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

Yes, it it a known issue. It is killing me too.

It does not do it all the time. When it does, just click once outside the scroll area and it will stop.

I made one attempt already to correct the problem, but I could not fix it. To provide the mouse scrolling, I had to sub-class it in VB6. It may be a side effect.

I'll try to have a look at it again.

Regards,

Turbo

edit: not a fix, but you can now use the keyboard PgUp and PgDn instead of scrolling...

**Changes from v4.21 to v4.22**

* Corrected a parsing problem with KML files without line breaks causing a shift in data from one POI to another.

* Corrected a program crash issue when File->New is invoked in certain conditions.

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* I think I got the mouse click getting crazy on the scroll bar in the POI List window.
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Enjoy!

Yeah! TurboCCC thank you. So far so good, it seems you've got it!

Yeah!

Version 4.22, Windows XP SP3
Trying to create a new file returns a Runtime Error 380

Recreate:

POI Name: Champion U-Pick
Address: 60 Cherry St.
City: Whiting
State: NJ

Press Geocode, Grab, OK

Program ABEND with Runtime Error 380

EDIT:
Works OK in Ver 4.20

Yes, I recreated your steps and got the same failure. Message also says: Invalid property value

I'm also running XP SP3 it that makes any difference.

Yes. A little mistake I made while correcting the File->New bug. It is corrected. I hoped to release a new version before I got caught.

I will post v4.30 tomorrow which includes a new "View all POIs on Map" function. Nice!

Fess up. You were really putting us to the test to see if we really appreciate all your hard work by using the latest versions of EPE, right?

LOL!

Sometimes I wonder how many of you are really using it... Don't be surprised. I am not using it that much for myself. At this point, I am doing it for all of you. What's in it for me? Just the challenge to do something I have never done before and learn a few things in the process.

Sice you are all cool dudes, here a link if you want to have fun. Check the View menu. I am not totally done, so do not load too many POIs in there. Let's say 1500 at most unless you have a lot of memory on your computer.

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/file/detail/Extra_POI_Editor+...

Turbo

Now that is pretty cool! Would assist if you were wanting to take a file with waypoints all over the US and pair it down to just the West Coast locations, for example. If only you could include a 'delete highlighted POI', or a Cut, when selecting a location from the 'show all POI' list of places to the right of the map. I'd really like to select multiple locations but I know that's a different problem

There is one other thing, in Google maps you can use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out on the map, can you program EPE to allow that as well?

Because loading POI in my javascript seems to take lots of memory, I was planning to load only a certain amount of them.

Here's where I was goin because of the memoey limitation. You select one POI in the area of interest I would have sorted all POIs "By Location" and displayed only 100 POIs close to that location.

Your idea is better: Select one POI and right click. I would add "View all POIs in that area" in the right click menu. If I am not too lazy, I could add a pop-up to select either an amount of POI close to that area, or a selection of all POIs within a certain distance.

I think this would be great and very easy to do. Is it what you are looking for?

But just to be sure I understand what your saying, I'd load a file of POIs normally and highlight ONE of them. You'd then have an option to show only those POI's within a certain distance of the selected POI on the map, or show a certain number of them there.

I guess what I'm confused about is what I'd do with the POI's that now show on the map. If the selected ones are locations I want to keep from the original list will I be able to do that (Save As would only Save the POIs shown on the map into a new file) OR would I be able to delete, either in bulk or one at a time, those POIs that appear on the map and save the remaining ones back to a new file (Save As would save all of the POIs in the original file except the ones showing on the map).

First paragraph is good. Not sure yet about the second one. That second part would be for my first release of "POI Manager v1.00" POI management is the next logical step for EPE.

So far, the only reason to put them on the map is to have a general idea of what poi are in a certain area. My next step is to put a different marker color for each category (for those using categories), or put a different color for poi coming from a different file (when using File->Merge Open).

Here's an example: You want to go to specific hotel in Los Angeles. You most probably have a POI for that hotel. Then you load all the POI files you can think of. McDos, Offbeat Attractions, Friendly's, ... and so on. Then, you highlight your hotel and display all POIs within 20 miles from that hotel. Red markers could be food, blue attractions, etc... Would it be interesting?

OK, now I see where you going with this. Not exactly what I was looking for but certainly very useful. I'd certainly use it per your example above. I'd suggest you go with the option of either a number of POIs or a distance from the selected one, as you suggested you could do.

I see what you mean by it being a memory problem. Loading 450 locations and using the 'Earth' option on the map screen is pretty slow, even with 4Gb of memory and a pretty fast processor.

Yes, PLEASE USE DIFFERENT COLORS FOR DIFFERENT FILES:). I've got 2 loaded currently totalling 576 locations and can't figure out which ones are from which file.

This is probably a little off topic for EPE, but fits in with the theme of the last few posts. I have always thought it would be a nice to have a program that used a list of POI files (CSV and/or GPX), a route and a distance from route as input, and would generate a new POI file merging the input files and selecting only those POI's within the given distance from the route.

Was so toked about installing and using but this is the message I got when i tried to open it:

"component RICHTX32.OCX or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid"

HELP please.

Truly appreciate it.

Also downloaded the Harley Dealer POI from the site and installed on my garmin 2730. But can't find it on device.

Don't get tired of us newbies?

Turbo, when on the Map screen you can't click on the 'close' icon in the top righthand corner to close it. You seem to have to click on 'close map'. Is that by design?

Click on the link to the EPE website in the top post and read through the webpage. You'll find a troubleshooting section near the bottom that deals with your OCX problem.

You'll need to use Garmin's POIloader program to install the Harley POI file on your device. Once you have downloaded it using POIloader you'll find it under Where To - Extras - Custom POIs, on a Nuvi at least.

Scroll down to troubleshooting on the download page and you will see the below message.Download the file.
Are you missing the required OCX file?

Use the installer instead. You may only have to do this once since this will install all the required files for future releases. This is just an install to get the library files. You should always use the latest version of Extra_POI_Editor.

Extra_POI_Editor_Installer+v402.zip <- Try this one first. It is the most recent! Unless I missed, it should be fine.
Extra_POI_Editor_Installer+v250.zip <- This one always worked.

kind thanks!

yes. I needed somebody to clean up temporary files and I had no time to put it everywhere. LOL! Notice the menu is gone too.

@Alandb

Yes. I'm not yet too sure how CPU intensive this will be to compute distances from each segment of a route for 1000s of POI, but that would be great.

Let's say I find 50 POIs which you could review and keep only those you are interested in. Then, you create a custom poi file with those you want and delete the file when you are back from vacations. This could avoid having 100's of huge poi file on your gps.

I had been editing one of my csv POI files in Notepad (I know, I know, Gimme a break ) and when I tried to open it in EPE (ver 4.21) it locked up the program. I had to use Task Manager (WinXP) to end EPE.

I knew I must have a syntax error in the csv file(which I later found to be a missing double-quote) but I was surprised that it simply locked up EPE with no error message and it could only be ended with the three-fingered salute.

This is a new "feature". LOL! I assumed nobody (and I mean NOBODY) would ever edit a CSV with Notepad and miss a double quote... :)

Just kidding! I will check. EPE should not hang like that. Thanks for the info.

I knew I would be taking some grief for still using Notepad and then posting this in the EPE topic. Old habits die hard. I'm trying to change... it will just take me some time.

Don't worry about it. I personally use Wordpad sometimes...

Issue fixed in next release. EPE will pop-up an error message and it will tell you on which line.

Well, that was too easy.

What about a missing comma?

Perhaps I missed part of the discussion, but I notice there are no scroll bars. I know there is a problem with earlier versions doing a "fast forward" but may have missed where you said you had to remove the scroll bar to fix the problem.

I am thankful that I will never ever have to see EDLIN ever again.

Edlin! I have not heard about it in a long time. LOL! Edlin was probably a close ancestor to VI.

Edit: you are right about the scrollbar. I can't find them either. Oups!

Ok. Here's a link to v4.31 beta that fixes the scrollbar and adds color in View All POIs on Map to POIs coming from different files merged with Merge-Open.

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/file/detail/Extra_POI_Editor+...

Color works good. Thanks.

turboccc

Tried the 4.3 on view all on map for some of my custom pois.Get error message "an error has occured in the script on this page" not all of them only a few.

but only on one file so far.

Here is a example National Parks US and Canada.I converted to Gpx using Extra Poi Editor and added proximity alert to it. http://www.poi-factory.com/node/11774

I've got a screen capture of the script error that appears. Turbocc, if it can help drop me an e-mail and I'll send it to you. Can't seem to find a way to post the .jpg on this forum.

Sorry guys. I forgot to tell you about the script error. The wife had decided we were going out for dinner without the kids. My treat! I haven't had the time to post the reason. So here it is.

In the map, when you click on the POI, the ballon that appears contain the address information. It seems that if there is no address, the javascript is not happy.

This is why it happens on some files and not others. No worry. I will have a fix for this. Remember v4.3x are still betas. You are testing at the same time as I am. The good thing is that I am not breaking anything else. This is pretty self contained.

By all means, treat the Mrs. nice and take her out to dinner. That's more important.

I didn't spend all that much time using this, but I am truly impressed. This is going to make it so much easier for me to edit and maintain my POI files.

I did run into a bit of a problem and was wondering if anyone knew the solution.

I spent some time editing a file. I saved that file (Garmin CSV) and went off to do something else. When I returned and reopened the file, I found that the City, State, Country, and Phone Number info that I previously entered was displayed in the Address field with commas separating each subfield. How do I get the program to parse this data into the correct fields?

If you fill in the fields as you go, and save it as a gpx, it will keep all those values in their appropriate boxes when you reopen that gpx file in EPE. If you save it as a csv, it has to aggregate the address info into a format that is proper for a csv file and puts it all into column 4. If you then open that csv file in EPE, you see the address all in one line with the commas. It is smart enough to extract a phone number and put it back into its field, but since column 4 of a csv file could contain just about anything maybe not even an address, I don't think it would be practical for it to try to extract streets, cities and states.

I'm sure Turboccc will add to this, but I think there is a limit of how much can be converted reliably. For many the gpx format offers many whistles and bells that are not possible within a csv file.

One thing that most do not realize is that while a gpx file is larger than the corresponding csv file on a PC, when POI Loader moves it to the nüvi, it is not nearly as big as it was on the PC. If thinking you will conserve space on the nüvi by converting gpx files to csv, it doesn't really work that way.

Is there a way to get the field to at least display properly? The display shows those fields (City, State, phone, etc) separated by commas rather than carriage returns (CR) and/oir Line Feeds (LF).

Hi beagle.fan,

You created your POIs in EPE (Extra_POI_Editor). Then you saved to CSV using the "Garmin CSV", "M-Column CSV" or "4-Column CSV". You probably didn't know what EPE will do. All these 3 formats are different:

1- "Garmin CSV" will save as a CSV with 4 columns: lon, lat, name and a concatenation of all the address fields.

2- "4-Column CSV" will also do a 4-column CSV, but you can configure in the Options how the 3rd and 4th column are formatted. You can decide what information can be concatenated in those 2 columns.

3- "M-Column CSV" allows you to save up to 24 columns with generally one information per column. Once saved, you can read back that CSV which will put the information back in their proper field, a bit like the GPX format.

If you read a bit more about the M-Column format, you will see that you can use it to split the 4th column as long as you have been using commas to separate the field information. Here's an example:

You have a 4th column with: address, city, state, postcode, like "123 Peach Street, Atlanta, GA, 13456". If you use a field value of "address, city, state, postcode" in the M-Column Assignment under Options, you can tell EPE to split back the information into their right field.

Otherwise, your fields are merged and you need to split them back. As TXRVer wrote, EPE can automaticall extract some fields like phone, state and postcode. You can also extract the rest using the reverse geocoding function.

Turbo

There's a lot of good info in the Help file that goes along with EPE. Look in the Options>Preferences menu section. That is where you pick what kind of line break you want.

Look at this page:

http://www.poi-factory.com/garmin-csv-file-format

and in particular:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/23417

There seems to be differences among Garmin models and possibly other manufacturers as to what line break character to use. You'll see mention of , | Alt-Enter, etc.

Maybe another really good reason to just fill in the boxes in EPE and save it as a gpx. Just my opinion.

Ahhh! Now that I read your post corretly, you probably used the 4-Column CSV which put line breaks by default between the fields. The good thing with this format is that you can use the M-Column Assignemnt to split it back when reading that CSV file.

What is the best .csv format to use when submitting a file to the POI-Factory? I've read through the help screens on EPE and the FAQ here and the water seems to become less clear.

I've downloaded files that were apparently an M-column format as they had data in columns that were ignored (presubably by POI Loader) and aren't appropriate for a nuvi. There's a 4-column and a Garmin .csv and from what I can determine, the difference is whether a br (hmm can't post the brackets here) or commas are used in column 4. This seems to make a difference in how the info is displayed on various nuvi models, not to mention other brands. I haven't tried to save as one of the other csv formats in the list.

I've see other discussions about using | and maybe other control characters and methods on how convert from one to another.

It seems easy for me to create a .csv file that looks correct on my nuvi 750, but I understand that it may not display as nicely on a different GPSr.

Is there a particular .csv format that EPE can save to that is most useful for others to download from the POI-Factory without having to convert somehow? Or is this the nature of a standard that various models interpret differently?

I am using ver 4.21 and for the first time, tried to use the Open Garmin Favorites function under the File menu. I get the error msg that it can't find the Favorites.

My 660 is connected to the PC as drive letter D:\

I can see it in Windows Explorer and navigate to the current.gpx file (7KB). It is in this folder:

D:\Garmin\gpx\current.gpx

The only difference I noticed was that the capitalization (case) was different, but I have no idea if this is part of the problem or not. In the error msg, it says:

D:\Garmin\GPX\Current.gpx

If I start EPE, click on File>Open and navigate to D:\Garmin\gpx\current.gpx, it will sucessfully open the file.

The problem seems to be that when clicking on File>Open Garmin Favorites in EPE, it isn't finding my Nuvi 660 at all.

EDIT: My PC runs WinXP Pro, if it matters.

I am using EPE 4.31. EPE finds my favorites on my Nuvi 265WT with no problem.

Turbo added this function way back in ver 4.02, but this is the first time I tried to use it.

I had not used the function before. Thanks for drawing my attention to it.