Getting started
In order to track route information, an appropriate location provider has to be specified first. To set a location provider, expand the menu item saying "No provider selected" and choose one of the available location providers.
If your cell phone has a built-in GPS receiver you probably want to use GPS location provider. It provides accurate location information.
Tracking
Once you have selected a location provider the action menu will provide an entry to start tracking a new route.
When starting a new route, an option dialog will be shown. There you can specify a the route name and some additional tracking parameters:
- The minimum distance between waypoint updates
- The minimum time interval between waypoint updates
- The minimum accuracy to required to accept a waypoint (only available in Pro version)
Note: Setting the minimum update distance to 0 and using a large time interval between updates (e.g. 60s) will help to reduce power consumption. This will reduce power consumption but will also reduce tracking accuracy.
After accepting the parameters, tracking is started. The action menu will show information about the current route and menu entries to stop or pause tracking and to add notes and images to the route and the latest waypoint.
Depending on the settings, clicking on the route information will either open the map view with the current route or the tracking dashboard.
When pausing a route, it can be resumed later from the actions menu.
In the tracking preferences, you can enable a GPS status bar, which will display information about the current GPS signal quality:
The circle shows the orientation of the available satellites, the color of the segment indicates the signal quality for the segment. The color bar to the right of the satellite segments shows the overall signal quality, the color of the bar indicates the expected accuracy.
Route Management
Via the route management menu you can view, edit, import, export and remove routes. The activities in the management menu will start with a route selection screen. The screen will show a list of appropriate routes. Depending on the management activity, the screen will allow you to either select routes from the internal database or from the transfer directory or from both. The list contains basic information about the available routes (like distance, duration, note information).
A long click or touch on a route entry will bring up all available information for this route.
The options menu will allow you to change the sort mode and the detail level of the routes.
View Routes
After selecting a route in the selection screen (which will also contain the currently tracked one and routes from the transfer directory), the map view will be opened.
If the route is not visible initially, use the Change Focus item from the options menu to focus on the first or last waypoint or to zoom to the complete route.
Touching a waypoint will show detail information about the waypoint. If images or notes are attached to a waypoint, a blue info icon on top of the waypoint marker is shown and a bubble with buttons to display notes and images will be displayed when touching the marker.
Address information can be downloaded for a previously highlighted waypoint using the context or options menu.
A blue circle may be drawn around the touched waypoint. This circle indicates the accuracy of the measured coordinates. If no circle is drawn, then the waypoint is either shown with a high accuracy for the currently selected zoom level or no accuracy information is available.
In addition an indicator of the waypoint's bearing may be shown when the information is available.
Edit Routes
In order to edit a route, again you first have to select a route. In this case only routes from the internal database are available.
Note: To edit a route from an archive, you first have to make sure the archive is available in the transfer directory of your SD card (rtrack_data/xfer) and import the route to the internal database.
Once a route is selected, the edit screen will be opened. The screen consists of a expandable list containing all waypoints on the lower side of the screen and the map with the route on the upper side.
Editing options are available from the options menu or the waypoint context menu. In order to remove or edit a waypoint, either select a waypoint from the list and select the action from the options menu or use the context menu of the waypoint to directly perform the action.
Note: Some options like adding images or notes are only available in the Pro version.
Export Routes
To export a route, first select a route from the internal database. Afterwards you will be asked to provide a name for the export file and to specify the destination format.
The RouteTracker Archive format allows you to export route data, notes and images to a file, which can be read by the RouteTracker application.
You should use this format to exchange routes with other App users.
You can also use this format to save internal storage: export routes to a RouteTracker Archive and remove them from the internal database afterwards.
Use the KML Document in order to import the route e.g. in Google Maps or Google Earth. The Lite version will only export waypoint data, notes will not be included.
The KMZ Archive is similar to the KML Document export. It's a ZIP archive containing a KML document. In addition, it will also contain route and waypoint images. Note: this format is only available in the Pro version.
There is also GPX export support in the Pro version.
If you want to transmit the generated export file directly after generation, check the Send file option at the bottom of the export dialog. A list of appropriate apps like e-mail clients etc is shown.
Depending on the selected format, an additional dialog with format specific settings will be shown.
The files will be exported to the phone's SD card into directory rtrack_data/xfer.
Remove Routes
After selecting a route, you will be asked to confirm deletion.
You can remove routes from the internal database as well as from the external storage.