Organic maps question

[Jenyat53]

Hi all, please move if there is a better place for this question.
I have downloaded Organic maps to my iPhone 12 and have also downloaded the Dutch fraternity maps and Rayyrosa maps to ‘files’ on my phone.
However I am unable to bring up the box asking ‘which app would you like to open the file with?’
The following 3 screens appear.
(As background I have several years previously opened the Dutch Fraternity maps in Maps.me with no problem )
If I click share it allows me to open in Wikiloc and Pocket Earth Pro but doesn’t offer any other suggestions.
Any assistance much appreciated.

(click on pics to enlarge)

 

[lt56ny]

wi assume you want these maps for the camino. I have a really simple solution. Just download wise pilgrim or buen camino app and look at their gps maps. They are so simple an idiot like me can follow them. There is even a line that designated the camino and a little dot to show you where you are. Even easier is just to follow the arrows. On the popular caminos there are zillions of arrows. Easy as can be.

 

[roving_rufus]

What type of files did you download? I have Organic maps and it doesn't work with every file type - i think only kmz/kml currently. So gpx files can't currently be opened on it.

 

[mick53]

Great free site to convert gpx to kml and visa versa..... kml2gpx.com.


Organic Maps is fantastic as you end up with a track to follow, works offline, free and where ever you go it has the local area often with your accommodation on the map and it will give you the shortest walking, cycling or car route!!
Don't like the route it gives you? You can add up to 3 points that it will include in your path.... great for seeing how far to go or you have gone following the Camino path...
Does this for the hole world... even if you have no kml path to follow.

 

[Jenyat53]

wi assume you want these maps for the camino. I have a really simple solution. Just download wise pilgrim or buen camino app and look at their gps maps. They are so simple an idiot like me can follow them. There is even a line that designated the camino and a little dot to show you where you are. Even easier is just to follow the arrows. On the popular caminos there are zillions of arrows. Easy as can be.

Thank you , yes I have used many of the apps on my previous 7 caminos I am just wanting to do a little more adventuring this time.

 

[lt56ny]

Thank you , yes I have used many of the apps on my previous 7 caminos I am just wanting to do a little more adventuring this time.

Well good luck have lots of fun and buen camino

 

[motero99]

I have the same problem with the Dutch fraternity maps, no box asking what application open them with.
Also have an iPhone 12. Gave up about 6 weeks ago trying to get it to work.

 

[Thomas1962]

With Iphones it sometimes is indeed different. It is still not clear with what IPhones it is different.

I hope this helps. If not, let me know.

After downloading:
- At the top right of the window appears when the download is complete a circle with an arrow downwards, click on this;
- In this overview, click the downloaded file;
- At the top right of the window a square appears with an arrow up;
- Click here; A window with a number of icons appears, including the app 'organic maps'
- Click on the desired app to open the program;
- The downloaded routes (or the 'voorzieningen' if you downloaded that file) are now displayed on the map.

 

[Jenyat53]

With Iphones it sometimes is indeed different. It is still not clear with what IPhones it is different.

I hope this helps. If not, let me know.

After downloading:
- At the top right of the window appears when the download is complete a circle with an arrow downwards, click on this;
- In this overview, click the downloaded file;
- At the top right of the window a square appears with an arrow up;
- Click here; A window with a number of icons appears, including the app 'organic maps'
- Click on the desired app to open the program;
- The downloaded routes (or the 'voorzieningen' if you downloaded that file) are now displayed on the map.

Thomas, I now have on my iPhone 12 six different apps capable of opening downloaded tracks.
Interestingly, I have downloaded various routes several times each to the ‘files’ app. When I click the box to reveal the icons available - the icons available vary each time, even for the same downloaded tracks .
I thought it may depend on which apps were open at the time but there doesn’t seem to be a correlation.
I am now desperately curious to know what’s going on here … any whiz kids out there

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Edit: Read my next post first and then this one and then decide what to do.

I am not an iPhone user but from your screenshots it appears that the operating system thinks your downloaded tracks are either text files (which in a sense they are*) or an unknown file type which it wants to treat as a text file. For example the downloaded file could be named track.txt or simply track, my guess for what they are. Copy the file to a new one named track.kml and try opening that. That should work.

*The third screenshot shows text and KML and GPX file formats are text where data is defined with a special identifying word within a starting set of angle brackets followed by an ending set with a slash before the same word. It is much like HTML files if you are familiar with them.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Another thing to try, in fact, try this first. In the app at the bottom is a star (for bookmarks and tracks can also be bookmarked). Click it to get a screenload of bookmarks. At the bottom is Import Bookmarks ; click it and use it to navigate to your file. Try to open it from there.

On my Android I had a problem when I tested this. At first, in the list of applications to open the file, Organic Maps wasn't listed. So somehow when I installed the app it didn't register with the operating system that KLM files could be opened with the app. I deleted the app and reinstalled it and this time Organic Maps was listed. I picked it and it worked.

This might be might be your problem too.

 

[C clearly]

I have downloaded various routes several times each to the ‘files’ app.

I am just another amateur here, and I use an Android with maps.me. But I wonder if maybe you should not be downloading specifically "to the 'files' app". In the past, with maps.me, I emailed the files to myself, opened the email on my phone, clicked on the attachment to the email, and then followed the prompts on my phone, without deliberately placing the tracks anywhere. I let the phone do its thing, and the tracks magically appeared on the maps.

Rick's suggestion to reinstall the app seems like a good idea.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

But I wonder if maybe you should not be downloading specifically "to the 'files' app".

Depends on how well you can use your smartphone's built-in file manager or your app replacement for it. I've gotten the feeling after reading years worth of postings that there aren't many that are comfortable about this. In that case the downloading of tracks can be done on laptops and desktops where the file manager software is easier to use and then get them over to the smartphone. Emailing them to yourself as attachments is an easy way to do that.

 

[C clearly]

the downloading of tracks can be done on laptops and desktops where the file manager software is easier to use and then get them over to the smartphone.

Yes, I do that for some files, but I've never quite figured out how the KML files are supposed to be organized on my phone apps, so I try to avoid messing them up!

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

I've never quite figured out how the KML files are supposed to be organized on my phone apps, so I try to avoid messing them up!

Think of it as similar to how you might organize your pictures of previous caminos on a home computer. Perhaps a directory structure something like:

caminos/2019/catalan/stages/01/(jpeg_files)
caminos/2019/catalan/stages/02/(jpeg_files)
caminos/2019/frances/stages/01/(jpeg_files)

You can make any structure that makes sense to you but instead of jpeg files there would be GPS files, maybe either one or both of kml and gpx versions. The files you downloaded and placed there might have names like sjpdp-to-roncevalles.kml

The problem is how to make the directories on your smartphone. I found this easy to do but there are so many variables between apps, phones, operating systems and PCs I'm not going to attempt describing the process.

I will make things a bit simpler though. Instead of maintaining a structure with directories you could do it with filenames. So, on your PC have just one directory and rename files to have a simplified structure. So that sjpdp-to-roncevalles.kml file could be renamed to day01-sjpdp-to-roncevalles.kml and all GPS files you need reside there. Copy all those files to the top level of a thumb drive. If things work well you can insert the thumb drive into your phone and use the file manager to access the drive. Then select the file of interest and open it with your app. There's a few confusing things that could happen but I'm not getting into them.

It takes some learning time but if you can do it you have flexibility to do things like making copies of your files to transfer to your PC before freeing up space on the phone by deleting the saved files.

One more thing before I go. Use leading zeros in numerics in file names so all have the same number of digits. Have these numbers at the start of the file name or immediately following a constant common prefix like day or stage. This will allow alphabetic sorting of names to also be numerically and chronologically sorted.

 

[Thomas1962]

Thomas, I now have on my iPhone 12 six different apps capable of opening downloaded tracks.
Interestingly, I have downloaded various routes several times each to the ‘files’ app. When I click the box to reveal the icons available - the icons available vary each time, even for the same downloaded tracks .
I thought it may depend on which apps were open at the time but there doesn’t seem to be a correlation.
I am now desperately curious to know what’s going on here … any whiz kids out there

Just a first check: did you dowload the KML file?
Then Rick reminded me (thanks Rick!) on the possibility in organic maps to load tracks directed form the app (in maps.me this was not possible) Soon I want to update the manual on this.
If you click the start button and then go to the bottom. You will see 'import bookmarks'.
Does that work on an Iphone?

 

[Jenyat53]

Just a first check: did you dowload the KML file?
Then Rick reminded me (thanks Rick!) on the possibility in organic maps to load tracks directed form the app (in maps.me this was not possible) Soon I want to update the manual on this.
If you click the start button and then go to the bottom. You will see 'import bookmarks'.
Does that work on an Iphone?

Feeling very foolish now but I’m not finding the ‘start’ button.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Feeling very foolish now but I’m not finding the ‘start’ button.

I'm not seeing a start button on my Organic Maps Android app either. I call up the app and click on the star icon on the bottom. That brings up a new page and the Import Bookmarks shows up at the bottom there.

 

[Jenyat53]

I'm not seeing a start button on my Organic Maps Android app either. I call up the app and click on the star icon on the bottom. That brings up a new page and the Import Bookmarks shows up at the bottom there.

The pictures below show the iPhone options Rick. I am still not seeing an ‘import bookmark’ option

 

[dougfitz]

I am an Android user, and my wife is generally reluctant to let me experiment with her iPhone for some reason. So given that, there may be another approach to this that works on the several mapping applications that I have loaded. Each of them, except Google Maps, has a way of importing tracks or routes from within the app. This avoids the issue of whether the app is recognised as a place to open these files by the Android operating system.

Unfortunately, the several apps that I have tried all do this differently, with different menu structures and sequences, and it took a little exploration of the different menus before finding where this functionality was in the different apps.

For OSMAnd+ and perhaps IOS versions

1. open the menu (three parallel bars at the bottom left of the screen)
2. select 'Configure map'
3. select 'Tracks' and at the bottom of the screen, select 'ADD MORE ...'
4. This will open a file browser. There are a number of ways that this might work, and it is worth exploring. If you know where the tracks are, you can navigate to them by opening up the menu bar (three parallel bars at the top left of the screen). Alternatively, you can search for a specific track using the search bar. If you don't know what the name is, try searching on '.gpx' or '.kml'. If you have an SD card installed, you will have to make sure you search both the phone memory and SD card, which cannot be done in the one search so far as I can tell.
5. select the track/route you want to display/follow.
6. if there are several tracks in the file, you will be presented with a selection screen where you can choose one or more of the tracks to display. There are some other options as well you can explore. Once you have selected the tracks you want to display, select 'Import' at the bottom right of the screen.
7. this should return you to the Tracks screen. Check that the tracks you have imported are selected (otherwise they will not be displayed on the map), then press 'OK' at the bottom right of the screen. If you want to change the appearance of the track, before leaving the Tracks screen, press anywhere on the top of the screen above the separator line above the track list. There are options for line colour and thickness as well as showing start and finish icons.
8. to return to the map, press the left arrow next to 'Configure map' at the top left of the screen.
9. the track is then available for viewing, navigation etc.

For Organic Maps on Android - there might be some differences accessing files on an IOS device

1. Before doing anything else, find out where the file you want to import is located. There are different ways to do this, but I use a file manager app and search for '.kml' files, then do a long press on the file name I want, select 'More' (it has three dots above it in my file manager) and then 'Show in folder'. This then shows the full path. NB your file manager may do this quite differently.
2. tap on the Organic Maps screen to bring up the bottom menu icons. Select the star. This opens a screen titled 'Bookmarks', which has a list of the already imported tracks, if any, and below that selections for 'CREATE A NEW LIST' and 'IMPORT BOOKMARKS'.
3. Tap on 'IMPORT BOOKMARKS'. This will open a file browser. You now need to navigate to the folder containing the tracks you want to display. Once there, tap on 'USE THIS FOLDER' at the bottom of the screen. You may be presented with a permission to allow Organic Maps to use that folder. Select 'ALLOW'.
4. This will return you to the 'Bookmarks' screen, and the tracks in the folder will now be added to the list. If you tap on the track, it will open up the .kml file, and you can then see the individual track segments and bookmarks. If you tap on either, it will take you to that segment or place.
5. Alternatively, you can exit the 'Bookmarks' page and browse the map to see what has been imported.

Note that IGN has similar functionality. If anyone is using that app, I can write up a sequence for you. Just let me know.

Edit:
I will leave Organic Maps loaded for a couple of days, but don't intend to keep it installed. There might be an experienced user who can help after that, but I won't have it loaded to explore its ins and outs.

 

[dougfitz]

The pictures below show the iPhone options Rick. I am still not seeing an ‘import bookmark’ option View attachment 140724

I would try tapping on the icon with the two stars and three short parallel lines, and see if that opens up the Bookmarks screen.

 

[Jenyat53]

I would try tapping on the icon with the two stars and three short parallel lines, and see if that opens up the Bookmarks screen.

Thanks Doug that icon opens the screen in the second photo above. When I tap on ‘My Places’ for example the 3rd screen opens which as you can see gives an option to export but not import.
Thank you for all the thought you have put into this.

 

[Thomas1962]

Thanks Doug that icon opens the screen in the second photo above. When I tap on ‘My Places’ for example the 3rd screen opens which as you can see gives an option to export but not import.
Thank you for all the thought you have put into this.

Sorry for the confusion I gave. 'Start button' was indeed the 'star button'
I see your pictures. It is very strange that yoou do not see the 'import bookmarks' button.
On this picture you see how it looks like on my phone, in Dutch it is called 'Bladwijzers importeren'.
Can it be that your phone protects this app (or all apps) from sharing files in your phone?

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

I'm really surprised at how different Organic Maps is between iPhone and Android. Anyway, I searched to see how to import a GPS file on an iPhone. It seems that the major difference on importing is that on Android you can use the app to open the file manager to select the GPS file while on the iPhone you use the file manager to select and open the file. On opening you then select Organic Maps as the app to open the track (this method probably works for Android too; I haven't tested it).

I say this after reading Organic Maps news and seeing this:

It is easy to import/open bookmarks and tracks/trails in Organic Maps. Select KML or KMZ file (zipped KML), then "Open with..." and select Organic Maps app. Or, for Android, you can select "Import Bookmarks" from Bookmarks dialog, and then choose a drive or a folder with your KML/KMZ. By the way, GPX support is also planned.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

BTW, I suspect that when Organic Maps does allow gpx file usage you will have to deinstall the app and reinstall the newest version because I don't think a simple update will allow the operating system or file manager to know that the app can now open gpx files. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[dougfitz]

On opening you then select Organic Maps as the app to open the track (this method probably works for Android too; I haven't tested it).

I can confirm this approach, using a file manager to open the file, does work on an Android. It will identify those apps which can use the .kml/.kmz format and ask which one to use.