Hi All,
I’m a recent comer to Cycle Travel website & I’m finding the route planner to be a fantastic tool, big congrats to Richard & Co. I’ve been bike-packing for many many years now (mainly here in France) & I only wish I had this tool when starting out. Maybe I can hang up my paper maps now :)
I’m just starting to play around with the CT-App (Android) at the moment & I’ve got a few questions:
• On the opening page of the app (the where to? page) where one can click on the top right (flag icon), then click on more maps to choose the map style, well when I first starting using the app I had access to the IGN maps (digital & classic), no problem. Then after some time when clicking on both IGN maps the screen gives a black screen with the blue trace. Have I done something wrong here? However if I go to the “Map” icon (the page = Routes-Cities-“Map”-My Bike) as if I was planning a route & click on top right for the map selection etc. here the IGN maps are active & show perfectly. I love the where to? concept so would love to get the IGN maps back again!
• Still on the opening page on the CT app-android: I can’t seem to find the “offline maps” icon. When I go to the “Settings” menu, offline maps do not show up here. Maybe I’m not looking in the right place? Any suggestions gratefully accepted.
Of course I’m not very computer literate so anything can happen :-)
Thanks a lot for your help,
J.
Comments
Jeremiah, I've just checked on my Android app and my IGN maps are working both to plan and navigate. Bear in mind I'm in Spain and have Spanish IGN maps.
I recall there being issues before with IGN maps and the licenses not updating automatically - I just can't find the thread now. Given the time of the year this may be the problem.
In any case, the app, especially the Android version, is developing as opposed to developed so there are always going to be little bumps along the way.
As I understand it, the website is really the place for planning, the app for navigating. I can see the advantage of IGN maps for planning but for navigating on a small screen not so much. I'd also wonder if such colourful maps being displayed add to battery drain?
As to the offline maps I'm not quite sure what you mean? If I go to "Settings" and select "offline map" I can see the green squares that I have downloaded. This thread may help:
https://cycle.travel/forum/thread/5608
Thanks a lot Hobbes for your rapid reply, very much appreciated.......
The IGN maps should still be working on Android – I’ve just tested and they’re fine on my phone. The screen does go black initially while it loads the tiles, but after less than a second (depending on your signal strength!) it should load them ok.
So I’m not quite sure what’s happening here, I’m afraid. Android phones do seem to be rather erratic about network access sometimes. It might be worth checking you haven’t got anything extra installed (firewalls etc.) that are affecting cycle.travel’s ability to load the maps from the IGN servers. I know it’s a bit of a clichéd suggestion, but maybe uninstalling the cycle.travel app and then installing it again from Google Play might be worth trying?
The ever-helpful Hobbes has explained about offline maps I think – it’s six items from the bottom on the Settings menu.
Hi Richard,
As you suggested, I un-installed/re-installed the CT app:
• The black screen for the IGN maps, still persists, unfortunately. I haven’t really installed anything (firewalls etc..) since installing CT app sometime ago & as I said the IGN maps were showing initially & now not at all. But as Hobbes mentioned maybe navigating with IGN maps may not be a good idea any versus battery drain?
• However for the ‘Offline Maps’ after un-installing/re-installing: Going into ‘Settings Menu’ my immediate reaction was that nothing had changed I could see no ‘Offline Maps’ icon. However you mentioned in your reply that the icon ‘Offline maps’ was 6th from the bottom so I clicked on the space (above the ‘App settings’ icon) where the icon should be & ‘mon Dieu’ it worked I can see the tiles of the map. I clicked on a blank space above that again & it clears the map. So icons ‘Offline Maps’ & ‘Clear Map’ are there but are not labelled it’s just blank spaces, quite strange! So now we are not sure whether they were there all the time & not labelled or the uninstalling/installing did the trick? So when I click on the offline maps blank space it always takes me to the UK tile map so I’ve got to each time, bring the map to my location here in France. Since the CT tool is geo-localised to my position, should the offline map home-into my present position? would make life easy non? But I suppose the main thing is I can now use the Offline Maps (the invisible icon!).
Thanks a lot for your helpful advice, much appreciated……J.
That is really weird! So does the pop-up menu when you click the settings icon have no text in it at all?
Hi Richard, When I click the 'Settings' this is what I see. See screen shot enclosed.
That’s the strangest thing. Thank you. I’ll see if I can find out why…