Track randomly loses segments

[greensie]

I've just downloaded Topofusion and I'm playing around with it, and some of the things the program is doing don't make sense to me.

First off, as soon as I set the first waypoint, I have to save the file.  Ok, but then I try to draw a track from home to work, and there doesn't seem to be any way to stop drawing a track except to right click and save.  But I can't save the track to the same file I created my waypoints on, because if I try to save the track to the same filename, it tells me that file is already loaded.  Ok, so I unload the file and save to the same filename, and my waypoints are now lost.  That's annoying.

So I finally get my waypoints and track on the same file, but I notice that the track I've just drawn has 4 segments missing.  That's odd, since all the segments are drawn one right after the other with a series of left clicks, so I can't exactly "forget" to put in a segment.  Fine, I'll just use the "Join Tracks" tool, only when I do this, it forces the track to become a loop, creating a single, straight-line segment from the end of one of the tracks I'm trying to join to the end of the whole track.  Then I can't use the Cut Track tool to delete the 1.2 mile segment that just appeared between the middle of my track and my work.

What gives?

[ScottMorris]

Hi there,

Sounds like a case of different expectations.  No doubt, no user interface is going to mesh well with everyone.  There are a few idiosyncrasies to the TF interface, usually with good reason, but sometimes not.

Not being able to draw a track and add it to an existing file (only a new one) is a limitation that we can address.

You can add waypoints to an existing file easily, so drawing a track first, then adding waypoints is one option.

Join tracks is meant to create a single track from multiple, and it will try to connect them in the 'smartest' way.  But if you aren't sure which way tracks are going, it can be confusing and you can get straight lines connecting stuff.

If you simply want to combine tracks (keeping them separate) into a new file, select the files you want (CTRL-click or Shift-click) in the active file list, right click there and choose "Merge and save as...".

Hope that makes sense.  Give it a little time and hopefully you'll get it.

Don't hesitate to ask questions if you've got them, too.