Today,
Tracky 3.3 has been released.
Tracky already linked to Google Directions to get written hints for address-to-address navigation.
You can now store these routes in a GPX file. On one hand, this eases to navigate to your target. On the other hand, these tracks are still available when you have no internet on your PDA in the field, so you
no longer depend on an internet connection for address-to-address navigation. .
A new tool is added, the Trip Computer. It continuously shows several paramaters: distance, time, min/max/average speed and altitude, elevation and decline. In older versions of Tracky, such information was also available, but only if you were recording a track.
Geo-caching support improved a lot. Online searching for geo-caches gives now descriptive icons for the found geo-caches. The information for each found geo-cache is more detailed and better readable. The Accurator tool is extended with all kinds of indicators/symbols to better find geo-caches (or any other location).
GoogleMaps support improved: the min/max zoom-levels now match the zoom levels of Google resulting in better readable maps (especially usefull for the street maps and hybrid maps).
Terrain maps (beautifull!) are now also supported.
Several small improvements have been made.
An elaborate user manual is available on the website (or download the PDF document). A free trial version is available for
download.
The trial version works for 15 minutes, but you can re-start it as many times you like. A license costs 30 Euro. An upgrade fee of 15 Euros applies if you have a 1.x or 2.x license. If you have a 3.x license, you can upgrade for free: your current license key will also work for this version. You can order directly via the website.
GoogleMaps Downloader
An important feature of Tracky is that it can dynamically download GoogleMaps. However, many customers do not have (fast) internet access on their PDA once they are in the field. To prepare such field trips, you need to sit at home where you hook-up your PDA to your PC for internet access, and pan/zoom the screen until you have downloaded and cached all the maps you like. These cached maps will then also work off-line when you are in the field. A tedious job. There are some very useful PC tools from AllAllSoft.com. With
Google Maps Downloader 4.69, you can download all the street maps for any given region and zoom level on your PC. And with
Google Maps Images Downloader 4.24, you can download satellite maps on your PC. The output format of both tools is compatible with Tracky, so you directly use the downloaded maps in Tracky! A quick guide is given at issue (8) of the Q&A section of the website.
NavFunPro
Many people asked whether there were plans to port Tracky to the mobile phone platform. Good news for them! A good friend at FunRunGames.com did this. Inspired by Tracky but also by some other good tools, he developed a brand new off-road navigation tool called
NavFun Pro. The nice thing is that it is compatible with TrackMe: like in Tracky, you can follow your buddies live and get a historic overview of your tracks at TrackMe and you can also follow them and chat with them in Tracky, and vice versa!
NavFun Pro works on almost all mobile phones. Of course you need to have a GPS unit, built-in or for example connected to your phone via BlueTooth.
/zumpen
