Differences between Waypoints and POI's

 

Hello All,

Great website. Lots of great info.

I have recently purchased a new c550 on sale during the mad rush of black friday. I think I have figured out how to use and enter information into the unit pretty good, but it seems to be very time consuming to do. I travel alot for sales and engineering for my employer and would like to put a list of customers in the gps in order to have reference to them when I am in a certian location.
First, what would the main advantages be of putting them in as a waypoint as compared to a POI? I figured that using a waypoint, I would be able to put a phone number in and be able to call the contact using the bluetooth and simply hitting the button. I have not been able to get this to work using the POI's. I can list the phone number, but not have the single push button feature to call them like the waypoints do.
Another question would be... Is there an easier way to put several waypoints in (with the phone number dialing option) besides entering each one separately as a waypoint, then saving it to the favorites, then bring up the favorite to edit and add the icon and phone number?

I really don't want to have to spend another $110 on the mapsource software in order to do this.

Thanks,
Jeeping04

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Jeepin04

dialing from waypoints / custom POIs

This may be a minor consideration, but with waypoints I think you're limited to 500 locations on the C550. You can load a lot more places using custom POI files.

Your issue with auto dialing the phone number is probably more significant. From what I've read elsewhere, it seems people are finding it easier to get phone number autodialing to work with waypoints. I haven't done any of my own testing yet, so I don't know exactly what's required to make auto dial work with waypoints vs. custom POIs.

As far as waypoint editors go, I'd usually recommend something like PoiEdit or EasyGPS, but I'm a little nervous they might not be able to format the phone numbers correctly.

When you tried phone numbers in POI files, were you using CSV or GPX format? How were you separating phone number from other data?

(I'd like to build some test files and see if I can get auto dial from custom POIs to work.)

JM

dialing from waypoints / custom POIs

Wow, thanks for the fast reply.

I have mostly only used the CSV format with a general text editor and MS Excel. I would try to put the phone number in the 4th column/section where the comments would go. I have tried the phone number by itself, in quotes, and with it typed like "phone: 000-000-0000" format, also with and without the quotes.

Some examples would be:
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house",000-000-0000
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house","000-000-0000"
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house",Phone: 000-000-0000
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house","Phone: 000-000-0000"

I have tried the PoiEdit and EasyGPS, which make it alot easier to put the info in for the POIs, but have not been able to find any specific place to put the phone numbers in. Even when I create the waypoint file on the gps, I have to go back in under the favorites and add the phone number in afterwards. I also tried to save and transfer the POIs into the gps and then bring it up and save it into the favorites. I loose all of the comments from the fourth column and still have to add the phone numbers manually afterward.

I'm not even sure if you can add the formatted phone numbers to the waypoint files with the MapSource software at this point, and I'm not willing to pay they price to find out that it may not be able to.

Thanks again for your help,
Jeepin04

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Jeepin04

more on auto dialing

I did some Googling and found lots of people asking the question but no good examples of success.

One example mentions that favorites data is saved in the current.gpx file and is identified using gpxx:PhoneNumber> /gpxx:PhoneNumber> tags.

I have MapSource, but I don't have access to a C550. If you're interested in sending me a copy of your current.gpx file, I could open it with MapSource and/or an XML editor to see how it's handling the phone data.

JM

auto dialing

I had received an email from a Garmin sales rep saying that you have to manually add the phone numbers to the waypoints after they are stored in the favorites area even when you save the waypoints from MapSource.

As an additional side note, the sales rep said he could ship me a DVD of Mapsource that would unlock with my code that I had received with my c550 for a $15 fee.

Thanks for the help.

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Jeepin04

can't you do that through Easy GPS?

Just curious as that's free s/w...

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. . If I only had a brain....................................... http://www.hugginsnet.com/ilovemymio ..................................................... GPS Units in Use: Mio C310x (primary) and Garmin eTrex Legend for GeoCaching.

Tele #

I don't know if this will help, but I have a 2720 and after I save as a favorite, I edit the name (home) and then add the phone number after the name. This way when the GPS announces the name it follows with the phone #.

Try this...

You typed:
Some examples would be:
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house",000-000-0000
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house","000-000-0000"
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house",Phone: 000-000-0000
-75.000000,45.000000,"my house","Phone: 000-000-0000"

Try this...
Some examples would be:
-75.000000,45.000000,my house,000-000-0000
-75.000000,45.000000,my house,"000-000-0000"
-75.000000,45.000000,my house,Phone: 000-000-0000
-75.000000,45.000000,my house,"Phone: 000-000-0000"

No quotes on the third column... It may be "SEEING" the quotes and by passing the phone numbers all together...

I may be way off line....???? Worth a try??

Let us know.

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Thx, Dan'l Garmin 2689LMT with BC-30 Backup camera system, GPS Map 62s

Differences between Waypoints and POI's

Phone numbers are handled differently between .gpx files and POIs.

The format you've seen for putting phone numbers in .csv files just puts the phone number into the entry as a comment field. The field is not handled specially, it's just shown on the display, and you have to type out the number if you want it dialled (unless you have a different experience in which case, please post).

.gpx format does have a special way of storing phone numbers. Just put one into your favourites and look at your current.gpx file for an example. Those are the ones that make the little 'phone' button appear when you're looking at the entry.

I can't find any .gpi files which can do the same thing (even ones generated using MapSource) so I'm concluding that it's impossible.

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Mac user, programmer, neophile.

Differences between Waypoints and POI's

I have tried to open my current.gpx file with Poi Edit. It seems to take all of the phone info out of the file and only leaves the long, lat & name of the waypoint.

Thanks,
Jeepin04

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Jeepin04

gpx vs csv format

The gps units do not use the .csv format in it native form. The gps units use .gpx format that has a very specific definition similar to XML. It ises begin and end tags for the various elements and not all gps units understand all the possible tags (I expect).

Any of the conversion processes that convert .csv to .gpx (including tie POI Loader from Garmin) are written to convert the .csv fields but opnly to the extent that the author wanted. Extra fields, long fields, unrecognized fields, or fields in the incorrect order may, or may not, be converted correctly depending on the author. One conversion system may not behave the same as some other.

Ideally, you should read and understand the gpx definition and use an editor and validateor to produce the POIs. Both are available free. The language is also an "open source" so you are free to contribute suggestions for changes and improvements. I can round up the appropriate information for anyone who is interested.

Regarding the problems with the telephone numbers, I suggest you manually add a couple POIs and or waypoints then upload the resulting file to your PC so you can examine it with an editor to see where Garmin is putting the telephone numbers and what tags they are using.

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gotta run

gpx vs csv format

(ObDisc: I just finished writing a Mac program to generate POI files so I know lots about this.)

Unfortunately, as far as I can see POI Loader doesn't put the phone numbers anywhere. The same thing is true of lots of information: phone number, address (in proper GPX format), elevation, symbol, symbol display mode, temperature alert, etc.. It ignores all this from .gpx files and they never get copied to the .gpi file. If anyone has a .gpi file which shows any of these things (whether created by POI Loader or not) I'd love to see it.

Simon.

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Mac user, programmer, neophile.

gpx vs csv format

This has, of course, been fixed in the latest version of POI Loader which is currently still in Beta. That version can read phone numbers from .gpx files. It still can't read them from .csv files.

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Mac user, programmer, neophile.

This is from the PDF documentation from the beta loader..

it indeed supports phone numbers etc. but when I tried to use this sample of course it failed to load(as you can see it seems to work ok here).

2006-07-10T15:30:29Z
Jim’s House

SymbolAndName

Category 1

123 Main St
Apt. 321
Sometown
AZ
USA
12345

545-9665
611-1635

test@testserver.com

Any editors you use must support EXTENDED GPX format to use these fields the only one I know of that does this is supposidly GPS Utility 4.30.1 though am not sure on how to enable the extra fields using this program.

Ok I figured out the format..

my example is in this post..

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/1667

next step is to try to write a macro in excel to convert .csv files (ones that have phone numbers that is) to .gpx :0

enjoy!

Dialable format

Could you repost the dialable format? Thanks

.

It's in the Help File of POI Loader.

Open the Help File. Click on Index. Look at the bottom of the list for XML and click on that.

Garmin gpx extensions

RFMANNING wrote:

Could you repost the dialable format? Thanks

I updated the Wikipedia gpx article with an example of Garmin's extensions - including the phone number entries.

The product that created that sample file is available HERE

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------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

Thanks

Not only am I new to the POI format, I'm new to the group. I just now read your post. I guess I'll try my hand at XML editing. I got the help file off the POI Loader. Its printing now.

I tried converting some of my contects to dialabe POI files. I can't get my file to load in GPS Visualizer. It doesn't like my headers. I'm going to have to load them manually, I suppose.

Bob

take the easy route

RFMANNING wrote:

Not only am I new to the POI format, I'm new to the group. I just now read your post. I guess I'll try my hand at XML editing. I got the help file off the POI Loader. Its printing now.

I tried converting some of my contects to dialabe POI files. I can't get my file to load in GPS Visualizer. It doesn't like my headers. I'm going to have to load them manually, I suppose.

Bob

Really, unless you want to do all of your own coding for all of your poi's, to get dialable phone numbers knock yourself out.
Or you can just use a program that will do that for you. Either when you create poi's or by importing a file into it.

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........Garmin StreetPilot c550 / Nüvi 765...........