%FThe idea of the overlays is that having worked out where you are and where you're going (bold type towns and crow-line etc), you can zoom in and overlay the eating and resting places, motorways, railways and any other sites or items of interest in the vicinity, depending on which overlays you have installed or created.
(ii) Item overlays, either found in the main .ZIP archive or within one of the add-on specialist packs. These are specific items which can be represented by an icon, e.g. a football ground, an airfield, a restaurant or a motorway junction. In addition to a name, each item may have a reference field (e.g. Phone number details) which can be turned on or off in the 'Overlay settings' dialog.
You can display item overlays in two ways. Either a simple 'display them all in one go' approach, or a 'step-through' method where each displayed item is detailed separately as the overlay is drawn. This latter approach is best used when there are lots of overlay items very close together...
Note that you can also construct your own item overlays (see "Creating a new overlay").
(iii) Vector overlays. These are sets of lines and annotations, e.g. county boundaries, railways, ferry routes etc. Overlays of this type have file names ending in .MP4. Again, you can create your own custom vector data if you really want to (see the author for details).
For both types of overlay, there are a wealth of customisable settings you can play around with!
&AThanks to all the various overlay contributors, past and present.
Ditto for the town plan schematics.
Thanks to Simon Pooley for use of the opening photo.
Thanks to the Ordance Survey for permission to use some of their data and conventions. See the installation text file for full details.
CPsi-Mapper is really a Geographical Information System (GIS), and is not intended to do route-finding. But before you delete the program in disappointment, it does include many roads, railways, hotels, sites of interest and many, many other overlays, and can do basic 'on-the-road' distance calculations, route logging and a host of other useful informational tasks.
Psi-Mapper is also not intended to replace proper electronic or paper maps, as the resolution has been deliberately limited to +/- 1km in each direction and most roads etc are very much approximations of their actual paths etc.
This deliberate restriction enables Psi-Mapper to fit comfortably within most people's Psions, without taking up too much space!
By customising the display modes, exploring all the many features, getting to grips with the idea of 'sticky' overlays and using the multiple settings files to best advantage, you will find Psi-Mapper a useful tool in both your personal and business life.
WAIf you have a town or item selected in the either 'select' position, you can use the command 'Plan for FARNBOROUGH' etc and get a diagrammatic plan of that town or item, if one is available. Now obviously, not all towns and items have plans loaded on your Psion, for space reasons. However, this version of Psi-Mapper/GB ships with over 280!
EBThere are many ways of moving around in Psi-Mapper:
- You can use the arrow, page keys etc. to scroll the map
- You can use <Enter> or the pen or the 'Centre select' menu option to choose the map centre (very useful for zooming in on one spot)
- You can 'Find' places or overlay items and jump to them
- You can step through overlays, selecting particular items
- You can jump to specific known geographical positions
The interface will hopefully be intuitive, and you'll soon find yourself whizzing round the map! You don't usually have to wait for the screen to redraw, either.
CWhen asking Psi-Mapper to find a place, you can just give it part of the name if you like, and it will search for any place names containing the phrase you asked for.
This can be used to advantage when you are not sure ofthe exact spelling of the place you're after, e.g. Amlwich, you could ask for 'aml'.
You can also search for items in an overlay, e.g.find 'Gatwick' in the 'Airfields' data set. Or even for a particular motorway junction by looking for 'J6(M1)' in the 'Junction' overlay, although please note the format I've used, you must use the same naming method. So M4J6 would not be found, but J6(M4) would. And so on.
Both places and items that have been 'found' are classed as 'selected'. For more information on what this means, please read the help section on 'Selections'.
4AThis dashed line appears when two selections have been made, to give an indication of the 'as the crow flies' line between the two. Optionally, it can also display the 'crow-flies' or 'on the road' distance in miles, for quick reference, to save you having to go into the 'Distance between celected' screen.
JBOnce you have two places selected, you can perform distance, bearing, time and fuel calculations. Psi-Mapper gives you either 'as the crow-flies' distance in miles and km, or an estimate of the 'on-the-road' mileage, based on a well-averaged 'fudge' factor. You can tell Psi-Mapper which mode you want it to gork in by making the appropriate selection in the first 'Settings' dialog.
Note that if the 'crow-line' intersects any sea, any on-the-road estimate may be some way out.
The time and fuel figures are based on your own figures, which can be changed under 'Personal settings'.
AFor obvious space reasons, not all the postal or STD codes in use in Great Britain can be stored in the program's files. Psi-Mapper just knows about the first half of the postcode and the STD for each town in its database. Note that many larger towns are represented by a range of postcodes, e.g. TA3-6, so when searching, you may want to look for just 'TA' etc.
Note that the accuracy of the codes is not guaranteed, as the Post Office/BT tend to change them round every now and then!
}CIn an effort to save you work, each distance that is calculated by the program is also logged to the "Route Log", for your convenience, for example, when filling out a report of where you've been. The route log can contain details of journeys to and from any towns or overlay items.
The estimated journey time is calculated using the average speed you have defined in the Personal Settings dialog. Thus, if you want the calculations to reflect different average speeds for different legs of the journey, just set the speed you want for that leg before you do the "Find" etc.
The Log is restricted to up to 5 journey sections. When the log is full, or if you just want to start again, you can clear it with the appropriate menu option.
The key to constructing a useful Route Log is skilful use of the Control-f (Find), shift-Control-f (Find in overlay) and Control-w (Swap selections) keys.
%CThere are numerous settings you can tinker with, and these are saved in Psi-Mapper's settings file. It should be fairly obvious what all the settings do from their names.
Note in particular the concept of 'sticky' overlays, whereby Psi-Mapper remembers which overlay of each type was last used and overlays it on each displayed screen. You can turn 'stickiness' on or off in the settings dialog for each type of overlay or in the actual overlay selection dialog itself. You can also set the ESC key to turn them off.
In addition to all this, you can add your own place names to the map, up to a maximum of 93. These places are stored in a special custom database, which can be edited if you need to using the supplied CustomEd.opo utility.
Plus of course you can construct custom overlays of your own.
APsi-Mapper/GB's documentation is all on-line in this help file. Browse through the help file and the Psi-Mapper program itself and experiment with the functions you discover, especially the wealth of overlays and the many customisable settings.
Freeware for EPOC.
CSeasoned Psi-Mapper/GB users on the Series 3a/3c/Siena computers will be wondering just how compatible all of this is with your old versions.
The good news is that the program itself still uses the same grid system for all data, so nothing's changed in terms of the content of Psi-Mapper's data sets.
The bad news is that ALL the Psion file formats changed drastically as part of the changeover to EPOC/32. So the town plans, the overlays etc are ALL physically incompatible with their EPOC16 equivalents despite having (in many cases) the same file name.
The freeware JBDATA is a good tool on the 3a or 3c to export custom data files ready for import into Series 5 versions.
In practice this shouldn't be a problem. If you're intending to maintain an overlay or town plan on both Psi-Mapper platforms, you'll have to either update both versions or make a note of which version is the 'master' and then export from this using TAB-delimited text as the intermediary etc.
ADISCLAIMER
Steve Litchfield and 3-Lib accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained within Psi-Mapper or any of its overlays, and this program is used entirely at your own risk! Do not use this program while driving a vehicle, I'll not be responsible if you crash head-on into a Juggernaut! Please note that road and rail layouts etc are shown diagrammatically when appropriate. If you need really accurate map data, go and buy a real map!
FYou can zoom in and out with either the side-bar Zoom buttons, the menu options or their short-cuts, the drop down zoom level box or even with the number keys 1 to 7, to go to specific zoom levels in one keypress.
You can have seven levels of zoom. Any selected towns will be shown in bold on all detail levels.
Note the auto-detail feature, which sets the detail level according to the degree of zoom you're using. You can fiddle with the density of auto-detail according to your taste in the 'Settings' menu option. There is the facility to temporarily raise or lower the detail on any particular map view by using the '+' and '-' icons in the information window or the appropriate menu options, but the auto-detail will kick in again next time the map centre is moved or zoomed.
Note the scale ruler along the bottom of the screen, showing graduations every 10 miles. This can be turned off if desired. Ditto the 'crow-line', which appears when you have two places selected.
By using the Annotate function, you can use the pen to draw directly on the map display. In later versions of Psi-Mapper it may also be possible to print these annotated maps directly from the program. In the meantime, you can grab the screen into an EPOC picture file with Shift-Control-Fn-S and merge into a Sketch file for printing etc.
Psi-Mapper often takes a few seconds to display a map or scan its database, but you don't have to wait if you don't want to, using the pointer or pressing Menu, Help or any other valid key should interrupt the program and give you control within a second or two.
The <Esc> key will redraw the screen at any time and (optionally) turn off any 'sticky' overlays you've turned on.
HEvery time you Find a place name or overlay item in Psi-Mapper, it is shown in the selection area on the info window (if you've left it turned on).
There are two selection 'slots' (shown separated by a '/'), the first is filled by your first successful find, and the second by your second find. Please note that the contents of the two fields can be swapped by pressing using 'Swap selections' (Control-w) or by tapping in the selection box at any time.
The crow-line and distance calculations are only valid when both selection slots are filled. If you Find another place name, it will overwrite the second slot etc.
You can use menu options to clear both selection slots or just the second one etc.
Once you have one or two towns 'selected', there are extra operations which become possible. Using the menu items found under 'Towns/Items' (or by using the Control key short-cut), you can look up a street plan of a selected item. So, for example, you could find & select 'Taunton' & then bring up its street plan.
When both selection slots are filled, an entry is automatically made in the "Route Log", which remembers for your convenience all the distances calculated by the program using your chosen method of distance calculation, along with the average speed defined at the time.
Again, to preserve a certain order of journey, you may wish to swap the slot contents before doing the next Find....
Note that having found a place, you can set it up to be your 'home' town with the appropriate menu option, which will have appeared automatically on the 'Towns' menu. This enables you to more easily examine journeys etc from the same place each time you use Psi-Mapper, by simply using the "Journeys from Home town" menu option and thus selecting your 'home' town in the first selection slot, and moving any existing selections down one. The 'home' town can only be changed by selecting a different town in the first slot and using the menu option again.
A selection can also be made with a successful search in the postcode or STD code database.
AYou may be wondering why Psi-Mapper/GB is now freeware?
It's mainly because I feel I've been rewarded for my efforts in creating it in the first place and want to give something back to the EPOC community.
If you want to say Thanks, you can always email me at slitchfield@ukonline.co.uk
And of course don't forget to take a look at the magazine I help put together, Palmtop (www.palmtop.co.uk).
And finally, note that I now do an EPOC Training CD. See my web site at 3lib.ukonline.co.uk for details.
KThere are a few steps to creating and using your own item overlays. Please note that Psi-Mapper/GB does things in a certain way to ensure maximum performance and minimum disk usage.
Step 1
Use the "Create new item overlay" command. Enter a brief filename (up to 8 characters) in the space provided. Don't worry, you'll get the chance to give a fuller description later on. Fill in also concise text descriptions of what the "Name" and "Reference" fields in the overlay will represent (e.g. "Site name" and "Telephone no."). Tap on "OK" and Psi-Mapper/GB will confirm the overlay's creation and give brief instructions on creating a suitable icon (you'll get to that later).
Step 2
Use the "Add items to a custom overlay" command and add at least one item to your new overlay, using the supplied cross-hairs to locate it.
Step 3
You now need to add the new overlay to Psi-Mapper/GB's master overlay index so that it comes up as one of the choices in the "Display" dialogs. Make sure you have viewing of the "System" folder turned on in the system screen "Preferences" and then navigate to inside the \System\Apps\MapperGB folder. Locate the "Overlays.idx" file and tap on it to open it in DATA. Add a new entry, giving your brief filename in the first field (e.g. "MYSITES") and a fuller description in the second (e.g. "ABC corp. sites 1997/1998"). Leave the "Vector" field set to zero. Save the entry and close the file.
That's basically it. Your new overlay should appear in the overlay choice dialogs, with its full description, and should display properly when asked. Add entries as you wish using the built in Psi-Mapper/GB functions.
Newly created overlays display by default using a 'star' icon. If you want to use another icon of your own devising, follow these steps:
a) go into SKETCH and make a new black and white graphic, 17 by 17 pixels.
b) export if to an EPOC picture file called xxxxxxxx.mbm (where xxxxxxxx is your overlay's 8-character filename) in any convenient folder.
c) use Control-c (Copy) and Control-v (Paste) to paste a copy of this file in your \System\Apps\MapperGB folder on your default disk.
Next time the program is asked to display your overlay, it will look for, find and display your new custom icon!
Note that I also supply a small CustomEd.opo utility which allows direct numeric editing of created overlays.
Giving you even more options, if you have lots of suitable data in delimited text form (either from another program or as part of a conversion of an overlay from Psi-Mapper/GB for the 3a/3c) you can make a copy of the supplied MP3-Temp. template database and import your text data directly in. Name your new overlay such that it ends in ".mp3".
For the technically minded, the reason why Psi-Mapper/GB can't update the 'overlays.idx' itself is that OPL/32 can't *write* to a DATA file. In fact the reason why the overlays index file is needed in the first place is because the EPOC directory services are so unbearably slow when large CF disks are involved! Hopefully my workaround is sufficient.
Route-Logging2
/R - route log display distances swap selections_
Solar Compass2
There is a simplified solar compass, for use in aligning the map screen with due north even if you've got a lousy sense of direction. Just follow the instructions....
%R - solar compass direction north map_
Radius Circle2
This feature allows you to answer questions like "How many airfields are within 30 miles of here?" The shown circle can be sized in miles in the Advanced Settings dialog or at display time within the shown dialog.
R radius circle distance%
Important!
Contacting Steve Litchfield2
xPlease use slitchfield@ukonline.co.uk
Psi-Mapper update information on the world wide web:
http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/
4Y - contact steve litchfield web email feedback bugsO
Compatibility notes2
Y 3a 3c jbdata export upgradingO
Acknowledgements2
Z Creditsu
Creating a new item overlay
&K - new overlay create add item custom% Why free?
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