Associating Sounds withe POI's

Did you load SOX.exe into the folder containing POILoader.exe?

If you do a search for SOX you will find a great many references to where it can be D/L from rapidshare.

The redlight locations alert automatically because of the word "redlight" in the filename. Other files only alert if you set an alert for them -- usually by running POI Loader in Manual mode. You don't mention setting alerts . . .

Hmmm. I thought I was running POI Loader in the manual mode, but will check further. And, yes, I have SOX.exe in the same folder as the POI's

Thanks.

As a_user said, it belongs in the folder with POI Loader, not the POI files themselves.

That is the default location where the POI loader (PoiLoader.exe) gets installed.

I gave up on the sounds. Red light cameras are the important ones anyway.

Okay, I "found" the manual mode and went through the process of adding the alerts. I note now on the GPS, there are symbols of alerts on those POI's that I identified as an alert I'll try those out tomorrow. One question remains - if I load additional POI's in the same folder, will it erase the alerts and require that I go back through the process again?

I do have POI Loader in the same folder as the sox.exe and POI's.

Every time you run POI Loader, it overwrites the previous POI.gpi file and you are essentially starting over. You should be loading ALL files every time you run POI Loader. There are ways around this, but I think it would be a mistake to explore those techniques until you are more comfortable with the process.

TIP #1:
If you rename the poi.gpi after you create it, to something like yosemite.gpi, everytime you create a new poi.gpi file, poiloader will not overwrite it as the file name has now been changed. Keep renaming the files on the GPS right after creation and you can have as many as you desire on the GPS without any being being overwritten. Your Garmin will read and use ANY .gpi file created with poi loader regardless of the what first part of the file name is. All that matters is the extension being .gpi
This will allow you to keep specific .gpi files without having to worry about getting everything you need together every time you run it through poiloader. Your Garmin GPS will allow you to have as many .gpi files on it as space allows. I use the SD flash card to store them. The GPS will see them there too, although it will ask you if you want to load them on the base drive. There are posts on this site regarding how to prevent that....

TIP #2:
You can shut off or on any of the .gpi files by renaming the file extension of the file on your GPS to example.gpi_
This will make the file unrecognizable to the GPS and it will not load it when turning on.
When you want to use it again, simply access your GPS through the USB cable again and rename it back to example.gpi

TIP #3:
You can backup your .gpi files that you want to cycle through on your PC by just keeping a copy on your hard drive. Using the USB cable, the GPS becomes a USB Mass Storage Device (yes, with a drive letter...) and you can keep the .gpi files synchronized and backed up.

Using this method of renaming the POI.GPI files eliminates the grouping that can be done using sub-folders in your source folder. Every file in the input folders is listed when custom POI is selected which means you cannot create a Food group and have different eating/drinking establishment poi grouped under a header of food. At least I have never been able to get any type of grouping to work.

Thank you for your comment. I may slow down on adding more POI's with alerts until I get the techniques figured out. I forgot to quote the original post. Thx to Bentbiker for this comment

Thank you for your tips. When I get "brave", I'll give them a try.

You are correct that the recommended procedure leaves a "flat" listing with no categories, UNLESS you do the following.

POI Loader creates a category when it sees a subfolder name. Soooo . . . the trick is to duplicate the subfolders. An example:
MyPOIs
>>Food (subfolder level 1)
>>>>Food (subfolder level 2)
>>>>>>BurgerKing.csv
>>>>>>Mimis.csv
>>Parks
>>>>Parks
>>>>>>StateParks.csv
>>>>>>NationalParks.csv

Then, when you go to create a new gpi file for Food, you point POI Loader to the "subfolder level 1" folder as the source. POI Loader sees the subfolder Food beneath it, and creates a category.

If you want the best method of all, you go the extra step of setting up subfolders on the gps unit (for Food, etc) and have POI Loader place the new gpi file into the appropriate folder. No duplicate folders need be created on the gps. This technique eliminates the need to delete old gpi files and rename the new ones -- the folder name defines what is in the gpi file within it. For more detail on this method, see ScrugnesGundogs' posts in: http://www.poi-factory.com/node/17095 .

Finally, I still think all of these techniques are beyond what most newcomers to POI's can comprehend and I recommend they be tried only after you are comfortable with the basic process. None of it is rocket science, but it can be confusing for the newcomer.

Tried that. Set up folders in the Garmin, and on the SD and couldn't get it to work no matter where the GPI file was. It came out as a flat file every time. This was both on a 200 and the new 885T. It may be peculiar to the 660. (At that time I only had 5 categories. I've since expanded the number of categories to over ten. I've also taken the step of converting CSV to GPX and setting proximity alerts for those files I want alerts on and then not specifying the particular file has an alert. I'm working on the last couple of files and expect to have everything working so I can just do an express load in a few days.

It's pretty much the same amount of initial work. The only files that have to be converted regularly are the camera files I load.

But, you don't mention whether you created the necessary duplicate folders on the computer. Also, I believe you are limited to a single level of subfolders on the gps.

To be clear, the folder setup on the gps does nothing to create categories -- they are created by the structure on the computer. The separate folders on the gps merely allow you to have multiple gpi files without the need to rename the files -- relying on the name of the folder.

When I stated I had gon from 5 to over 10 categories, it should have been evident there were subfolders on the computer.

I have pointed poiloader at each sub folder and created a GPI of all the files in the subfolders, in the case of food, about 7 or 8 different files and then moved that GPI to the food subfolder on the GPS. Same for the other categories such as fuel, shopping, misc., etc. The telling point is you have it working on a 660. I don't have a 660 I had a 200 and now have an 885T. I have never heard of your method working on another series.

The question is not whether you have subfolders. The important point is that you need DUPLICATE subfolders on the computer -- under MyPOIs you have a subfolder named "Food". It has no files in it, just another folder also named "Food". The files are in the second folder and when you pick a source folder in POI Loader, you point to the upper folder so that it sees a subfolder named "Food".

Instead of moving the gpi files, you can have POI Loader place them directly into the proper subfolder on the gps -- just choose the option of the computer as the destination and when you browse to the proper folder, choose the proper folder on the gps or SD card.

You probably didn't notice that ScrugneysGundogs has a 200W and he had to patiently explain and re-explain the duplicate folders to me as well. You don't need a 660 for this to work.

In any event I am working around the problem, be it setup or whatever using GPX files and proximity alerts when needed. I'll be converting the last files/folders this evening and then I'll load Express.

My problem may have been not pointing the output of POILoader to the subfolder on the SD card. It loaded from the subfolder, it's just when POILoader runs it dumps the POI.GPI file in the Garmin/POI folder and not subfolders.

Hi a_user. Congrats on the COW award!

Thanks for the tip. I wasnt aware that I could use subfolders that contain sub-GPX files.

That certainly adds a layer of organization.

I will try to use both methods together next time I create a GPI file, since I usually only have trip specific POI catagories, that is excepting red light camera's.

I am going to try to make some seperate GPI's, that have subfolders to them also.

That way I can have a seperate POI file's in this format:

Yosemite
>Food
>Waterfalls
>Trail Head's
>Fuel
>Camping

Service Training
>Hotels
>Food
>Training Center
>Entertainment

I forsee that I will sometimes just get lazy if I dont have that many points to go into a file and throw just them all together into one as before...

Vanman

Post self-deleted. See my next post below....

Vanman

I didnt know that was possible. I am anxious to try this tonight to see if I can get it to work.

I thought it just would find a GPI file from anywhere on the GPS and display the flat listing, as you mentioned previously.

I will post the results....

Vanman

Ok...This isnt going well. I have tried to set up a second layer of sub folders as described in ScrugnesGundogs' posts:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/17095

and in PoiLoader, I get an error message that states that there are no data files in the folder. That I must specify a folder that has a GPX or CSV file in it.

I am using the following file structure on the PC:
c:\My_POI
c:\My_POI\Food
c:\My_POI\Food\Food
c:\My_POI\Food\Food\food.gpx
c:\My_POI\Fuel
c:\My_POI\Fuel\Fuel
c:\My_POI\Fuel\Fuel\fuel.gpx

I am using c:\My_POI as the data folder in PoiLoader.

It seems to see the first folder under My_POI and since it is empty of a gpx or csv file, PoiLoader errors.

How do all of you get around that?

By the way, making subfolders on the SD Card E:\garmin\poi does NOT create a category!

Example:
E:\garmin\poi\food\food.gpi
does NOT create a second food category.

All I can get for categories is:
>Custom POI's
>>Food
>>>(all the poi's in the file)
>>Fuel
>>>(all the poi's in the file)

All categories no matter what I try are a direct sub category under Custom POI's.

Seems that some have gotten this to work. I dont know how.

Maybe my new GPS isnt capable of doing this?
(Garmin NUVI 750)

Maybe I have the wrong version of POILoader? (POILoaderforWindows_253.exe)

Any insight?

Maybe I will just stick to what works and keep things single sub category under Custom POI's???

Thanks in advance,
Vanman

I think if I highlight a couple portions of my 2 previous posts, it will be more obvious where you are going wrong.

Your first reaction might be "OK, then why have the TWO identical folder names on the computer structure, if you point to the upper subfolder?" The answer is that you want to point to a source which has only one subfolder (the subfolder 2 level) at a time.

If you hang in there, you will be rewarded. Everybody seems to give up because it is different from their preconceived notion.

I got something working already! (Yeah...finally!)

What I found that worked first is just having one set of subfolders in the main My_POI folder by main category.

In each of those main subfolders, I put seperate gpx files that contained the different categories that I want to see.

Example:

My_POI\Food\
My_POI\Food\foodexample1.gpx
My_POI\Food\foodexample2.gpx
My_POI\Food\foodexample3.gpx
My_POI\Fuel\
My_POI\Fuel\fuelexample1.gpx
My_POI\Fuel\fuelexample2.gpx
My_POI\Fuel\fuelexample3.gpx

I run all these together with My_POI as the main data folder, and Food will have a main category, with examples 1,2, and 3 inside as sub categories, and ditto for Fuel. In each, the example categories contain the POI lists.

I see now that what you are doing is making one at a time instead of all together like I just did, so that they can be edited individually. I was not understanding before that you were not doing them all together!

Now, I just tried what I think you were saying to do and that doesnt seem to work.

Using My_POI\Food\ as the data source, with the following inside, I only get the 3 as main categories on the NUVI.

My_POI\Food\Food\foodexample1.gpx
My_POI\Food\Food\foodexample2.gpx
My_POI\Food\Food\foodexample3.gpx

My_POI\Food\ is empty except for the subfolder with the 3 files in it.

On the GPS:
>Custom POI's
>>foodexample1
>>foodexample2
>>foodexample3

It is like I need to do more than one main category to make the sub categories work. It seems that two are enough.

If I try the system that works from the top of the post, with only either Food or Fuel by themselves, I dont get the sub categories either.

I will keep hacking away. For now.....SLEEP!!!

Thanks BentBiker!

Vanman

Got it.

You NEED to have either or both of the following or it WILL NOT work.

Minimum Requirements:

1)Two or more main categories in one gpi file.

AND/OR

2)Two or more gpi files on the GPS that only have single main categories.

I was only using one gpi with your method and that wasnt enough.

DING!!!! We have a winner!!!!

Thanks again.

Vanman

And, even if you have multiple gpi files having single main categories, the Nuvi shows the filenames as sub-categories only if there are multiple gpx/csv files in a specific compiled gpi file -- it is logical enough, I guess, since, with a single POI file, the subfolder name can be very specific and that will be shown as the category.

Glad you stuck with it. As you noted, you can now update single gpi files without deleting files, renaming files, or copying/moving files.

Now that I have that working, I have to re-organize all my POI's on the computer to this new style of organizing.

Once that is done, I can get back onto the theme of the original post. That being sounds and pictures associated with POI's. See you in a week or so!!!

Have fun all!
Vanman