us from ourselves:
My workflow is
- create new poi
- navigate google map to the point
- add names and icons
- hit save

What I keep doing is forgetting to "Grab" after I navigate the map. When I hit save, it pops up a helpful window telling me that I shouldn't save points without location information, but it saves it anyway. When I go back to edit the point again, the map is blank because I have no coordinates.

If that window could offer the option to stop the save, stay on the current edit screen, and thus let me go back and hit "Grab" that would be great.

Hi cjbnc,

Very good suggestion.

I used not to let the user quit until a valid POI name and coordinates were entered, but since I added the batch geocoding, I do let them quit and just warn them.

It would be very easy for me to add a Cancel button on that warning message. I will add this to my next release.

Regards,

Turbo

I am wondering if what you decided to do is what users would expect.

I should note that editors are inconsistent in this area. Some editors support multiple open files with one editor window (you see the open ones listed in the Windows menu and can switch between them) while others just open a separate instance/window of the editor for each open file. I don't know of any that merge files for a multi-file operation.

BTW: Microsoft Excel does like the first case above and Microsoft Word does like the second case.

With EPE, if I open multiple files one at a time, I get a new instance of EPE for each one and that makes sense. And, that should be much easier to code and manage than multiple open files in one editor instance.

I would thus expect opening multiple files at the same time to be identical to automatically opening them one at a time very quickly. However, it may be that is not easily done with your current code structure.

I have been thinking that the way drag+drop is working now is more like the merge function is being invoked to do it than the open function. Maybe that's why you decided to do what you did.

The merge function, when no file is already open, should be thought of as just building up a collection of POIs to supposedly be saved as a new file.

When a file is already open, the concept of merge should be to build up the content of the open file with the intention of saving the result back to the built-up file. If not, you use SAVE AS when the time comes to save it. Just like for Microsoft Word or Notepad or Word Pad, for example.

If you want the simultaneous "opening" of multiple files to mean to merge them, then I don't think it should wind up looking like any particular file is open. To do so with the automatic naming you added at my request would just set users up to overwrite their source files.
In other words, the title bar should be blank and the prompt to save is in effect... it is a NEW file situation.

I am just trying to offer insight as to how I think users of other editors would expect things to work and I could be wrong. Right or wrong, our expectations are often established by the way other editors work that we have been using for a long time.

You have probably noticed that I place a lot of emphasis on the difference between an "open" file and a "new, unnamed" file. They are strong editing concepts you want to try to support.

BTW: I am testing by dragging and dropping single or muliple files at time from Windows Explorer or by selecting one or more files at a time in Windows Explorer and invoking the right-mouse Open function. I have noticed that the right-mouse "Open With" function typically opens only the last selected file in the list when multiple files are selected.
So, things are not real consistent there either.

EPE won't let me select multiple files in the File -> Open dialog and that is fine with me.

The good news is the author/owner/coder gets to do what he thinks is best. Thanks for listening.

Hi KenBushaw,

Oh! Man! That's a long post...

The merge function was there since the beginning (more or less). I think this is a very useful feature to mix different POI files. So if you use the dos command-line you can do cool stuff like:

Extra_POI_Editor McDo.gpx BKing.gpx

and this will merge the 2 files while opening them. With the new version v4.20, you can also drag 2+ files over the .exe and it will do the same. You will also be able to drag files directly over the opened EPE title bar and the same will happen. If you do not want the merge, you just need to drag one file at a time.

For now, I do not deal with multiple files as separate files, but this will come. It is in my ToDo.

If you register a .GPX file extension, it does open a new instance of EPE by default. I can probably change this somehow. What do you think? Except for comparing 2 POI files, I think it is better to use the opened EPE and open the new file rather than start a new EPE window. Not sure...?!?!

Thanks for the feedback. I will post the new version tonight after I watch Top Chef with the Wife. We will be better continue this thread with the new version.

Turbo

Nothing impressive has been done, but these are nice addons.

**Changes from v4.12 to v4.20**

* Added possibility to register .GPX, .OV2 and .MGLN files to EPE in the Preferences. This will open automatically EPE when you double click on a file with a registered extension.

* Added possibility to drag&drop files directly over Extra_POI_Editor.exe. Files will be merged if you drag&drop more than one files at a time.

* Added possibility to drag&drop files directly over EPE's title bar. Files will be merged if you drag&drop more than one files at a time.

* Added icons in menus just to have fun and add a nice look.

* Added a default map type selection in the Preferences.

* Added 'Terrain' view in the map window and a "Earth" view in the POI Edit window.

* Added a Cancel button when the application closes and the current file is not saved.

* Added a Cancel button in the POI Edit window and the user tries to quit this POI without having lon/lat coordinates and a POI Name.

I would like the ability to open multiple windows, to facilitate copying just a few POIs from one file(s) to the other. I would find it more logical to have a Merge menu item next to Open that would let me load two or more files into one big file. When Drag 'n Drop has multiple files, how about asking if we want them merged or opened in separate windows? That would let both sides of that discussion have it their own way!

I would also like to see multi-select when editing files. Shift-click to select everything between the first and last selected, and Ctrl-click to select multiple POIs for copying or deletion, etc.

We are about to head out for a 4500-mile or so trip with GPS's loaded with all sorts of goodies I have manipulated to death using EPE

I'll download 4.20 tonight and it will go with us. I gotta have something to do while the rest of the travelers hit the casinos!

I'll take a bit of time to think over what you had to say in your last post too.

I think copy and paste struck.

On the preferences dialog, the hover help for 3 out of 4 of the fields in the Internet/Map control frame have the same text which is for the refresh delay field.

All the other hover help seems appropriate.
GPX Encoding field has no such text but probably needs none.

Oups. You are right. I copy/pasted the fields before renaming them.

@spectrum44,

Command-line has been there for a long time, not only in v4.20.

Some examples to type in DOS:

1- Load a single gpx file: Extra_POI_Editor Friendlys_all.gpx

2- Load and merge 2 gpx files: Extra_POI_Editor Friendlys_all.gpx Dairy_Queens.gpx

3- Load a single csv using the latest M-Column CSV profile: Extra_POI_Editor McDonalds.csv

4- Load a single csv and specify the profile #1 to use: Extra_POI_Editor -c1 McDonalds.csv

5- Load and merge 2 csv with 2 profiles: Extra_POI_Editor -c1 McDonalds.csv -c5 Harveys.csv

You can put any of those lines in a .bat file and just click the file to execute. Obviously, you can merge more than 2 files.

In Windows, the only thing you can do is drag and drop over Extra_POI_Editor.exe. Not much more.

I first saw EPE about 6 months ago and said, "Wow!" And yet it keeps getting better and better... I do hope you're able to take your wife out to some really nice place for dinner.

Thank you turboccc for all you do.

Thanks TXRVer! Yes, I owe her big time. She has been very patient although she's a bit on the nerves lately. She likes Casinos, so I guess this will be it next week-end.

Hi all,

Any interest in EPE opening LOC file? This part is done and pretty easy, but there is not much in there.

Once I get the information from the LOC file, I could get the cache information from Geocaching.com. I nned to check with them if it is ok, but it is no different than GSAK.

So? Geocahing or not?

You do good work. Thanks for all you time.

Did the recent update to Google Earth break the connection from Extra_POI_Editor? GE published an updated to version 5.1.3506 this past week and F9 in EPE no longer launches Google Earth for me...

I am using EPE 4.20 (XP SP3), so to verify I tried 3.91 with the same results. I know it worked there for sure and I'm certain it was working as recently as 4.12. To rule out my PC, I installed GE and EPE on my wife's machine (Vista) and F9 doesn't work there either. Since Google Earth installs from the web, I wasn't able to go back the previous version of GE.

EPE still opens MapSource. Are other users seeing the same problem?

Hi TXRVer,

I just updated and it is still working for me.

Do you have GE or GE+? Have you modified GE's installation directory? EPE looks into the registry to find the installation directory.

Have you ever played with regedit? If so, try to find the following keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Earth Plus "InstallLocation"

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Earth "InstallLocation"

One of those 2 keys should give the installation directory. Validate you find "GoogleEarth.exe" in those directory or let me know which registry keys points to the right directory.

If all looks fine, it may be a problem with long file names not set properly on winXP. LEt me know and I will point you at the right place.

Thanks,

Turbo

Turbo

I thought I had the basic Google Earth, never signed up for Plus. I took the defaults, didn't make any changes.

The key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Earth Plus InstallLocation C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\

There is no occurrence of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Earth

However I find googleearth.exe in C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client

I used Add/Remove to remove Google Earth, rebooted and reinstalled, no change. I then downloaded a fresh copy of EPE 4.20 and replaced the files I had, no change.

Recall, I also installed GE and EPE on my wife's laptop running Vista, same issue.

Thanks, TXRVer

Got it!

This is interesting. Newer versions of GE are installed in C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client folder. I just made an update and I still find googleearth.exe in C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth, but it is the old version. Newer version is in C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client.

I will make the appropriate change and post back.

Thanks for the feedback.

Changes from v4.20 to v4.21

* Added basic support to read geocaching .LOC file

* Corrected path search for GoogleEarth which could not be found with last GE update.

* Corrected Maps Delay reverting to 0 when 0.1 and 0.5 were used.

* Corrected wrong Map Type when clicking the geocoding button in the POI Edit window.

* Added a file not saved confirmation when opening a new file and previous file was not saved.

* Corrected a command-line parsing problem when the file path contained spaces and it was not between double quotes.

* Corrected an issue with .GPX extension that were not registered properly if the .GPX file had been registered first with "Open With".

I am new here; I will have to try this. Thanks.

Turbo

That fixed it, Thank You!!!

I tested EPE 4.21 on my XP SP2 machine and the laptop running Vista Home 64 and now both will launch Google Earth once again.

It's gotta be a challenge to keep up with other programs when yours needs to interface properly with them each time they change something.

Great!

Yes, it is a challenge. Especially because I do not know how they work. In this case, I just scanned the registry and found a key that looked like a pointer to the exe.

Luckily, I have all of you that are using EPE and reporting me the bugs. It saves me lots of testing. I may have as much bugs as Garmin, but at least my response time is better.

Thanks for the feedback.

Turbo

Hi firepower,

Welcome to POI Factory. Have fun with EPE. If you have a problem, just post it here and we'll try to help you.

If you need different features, I am open to suggestions. Feel free to ask.

Regards,

Turbo

"Better?!?" How about "fantastic" or "super-fast" (thanks to your understanding wife, by the way)

I recently downloaded the latest version and have just begun to play around with it to get used to all the new improvements and features.

Just about every company I deal with could take a lesson from you in "customer service!"

A big !THUMBS UP!

With EPE v4.21, it comes getting better and better.

However, there is a bug that has "bugged" me for sometime: When I scroll the list in the first window by clicking below the cursor in the scroll bar, it keeps going even if I release the mouse right away. I end up way down the list as opposed to just the next screen. Is there any fix in view?