| Quote (AndyB @ April 06 2004,8:04) |
Just tried Version 1.7 and here are a few initial items that I would 'ideally' to see in Topofusion for the Forerunner.....(probably the only items left that I ‘like’ about the Garmin Logbook product!).
(a) Downloading tracks/runs in the Gramin Logbook is very simple. It knows what are the new tacks/runs and just downloads them automatically with a single button press (i.e. no asking for file-names it just downloads new tracks and appends to the current logbook file). I like the idea of automatically appending each new track/runs into a single file (e.g. “Andrew’s 2004 Running.gpx”) but still having the ability to manage/view each track/run individually (i.e. logbook and viewing of tracks/runs still shows each individually). Maybe this can be done with version 1.7 now and I just have not found it out yet. The fallback option would be to have Topofusion automatically generate filenames based on run date?
(b) I do like the 'Windows Explorer' GUI design in the Garmin Logbook software for displaying automatically rollup of weekly/monthly/yearly totals. Topofusion is more flexible in allowing selection of start and end-dates for summaries, but for most users a automatic weekly/monthly/yearly totals display would be more user friendly, and mirror the on-board Forerunner history feature.
© I don’t see any download of ‘calories’ data in Topofusion…. It’s a pity not to include this data in the logbook
(d) In the logbook summary text screen I intuitively tried to enter free text (e.g. a few personal notes about the run), but it did not seem to allow this??
(e) The ability to print logbook summaries would be very nice…….admittedly the Gramin Logbook does not have this either.
In all other aspects Topofusion is a much superior product than the Gramin Logbook software, but for the increasing number of folks buying the Garmin Foerunner the ability to downloading all new tacks/runs into Topofusion with a single mouse click would be a big help. |
Andy,
Here are my thoughts. Again thanks for the suggestions.
(a) Our design has always been around the single file per track idiom. There are various reasons why we think this is better than storing all your data in a single place. For instance, my collection of GPS data is growing to over 500,000 points, meaning that a single GPX file would be ridiculously large and very slow to read in on EVERY boot up of the program. Multiple files also means that it's easier to send data to people.
What was lacking before the logbook was a means to index all your files in a way that made sense. That's why I really like what the forerunner has done for TF.
As for ease of downloading, I don't think it's too much to ask the user to name a file for each download. However, it may be possible to check what data is "new" to ease the process. I'm not quite sure how that would work though, but could be done using the logbook.
BTW, there is a way to download tracks into an existing file--just choose it in the dropdown of the GPS dialog. You won't get the new "merge/delete tracks" dialog, however, and it will probably save all of your saved tracks to the file as well.
(b) I agree that there needs to be some automatic way to get weekly or monthly totals. I will have a look at the Garmin logbook when my Forerunners arrive (this tuesday).
© I've never found calorie computations to be very accurate, however the equations are not hard to implement. It was actually there in an earlier version but I took it out because I don't agree with the way slope is handled (linearly).
(d) No, the place to enter personal notes is by doing "File Info" -- perhaps we should change what the button says. I can see why you tried to enter data there--it looks like you can and it says summary. Hmm.
(e) Agreed.
