Working with route names

[danham]

I had a very nice system going with my zumo 660 for naming routes and thereby organizing them both on my SD card and in the 660's menu. I was not happy to learn that using Basecamp to transfer routes to the SD card results in them being named Route1.gpx etc, so when you look at the card on your computer it is not possible to tell what the route is about.

The solution is simple and once you do it, it's then easy to do the second part, which might help organize routes in the Import menu in Trip Planner as well (though I haven't tested this yet on the XT). EDIT: Just tested and it appears Trip Planner's Import menu displays based on date/time that a route was added to the SD card. If so, not very very useful.

Create a route in BC and name it something short and informative (un-check the box for auto-naming). Note that BC will not change the route name in the xml code if you subsequently change it in BC, but see below.

Export the routes ONE AT A TIME from BC to your desktop. Notice that the exported files are now named what you called the route in BC. Then quit BC, mount the SD card on your computer and drag those files to its GPX folder. They will now show up on the SD card with the name you gave them in BC, meaning you can keep a lot of files on there and conveniently "hide" ones that you don't need on your next trip in sub-folders, where the XT can't see them. You can retrieve them using your computer any time if you want to use them later, by putting them back in the GPX folder.

To change the route name displayed by the XT, use a text editor to find the following xml code: <rte>
<name>Two Knobs Ride</name> You can edit that route name to say whatever you like "WV Two Knobs Ride" if you want it to identify what US state it is in, for example. Note that changing the file name on the SD card does not change the route name that the XT displays. That has to be done in the xml code.

-dan

[rbentnail]

I don't understand why you go through all this trouble. I never remove the SD card from my XT. I never uncheck any naming box. I simply drag and drop the route from Base Camp to my SD card. The route name never changes.

What are you trying to accomplish beyond that?

[jfheath]

My understanding is that the name that is given to a route in the Basecamp lower left pane is the name that is shown on the XT. You can change the name in the pane, or change it by opening the route with a double click (pc).

If you set the departure date of the route - ie set the date for the start point - that determines the order in which routes are displayed in trip planner.

In other circumstances, I seem to remember items being listed in order of proximity - closest first. But I do not recall when that happens.

A number of routes / tracks may be contained in a single gpx file in the gpx folder.

[danham]

I don't understand why you go through all this trouble. I never remove the SD card from my XT. I never uncheck any naming box. I simply drag and drop the route from Base Camp to my SD card. The route name never changes.

What are you trying to accomplish beyond that?

Russ, I’m trying to be able to see route names on the SD card in my computer. But you may be correct that it’s more trouble than it’s worth because I can change names in the XT. But it would be impossible to temporarily “hide” routes by putting them in folders if I don’t know their names.

I'm not explaining this very well. The idea is to have all or almost all of my planned routes on the SD card. But if they all -- many dozens of them -- appear in the XT's import menu, it would be chaos to access the right ones for an upcoming trip to West Virginia. Instead I want just the WV routes to be available for import. So I would create folders on the card and have each contain routes by state -- NY, MA, VT, NC, TN, etc. When the WV trip is over, I would move its routes to a WV folder and if the next trip is in NC, bring those out into the GPX folder for import on that trip. This can't be done if the route names are all "Route22.gpx" or the like.

In other words, putting routes in a folder hides them from the XYT Leaving them loose in the GPX folder displays them on the XT's import menu. Dealing with this on a computer requires having route names that mean something.

-dan

[jfheath]

Ok - I've been experimenting sending the routes to SD card.

The filenames are indeed called Route.gpx, Route1.gpx, Route2.gpx, .... etc if you use Basecamp to transfer them. Regardless of the contents of the file, the transfer picks out each individual route and saves it in its own Routenn.gpx file.

The same is true of any tracks that were sent in the same transfer process - except of course the filenames are Track.gpx, Track1.gpx, Track2,gpx,.....etc

So here was an experiment. Four routes, each carefully named - summarised in the following map from Basecamp - click it to see a slightly larger version.

BCRoutesShot.jpg (49.43 KiB) Viewed 3555 times

I plotted 4 Waypoints - D1-1, D2-1, D3-1, D4-1. Each point moving further away along a SE-NW line from my present position. D1-1 is the closes to me - I'm just off the righ hand edge of the screen.

I then plotted 4 more waypoints D1-2, D2-2, D3-2, D4-2 - each point placed roughly SW or NE of its respective partner.
And then I created a route between each pair of points.


Then I named the routes as shown on the map.

Each route started with a letter - V-W-X-Z alloctaed to try to determine whether the routes were sorted into alphabetical order.
D1, D2, D3, D4 were gettin successively further away from my presnt position.
The I allocated a departure time and date for the first point of the route.
I used 1900 on the 19th Feb, 2000 on the 20th Feb, 2100 on the 21st Feb, 2200 on the 22nd Feb

You can see from the table of route names that you can tell how they are being sorted.

Using Import displays the routes in this order.
V-D4-1 to D4-2 2100
W-D2-1 to D2-2 1900
X-D1-1 to D1-2 2000
Z-D3-1 to D3-2 2200

This is alphabetice order - VWXZ - It isn't in Distance order 4213, or in time/date order 21,19,20,22

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Once imported, when selecting a route ifrom trip planner they are shown in this order:

W-D2-1 to D2-2 1900
X-D1-1 to D1-2 2000
V-D4-1 to D4-2 2100
Z-D3-1 to D3-2 2200

This is in date / time order. The test doesn't distinguish time or date. Experience leads me to believe that they are shown date order first and then time order if two routes are listed for the same date.

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The Route points were created as Waypoints - so they were all transferred to FAvourites / saved.

These were shown in Distance order from my current position :

D1-2 1.5m
D1-1 5.2m
D2-1 13m
D2-2 16m
D3-2 21m
D3-1 23m
D4-2 27m
D4-1 27m


Finally, you dont have to use the names given buy the XT. Any named gpx file will be recognised by the XT - and if you create the gpx file and then drag and drop it into the Garmin/Gpx folder, you get the name that you want.

The above may help your naming convention so that you can predict the order in which the names will appear.

[danham]

@jfheath:

That is very valuable and helpful info. Let me see if my aging brain cells got the message:

To make sure I have descriptive names of route files on my SD card as seen in my computer, I need to drag and drop to the card.

To put those routes in the order I want them to display in Trip Planner, I need to assign date order (or date and time).

Many thanks.

-dan

[Les]

I use Mapsource with all my Garmin units, I have no issues at all with names etc.. can't believe what a faff it is using Basecamp.
I give each route a name and number then send to either unit name or SD card.

[danham]

@jfheath:

This will work really well, with one caution. If a Trip has no "schedule," meaning no date or time set, it will appear above those that do have one in the Saved Trips menu. It would be so much easier if that were the other way around -- no-schedule puts it at the bottom -- but it's fairly easy to fix on the XT.

Here's an example. I plan to leave for WV in June of this year and want my HOME to WV route to appear first in Saved Trips. On my 660 the process I described above would put it up top based on name (1. HOME to WV) and all my other saved trips would appear below it. Not so the XT. So I edited the HOME to WV trip to start at 1 am (there's no choice on the XT to edit date, which you can do in BC) and now it comes ahead of any other scheduled trips, but still below any trips with no scheduled date. So I have to either remove them from the Saved Trips list, or if I want a few of them to remain, I need to edit their schedules to begin after HOME to WV.

Sounds complicated, but still much easier than my old 660 technique. Thanks again.

-dan

[jfheath]

Thanks for that Dan.

Reading through it again, I spotted something that I missed out.

The XT itself can schedule the time of a trip, but not the date. However the date information in the schedule from BC is still transferred and used when ordering these lists.

The 595 has a really good way of handling routes when you use trip planner to view them It puts todays routes at the top, and any without a date and any that have been set for previous dates below. Each categorised with a brief heading. Why they got rid of that, I don't know. Possibly something to do with the different types of routing created by Explore

[WilcoJunoHotel]

Got a question on the route name: When I double click on the route, I do not see a check box for auto naming. Has this been deleted on current versions Basecamp?

I would like to be able to use my own naming convention but as it is now, when I create a route, I am stuck with whatever Basecamp decides to use. I can double click on the name in the lower left pane and write my own name there but the XML code still has the original route name that Basecamp gave it. I share my GPX files with others and the names Basecamp uses aren't really ideal or logical for others to understand especially if they don't use Basecamp.