New Feature Ideas
kylecorry31 opened this issue · 236 comments
Since this thread is becoming a bit long (even with most of the comments minimized), I've created a new issue as a continuation. I'm going to be closing this issue, and ask that all new feature ideas be posted there.
The new issue: #1911
Please feel free to post new feature ideas in the comments on this issue. I would love to have some other thoughts about what should be included in this app (no guarantee that I will include them, but I will consider each idea). No idea is a bad idea here, worse case I may say that I will not include it in Trail Sense (but who knows, if it is a really good idea, I or someone else may work with you to build it into a separate app). I should also mention, that I am not averse to the idea of having separate companion apps to Trail Sense with specific niches if a good feature does not meet the goal of Trail Sense.
Some set in stone goals of this app:
- Trail Sense must not use the Internet in any way, as I want the entire app usable when there is no Internet connection
- New features must provide some benefits to people using the app while hiking, in a survival situation, etc.
- New features should make use of the sensors on a phone rather than relying on stored information such as guides
- New features must be based on peer-reviewed science
For reference, some things I have considered in the past and removed were:
- "Survival blueprints" (recipes for making items while in survival situations)
- There are a lot of other resources out there and it is best presented in a book format
- Survival guide
- There are a lot of other resources out there, including this awesome app
- Animal behavior
- I can't say there is enough science / supporting evidence behind Solunar theory for me to make accurate predictions of animal behavior in general, though if someone provides strong evidence I will consider it
Saw the app in F-Droid recents and it seems quite useful already. A couple of nice-to-have features that came to mind:
- Allow as location share target. For example, in OsmAnd when selecting Share > Send, have Trail Sense show up in the app list.
- Support swipe between tabs.
- Maybe far-fetched: temperature. I think most phones have at least a battery temperature sensor. The reading will vary based on device activity and location (pocket, desk, etc.), but might produce useful readings with some care in calibration and use.
@vuori Thank you for the ideas!
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Yes, the location share target would definitely be a useful feature, I'll add an issue for that.
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I'll take a look at this to see if Android supports it with little developer effort.
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I actually looked into making a temperature sensor available in my early development (+ humidity), though I found that it was very inaccurate due to the phone heating up from use and being in a pocket / temperature-controlled room. Another thing I noted while looking into this feature though is that temperature/humidity is something that the phone's user would be able to feel without the phone, and given that when looking at it in Trail Sense they would already be able to feel it, I'm not sure how much value that would provide (other than the phone issuing heat alerts/advisories to let the user know that they are at risk for heat exhaustion/stroke or frostbite).
re: 3. Yeah, I can see the technical issues and put that way giving it a pass makes sense.
re: 3. Yeah, I can see the technical issues and put that way giving it a pass makes sense.
I did create a new issue to look into it (#62), the heat / cold alert aspect may be a useful reminder to stay cool or warm. I may put it as an off by default setting if anyone wants to try it out though.
It might be nice to be able to see in which direction the sun and the moon are, perhaps as icons on the compass?
Another feature, ripped straight from the compass app on my pebble, is to have the compass change to a "linear" display, like in skyrim, when the phone is held up.
The current display works okay when held up to your face, but it gets a bit weird when you're facing south and north is shown to be downwards.
So I purposely made Trail Sense only display in portrait orientation, and didn't design it for landscape. Is having landscape orientation support something anyone would want? If yes, give a thumbs up to this comment.
I don't see any harm in supporting landscape (aside from more code), but portrait mode certainly seems the most useful since that's how you'd hold the phone while walking.
Landscape could be very useful for the vertical compass, however.
Multiple language support
I can help with that...
A speedometer and odometer would be a nice addition.
I'd love to see GPS and compass accuracy visualized somehow. Give you an idea if you should be trusting your instrument or yourself more in a given location.
Huge ask:
Geopackage or GPX logging
Ability to take or associate an image with each waypoint.
An optional pop over of the image when the waypoint draws could be nice, as well.
Option to pull data from connected sensors, for instance Fitbit watches.
My phone does not have a barometer, yet my Fitbit does, so having Trail Sense poll my fitbit for atmospheric pressure would be awesome.
https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/device-api/barometer/
@Saijin-Naib Thank you for the ideas! I'll look into them to determine their feasibility and how well they'll fit into Trail Sense and the "no internet policy" of trail sense (in particular the connected devices idea)
Integration as a Share target so locations from text messages, map programs, browser, etc. can be sent to Trail Sense and added as waypoints.
Would make planning trips etc super easy when in a location with data services, though once stored, they obviously no longer need data.
Ability to add notes to a waypoint. Alongside images, this can help navigate in confusing or dense locations, like a multi-path split at a trailhead (picture of spot, and a note to go left around the Spruce, etc.)
(Geopackage would easily allow for these features to be read/written)
Ability to organize waypoints into groups and sub-groups.
Would be great to organize a system of trailheads within a park, for instance.
(Geopackage also could help with this by having tables per group, etc)
Ability to store/show height and angle to waypoint in addition to distance and bearing.
(Geopackage also allows for XYZM points)
@Saijin-Naib Thanks for the feature ideas! I'll look into them - also, Trail Sense should already be a share target for geo coordinates, is that working for you?
@kylecorry31 , yeah for Geo in specific, I see that it can act as a Share source to things like Magic Earth, which is great.
how about a step counter that can be used to calculate roughly how far one has travelled based on your height (which would estimate the stride length)? It could work as a fall-back for GPS positioning, where it estimates your position based on the last known position and how many steps you've taken in what direction.
I imagine this could be very useful for people in dense forests where GPS is flaky.
@swedneck that is a very interesting idea, though I'm a bit worried about how accurate it would be. Ex. if the user has the phone in their pocket/backpack and is walking, the phone wouldn't be facing in the same direction as the person, hence the estimated location would be wrong (though may be corrected by an incoming GPS signal). I can think of a few other areas which would lead to inaccurate results as well.
I'll do some more research to see how feasible this would be / if I could make an accurate implementation of this - thanks!
@kylecorry31 perhaps the user would have to manually set the direction they're walking, and change that direction in the app any time they move another direction? It'd be a bit cumbersome, but i think you'd be pulling up the compass at those points anyways.
Hey. That's a cool application. But I don't have the ability to add a lot of points through copy/paste in a certain format. Like that:
59.940425 30.313874 - Point Description 1, some text
59.923596, 30.385413 - Point Description 2
...
also i want get point from map (OSM in f-droid)
@whoizit Thank you for the feedback! I do have bulk adding of beacons planned (#95) - I'm not sure when I'll get to it though.
You should currently be able to create a beacon from OSM - you have to share a point using the geo: option and it should give you an option to open Trail Sense. Let me know if that isn't working for you.
share point from OSM using the geo: works for me. Thank you very much!
@kylecorry31 this last update is amazing! So many great UX improvements in it.
Thanks so much for your hard work!
If I may, is it possible to show the raw values for compass and gps when we tap on them? What do you consider high, etc? Also might help us debug compass, in terms of smoothing value, compass mode, and possible need for recalibration.
@Saijin-Naib Thank you for the kind words! I'll hopefully be able to spend a bit more time getting the rest of the new features implemented (as seen in the issues tab here).
So, the accuracy value for the compass comes from Android itself, I'm not sure how that is calculated internally. The GPS, on the other hand, is something that I could display, as Trail Sense receives the GPS accuracy in meters, and I perform a calculation to determine high/med/low (and right now, it only factors in the position accuracy, not elevation accuracy). I'll create a new issue to present this information.
About the flashlight:
I understand that you removed the feature because it already exists on Android but, AFAICT, there is no built-in feature that supports SOS Morse signal, and it would be good to have it available in this app...
Edit: Oh... And I really loved the app. Very well developed and very useful
@maverick74 I will consider adding it - not sure how I feel about adding a new tab just for the flashlight, but maybe that would be useful. What do you think?
Another option could be a companion app (I mentioned before that I'm planning on creating a tide / ocean app similar to this), though there are a few nice flashlight apps our there (Simple Flashlight on F-Droid comes to mind)
Thanks for the kind words!
I don't think you need to clutter the ui just for something that "might be useful someday" (let's hope that day never comes!)
I think the important is that the feature is there and that once we get to it (even if we have to take a few steps) we can easily enable/disable it (to save battery, for example)
@maverick74 After some thought, I decided to implement the flashlight (as you mentioned SOS isn't built into Android - and I shouldn't assume that the flashlight is built in to the quick actions or something) - I actually found a really nice place to put it in the UI (top right corner of the navigation tab), and it actually balanced out the UI with the recent move of the ruler button. I'm going including it in the release tomorrow as well!
For reference, you press the flashlight button once to turn on the light, a second time to turn on SOS, and a third to turn it off - works like a lot of flashlights I've seen. If you turn it on, you can close TS and shut off your screen and the light will stay on (like the native flashlight will do).
Going forward, I'm going to consider what you said that even if we need to take a few steps to enable it, a useful (and potentially life saving) feature should be there when needed. That could mean that I could have an item in settings (for example) which can launch feature X even if you can't access it in other places of the UI (saves on creating tabs for features that don't relate well with the existing tabs or are still being worked on).
Hi all, I wanted to post this to share that I've started working on the first Trail Sense companion application, TS Maps.
TS Maps is going to be an offline maps application that closely integrates with Trail Sense so you can easily navigate to your beacons / create beacons from TS Maps. Keeping in line with the goal of TS, the maps app will prompt you to download any terrain maps you want upfront so that it will be completely usable offline (similar to how OsmAnd~ works).
What it will be:
- An offline maps application targeted towards wilderness treks or survival situations (same as TS)
What it won't be: - A general maps app for navigating to X location (ex. Google Maps)
- A social maps app (ex. sharing your location/reviews/etc)
So why did I decide to create my own maps application?
- I was not really happy with the user interfaces of existing offline maps applications (free), I kind of want something more Trail Sense themed and easy to use
- I wanted to have complete control over integration with TS - yes, opening a geo: intent with another maps app works fine, but a companion app will have better flexibility here
- I already have most of the core framework in place with Trail Sense, and I've been wanting to extract that into one or more libraries
- I can add whatever features I want (ex. navigate to the nearest water source)
- Can't be a part of TS because it accesses the Internet (and a lot of people have become reliant on TS not doing that, so I'm not willing to add it in TS directly)
- Creating apps is fun :)
Interested in suggesting a feature? Do so here: https://github.com/kylecorry31/Trail-Sense-Maps/issues It is extremely early in the development process (AKA I just started it a few hours ago), so any ideas are welcome!
Also, I have no idea when I'll be ready for the first production release of TS Maps - hopefully in the next month or two though.
Screenshot after a code dump from TS (fun fact: in early TS development, I had the maps on the navigation tab)
I'm often in the montain and I need an accurate altimeter.
I'm missing the ability to manually tar the altimeter (barometer sensor)with gps altitude when location is on, or by typing it...
So that I could have an accurate altitude on a hike without gps
@openStove I'm not 100% sure what feature you are asking for, I'll list what you can currently do with the altimeter (in v 0.8.0) and see if any of that meets what you are looking for.
- The altimeter currently uses the GPS to get your altitude, from there it will use the barometer to fine-tune that measurement so as you move it will update the altitude accordingly
- In the altimeter calibration section in the settings, you have the option to enable or disable that barometer fine tuning, as well as switch to above mean sea level elevation (which is different from what the GPS elevation is). You can also override the altimeter by either typing the altitude, using the GPS to get an altitude reading (one time), or entering the current sea level pressure and using the barometer to get the altitude (one time)
I think what you may be asking is to allow setting that baseline altitude (ex. manual override of the altimeter) but then allowing the barometer to adjust that reading as you climb?
If that's the case, I think I can make it so that you can do the following steps:
- Open the altitude calibration settings
- Disable auto adjust altitude (which I may rename in this case or make a dropdown where you'll select how you want to update the altimeter - GPS, GPS+Barometer, Barometer, Never - and selecting Barometer or Never unlocks the manual overrides)
- Enter your altitude override (typing, from GPS, or from sea level pressure)
- Enable fine tune using barometer
Hi. Would you consider adding nautical miles (knots) as a distance unit?
Sure! #208
Thank you for that great app. I found it coincidental on the F-droid store and it replaced two apps which I had downloaded on the Play Store before and this one even has more features. I didn't knew that I need moon and sun icons on a compass and now that I have them, I don't want to use other compasses anymore :D.
My feature idea is a bubble level based on the gyro sensor. I've built a kitchen together while only using my phone as a measurement, so it is accurate enough. It can be used completely offline and I think it fits well in an app that uses phone sensors for displaying useful tools.
@pegelf Thank you!
So, under the tools tab on Trail Sense, there is an Inclinometer which may do what you are looking for (though it only works for when the device is sideways, not flat). I was actually thinking of doing a more traditional bubble level, almost like what the iPhone has on its compass app (because the compass works best when flat). I can see it being either on the compass itself or on its own page (or even both), as a 2D level may be useful when setting up camp, so you don't end up on a slant at night (sure you could use the inclinometer, but it's not 2D) or if you need to set up a flat surface (ex. for cooking)
Oh, I hadn't the experimental features enabled. Thank you for your reply. Now I have found the Inclinometer and it does the same what I would've expected from a bubble level. For me it also doesn't need to be visual bubble level. The display of the degrees is more accurate.
I think the tool could work flat if you would display the X- and Y-inclinations of the phone.
If you want to add an actual bubble level to the app, I think an overlay like the ruler on the compass would look great.
Hello! Thank you for making this app! I'd like to suggest a feature: have the ability to disable certain notifications. For example, it's probably not necessary to be notified about sunsets when in a city or at home.
@ThracianKnight1907 Hi, you should be able to disable any of the notifications in the settings of Trail Sense - the one for the sunset is "Sunset Alert", under the astronomy section of settings.
Indeed, I didn't see it. Found it now
Hi kylecorry31, I'm just trying out this app for the first time and it's great! Very useful for everything it does without being cluttered or gaudy. I didn't see this mentioned (sorry if already considered) but was wondering if it would be possible for this app to implement a (push to) feature for a telescope? Maybe it could already do that, not sure?? You could connect/strap the phone to the side of the optical tube and while you have an app like celestron skyportal open, get the coordinates for an object in azimuth/altitude, while having Trail Sense display az/alt in big red numbers. Then you push the telescope where you need to go. Skyportal does display coordinates in compass mode, but very small in upper left corner. I don't know a lot about it, but just throwing it out there, thnx!
I was wondering if a feature to "sight" a beacon might be considered. I often find myself being able to see a landmark of interest (e.g. an antenna mast) but not being able to place it on a map. If I were orienteering I could get the bearing to the landmark with my compass and use a rough estimate of its distance to guess the landmark's approximate position. If I wanted to be more precise, I could triangulate the landmark's position by drawing a line from my current position along the bearing, move to a second location, and then draw a second line along the new bearing.
It'd be great if there was some way to do something like this in Trail Sense. I'm imagining the "drop beacon" page having several entry options:
- Absolute position: enter latitude, longitude, and optionally the elevation (the current beacon entry screen)
- Bearing position: enter approximate distance and point the phone at the landmark. Beacon lat/lon is calculated from distance and compass reading. You could also integrate the inclinometer to more accurately sight a landmark and calculate an elevation.
- Triangulate position: point phone at the landmark from multiple locations (again, use of inclinometer as well as compass might be nice). When the first sighting is complete the beacon is added to the "select beacon" screen, but it is initially disabled. You're given the option to add a second sighting from the "select beacon" screen, after which the app can triangulate the position and enable the beacon. The "select beacon" screen might even allow you add even more sightings to refine the triangulated position (e.g. placing the beacon at the centroid of all calculated triangulations).
With these options in place, I could sight a beacon and then open it in something like OsmAnd to see where it is on the map and understand where it is in relation to other features or learn its name (e.g. trying to figure out what mountain I'm looking at).
@scoson Thank you! I may consider adding that feature (in the tools page), though I don't know how useful it would be for hiking and wilderness survival - if you can find a use case in that area let me know and I will add that feature.
@jigpu Great idea, I'll find the best way to get these features into Trail Sense. Also, something you can do right now is tap the compass on the navigation tab to navigate to a bearing - this doesn't have a distance associated with it though.
@kylecorry31, loving the updates, as well as the Marker Groups!
Because I am ever "that guy", is it possible to allow for nested grouping so that we can make a Group for a Park, then sub-groups for the various trails that are within that park?
Thanks!
@kylecorry31 I had a feeling it (push to) would be considered too niche anyway. It would have zero use for anything but astronomy but I thought since this app technically has an astronomy section it might be considered. I don't know exactly how many apps or small specialty gadgets out there currently have this function but the folks on the Cloudy Nights forum probably wouldn't mind having another option. A lot of hikers there too. Anyway, thnx for the great app!
It would be nice, if Trail Snse coudl show coordinates in UTMref / MGRS. A lot of government issued maps have this grid system on them. It's very easy to find yourself in such a map if you have the coordinates. The cherry on top would be a way to set the precision level.
Here is a coordinate conversion website: https://coordinates-converter.com/en
Example for Berlin, Germany: N 52.517037 E 13.38886 = 33U UU 90676 19766
10 digits after the grid square ID is a precision level of 1m which is usually to high for most maps, hence my wish for a precision level selector.
@frauhottelmann thank you for the idea, I will consider that along with issues #187 and #184
@kylecorry31 I would like to have a camera view in the compass when the phone is held vertically. This could be used to identify objects for navigation. E.g. I remember the object that is in the direction of North, to navigate using that object (can save battery if it is sufficient to check the phone less often).
The Xiaomi stock compass has this feature.
@kylecorry31 I would like to have a feature which uses the camera for bubble level. E.g. show a line at the center of the camera view, and show the direction the phone should be moved to be fully vertical (0 degree). This can be used for metering the altitude of the phone meters away.
Also, having a high-contrast theme would be useful as it could be used with lower screen brightness (can save battery).
@notramo I am actually planning on building a Trail Sense AR mode (either a companion app or directly in Trail Sense) (#221)
Other cool applications of camera integration:
- Viewing nearby beacons (with altitude)
- View the path of the sun and moon throughout the day
- Cloud identification (can help determine weather patterns)
- Inclinometer (object height measurement)
I can experiment around with a proof of concept to see how feasible this would be.
I know people are a bit more sensitive about the camera permission, but given that TS doesn't have Internet permissions I don't think it would be a problem requesting that (and on newer android phones, TS can request at runtime so people can deny it if wanted). If added to TS, I may make this disabled in settings by default (as the camera does use more battery / may be overkill for some users).
I would like to propose a Lightning Distance Calculator - calculate the approximate distance between you and the lightning (measure time between lightning and thunder).
Nice if it could include a history of recent measures.
Hi,
Could you please consider "GPS Time(date)" feature?
It can get the GPS time and help correct my watch without network.
@llllllllqq Hi, that feature is already in place for the next release :) (#306)
@llllllllqq Hi, that feature is already in place for the next release :) (#306)
Thank you!
Another feature request,
Is it possible to show a blank board with my track?
It means there's no map, just a grid, and allow users using finger to draw their own map on it (such as the river, the hill). And show the user's track according to the GPS to keep in mind that which way/area has been explored and mark the dangerous area manually by drawing.
Simply put, it's like a path tracker + drawing board.
@llllllllqq Very interesting idea! I will consider adding that (or at least create a proof of concept and see how useful it could be). My only concern would be how to convey scale to the user, as showing scale (or zoom) is easy when you have actual map tiles, but without that, it may be hard for the user to draw features. A way I can think about getting around it is allowing them to place "features" along the path (rather than draw), which are very similar to beacons, but might not be something you want to navigate to / see on the navigation tab (but maybe have the option to within the "map").
I also am working on an offline maps companion application (TS Maps) - albeit, I admit I haven't worked much on it yet. This would also be a good feature for that.
I recently found that when I add beacons, or switch to any other pages from compass page, the GPS is temporarily turned off.
It will lead to a bad accurate on some devices when add a beacon according to the current GPS position.
Could we have a "force GPS always on" ?
One option I was exploring was to use the last GOS value if it was within a minute so the GPS isn't always needed. Unfortunately there are some issues with always keeping the GPS on while changing pages - though it might be possible. TS should compensate for accuracy drops through a minimum satellite requirement - is that not working as intended for you?
One option I was exploring was to use the last GOS value if it was within a minute so the GPS isn't always needed. Unfortunately there are some issues with always keeping the GPS on while changing pages - though it might be possible. TS should compensate for accuracy drops through a minimum satellite requirement - is that not working as intended for you?
It works, but often with ±5m (*1) (position&altitude) margin of error when I add beacons.
If I run another APP who keeps GPS on in background, the margin can lower to about ±1.5m.
In rural area ±5m is not a big problem.
Thanks.
(*1: measured by navigate to the beacon immediately after added, and distance is about ±5)
Possibly a tall ask, but how easy would it be to target older Android versions? I have an old handset lying around that has all the sensors currently used in TS, and a beefy battery that has been known to last for a couple of days of semi frequent usage, but it runs 4.3 Jellybean and can't be upgraded any further. I think it'd be nice to make use of it rather than have the old phone as potential ewaste, gathering dust, but I realise this might not be an easy change to make for a potentially niche use case - I just wanted to write my thoughts somewhere.
@cyber199 I'll look into it a bit more - unfortunately though, a lot of the features I use have a min requirement of Android 6.0, I won't rule it out though
Possibly a tall ask, but how easy would it be to target older Android versions?
It might only be possible for the F-Droid version, as AFAIK, Google has minimum Android API requirements to publish on the Google Play Store.
I got bit by this with Solex, which had to drop support for devices below Android 6.x in order to remain listed on the Store.
@Saijin-Naib as far as I can tell, there isn't a min version for Google Play - maybe it was a dependency issue for Solex
Hi, yes, Google is making it impossible for me to support older Android devices via Google Play. I'm looking at using a different distribution mechanism for Solex so I can still support older devices.
As of now, the lowest-supported Android version is 6.0, aka "Ice Cream Sandwich". I'm kind of glad they've gotten away from dessert names like that. Numbers are enough to keep track of. :-)
This was October of 2019.
Their documentation also seems to indicate they have a minimum API level for publish and update:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/113469#targetsdk
Hmm, so Google Play requires a minimum target SDK, but not a minimum SDK version (Trail Sense is targeting the latest version of Android) - I'll look more into it
@openStove I'll explore an option around that, thanks!
It would be good to have an SOS beep along with the flashlight, similar to the audio feature in https://github.com/sussman/androidomatic-keyer
Hi!
It's nice to see such an interesting app. I have few suggestions/ideas about possible improvements. I described them here, but I can create separate issues for each, if you prefer it.
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[feature] Presence on lock screen. Some map/navigation apps stay present even if you lock screen. After touching power button the app is still active and visible, without unlocking a phone. (I'm not talking about notification, but about full-screen interactive presence). This functionality would be handy and battery saving 😄.
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[to consider] Unification of tools. In recent version, some similar tools have different layout - but I think few of them may be unified. As na example: Lightning Strike Distance - two buttons with nice icons, and Cliff height - one small button. I also suggest to at least change size of this button - it's too small.
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[suggestion] Bubble Level. When you have 4:3 or 16:9 screen ratio (or any other except 1:1, I think it's the case for most phones 😄), bubble is not "symmetrical". Central circle is round, but when you rotate phone in portrait orientation, placing bubble on a circle gives different angle than in landscape. Also other angles are not "symmetrical" - same angle displays another "distance from center of screen". It's not intuitive - few screenshot below. As a possible solution, layout of this particular tool would be square.
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[feature] Ruler tool - There is empty space in this tool. My suggestion is to place here an scale&distance converter - to work with paper maps. User story: I have a map in 1:10 000 scale. I want to check distance from my location to point A, so I'm measuring distance on map (cm or inches), using Trail Sense ruler. At this point, there would be a scale selector and text field with information about real distance (km or miles), calculated in-the-fly.
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[feature] Hints. Few tools depend on simple calculations. I'll use Lightning Strike Distance as an example. It utilizes difference between speeds of light and sound (around 330 m/s). Another user story: I'm happily using this app, measuring long distances from these beautiful thunders. Few minutes later, bam, my battery is off. Now I'm scared, because I don't know how to measure distance so I don't know whether I'm safe here. In-app hint would be very useful here. Something like: "You can calculate distance yourself. Just remember that 1 second = 330 meters, and every 3 seconds = 1 kilometer" (around, but you can't count time more precise). Of course this particular hint is obvious for me, but maybe not for every user 😉.
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[to consider / to discuss] Tool categories & sorting of tools. Many tools was added in last updates. It's very positive, because they're useful 😄 and it's not my point of discussion. I only suggest to consider how to organize them. (I guess you have ideas for more tools in future, and it's also very positive 🤣). My two ideas:
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creating new group of tools. There are many useful tools, but few of them (i. e. light and whistle) should be fast accessible in emergency situations. So they would be moved to new group (new icon at lower bar?). In actual version, someone needs to find them between other tools, or scroll down if there are many of them. Also emergency category would have "gird" layout instead of "list" (two columns, big icons, short text, maybe use of red/orange colours?).
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ability to reorder tools in list. Lets assume Alice frequently uses bubble level and ruler, and Bob prefer Lightning Strike Distance. With this feature, everyone would change order of tools to better address their needs.
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Ugh, it's a long comment 😕. I hope my opinions may be useful. But they are subjective, so I may be wrong somewhere - feel free to discuss them. Oh, and happy New Year!
@Leopardus4 Thank you for your suggestions! I created several issues based on your comment so I can prioritize them accordingly and convert them to features.
As for the tool categories, you'll be happy to know that with the newest version of TS (yet to be released), I did organize the tools a lot better and gave them category headers, so it's easier to find them. Unfortunately, I can't add another bottom icon, as the limit is 5 (though, one could argue that settings doesn't belong there - I'm not committed to adding a settings button to the top right of the screens though). I do like that emergency mode, but I think with the latest organization of the tools, all the "emergency" tools are right at the top now (flashlight, whistle, and the rest are on the bottom bar). I am in favor of allowing users to order the tools the way they see fit - though I want to wait until I have most of them implemented until I enable an option like that (as well as allowing the user to customize the "quick actions", like the ruler and flashlight on the navigation tab)
Maybe another option for accessing the "emergency" tools fast, could be the possibility for adding shortcuts for the different Trail Sense tools to your homescreen. For example, several browsers have an option for adding the current web page to the homescreen of the launcher.
Also other apps like "c:geo" have an option for that. I don't know how this is developed but my launcher also recognizes that c:geo has shortcuts and I can choose them in the "widgets" menu.
@kylecorry31 Thank you for quick reply and positive reaction! I missed #324, it's nice to hear that this menu will be improved.
allowing the user to customize the "quick actions"
It's also very handy feature.
@pegelf Good idea!
Use the step counter. For two things:
- Measure the step length by measuring a distance with steps and gps.
- Measure a trip with the step counter and the step length from above.
Two weeks ago I showed some friends Trail Sense and how ti install it (via f-droid). They are hiking and and riding bicycle.
They all liked Trail Sense, but they said it has a lot functions they don't use, because they don't do anything in real wilderness.
All 4 said the same, independent from one another(I know 4 people is not representative). Maybe there are more people, which would like a a Trail Sense Lite.
They all liked the navigation and astronomy tab, for the velocity they wanted and extra tab there the the speed is displayed in big letters (all of them riding bicycle fix their phone at the bike for seeing speed or maps)They all liked the clock, because showing seconds and its design and the battery.
@paulle Thank you for the feedback! A lot of the tools have limited use cases and may be useful for different environments or only in survival situations.
For example:
When hiking using a physical map, the ruler, distance converter, triangulate location and coordinate converter would be most useful. In high avalanche risk terrain, the inclinometer might be more useful but in rocky mountain terrain, the cliff height tool might be more useful. And some might only be useful for backpacking trips, such as the solar panel aligner, water boil timer, and the bubble level - whereas while hiking, you might not find those useful. Outside of these situations, they might not be used much - but they are there in case someone ever needs them.
I think #346 would be helpful in organizing the tools to the way the user wants them / best for their activity or location. Also, the tools which could be removed for a Lite mode, only add 1-2 MB of storage space (and a lot of that is icons).
I do have plans for a speedometer, but for the core target areas of the app (hiking or wilderness survival), it is not as useful since speeds are never really fast enough: #373
Add an interactive step by step guide (expert systems) with timers, warnings and questions to determine if a part of a plant is edible. There's a "Universal Edibility Test" available: https://www.backpacker.com/skills/universal-edibility-test/
@marcodiegomesquita That's an interesting idea, but I'm not comfortable adding that to Trail Sense, because it's easy to get wrong (and lead to complications or death) + it's not an area I'm strong in, so I can't really validate this feature as I do with the other features (nor do I really want to haha)
Maybe add a search function, so you can find tools, settings etc. faster. Searching directly in tools would also be useful, e.g. if you search "Cirrus" you will get the Cirrus cloud information from the cloud tool.
@qwerty287 Great idea! Maybe you could even search for an activity/biome and it would bring up suggested tools (ex. hiking or mountains)
Add an estimated time to cloud arrival tool. The tool would have to take two measurements (angles) to calculate how long a cloud will take to reach the user. It would have to ask the user to point the cellphone to the closest point of the cloud and hit a button. An angle alpha and current time will then be taken. Then, the user, some time later, repeats the same process and the tool takes a new angle beta; elapsed time dt will be calculated.
Assuming alpha and beta are angles formed by the zenith line and the direction from the user to the closest point of the cloud, time to arrival t can then be easily calculated:
t = (dt * sin(beta))/(sin(alpha) - sin(beta))
I may give you more details of the calculations if you ask me. Of course, this estimate assumes constant velocity, but it is a reasonable assumption for well behaved weather. User continually moving (or stopped) will not influence calculations unless speed changes after estimate is taken.
Wind induced aerodynamic noise (Laeq) is well correlated with wind speed: http://www.acoustics.asn.au/conference_proceedings/ICA2010/cdrom-ICA2010/papers/p41.pdf . It is possible to infer the wind speed using only the microphone. Assuming wind direction is approximately the same on the surface and clouds, this may be valuable to determine if a storm is getting closer or going away.
Widgets might be cool, especially ones for day/night and moon phase, or possibly for barometric pressure.
Simple, clean, customizable widgets like the Simple Mobile Tools Calendar I think would be ideal.
I'd love a sun/moon phase widget that shows the height of the sun and the phase of the moon, with no clock text to help me contextualize time with sun height above horizon.
If you are going to climb high up on a mountain the temperature will decrease from there you start (depending on weather not changing too much). Although there are several factors here, a roughly estimation of the temperature higher up is possible.
A calculator like this one would be nice to have in Trail Sense: https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1224562962
So I had a couple ideas for new features that would be handy for me when I'm biking long distance:
- A button in the astronomy tab to set a timer for half the time until sunset/sunrise. For when you are on a long journey and you need to get back to your home/base before sunset (or sunrise), so you know when it's time to turn around and start heading back.
- Text-to-speech (recommended TTS app: RHVoice ) information readouts. I don't have a smartphone mount for my bicycle, nor do I want to risk getting a habit of texting while biking, so I keep my phone in my pocket while I'm on the go. Some useful kinds of information that I'd like for my phone to speak to me out loud occasionally:
- Speed (in mph or kph)
- Direction of movement on compass (using GPS)
- Compass direction of beacons
- Compass direction that the phone is pointing (not very useful in my situation unless I maybe put my phone in my back pocket, so that it faces in the same direction I'm facing, or if there were a way to calibrate this voice compass to tell which way I'm facing even if my phone is in my front pocket facing diagonally/sideways. But it might be useful for others in some cases)
- Temperature?
- Altitude?
- Anything else
@ElonSatoshi Great ideas!
I'm going to definitely implement your first suggestion (#510)
I'll investigate the second, but may not implement it soon (#511)
@kylecorry31 Thank you!
Could you implement a non-TTS audio based movement direction compass sooner? There's an old app called NorthDog Audio Compass that I've been thinking about. Of course, I wouldn't try to ride my bike while wearing headphones, so I would need an audio compass system that isn't stereo dependent. Maybe some sort of NorthDog EastWolf system, where there's also a wolf howling that gets louder the more eastwards you're moving? Or maybe have 4 different sounds for all 4 directions of the compass?
@ElonSatoshi Unfortunately, I don't think I will build a version like that/move it up in priority, and here is my reasoning:
- Trail Sense is designed for hiking and wilderness survival, and while many find it useful for biking, it is not a core use case of the app - the TTS would be more useful for biking than hiking in my opinion (which is why it is a lower priority)
- I'm worried about an always-on sound while biking, as it can tend to block outside noises, causing a potential safety issue
- I've tried to do the compass calibration for when the phone is in a pocket before (I tried to do background voice navigation), but it wasn't too feasible (as you move your leg, the compass bearing can change / everyone needs to calibrate it differently and it requires the person being able to accurately point north without using Trail Sense, as the phone is in your pocket)
With that said, it does seem like a really cool idea!
Hmm. Have you considered using GPS movement data instead of the compass? I know OSMand points out my direction of movement, and it's not necessarily which way my phone is facing according to the compass, so I assume it uses GPS to find out which way I'm moving.
And as for always-on sound, maybe a TTS announcement every 10 or 20 or user defined interval seconds would be safer?
Also, I wager that TTS features would be very useful for hikers who are blind or vision impaired.
I have some ideas and enhancements you'd implement:
- there is a small problem with the cardinal points in other languages than English (for example, this is in German):
One time, it's the correct "O", but two times it's wrong (or in English). - You could link the website (https://kylecorry.com/Trail-Sense/) in the settings (and you could link this GitHub repository on the website).
- add the power saving setting to the battery tool
- I don't know how useful it would be, but you could add a timer, alarm clock or other time-related tools.
- an option to switch the theme at sunset/sunrise
- Would be helpful for users who don't understand English: translate the app description in the Play Store/F-Droid.
- I don't know if this is possible, but open the listed apps (OsmAnd~ and Offline Survival Manual) from the guide if they are installed (currently, it opens the app store).
- Import/Export beacons as GPX or something else that can be used by other apps. I don't know if GPX is suitable for this, but there's an outdoor maps application named Viewranger that can export POIs as GPX.
- Share beacons, maps etc. via Bluetooth to other devices (like F-Droids feature).
- Add a tasks or to do tool. Could be included into the notes tool and if you create a note, it asks whether you'd like to create a note or a to do list (like this app has)
- I don't know if this is wanted or a problem with the translation, but why are the buttons under each other and not next to each other (beacons export/import dialog)?
- The import/export button on the beacon select screen is not well visible and (related to the text) too small. (Maybe it's a problem with the German translation)
- If you start a navigation and tap on the compass, the "Destination bearing set" toast appears, but you can't see anything until finishing the navigation. It would be good to show the destination bearing on the compass or just don't set a destination bearing and don't send the toast (during navigation).
- Navigate using a GPX track. If you start navigation, Trail Sense navigates you to the first beacon from the GPX, if you reach this, TS should send a notification and navigates to the second beacon...
Thanks for your great work!
@qwerty287 Thank you for all the feedback/feature ideas! I've created some new issues, or linked to some existing ones below:
- I'll try to make that more consistent (the coordinate isn't language-aware, and the compass is actually just an image) (#536)
- I feel that the GitHub provides more use than the website (for people already using the app), but if that changes, I will swap the GitHub link out for the website
- The battery tool already has the power saver toggle in it (the TS version, I can't turn on the system power saver) - are you recommending I add a link to the phone's battery settings?
- I thought of that as well, but I'm not sure on that, as I can't really think of a phone that ships without its own clock app (the clock app in TS uses GPS time, therefore it is different) - the same could be said about a calculator
- Good idea! (#537)
- I'll do some research on that (#538)
- That may be possible (#539)
- Good news on this one is I just implemented that functionality and will be releasing it later this month with version 2.1.0 (replaces the JSON export now, the JSON import will be there for a couple of builds for backward compatibility)
- I don't think I'm going to add the Bluetooth permission, but if you share a beacon, it does give you the option to share with Bluetooth (at least on my phone). I will eventually add sharing to the maps (#540)
- Good idea (#542)
- That's how Android's default alert looks when you have 3 menu items that have a long length - I'll see if there's any way I can change that
- Yeah, it has more room in the English translation, I'll constrain that text width to better fit the export button (#543)
- I'll prevent adding a destination bearing while navigating (#544)
- I'm going to do some research on how some standalone GPS' do this (I have a garmin watch that supports it). I think it just displays the track on a map and shows where you travelled (but doesn't navigate to the points - that might be tricky) (#535)
@kylecorry31
3. I just saw the option. But a link to the phone's settings would be great.
14. So, the mentioned app Viewranger does it the way I described it. But this is a good solution too, under the condition that TS sends a notification or informs you if you leave the track (I'll write a comment on this in #535).
Another idea: in the tides tool, add a list of websites that gives you information to the tide in your country.
@qwerty287 As for the tide list, once I create a tide user guide, that can go there (I can crowdsource the list of websites, just like translations)
I don't know if you want to implement this because there are other apps that do this (OsmAnd for example), but it would be great to be able to import "normal" map files that you can download with a web browser. You could use the Mapsforge library, for example. An app that basically does the same is the offline version of OSM Dashboard for OpenTracks.