[mkgmap-dev] Text format for TYP files

Fri Jan 15 21:13:32 GMT 2010

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 09:40:52PM +0100, Felix Hartmann wrote:
> maptk only supports 2 colors (as no nightmode support is included, 4 
> colors mean 2 colors daymode and 2 colors in nightmode). It could well 
> be that maptk did some changes to the colour palette. I think it tries 
> to make colors work more or less the same on old 256 colour units (like 
> legen/vista/60CSx/edge) as for 16/24bit displays.

OK, I see.  It should be good enough for simple TYP files then.

> I'm working from .prj MapTk files. It's the quickest way if you want to 
> update several typfiles at the same time. I even think about moving to 
> track or svn monitoring for the typfiles so that I only need to do my 
> changes in one file.

I try to keep all my important files in svn, except write-once files, such
as photos, GPS track logs and email (Mutt's maildir format is one file per
message).  You don't need a server process for that; you can use the file:///
URL for a local repository.  The FSFS repository format is nice.

> I once or twice hat to go to backups after using ati.land as it 
> destroyed my typfiles, and also like the maptk GUI editor (the only 
> major problem is that is lacks a png import function). I also find the 
> .prj format easier to understand/edit in texteditor in comparison to 
> cgpsmapper/gentyp notation.

Do you know the author of maptk?  Could he be convinced to release the
source code of the TYP compiler under the GPL?  If not, how much and how
often has the PRJ file format been changed in the past?  In other words,
would it be reasonable to write an independent PRJ to TYP compiler?

> I never used night mode, but for in car use it is useful (or better said 
> for non "topographic" maps that have few polygons but thick streets). I 
> would support a text notation that one can at least for roads and 
> polygons easily imagine - with genTYP format I do have problems 
> imagining how it will look like once compiled.

The test file that I created with the ati.land.cz editor did define
separate day/night colors for a line label.  The decompiler did not
fully know about this:

; additional block with colors:
; 00000000  1A 00 00 CC 40 40 80                               ....@@.

In the [Polyline] section of the MapTK PRJ file, only the day label color
is included:

TextColor=0xcc0000

I used automatic day/night mode on my Edge 705 (bicycle) for a several months,
but in the end I switched to day mode only, because thin brown paths
(cycleways) are difficult to read on solid black background and almost
unreadable on black/gray forest areas.  The night mode might make more
sense on a CRT or OLED screen than on a low-contrast backlit LCD anyway.
On a backlit display, you could as well set the brightness to minimum.

So, I think that the "repository of simple map layer styles and TYP files"
could do without the night mode at start.

	Marko