invisable POIs

I am going to suggest that you go through several exercises that are intended to bring you up to a reasonable understanding of POI loading. Find these at
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6654

One of these exercises will let you get a user's manual assuming you do not already have one.

You imply that when you go to Where To? > Extras that you do not see anything - in particular the words "Custom POIs". If this is not what you meant to imply and you did see "Custom POIs", you would have touched "Custom POIs" to move to the selection screen. I do not recal what my Nuvi said when I did a POI Loader for the very first time, but I assume that you would see, at least, "All Categories".

If you are not able to get somewhere close to what I indicate above, it may be that your POI load really did not work.

What you should see after each run of POI Loader is a message telling you how many POIs were loaded. Did you get some number that made sense based on the Starbucks/Panera downloads?

Be aware that every time you run POI Loader, it creates a new poi.gpi file. If you want to keep the last poi.gpi file you loaded, you can rename it to [something else].gpi.

AH! I thought that was the heading and that all the POIs would be listed below it. I see now I was incorrect.

I assume now that, since these are loaded, that when I get near a Starbucks, something will pop up, speak or display on screen automatically, since I have my Proximity Alert checked.

BTW, the manual is pretty worthless IMHO.

Thanks!

Are you saying that the downloaded manual is pretty worthless, or the quickstart guide that came in the box?

Since you have POI alerts checked, you will get alerts assuming that you used the "manual" mode of POI loader to set a distance alert.

When setting the distance on poiloader in manual mode or built in alert distance with a gpx file.You will be alerted when the coordinates are no more then 50 to 75 ft off the road of travel when you are in the navigation mode.If you select go you will be alerted within the distance set.

If you want alerts while in navigation mode and not on the road the coordinates are located you will need to set up a TourGuide alert.That will give you a radius alert.The distance you set will determine the radius.Example Cracker Barrels usually located off the interstates.Unless you select go you will not be alerted from the interstate.Putting TourGuide in the file name and a setting of 2 to 3 miles you will be alerted from the interstate without selecting go.