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Subject:Questions from Newbie re confirmation screens and waypoints 

ruivaz

8:57
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

Hi all

I just started using TMJ-mobile (excellent btw), and have a few questions as to what I may be doing wrong:

1. Whenever I load a map, try to change maps, search for a map, I get repetitive questions asking me: "allow application to read user data" and "allow application to write user data" over and over and...you get the picture.

Is there a way to say Yes once and for all?

2. My waypoints list is empty every time I start the application. It synchs perfectly, just a bit troublesome to do EVERY time.

Thanks for any assistance.

Phone is SE w900i, in case that's a factor.
 

9:17
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

No doubt, you'll get an answer from Stephen (the guy that wrote all this...!) soon,

But it sounds to me like the application is having trouble writing to the memory of your phone.
Have you tried turning on 'Map Caching' in the settings screen?
Also, you could try setting the permissions of the application on your phone to allow it access to the phones memory.
(on my phone (SE W610i) in the 'Applications' screen, if I select TMJ-Mobile, press the 'More' key, select 'Permissions' then I can control what access TMJ has to Internet, Messaging, and Read/Write User Data.

HTH!

Chris.
 

ruivaz

9:43
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

Thanks Chris

To answer, I have MAP CACHE enabled.

However, when I looked the the permissions for the application, regarding read/write user data access, I only have NO and ALWAYS ASK, which seems to be the problem.

Maybe Stephen will have time to answer, but now I wonder if there is a problem setting permissions to No...


Rui
 

Stephen

19:54
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Rui,

Unfortunately the security prompts are imposed by the phone manufacturer on some older handsets, they are designed to prevent unauthorised access to the phones storage, but as you have found, are quite irritating when they keep appearing. The only way to prevent them is if I were to 'digitally sign' the program, but at the moment I can't afford to buy a digital signature.

More recent Sony Ericssons have better options in the Permissions menu that can completely turn off, or at least reduce the number of prompts, for example my W910i has 'Read User Data: No, Always Ask, Ask Once, and Never Ask'. Theres a slim possibility that the Sony Ericsson Update Service might have a more recent firmware version for your W900 that may allow more permissions, though I can't guarantee it.

Otherwise, as Chris suggested and as you are already doing, the only option is to use the Map Cache I'm afraid.

Your second problem has me a bit stumped - the Waypoints *should* be stored internally between restarts. Are all the other settings remembered correctly between restarts, for example the current Track, Route and TMJ Username/Devicecode, etc? This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but do any of your waypoint names contain any 'non-ascii' characters? (Although these *should* work, it might be worth renaming them on the website before syncing to see if that helps).
Also, are there any errors listed in the Event Log (Menu/Display/View Event Log) when starting the program, after syncing, after manually adding a new waypoint, or just before exiting?

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ruivaz

20:36
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

Stephen thanks for the reply.

I'll read up on the update to the software :(

Regarding waypoints, I think it may be because I was ending the application using the phone's "BACK" button.

When I used the EXIT menu option, it seems all is OK. Strange thing is that yesterday the waypoints were saved.

Regarding the READ/WRITE access, does the program load maps into "memory" as accessed? Is there any way I could load the map/tiles all at once and not worry anymore?

Thanks

Rui
 

Stephen

21:31
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Glad to hear the Waypoints problem is sorted. To be honest I'd expect it to still save them when using the phones BACK button, but I guess this isn't too big a problem (its best to use the Exit function anyway to cleanly close the web connection, if enabled).

Yes, the program does just load the 4 currently needed tiles into memory at a time. It first checks whether they are stored in the Cache (which won't display the security prompt) and will take them from there if available, otherwise it will have to load them from the main file (but will then also stick them into the cache for future use).

The cause of all the annoyance is that Java only allows data to be read from a file in one 'direction'. The file is basically a string of PNG/JPEG image files stuck together end-to-end. The security prompt only appears when the file is first opened.

So if, for example, the 5th tile is needed, then the initial security prompt will appear for opening the file. The file 'cursor' then jumps to the 5th tile and the data is read.
If then, say the 11th tile is requested, the cursor can jump straight to it (as its currently at the end of the 5th file) and grab that tile as well, without prompts.
If the 10th tile is then subsequently needed, the cursor can't move backwards, so the file has to be closed and then opened again (triggering another prompt) in order for the cursor to move to the start of the 10th tile.
And so on... Annoying, huh!

The map cache is really only designed to hold a few dozen tiles at a time. Theoretically a small map file could fit entirely into the cache, in which case you might get away with not seeing any prompts. However, the cache doesn't store the maps as efficiently at the main file, so for larger map files this isn't really feasible (I'm using a map that is 170Mb in size, though fortunately my W910 doesn't display the prompts!). There is also a slight bug with the cache that I've yet to fully fix that means that some tiles never make it into the cache, so the prompts might never disappear.

Hope this makes sense!

Cheers,
Stephen




 
 

ruivaz

21:58
Tuesday
3-Jun-2008

ok Stephen that's more or less what I thought was happening...

 

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