Handlebar Controller for XT2

[Oop North John]

Nothing posted in here for the last month, so is no news, good news? Or no news, as you've binned the controller?

[jfheath]

I kept meaning to come back to this thread - but seem to keep finding other projects.

One thing that I did discover on a recent (and first ride actually using the handlebar controller) will answer this question

When I select a preprogrammed route, calculating takes long
AND..... ZOOM in and ZOOM out dont work. (skip song en route info work)
I get a message banner zoom is not available

You cannot use the Zoom in / zoom out buttons if Auto zoom is ticked in Settings -> Map Display.

[Oop North John]

You cannot use the Zoom in / zoom out buttons if Auto zoom is ticked in Settings -> Map Display.

That's pretty useless IMO.

[jfheath]

I was a bit miffed when I discovered that. I turned off auto zoom and I was surprised that I quite like it like that - with an easy facility to zoom in and out without using the screen. Without the controller, I find that certain areas of the screen do not respond very well to a gloved finger.

The zoom level stays where you left it. All of the buttons have two functions - short press and long press. The + & - buttons control the zoom. Short press zooms in / out one step. Long press for the zoom buttons repeats the action until you let go. It is quick and controllable.

I was annoyed at first that the if you program the + & - buttons to do something else, the long press and short press are automatically set to the same function - so in effect you can only have 6 actions programmed - I didn't think that I would use the zoom in / out feature. But I do like it as it is.

It was a tad irritating to change my mind and that for me, Garmin had got this one right !

Another thing that they got right:

They have messed around with how that right hand display operates. I think it was one of the 590 or 595 would remember the last 3 displays - so if you put up Traffic, music player, weather. (call them T, M, W), then when you closed down W, M would be revealed , and when you closed down M, T would be revealed. The X button on the screen to close down a window was quite difficult to access.

You can program such displays to pop up for the handlebar controller - but it makes those pop-up displays on the right so much more useful. So using the same notation T M W for Traffic, Music, Weather and add in U for up ahead places, then pressing the programmed buttons for T M W U would display them in that order with U on top, the rest invisible. Tap M and Music would appear on top. Tap M again, Music would be removed to reveal U. If you tap the button for the display that is currently displayed, it would be removed - and you get back to the map screen.

But if you have say Trip Data on you screen, and then cycle through your TMWU buttons in whatever order you want and then remove the current display by pressing the appropriate button until they have all gone, it reveals the Trip Data screen again and that cannot be removed by button presses.

The only real problem is to remember which of long / short triangle and square relate to which functions I programmed.

The one function that I wish it would have available is ScreenShot.