Map Theme Summary
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11 years
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Not sure which Garmin models have "Map Themes" available but I found that changing this on mine (under SETTINGS, NAVIGATION, AUTOMOBILE, and then MAP THEME) had a huge impact on screen visibility. For those who can change their map themes, hope this helps summarize things a little. I couldn't find this anywhere on-line and it really does have a huge impact.
As a sidenote, only Deutschland, Italia, and United Kingdom differentiate between big highways and bigger highways.
The following summary is for the colours you see during the day, which is when I do most of my travelling.
RESIDENTIAL AREAS:
This is the biggest difference. As follows:
Yellowish-Beige: Danmark
Yellow, Yellow Beige: Nederland
Grey: Garmin, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Polska
Light Green: Deutschland
Very Light Green: Italia, Österreich, Slovensko, United Kingdom
Pink: Suomi
Brown-Grey: Navigon
RESIDENTIAL STREET:
All show residential streets as white except Deutschland and Österreich which use grey. Navigon doesn't highlight its streets.
BIG ROADS:
All show big roads as yellow except Deutschland and Österreich which use white. Once again, Navigon doesn't highlight its streets.
MAJOR ROADS:
As noted above, this is where the UK, Deutschland, and Italia stand out:
Yellow: Garmin, Belgium, Danmark, Luxembourg, Österreich, Polska, Navigon
Orange: Deutschland (not so major is yellow), France, Italia (not so major is lighter orange), Nederlands
Blue: Slovensko
Purple: Suomi
Green: United Kingdom (not so major is red)
MAJOR HIGHWAYS:
Orange: Garmin, Belgium, Luxembourg, Österreich, Polska
Red: Danmark, France
Dark Orange: Deutschland
Green: Italia, Nederlands, Slovensko, Suomi
Blue: United Kingdom
Light Blue: Navigon
Parks are always a shade of green, while water is always a shade of blue.
There are other changes but these are the big ones you always see.
After travelling for 5 hours today in an area I've never been before and experimenting throughout, I liked Danmark the most. It was easy on the eyes and looked professional. I do wish the Danmark theme split up big highways and bigger highways like the three countries stated above do, even if just by using a lighter shade of yellow.
I'm curious as to what the preferences are of others or if you've even given "Map Themes" the time of day.
Making your own theme
I found an interesting site that will take the hex color codes that one finds in the .kmtf files of Map Themes and show you how they appear on the map display of your device.
The site is http://www.color-hex.com. When you first access the site, you will see a display of " Users Latest Favorite Colors". You are encouraged to input a 6 digit "color code" into the search field following the words "color-hex".
Note: 6 digit will only make sense to someone who understands hexadecimal (base 16). Most people are used to decimal (base 10) in which a "number" contains only the values 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. In hexadecimal, a "number" can contain the characters 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F (where the letters represent the numbers 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, respectively). Anyway, you will be entering 6 "characters". This is the letter "o" and this is the number "0". It is easy to mistake them but I remember them as the "number" being taller.
For example, one of the styles in STYLELIST for France.kmtf is as follows:
<STYLE field = "MAP_LAND_CLR" >
<COLOR >
<PRIMARY day = "#D1D0C5" night = "#4B4B4B" />
<SECONDARY day = "#D1D0C5" night = "#4B4B4B" />
</COLOR>
</STYLE>
If you enter "d1d0c5" (without the quotes) in the search field, you will be presented with a color that looks greenish gray to me.
The color used for this same field in the Osterreich.kmtf file is "e0c39e". If you enter this, you will see that the color is a beige.
Of the two colors, I prefer the beige.
Scrolling around the page you can get an idea of "color" codes that might replace the colors that bug you in the theme you are currently using - likely the Garmin theme. Note that you will not find Garmin.kmtf in the /Themes/Map folder on your device. We think that "theme" is held in protected memory so that you cannot change it.
However, you might want to create your own, personal map theme. And, one way to do this is to follow the instructions found above in http://www.poi-factory.com/node/37431/?page=0#comment-372428.
I did what Skyblues suggested, except my file was named "John.kmtf"
By the way, Skyblues suggests the color site http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp which should be more helpful than the site I found for picking new colors. I had been using the site I found because I can enter values at the top of the page more easily on my computer screen (I lose too many line at the top to Google and too many lines at the bottom showing all my active programs).