Frustrating last hour of ride with XT

[Peobody]

I have yet to figure out the "track" thing. The one time I tried it I had a magenta route on top of a magenta track and could not figure out what line to follow where.

The track color can be selected. Mine defaults to gray which is barely visible on the XT when looking at it while in my recliner. I'm sure it would be invisible in bright sunlight. Black seems like a logical option since there isn't much black on the XT screen so it should stand out. I understand the benefit of a track on the map but haven't yet experienced it. It is too bad that Garmin didn't make the track color selection stick like they did the track width. I don't have a clue what developers were thinking.

[Fxwheels]

I usually use red color for a track. Black and green can intervene with other roads (I use Italy), blue - with rivers. Others are kind of pale to be noticed by just throwing a glance. For some reason it overlay the magenta route but it's fine with me. If they part, I can choose which to follow. If I follow a track, red is easy to spot right-away.

[jfheath]

I have yet to figure out the "track" thing. The one time I tried it I had a magenta route on top of a magenta track and could not figure out what line to follow where.

The 'Track Thing' - it is very useful to be able to load a track and a route on the same mao - both of them representing the same roads to be taken - but the track will never alter, if it is just there for display. The route might.

Before you read further, consider making yourself a new map theme. I cannot attach my copy - the system rejects that format. I've added some notes on how to do this - or send me a PM with an email address and I'll send you mine.

There is a detailed, illustrated description of how to display both at the same time here: app.php/ZXT-P50
Load the track first - and do not press Go !. You will see the track on the preview screen. That is all that is necessary.
Pic 1 on the above link shows the page to set the colour, width and to ensure that it is shown on the map. (This is the screen when EXPLORE is not set up on the XT).

I recommend choosing widest out of the three.

Then load a route that starts close to home and say 'Go !'.

The problem comes when you notice that it doesn't work very well - that the route and the track are now both Wide, so when one is on top of the other, the track underneath is almost invisible.

So Go to Settings -> Map & Vehicle -> Map Theme and select your newly modified theme. Then take a look at the map.

Here's a map using th JFH United Kingdom Theme Clearly showing a magenta route on top of an identical black track. Track set at Widest.
Click the image to obtain a full size version.

Route on Track.png (735.88 KiB) Viewed 1187 times

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Now - how to do this.

Attach your Zumo and navigate to Internal Storage / Themes / Map. Take a copy of Garmin.kmtf and put it somewhere else on your computer. Then open it up in a text editor.

The top few lines of that file show something like this.
Change the three lines that represent the title, description and creator like I have done below:

<GARMIN_MAP_THEME>
<METADATA>
<TITLE>JFH Garmin</TITLE>
<DESCRIPTION>JFH Garmin Theme</DESCRIPTION>
<CREATOR>JFH - Garmin</CREATOR>
<Version><Major>1</Major><Minor>00</Minor></Version>
</METADATA>

Then scroll to the bottom of the file. The last section shows this Change the top line to show 3.00 instead of 1.00
(as I have done - highlighted in red).

<STYLE field = "MAP_TRK_CLR" scale = "3.00" >
<COLOR >
<PRIMARY day = "#06EEEE" night = "#06EEEE" />
<SECONDARY day = "#06EEEE" night = "#06EEEE" />
</COLOR>
</STYLE>

Save the file as something like JFH Garmin.kmtf
Copy it into Internal Storage / Themes / Map

Applying that theme on the XT will make the track show up when it is underneath the route - as in the image above.

(nb - and this is important - do this at your own risk - I don't pretend to know what I am doing with these themes. I don't know if a change such as this has any knock-on effect to anything else displayed on the screen, or whether these changes cascade onto other settings - but it seems to work Ok.
It is easy to delete,and it is easy to change the theme back to something that doesn't have (say) JFH in front of it. I modified a United Kingdome theme from my 590 and made a similar change, and I use that all of the time.

[Peobody]

Fascinating! I like the concept of having the track on the map but have experienced how doing so is worthless if you can't see it. Having the track visible beneath the route would be reassuring. I'm going to give the modified map them suggestion a try.

[Scottnet]

I use this technique all the time. It's amazing how often you will notice the route gets diverted from the track.

I also force the XT to recalculate to see the diversions before I start, then add extra shaping points to give me a fighting chance.

[Peobody]

I have played with modified map themes and am surprised by how the width of the track line varies with the zoom. When set with "MAP_TRK_CLR" scale = "3.00" the track line slightly exceeds the route line in width when zoomed in. This is appealing. However, the further out the zoom is the wider the track line gets, eventually becoming disturbingly large to me. This is based on tests from my recliner. Actual use may change my opinion and my "disturbingly large" may not be yours.

I tested a "MAP_TRK_CLR" scale = "2.00" but with that setting, the track line eventually becomes invisible as you zoom in. This explains why John settle on "3.00". Note: Track width is set to Widest.

[jfheath]

Its a while since I played with this. I think some figures refer to a scale size, some refer to a pixel size. I didn't finish experimenting. The ridiculously large and ridiculously small widths haven't cropped up when used when navigating on the bike.

Not so far, anyway. It occasionally produces odd images when it first draws a map, but it completes fairly quickly. Someone on here may know more about it. I did once try using the tool to edit the theme file, but found that it created problems, so reverted to manual editing. It takes so long to test each change though. Make a change, upload, restart, load route and track ......

It would make sense to have a number of themes numbered 1,2,3 etc, make each theme have a different edit, and upload them all in one go, and see what they look like. But I haven't got myself organised enough to do that. In any case I'm able to get out on the bike more now...!

[Peobody]

In any case I'm able to get out on the bike more now...!

That is the most important thing. You do so much for us; I don't know how you find the time to ride.
Ride as often as you can. We'll wait.

[rbentnail]

Alrighty, some success with themes! Back a few yrs in the zumo 590/595 section we talked about Themes, thread here -> viewtopic.php?t=178&hilit=theme. There were a couple of themes that I really liked- yellow based for cloudy days, blue based for bright sunny days. So I gave it a shot. It took a little prodding of the old brain cells but with the XT I was able to delete the "country" themes from the unit. Don't worry, I copied them to a new folder on my computer so if I feel like it I can investigate them further later. I then copied from my computer's "595 Themes" folder from back then 3 themes that I sometimes used. The link to get them is in the thread above. Lo and behold, it works! So all the old 595 themes that I had filtered thru (I deleted from the 595 the ones I didn't like) can be used on the XT, too!

In case anyone doesn't know about Themes, these are the files the device uses for background colors, road colors, city limits, etc. In the thread referenced above there are a couple different files you can download and unzip to get all kinds of different themes. It was a bit intimidating trying to create my own but there were several I downloaded from that thread that I really like.

[skellum]

Frustratingly, on my Mac I can see the Garmin kmtf file is there in Themes using AFT, but I can't actually access it to add/alter anything as JFH had described.