Coman shares his process!

[Mark Sedenquist]

The following dialogue is the result of a private conversation between Coman and Mark Sedenquist about Coman's efforts in creating a Custom road trip map and is posted here with our thanks to Coman for sharing this with the roadtripping community...

I've finally gotten the route the way I want it. but there are tons of POIs that I'm not interested in seeing. Before, I've manually clicked each marker to delete from the map. But that's incredibly tedious and time consuming, especially as in my case when there's maybe 100 to delete. is there a faster/easier way to do this?

Steve, Are these POIs ones that you have created -- we call them "Custom Places" or are they the flagged markers we call "RoadTrip Attractions"? (RAs)

Rather than un-checking them -- how did you add them to begin with? You can specify what RAs you want to have along your route by adding places that are between 1 mile and 100 miles of your route -- or even more specifically by using the keyword criteria. We have only published a grand total of 1788 for the entire continent -- I wish we had thousands more.

It seems like it would be easier to create a new map.
1) Click on the route you want to use -- found in the "My Routes" list
2) use the keyword, radius tool to add only the RAs within 5 miles of your route
3) You can then remove those you don't want -- less than 10 maybe???
4) Save the new map.

I've finalized my maps and selected the POI's to potentially visit, so we're ready to go.

But, as background which I hope will be helpful to you as you continue to refine the site, here's how I used all the features.

Since i did not know in advance which POIs were available and which I might want to viist, I first created my route...Nashville to Crescent City, CA...then added POIs within 50 miles of that route. That generated quite a few, obviously too many to visit or which were of interest to me. Next I printed just the list of POI's and their descriptions, reviewed all, and manually deleted most of them. That took some time to do...clicking on each individually, manually scrolling down to bottom of description to click remove. but in the end I have what I want for which I'm very grateful.

But, one final question, please: I just bought a Kindle HD Fire 7 thinking I could use it on the trip. I'm able to call up roadtripamerica.com which shows everything EXCEPT the line with the login button on it. Is that something to do with the website or is it a Kindle thing? is there a workaround?

As of April 21st at 5:00 pm, the Forum and about 800 pages of the RTA site will render just fine on the Kindle HD Fire 7. Unfortunately, that does not (yet) extend to the Maps pages. They are on the top level of priority for getting to work on a tablet, but there is a fundamental issue with the supplier of the mapping data..."..." in that they have made it difficult for developers, like RTA, from resizing their data forms into sizes that can accommodate smaller tablets. At this exact moment, I am testing some issues on a LG G Pad 7.0 tablet (that is similar, I think to a Kindle HD 7) not going well.

Ultimately what we are planning on doing is creating an app that will run on mobile devices.

Now, I am able to create routes and add RAs using my smart phone -- an Android Turbo -- but the image of the map does not display. We actually have high hopes that we'll be able to get the maps to display on mobile devices. The scheduled turnaround for trials on this could be as soon as tomorrow. So, check back here.

But, now as I re-read your comment -- you should be able to log-in just fine with the Kindle 7 -- I will have to do some more testing.

Thanks for the heads-up!

Oh, and if you are reading this for the first time and you are just starting the journey using these RTA Custom Mapping tools -- here is an explanation about how to use the Map Center tools to make detailed maps of your route!

Mark

[Mark Sedenquist]

Maps (both RTA Map Wizard and the advanced RTA Map Center) both work on the larger iPad and display the route and attractions properly on the screen.

The function (creating and saving the routes) works fine on an android Turbo phone -- but the map does not display.

Mark

[Mark Sedenquist]

More tips here -- from recent work on this site (as in today).

[Lifemagician]

Updates from the trenches.

Mark

What a surprise to open my computer today to see this title on a post. On this our most sacred day when we remember those who died on the beaches and in the trenches of Gallipoli one hundred years ago. And the more than 40000 who died on the Western Front, on this day, three years later.

Lifey