ViewRanger for Android – a quick start guide 09/01/2016

These notes are for ViewRanger Version 6. There may be small changes in details for later updates.

At the top of all ViewRanger screens are five icons of which only three are of immediate interest. The active icon changes to a light green.

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1 – Map screen – the main map screen

2 – Tracks and Routes screen – the list of tracks and routeson the phone

3 – Menu screen – further options

Recording a trackTap Map to give something like the screen shown.

At this stage the GPS on the phone is probably turned off and yourlocation has not been fixed. You should activate the GPS function on the phone.

Tap on the central Compass icon at the bottom of the screen. A greycircle appears on the cross-hairs and the phone starts to search for your location.

After a short interval it changes colour to red to show that your location has been found. The compass icon colour will also change to solid green, indicating that the crosshairs are centred on yourlocation. The Grid Reference will also be shown in the bar at the top of the screen.

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You can then use your fingers to zoom in to see exactly where you are, or use the “+” and “–“ tools either side of the Compass icon.

Now tap the blue New icon at the bottom right of the screen.

Choose the option to Record and then tap the central red Start/Pause button to start recording.This will return you to your map screen, the New icon has changed colour to green and a new blue icon Trip time appears which will tell you how much time has elapsed since the recording started.

OpenCycleMap EastWest Map

To pause or stop the recording tap the blue icon Trip time, which will bring up the record controls.

To pause tap the central Start/Pause button. Tap this again to continue recording - you'll be asked if you wantto start a new track or continue.

To stop tap on the left hand Stop button. You'll be given theoption to save the track, either as the default Track <Date><Time> format or to change it from Track <Date> <Time> formatto whatever name you want.

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You will be returned to the Tracks screen where your track is now listed.

Your track is now saved, somewhere inside your phone, in ViewRanger'sown proprietary format and you can share it with fellow ViewRangerusers.[You will find details on the ViewRanger website

http://www.my.viewranger.com/ ]

To share it with others not using ViewRanger you will first need to makeand save a copy in the standard .gpx format.

Making a copy of a ViewRanger track in .gpx formatOn the Tracks screen tap on the track you want to copy. The track Details page will open.Tap on the three vertical dots in the top right corner

Choose Export GPX

Note that even if you have already changed the track name it will suggest saving it in a GPX file called <current date>.gpx

If you want you can change the file name [just the 20151024.gpx making sure it still has the extension .gpx] before tapping OK. This can also be done at a later time on thecomputer using File Manager.

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Tap on DONE

Depending on the version installed on your Androidphone ViewRanger will save the .gpx file in a defaultlocation. This default location may be in the internal memory of the phone, or in the SD memory card, if one is installed.

In this case, the location is

/storage/extSdCard/Android/data/com.augmenta.viewranger.android/files/

and the file name is

20151024.gpx

It is worthwhile to note your default storage for moving or sharing .gpx files.

To share the .gpx file with others you now need to upload it onto your computer, after which it can be emailed as an attachment.

Exchanging GPX files between a computer and an Android smart phone

Copying a file from your phone to your computerFirst open File Explorer and connect your phone to the computer. Shortly the phone will appear in the left-hand pane as an extra drive called something like Galaxy A3 [this will depend on your phone].

Click on the name of the phone [not on the little arrow before it] to highlight it.

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You will see the folder path has changed to

and the right-hand pane now contains

From now on just keep clicking on the folders inthe right-hand pane as follows and the contentsof the sub-folders will appear. The path will keepchanging.

The complete path to the GPX files is

and the contents of the sub-folders are:

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If your phone is running the latest version of Android, the key to finding your GPX files is to find thefolder Android on your phone, as above, and then navigate to

....... > Android > data > com.augmentra.viewranger.android > files

Otherwise you can find your storage location on thephone as follows:

Go to the Menu screen by tapping

and then go to Settings > Storage

You should then see a screen like this with the pathto the folder containing your GPX files given as theDefault folder

Make a note of this path, return to File Explorer andfind it.

You should now see the saved file 20151024.gpx

To copy this into the folder Hill walking > GPX files [or into whichever one you have created on your computer to store GPX files] you should highlight the file 20151024.gpx and Copy it to the clipboard [keyboard shortcut Ctrl-C]

In the left pane of File Explorer click on Documents or Libraries > Documents and navigate to

Libraries > Documents > Hill walking > GPX files

Now Paste [keyboard shortcut Ctrl-V] the file into this location.

Copying a file from your computer to your phoneWith your phone connected to the computer just reverse the steps described above.

Suppose that a file called

CroneCP_MasonsGlenPaddock.gpx

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is stored in the folder Libraries > Documents > Hill walking > GPX files Highlight this file and Copy it to the clipboard.

Navigate to

....... > Android > data > com.augmentra.viewranger.android > files

or to your storage location, if different, and Paste the file CroneCP_MasonsGlenPaddock.gpx into this location.

Converting the track(s) contained in a GPX file into the ViewRanger proprietary internal format

At this stage the GPX file has been copied onto your phone. Usually a GPX file will contain the data for one track but it is possible for it to contain data for two or more tracks. In these notes it is assumed that any GPX file mentioned contains a single track.

NB The name of the track is usually not the same as the name of the GPX file - commonly it has notbeen renamed and is still in a <Date> <Time> format

To be able to see it as a ViewRanger track it needs to be converted into the proprietary internal ViewRanger format (.vrlp). This process is called Importing.

In the following example, CroneCP_MasonsGlenPaddock.gpx contains a single track, named LongHill Mason’sGlen. This is the name that will be shown in ViewRanger.

Tap the Menu button. Choose Import / Export GPX.

Choose Import GPX /LOC

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Here two GPX files can be seen. Tap on

/storage/extSdCard/Android/data/com.augmenta.viewranger.android/files/CroneCP_MasonsGlenPaddock.gpx

ViewRanger will ask you to confirm.

Tap on Yes. The track will be imported.

Tap the centre green icon and ViewRanger will open the listof tracks and routes.

Select Tracks

Tap on LongHill Mason’sGlen, which is the track name that was identified earlier.

This will bring up a page of information about thetrack

Details shows the track name on the green bar anda summary of track details.

Hidden, at the bottom, indicates that the track wouldnot be displayed on the map, at present.

Speed shows the various speeds recorded during theoriginal hike.

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Height shows the height profile of the hike. In this case, twoprofiles are shown, one being Map Height, as the map currentlyrunning is linked to DEM data - the altitude of each point on theEarth's surface has been measured and stored in a database.

The other is GPS Height, created by satellite readings obtained atthe time from the GPS device in the phone.

As the map data is deemed more accurate, the stated heights arebased on the map data.

Tap on the three vertical dots icon at the top right of the screen and choose Go To On Map

The track is active, it’s name is on the top bar, which hasappeared and further icons are present.

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Touch the screen, but not on the track.

The track is now inactive and the standard five icons are displayed. The track can be activated again by touching it. It will change from black to red.It can be hidden by selecting Hide on the active track screen. Whether hidden or shown, it will be listed in the track section, accessible by means of the middle green icon.

ViewRanger online supportThere is much more to ViewRanger than is outlined in this guide. You can find lots of support information online at http://support.viewranger.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=4

In particular you can find out in section 8.3 how to Create saved maps which will then be available to you when you are out on a hike and are unable to get online.

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