Motorider map theme 4

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

Is there an updated version of your map theme?

Is it based on Biker theme and what are the main changes?

---

If you are interested, we could host it in vtm-themes and you can update it at any time.
(send pull requests or I can push the updates)

It will then automatically become available in the Cruiser map theme menu to all users.

[MotoUKRider]

Sure - the most recent change was to rename the XML files so they looked neater when selecting them inside the app.

They are based on the Biker theme and use slightly different colours for better contrast - plus I've made airports and train stations more visible. Default+Dark are the standard day+night themes with MonoMoto a not-quite-finished attempt at removing all colour.

Only issue I have is the recent "mesh" water tweak, which I found produced a console error in Desktop Cruiser:

Line 289 in MUK-Default.xml:

<!-- set mesh=true to display some water features correctly, but does lead to java console errors -->
<style-area fade="-1" fill="#99badf" id="water" mesh="false" />

Please make use of these themes in any way you like!

style-motorideruk.zip

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider thanks I will check them!

MonoMoto a not-quite-finished attempt at removing all colour

If you mean grayscale, there is the "Settings | Map | Appearance | Map color | Grayscale" that works on all map themes.

[MotoUKRider]

Yes - but with "grey" there is still a light'ish colour on the screen. The idea was to black'en the whole lot with just light-lines for the road edges and then you'd have your location+route plot in colour. I think it's about 90% complete, but it was in the ZIP because it's the copy I put on my phone :)

On a theme-related topic, I see that the map theme list has reverted to the older "full filename" method, NOT like my example from #160 (reply in thread) earlier.

[devemux86]

the map theme list has reverted to the older "full filename" method

Zips may contain multiple theme files.
It is useful to see the theme collection / file and avoid confusion when files in zips have the same file name.

Old	New

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

We can add the default and dark variants, are these names ok?

• motorideruk.xml
• motorideruk-dark.xml

[devemux86]

Or could be without UK, so users do not think the themes are only for UK?

• motorider.xml
• motorider-dark.xml

[MotoUKRider]

2nd option probably best :)

For anyone interested in making their own theme - all I used was Notepad++ with the Biker XML Theme and an HTML Color Picker to experiment with the color changes. Within Desktop Cruiser, each time you save the XML with a new setting, just press F5 to refresh the config.

You may need to push the theme to your phone to verify contrast/style - sometimes it looks better/worse on a small device!

[devemux86]

Within Desktop Cruiser, each time you save the XML with a new setting, just press F5 to refresh the config.

👍

Desktop Cruiser was first written many years ago to help the map & theme creators
and Reload (F5) is a key function for testing the changes while writing the themes.

[Leeb64]

I also made a card theme myself.
It's a color-changed "Elevate" theme.
Bolder colors for better visibility on small screens
Select the third: Elevatex .
__Normalstyle.zip

[devemux86]

@Leeb64 thanks, very nice! 👍

Note: we cannot include third party themes in Cruiser without the permission of their original authors.
Tobias of excellent Elevate theme has allowed to download it in Cruiser from OpenAndroMaps server.
Like Voluntary and Freizeitkarte themes.

---

Biker theme is based on VTM themes which have LGPL license,
so all derivative themes must be available to the public under the same license.

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider thanks again!

I merged the themes in VTM repository: mapsforge/vtm#1045
With minor improvements of some theme rules, dark 3D buildings, translations, etc.

They can be found in vtm-themes.

They will be available in the next Cruiser update:

[devemux86]

MotoRider (light / dark) map theme is available in Cruiser 3.0.21.

Menu "Map | Map theme".

@MotoUKRider thanks again for your contribution! 👍

[MotoUKRider]

Some minor changes to this theme:

a) Tweaked "road-ref-caption" for better contrast
b) Added "motorway-road-ref-caption"
c) Tweaked Railway Tracks (dot-dash effect)

Here's a before+after view (the "dark" version also has these changes):

Theme ZIP for integration and/or early use:
style-motorideruk.zip

Information on how I adapted this theme (from "Biker"), in post #176 (reply in thread) above.

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider many thanks for the improvements!

Can you please make the changes in the xml that are included in Cruiser?

• https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm/blob/master/vtm-themes/resources/assets/vtm/motorider.xml
• https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm/blob/master/vtm-themes/resources/assets/vtm/motorider-dark.xml

They have minor structure and translation improvements that do not exist in your files.
Please can you work on these files, so we can progress at the same time? 🙂

You do not need to replace the "assets:" with "file:" and you do not need the 3 icon folders.
Cruiser already has the icons and all themes share the same icon folders.

Only the new changes need to be applied. 👍

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

I pushed your changes in VTM repository mapsforge/vtm@574e63c.
(I removed the previous railway line to avoid double rendering)

The updated MotoRider map themes will be available in the next Cruiser.

Thanks again for your work! 👍

---

The latest MotoRider map themes can be found here:

• https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm/blob/master/vtm-themes/resources/assets/vtm/motorider.xml
• https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm/blob/master/vtm-themes/resources/assets/vtm/motorider-dark.xml

[devemux86]

The updated MotoRider map theme is available in Cruiser 3.0.23.

[WolfgangZ42]

Many thanks to @MotoUKRider - I prefer your map style over all others!
To get my nearby lake in blue (may be you remember) I modify the "water section"

and create an own .zip file for this. No problem at all - I'll take from time to time (or definitely after published changes) the motorider.xml from vtm-themes and change it accordingly.
Again: thanks a lot!

[devemux86]

and create an own .zip file for this.

@WolfgangZ42 you only need to put the xml in the zip (Cruiser already includes everything else).
Also you do not need to change anything else in the xml (only your change).

[MotoUKRider]

I'd like to have some way in the theme to include the Junction Number either in place of, or alongside the Junction "Name" - I tried changing "k=name" to "k=ref" and the junction label vanished, so I'm not sure if the numeric junction data is actually present.

Is this even possible? I don't seem to be able to "activate" it in any of the other themes, either.

The workflow is that I'd like to scroll the map, moving along a motorway until I see Exit/Junction 23 rather than "NewTown Interchange" or whatever.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Thanks for the hint - I need to do some learning, I think. I had no problem in formatting the name of the junction, just trying to find the attribute to "activate" the number. I just didn't want to spend time trying to find an attribute that didn't hold any data or couldn't be displayed. I'm not sure where the number would be displayed in relation to the name if they were both active - it's mostly copy/paste, save, refresh and repeat to fade 🙏

Incidentally, I see that the original Biker theme still doesn't render airports correctly (missing a lot of tarmac/runway detail). There are some improvements within my theme if you want a quick solution 😄

[devemux86]

Looking at map file format specifications, the "ref" is included in ways (not nodes).

the original Biker theme still doesn't render airports correctly

@MotoUKRider can you provide an improved version?
As you know better the changes in your theme. 🙂

[MotoUKRider]

Coming back to this... There is, to a use a technical term, something hinky going on here.

In my BaseCamp maps, if I use the following in the points file, I get the image shown below:
highway = motorway_junction { name 'J${ref} , ${name}' | '${ref}' | '${name}' }

Yet when I swap name to ref in the Cruiser theme XML, nothing is displayed. I would have thought that with the "junction" node being declared, you should be able to pull any tag from the record so long as the field heading is right? In this case, it's name or ref.

Incidentally, I do not know how Europeans prefer to read their junctions - In the UK, it's quite easy to say: "turn off at junction 27" but special places, like Scotch Corner, are quite "famous".

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

If you mean labels on junction nodes (not ways), please see my above comment.
The OSM ref tag is used in ways, not nodes in the offline maps.

Unless we do some tag transform "magic" while creating the map with TagTransform.
But this needs work. 🙂

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 OK, once again it's strangely satisfying to know that my XML-fu isn't to blame!

I was under the impression that the name/ref were interchangeable 🫤 This junction is a node, it contains the name+ref: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1572413 so I assumed that any field/value combo in that table was "fair game" to render.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 The Airport/Aeroway mod is actually quite easy, a direct copy/paste from my theme - here's before+after using the current Biker theme from Desktop Cruiser:

The code below was added to the current Biker.xml here on Github:
There's a slight tweak here in that the Runway is defined last so that the smaller taxiways do not draw over them. I'll re-position the same lines in my own themes, too.

	<!-- Airport/Airfield -->
	<m e="way" k="aeroway" v="runway|apron|helipad" closed="yes" zoom-min="11">
		<area fill="#c5c1aB"/>
	</m>
	<m e="way" k="aeroway" v="taxiway" closed="no" zoom-min="13">
		<line stroke="#8c8c8c" stroke-width="0.8" stroke-linecap="butt"/>
	</m>
	<m e="way" k="aeroway" v="taxiway" closed="yes" zoom-min="15">
		<line stroke="#c5c1aB" stroke-width="1.6"/>
	</m>
	<m e="way" k="aeroway" v="runway" closed="no" zoom-min="11">
		<line stroke="#a6a6a6" stroke-width="5" stroke-linecap="square"/>
                <line stroke="#ffffff" stroke-linecap="square" stroke-width="0.8" />
	</m>

[bios4]

Updated Biker + MotoRider themes are here and will be included in next Cruiser.

How can I use/activate these *.xml files @devemux86?
When selecting "Map > External map design" Cruiser tells me it needs *.zip files...

[devemux86]

@bios4 you can zip the xml file and open it with Cruiser.

Because of Android restrictions, map themes are processed as zip containing xml, icons, etc.

[bios4]

@bios4 you can zip the xml file and open it with Cruiser.

This does not work. 😞
When selecting the (zipped) *.xml file, the map style is not changed - literally "nothing" happens!

[devemux86]

@bios4 I just tested it and it works. How do you zip the xml?

For example this zip works: biker.zip

[bios4]

Thanks, your *.zip file works!

How do you zip the xml?

I used the built-in "pack" function of the "File Manager Plus" app for Android.
Seems the *.zip-function from the app has issues (for that very purpose at least)...

[MotoUKRider]

Just a thought, how much do we care about railway platforms (and tracks) - using code from my theme, here's "Biker" before+after:
The colour can of course be changed to better match the theme, and the tracks don't have to be dot/dash...

[bios4]

As a biker I don't care about the platforms.
But making the tracks (at least a little) more visible/creating a better contrast would be a nice idea!

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

We could make them more visible.
If you have specific theme rules for me to replace, I can update the theme.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 There's a few small tweaks, and they'll easily make the platforms+track more visible - leaving you to adjust the fill color of the platform to best suit the theme and the stipple effect for how much of a contrast you want on the tracks.

The "Railway" section (near line 780) in my theme can be used, also the "de-station" fills near line 230, then you'll get a solid platform and the stipple-effect rail track. That's all I did to my copy of Biker.xml in the screenshot above - as a result, my local copy of that theme is probably quite messy now!

I'm no expert on the correct syntax/formatting, hence my earlier query about junction numbers - most of my "art" is via copy/paste and the F5 key 😄

[MotoUKRider]

I've been working on some colour-tweaks to this theme, making it resemble Ordnance Survey (road atlas) maps a little better. It's worth mentioning that, in real-life tests, the colors look quite different between my PC monitor and phone screen - so I've backed-off the "boldness" to better suit phone use.

The main reason for doing this is there are some bike touring books that use screenshots of OS maps which makes keeping the colours as close as possible to aid recognition 🔍

Here's 2D+3D views in Cruiser app with as many roads/objects that I could fit/find:

Changes
Colour changes for Roads to resemble Ordnance Survey (road atlas)
Added Primary Road "ref caption" (overlay box, eg: "A123")
Tweaked Road Font Sizes and Priority levels

Here is the (updated) Style ZIP file with the 3 MotoRider themes: Standard + Dark (currently built into Cruiser so almost identical), and this newer "OS" scheme. You can open an external theme ZIP by enabling the extended menu in the settings and then loading the theme via the Map menu.
style-motorideruk.zip

I still want to check a few more visual aspects between PC and phone, but it needs fresh (and non-UK) eyes 😄 If there's a feeling that current colours are OK, then I'll leave it here as an external "3rd" option. I don't think it's unique enough as a standalone internal theme 🤔

[MotoUKRider]

As it's too cold to go out and ride, getting busy with Notepad++ is today's fun.

I've got the existing MotoRider light/dark themes sorted, and accidentally made a 3rd, currently titled "Retro":

I'll post the XMLs here for integration later on.

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider both 2nd and 3rd are dark themes.

Unless we confuse blue with rivers, does the 3rd look more pleasing to the eye?

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 There is that issue, but there are examples of similar blue'ish navigation themes out there - My thinking was to try to find the "best" night-time screen, either by toning-down the colours or making the road outlines less "yellow".

The ultimate goal is to offer a good day+night combo that doesn't clash with road colours and/or the route line-colour.

[MotoUKRider]

Maybe this, mostly dark-navy, some subtle colours and a road-outline that shows where they are...

[DolomitesTom]

I wouldn't use it because I don't ride in the dark, too dangerous. But the last screenshot is ok.

[MotoUKRider]

Here are the latest theme files - some clean-ups and improvements with all 3 identical in format except for the colours 😃
The overall aim was to improve the ability to plan a route in-app via colour recognition, as well as offer a pleasing visual experience for both day+night riding. I also improved my cut'n'paste ninja skills 🥷

3D Standard / Dark / Night

2D Standard / Dark / Night

Theme Download
style-motorideruk.zip

These are based on the "Biker" theme, so anyone can make/alter a theme like this - details on how I did it are in the posts further up this thread.

[MotoUKRider]

Yes - that was about as much as I thought needed improving 😄
My plan was to make the layout a bit more "fluid" but the formatting requires certain parameters within the correct node/child so you can't just move things around for ease of editing (don't ask me how I found that out).

Hopefully it adds to the ease-of-use for planning+navigating 🗺️ (but it needs to stop raining, first)

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

The Night theme (named Dark in VTM and Cruiser) may need some improvements to recognize the road categories?
Like in the normal theme, but don't know how it could be done efficiently without making it too colorful.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Reducing the colour for a low-profile "night-time" navigation screen was the main aim for that theme. I tried a subtle tweak of a motorway but, as you say, it starts to get a bit "colorful". The "road-ref-caption" (boxes) could be altered, maybe.

The alternative is that editing/planning a route reverts to a "day" theme and, if navigating at night, a darker theme takes over - perhaps with Day+Night settings for "Plan" and "Navigate"?

[devemux86]

if navigating at night, a darker theme takes over

Something like this is already in my list. 🙂

[devemux86]

The updated Motorider map themes are available in Cruiser 3.0.40.

[MotoUKRider]

Although not 100% Cruiser-related, I've been working on "pushing" this map style into a TYP (Garmin) theme because I do all my route planning in BaseCamp 🤡

The next time you download a processed, compiled, configured and styled map file, think of the following...

The process required me to learn about the TYP formatting arrangement, how to edit it and whether I wanted to slipstream the TYP into existing maps or create my own. As my first PC was an 8088XT I thought "let's dive in with both feet" so went down the batch-file route of extracting, merging and creating the type of map I wanted...

Just like when 2 people who don't speak a common-language meet, they end up speaking very loudly and slowly to each other - eventually we managed to have a civilized conversation, in the right the colour/s with things mostly working as expected. The joys of %variables% for each map-region make things easier - the Freizeitkarte+Mapsforge scripts were very helpful here to ascertain "best practice".

At first glance, extracting a region is 1 line of code whilst building a map is 2 lines (split+build). It's the parameters/switches which are the fun part - but you can learn a heck of a lot by working on a small (eg: Isle of Man) area as you stumble/breeze through it.

I now just set a numeric MapID and run the batch-file which handles all the default Geofabrik filenames. I also got creative with "areas" using polygon files.

Example:
SET MAPID=5005
SET ZONE=europe
SET 5001-NAME=Northern Spain
SET 5001-FILE=northern-spain
SET 5001-ID=ESP
then:
%MKGMAP-PATH%\osmconvert64-large -v %MAPS-PATH%\%ZONE%-latest.osm.pbf -B=%MAPS-PATH%\!%MAPID%-FILE!.poly -o=%MAPS-PATH%\!%MAPID%-FILE!.osm.pbf
(snippet of build code) --area-name="!%MAPID%-NAME! (%BUILDDATE%)" --gmapi

Some final tweaks to the City/Village+Road label zoom-levels are required, but it gives me a colour-scheme that I'm familiar with:

Over the past 3 days I've gotten to grips with: Mkgmap, Osmosis, OSMConvert and TYPViewer. I would say that I am more keen than competent when it comes to writing code, but that's why Tassimo pods were invented.

As I said, not 100% on-topic but I just wanted to tell you how much time, coffee and CPU have been consumed 😆
And the next time you're tempted to start a post with: "This should be a simple fix, but..." 🔨

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider thanks for the very interesting description! 👍

For reference, we create the maps / poi in Mapsforge server with scripts I wrote several years ago:

• https://github.com/mapsforge/mapsforge-creator

The process follows the map creation guide.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Thanks - your scripts helped me get my head around things. Seeing a working example of a complex script like yours gave me hope that I could achieve something workable. I had a little trouble with the mapsforge-writer as the folder it needed to be in wasn't documented (or not correct for a Windoze user), so I succeeded via trial'n'error. However, with the ability to add multiple maps within Cruiser, it's a non-problem as you provide the .map files for us :)

BaseCamp, when you have a nice map to look at, is great- but you can only show 1 map at a time (whatever area/region that is). This is why the Freizeitkarte+ Regions are helpful, and they contain the elevation data. They are easy on the eye, but don't have the box-style road names like the standard OSM template (and the Biker/MotoRider themes).

This whole process can be summed-up as only wanting to change the air-freshener in the car, but having to remove the spark-plugs first!