Extra_POI_Editor - A tool to View/Edit/Convert POI/TourGuides (Part 2)

I have been searching Turboccc's forum listing for an answer but have yet to find it. Maybe someone here can help me.

Using EPE version 5.32
Several Garmin units but mainly Zumo 660

Issue: I created an extensive TourGuide files for Carolina Waterfalls and due to many being off road I employed the radial proximity alert extented out to encompase roads that a motorcyclists would possible be traveling on. From there I added several circle list locations on the roadways to present an alert that a waterfall(s) was in the area, but avoiding eccessive alerts. While testing the alert would sound each time I crossed the original radial proximity (not close to circle listings) and sound again when exiting and reentering original radius.

Question: Should I remove the original radius after creation of circle list? Will circle list alerts still function then? or will I have no alert at all?

I intend to do some trail and error with Simulation mode to test but hoping someone may already have a concrete answer. If not I will post my results.

Edit: 12:10 pm edt

Recalled that TurboCCC stated somewhere that POI Loader will not handle circle lists therefore I tried using EPE to save the .gpi file and manually loaded to Zumo. Now I am getting no alerts at all. Alert Icon play button does not appear when going to Custom POI> EPE Carolina Waterfalls TourGuide and selcting an individual POI from the list either. Checked another TourGuide created with EPE but loaded with POI Loader and simulation test worked therefore settings on Zumo were correct for getting TourGuide alerts.

As you have noticed the circle list only work if you create GPI with EPE, since PoiLoader not support this.
Circles must bee inside the proximity of the poi. Alert will bee moved to inside circles and only appear inside these circles. Circles that are connected together will apear as one .
TourGuide gpi files must have an proximity and a sound file to work.
If I do not remember wrong so do not not link field works by GPI creation in EPE.
There are also some mix up with ikons and soundfiles creating gpi with more than one poi file.

Not sure I understand.

"If I do not remember wrong so do not not link field works by GPI creation in EPE.
There are also some mix up with ikons and soundfiles creating gpi with more than one poi file."

I had read some of your posts concerning circle lists and they were very helpful. All my circles are inside proximity. All are linked with EPE to folder with sound and jpg files. Same link for all poi.

GPI file created with POI Loader is 7894 KB
GPI file created with EPE is only 223 KB

As you see of the file size, gpi created of EPE do not contain sound files. Using linkfield for gpx and making TourGuide with PoiLoader work ,but I think EPE do not support linkfield creating Gpi. EPE is unfinished when comes to gpi creation.
I think you must put wav/bmp files in the same folder as gpx to make it work (like normal PoiLoader files). I Have never tested with jpg.
When merging several gpx files that have ikons/wav in same folder as gpx and do a: Export by filename>gpi, my experience is EPE connect wrong ikon/sound files to poi.Example: petrol.gpx-petrol.bmp-petrol.wav , gasolin.gpx-gasolin.bmp-gasolin.wav >create gpi with EPE> petrol.gpx will have gasolin.bmp-gasolin.wav and
gasolin.gpx will have petrol.bmp-petrol.wav.
Hopefully I did not make the confusion bigger

Thank you. You have clarified things for me.

I moved .wav file to same location as .gpx file then saved as GPI again. File size increased. However, after downloading to GPSr the results were the same. NO ALERTS. Yes, sox.exe is in folder with EPE.exe

I believe I will have to wait for full fuctionality of EPE GPI to link with sound and image files along with circle lists.

Until then I will have to add "dummy poi" to create alerts only where I want them instead of a large proximity, because the POI is well off road and several would overlap creating to many alerts.

Thank you for helping me.

Sox.exe needs to be in the same folder as POI Loader.exe if your using it to load POIs to a nuvi.

I haven't read back through this thread so if the above is irrelevant, forgive me and ignore my comment.

Yes Craig, I was just letting him know I had a copy of sox.exe in the EPE folder also. Comment may help someone else though. Thanks for sharing.

If you want to you can send me the EPE created TourGuide gpi file to:
odin.midgard@gmail.com and I can look into it and see
what is happening to the alerts.
My first thought is that the alert is "along road" and not "TourGuide". I must look back to see if EPE can create TourGuide or not.
Its an easy job to change AlongRoad to TourGuide or a "true Proximity" inside gpi if there is not too many poi, or if they have the same sound file.

Odin,

Thank you for your offer to assist me. An email has been sent.

I'l look in to it and see what l can find.

I have achieved quite a bit using your EPE program and I appreciate you writing it. I will make a donation(s), just like I did with GPSBabelGui when I was working on my TomTom stuff. I made a lot of progress after figuring out how to edit a record (double click). I was looking all through the menus for the word link, and my help file was not working.

Issue is this, I want to bring in my WAVs and BMPs via spreasheet. I am told by another user that you can do this when you are updating a record. Currently I pass the link to the Wav file for each POI through my spreadsheet. If I wanted to pass the Link to my BMP also, would I concatenate them with a semicolon between them in my spreadsheet or what? I tried using as many of your Icons as I could but there were just not enough that worked for me. Another solution would be to allow users to add their own symbols or Icons.

For WAVs, I put the path in a column to the right of my declared columns in M-Columns and fill down, and append the POI Name and TourGuide.wav to the path in another column, and copy/paste-special/Values into the Link column. Quick and easy, and that way they match when loaded into EPE. Provided I use the POI Name as the filename with TourGuide at the end.

Second, Wouldn't It Be Nice If (Wibnif) there were an application that I could send two columns of data to, (hopefully by cut and paste, or import from excel) one column would be the text for my WAV, and the second column the FileName I wanted to use for it, and have an application create the WAVs for me and name them the filename I passed? And, of course, stick them in a directory I chose. Bet you are up to the task. ww4cash@sbcglobal.net

Sadly, Turbo's been missing since late 2011. No one knows what's happening with him as all attempts to reach him haven't had any response.

never mind......

@Pirateghost,
if you are having trouble making EPE run, I am certain that we can help. What problem are you having?

I discovered that the character limit for the Name field is around 30, I wrote it down, but cant find it. Just understand there is one. Any characters over the max will be truncated on my Garmin and may on yours too.

To use POILoader with WAV files, you need SOX.exe. Search for SOX.exe Sound Exchange and you will find it. Now, I saw a post from 2008 I think. So when I went there, I downloaded the latest. MISTAKE, download the one the earlier post said to download, they have not fixed it to work with the latest of POILoader. Download SOX.exe 14.0.1
I wasted a lot of time trying to use the latest version of SOX. Frustrating.

Shame. That was a nice piece of work. I am trying to configure a xls file with all the data and pass that to EPE. I have done that with a file with over 150 POIs. Where I need help is working out a way to have one symbol for each POI, not each POI file. There are some in EPE, but not enough. I have WAVs in the xls in the Link column. I used EPE to add a JPG and a BMP in the same place the WAV shows up. The Icon (BMP) shows up in EPE. But, when I simulate using the GPI created with POILoader/SOX (version 14.0.1), I see a round dot with what looks like arrows coming out at what would be its 4 corners. I am not hung up on getting the JPGs to show up when the baloon is touched on the screen, but I am hung up on having a dozen or so ICONS that I can assign to each of my 150 POIs in the file. Any suggestions? I do have a one for one wav file to POI ratio, and that works fine. I am doing testing with a file with 5 pois in it. 4 have individual WAVs/BMPs/JPGs. The Fifth is just a starting point. ww4cash@sbcglobal.net, let me know if/when you reply.

Before trying to give you a procedure to follow, I want to make sure we understand what you are trying to do.

Because it seems that you want a sound and an icon file for each individual point of interest, it appears to me like you are trying to create one POI file that could be loaded to create what would otherwise be "Favorites" in the Garmin world.

Your profile says you have a TomTom but you mentioned POILoader/sox so that implies Garmin. What GPS unit are you trying to load?

Whenever just a "dot" appears for an Icon, that usually means that the scale is not zoomed in enough. On my 765, I need to be zoomed in to 300 feet or less to see Icons. So, that raises a question for you. If you were able to see all of the Icons for your 150 points, what would that do for you? Would it obscure the map, do you think?

POILoader says "[em]Your Garmin GPS device may have image size requirements. Most compatible Garmin products work well with icons that are 24x24 pixels or smaller. Bitmaps that do not meet those requirements may appear distorted when viewed on the unit's screen.". Do your .bmp conform to this?

You made the comment "4 have individual WAVs/BMPs/JPGs. The Fifth is just a starting point.". When you have both a .bmp and a .jpg file associated with a point and you mention "balloon", I start thinking TourGuide. Tell us a bit more about why you are doing such and what you want to do?

I have 2 gpx files, 2013FL and 2012FL.
2012FL has 334 locations. I want to transfer only 20 of them to my 2013FL file.
Is there an easy way to do this?

If I was doing it, I would open the 2012 file in EPE and save it as CSV. Open in Excel and delete the POI's that I do not want. Save the remaining 20 and then open the 2013 file and merge the 20 CSV file with it.

Open MapSource and load the first file, open MapSource again and load the second file. Copy each waypoint from one MapSource into the other. Save As a gpx.

If you use the csv approach, be careful you don't lose fields and that the zipcode field doesn't get converted into numerics by Excel. Leading zeros in zipcodes belong there.

Open the 2012 file in EPE and delete the unwanted locations then merge open the 2013 file ans save.

There is a feature in EPE called File > Export By. The options under Export By are
State
Category
Symbol
Filename
Country

and I don't pretend to understand how the filename works.

But I did bring in a random file and marked some of the points with various categories. Then I did an File > Export By > Category and found that EPE used the input file name and then appended to it and underscore followed by the category name for any category that had been checked and for those without a category appended "_none".

So, this might give you some starting point to see how you can get what you want.

I have been thinking about how to use EPE in situations where I want to strip out of some file only specific points. One thing I have suggested to others is that they take a poi-factory file - say Walmarts. Find the Walmart closest to the upcoming vacation point by doing a find on the city in which whey will be staying. Then use the EPE Tools option to Sort by Location. EPE will sort the file using the just found location as its center point and arranging the other points by crow-flies distance. I suggested that they save this sorted file and then open the file in NotePad++. Then, determine how many points to save starting with the first one in the sorted file, scroll to the one below that last wanted one, use the shift key to highlight all the other points down to the last one and then hit the delete key to get rid of the unwanted ones.

So - sorting and exporting in some combinations might give you what you want.

I will be interested in what you find out. Maybe together we can brainstorm new ways to use EPE.

I just am amazed at how good a program it is.

PS: I apologize to those who may think I went too fast with not enough detail on this, but I am sure spookybob will be able to follow it.

I use the export feature all the time.. What that does is match the field your exporting into seperate files

I use it to break up my offbeat file into states.

I just tried this, If you put a 1 in "Country" field, then run the export for Country, You will end up with 2 files, one that has blank for the Country and one file to the "1" that you put in.

You can do this with any of the field you want.. you will have to get rid of the marking for later use.

on the other hand ...

I also use 2 files to make 1 big file, I find new entrys and put them in a small file, then do a open merge to append them. Then I will do a find dups to it. Helps to see if I had one already there.

another thought would be to use one of the fields, that you can sort on, then place somethig in it, sort it and save as a M-colum cvs, then you can use any editor to remove the lins you dont want. thery will be together since you sorted it. Then you can save the M-colum file and do a merge to the new file.

Remember, you will need to use extention of gpx, or the M-colums csv to get this to import correctly, If you use the Garmin cvs, you will see everything go into the comment field.

Hope this helps

I have been using V4.88 and just installed V5.32 using the setup installer version of EPE.
I did not uninstall V4.88.
I notice, every time I start V5.32, it takes several seconds to complete initialization and that, sometimes, the title bar says "not responding" during that time.
What is likely the problem?

(I don't know why, but I have never figured out how to effectively search the POI forums... sorry)

Thanks.

Ken, if you have an older system (or one with limited memory) there may be a noticable performance hit.

EPE V5.32 uses 4X more memory (460MB) than V4.88. Also, there is a looping issue on exit that will tie up one CPU for quite a while.

See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/36610 if you're insterested in the details,

I have an older Thinkpad T60 laptop but it has a 2GHz Intel core duo CPU with 3GB RAM and SSD hard drive.
Performs pretty well yet and still running WinXP.

I was just out for a 40-minute walk with the PC sitting here idle and, after reading your reply, started V5.32 with the same results.

Several seconds before initialized and the whole menu bar goes white if clicked before init is complete and during that time the title bar says "not responding".

Leaving V4.88 installed shouldn't make a difference should it?

Is V5.32 checking online for stuff during initialization? My internet here is WiFi and a bit pokey.

EPE starts with almost no delay on one of our old computers (Pentium 4 with 2GB RAM and Win XP). Even with the internet unplugged... I have multiple versions of EPE installed.

As far as I know, EPE only needs the internet to preview a POI on Google Maps and for reverse geocoding. You might try unchecking Options -> Enable Internet to see if it makes a difference in your startup time.

I still have a older HP laptop with XP and had nothing but problems when loading anything around 4.88. I talked to Turboccc way back when and he said once he started adding the radius circle it caused problems with older model. He suggested to go back before the circles were added.It works fine with earlier version.

The new laptop with Windows 8 runs the latest version with no problems.But has a lot more ram.

There must be more going on here than we know. I run EPE 5.32 on an 8-year old WinXP Pro, P4 - 3.2GHz, with 2.5 GB RAM and it opens right up.

However, when I exit the EPE program window, the program process does not end immediately looking at Windows Task Manager Processes Tab. The process sits there using about 50% of the CPU for about 30 seconds. If I then try to start EPE again, there is a startup delay because the 1st instance has not yet ended.

If I watch the Task Manager Processes Tab and wait for the 1st instance of EPE to end, then I can again start EPE with no delay.

But basically, I can run EPE on this old machine with no problem because in normal usage I do not quickly close and then try to restart EPE.

Maybe this is the problem, or part of the problem, Ken is having.

I tried installing V5.32 in a VMware WinXP virtual machine and it starts up quickly the first time.
Then, as others have stated, it takes several seconds to restart unless you wait awhile first.

I also tried alternately starting 4.88 and 5.32 on my PC where they are both installed and, every time I start the opposite one, I am prompted to confirm the license agreement. So, there is some interaction at least in the registry when both are installed.

So, without turboccc's help, there probably isn't anything more to pursue here.

Thanks to all who replied.

Just upgraded to version 5.32. It works, but when I right click on a .gpx files in-order to set all .gpx files to "open with" the Extra_POI_Editor it does not "register" with Windows as the default program to use. I can see the Extra_POI_Editor program, but it won't "stick" as the default program. How can that be resolved?

Have you tried launching EPE, choosing Options > Preferences... and ticking the "GPX" box under "Associate File Extensions to EPE"?

Basically yes. But that was not the issue. You guys are fast!!!
Problem is solved. I found the utility below on the internet:
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OpenWithAdd utility for Windows® XP and Windows® Vista
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/openwithadd.htm
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The directions on the website are vague, as there is no reference to Windows 7 along with a (old) 2005 publication date. But as I continued to search, I kept getting referred by other websites back to that one implying that the solution would work for Windows 7. Unless by computer subsequently crashes with the next re-boot, it appears to work.