Waypoint+ quirks

Waypoint!+ Quirks

To get the most out of these tips, you should already have a copy of Waypoint+ on your PC, and you should have your GPS hooked up and talking to it.

Where's the waypoint?

On your GPS, each waypoint is uniquely identified by its name. There can be only one waypoint called "MYHOME", for example. That is not the case with WP+.

Let's say that in TopoUSA you create a route "TO MY HOUSE", consisting of 3 waypoints: "MYJOB", "STORE", and "MYHOME".

You then upload them to your empty GPS, so it now has 3 waypoints and 1 route.

Then, you close TopoUSA and fire up WP+. In WP+ you download the route (WP+ downloads all routes on the GPS). You go to view the waypoints (Waypoints/list waypoints), but find that 'list waypoints' is greyed out - there are no waypoints to view.

But, you go to the route (Routes/list), and see your "TO MY HOUSE" route and you see the three waypoints that make it up.

So, you download the waypoints from your GPS (GPS/download from GPS/waypoint). Now you can see the 3 waypoints in the waypoint list. So far so good, you think...

What actually happened is that you have two distinct sets of waypoints. One is a set of 'free' waypoints that are not associated with any route. Another set of waypoints are part of (belong to) the "TO MY HOUSE" route.

If you make a change to the "MYHOME" waypoint in the waypoint list, you WON'T see that change when you go to that same named waypoint in the route list. They are two different waypoints.

To test this, edit the 'free' "MYHOME" so it's name is now "HOME". Then edit the 'free' "STORE" so it's description is different. Now, delete all waypoints from your GPS. Then, upload all routes from WP+ to your GPS (Routes/upload). Your GPS will have exactly the same waypoints as in the Route list. That's as expected.

Now, upload all waypoints from WP+ to your GPS (Waypoints/upload) or (GPS/upload to GPS/waypoint). Look at the waypoint list on your GPS. You'll have an added waypoint - "HOME", and the description for "STORE" will have changed. Any waypoint on the GPS with the same name as one in WP+ will be overlayed, and any unique name in WP+ will be added.

Now, upload all routes to your GPS again. You'll see that the description for "STORE" will have changed back to the 'route' "STORE" description. So, what did we learn? In WP+ you'll want to keep track of your waypoint names. If you want to be consistent with what will be on your GPS, check the waypoints in both the waypoint list and the route list to make sure the names are unique.

More games with waypoints

What do you do if you want to use a waypoint more than once? Here's an example:

Let's say that you want to have two different routes on your GPS, both starting from the same launch site. We'll use King Mt.'s "SALMON" route. Sometimes we want to go all the way to Salmon, and sometimes we only want to go to Challis, part way up the same route, then a detour to the west.

You already have the Salmon route. In WP+, you can convert the 'salmon' waypoints to 'free' waypoints (Route/convert route points to waypoints). Now the 5 waypoints are in two places.

Go to the waypoint list and edit each waypoint you want to use, changing the name slightly. (Actually, WP+ doesn't care - it'll let you have duplicate waypoint names - but the GPS will care, and you don't want to get confused).

Now, highlight the waypoints you want for your new 'challis' route (click on the first name, then ctrl-click on each subsequent name until all the ones you want are highlighted - or use shift-click on a range).

Then, click on the "edit" button at the top-left of the window, and choose "Create new Route". You won't see anything happen, but when you go to the route list, you'll see the new route you just created. Highlight this route (just the route name, not any of its waypoint names), and edit it (click "Edit", choose "Item"). Change the route's name to "CHALLIS", and the number to one that you don't already use on the GPS. Let's call this one route 5. Now you have exactly the same waypoints, lat/long-wise, being used by two different routes. Of course you'll want to change the names of the waypoints slightly so they don't conflict when they're uploaded to your GPS.

More editing

I've already said that you should maintain a distinction between your 'free' waypoints and your 'route' waypoints. You'll notice that when you list your 'free' waypoints, they all come up in one list. But, when you list your routes, only the name of a 'route' waypoint is listed, and you have to edit it singly (highlight the waypoint, click the "Edit" button, choose "item". This isn't as nice as having them all on a single list.

But, you can have them on a single list! Highlight the route name, then click on "Edit", and choose "List". You'll see all waypoints for this one route in the same style window that's used for 'free' waypoints. You won't be able to put all routes' waypoints in one window, but that's OK, working on one route at a time is easy enough.

Routes to Waypoints and back

Here's an interesting quirk that you may or may not be able to take advantage of. Let's say that you have one route, 1, with three waypoints, A, B, & C. You have no 'free' waypoints. Follow these steps:

Convert the route to 'free' waypoints (Routes/convert route points to waypoints). You'll now have the same waypoints in two places.
In the Waypoint list, select all three waypoints and create a route.
In the Route list, change the name of this new Route and number it route 2. You now have two different routes with exactly the same waypoints.
Go back to the Waypoint list and delete all the waypoints (select them all, then Edit/Cut).
Now (Routes/convert route points to waypoints) again. This converts all routes.
Go to the Waypoint list and you'll see two copies of the waypoints, matching the two routes. This is not a good thing. Nothing terrible, just not good. Your GPS won't like this.
Once again: (Routes/convert route points to waypoints).
When you go back to the Waypoint List, you'll find only one instance of each waypoint. Interesting, eh?
If you had made a change to one of the 'route' waypoints after a 'free' copy had been made, you'd find that the result after doing this double-convert would be: regardless of how many routes have the same waypoint, the 'free' waypoint list will end up with only unique waypoints (all fields are matched). Two 'free' waypoints may have the same name, but the description, or another, field will be different.

Waypoint+ can be flakey

You will find that when doing uploads & downloads, WP+ will choke, displaying an error window and generally falling apart. Don't lose heart. Your data may not really be corrupt. You'll find that if you get out of WP+, get back in again, and try the operation again, it will probably work. You may find yourself doing this out&in thing several times during a session, or maybe you won't have to do it for quite a while.

It only seems to happen when you're transferring data, up/down with the GPS, or read/write to a file.

It pays to experiment

Take your time. Spend an afternoon trying all the operations in WP+. Read the documentation, but realize that it is not very extensive. By playing around you may come across some nice features or shortcuts.

Also, save off your WP+ data to a text file (Comma Delimited Text File), then go view that file with notepad.exe or whatever viewer/editor you like. Read what the documentation says about file formats to get a feel for what's in that text file. You may find that it's easier to edit the text file, then read it into WP+. Just remember to do a File/Clear/All to clear out WP+'s memory before you read that file back in. Have Fun!

Ernie Camacho, Jan. 2001.