[mkgmap-dev] Text format for TYP files

Fri Jan 15 21:23:51 GMT 2010


On 15.01.2010 22:13, Marko Mäkelä wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 09:40:52PM +0100, Felix Hartmann wrote:
>    
>> maptk only supports 2 colors (as no nightmode support is included, 4
>> colors mean 2 colors daymode and 2 colors in nightmode). It could well
>> be that maptk did some changes to the colour palette. I think it tries
>> to make colors work more or less the same on old 256 colour units (like
>> legen/vista/60CSx/edge) as for 16/24bit displays.
>>      
> OK, I see.  It should be good enough for simple TYP files then.
>
>    
>> I'm working from .prj MapTk files. It's the quickest way if you want to
>> update several typfiles at the same time. I even think about moving to
>> track or svn monitoring for the typfiles so that I only need to do my
>> changes in one file.
>>      
> I try to keep all my important files in svn, except write-once files, such
> as photos, GPS track logs and email (Mutt's maildir format is one file per
> message).  You don't need a server process for that; you can use the file:///
> URL for a local repository.  The FSFS repository format is nice.
>
>    
>> I once or twice hat to go to backups after using ati.land as it
>> destroyed my typfiles, and also like the maptk GUI editor (the only
>> major problem is that is lacks a png import function). I also find the
>> .prj format easier to understand/edit in texteditor in comparison to
>> cgpsmapper/gentyp notation.
>>      
> Do you know the author of maptk?  Could he be convinced to release the
> source code of the TYP compiler under the GPL?  If not, how much and how
> often has the PRJ file format been changed in the past?  In other words,
> would it be reasonable to write an independent PRJ to TYP compiler?
>
>    
I know him a bit from naviuser.at and naviboard.de online forums. The 
PRJ format seems to have been consistent since I can remember. The GUI 
editor has been changing a bit in the past however (especially in the 
regard to what it finds correct and incorrect, so some things before 
being corrected had to be written in text for implementation). I have no 
clue whether he would be willing to release that part of code under GPL.

If you like I could forward (send him a link) our conversation and we 
could see what he responds.
>> I never used night mode, but for in car use it is useful (or better said
>> for non "topographic" maps that have few polygons but thick streets). I
>> would support a text notation that one can at least for roads and
>> polygons easily imagine - with genTYP format I do have problems
>> imagining how it will look like once compiled.
>>      
> The test file that I created with the ati.land.cz editor did define
> separate day/night colors for a line label.  The decompiler did not
> fully know about this:
>
> ; additional block with colors:
> ; 00000000  1A 00 00 CC 40 40 80                               ....@@.
>
> In the [Polyline] section of the MapTK PRJ file, only the day label color
> is included:
>
> TextColor=0xcc0000
>
> I used automatic day/night mode on my Edge 705 (bicycle) for a several months,
> but in the end I switched to day mode only, because thin brown paths
> (cycleways) are difficult to read on solid black background and almost
> unreadable on black/gray forest areas.  The night mode might make more
> sense on a CRT or OLED screen than on a low-contrast backlit LCD anyway.
> On a backlit display, you could as well set the brightness to minimum.
>
> So, I think that the "repository of simple map layer styles and TYP files"
> could do without the night mode at start.
>
> 	Marko
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