16 ms·

I haven't been able to figure out the reason for this: why is it that scrolling the map in Osmand is so janky?! It's ridiculous: scrolling stutters at ~5fps and

I haven't been able to figure out the reason for this: why is it that scrolling the map in Osmand is so janky?! It's ridiculous: scrolling stutters at ~5fps and when I let go it re-draws everything with no attempt at caching things or smoothing the rendering process. I've no idea why this is the case but it's definitely the only major blemish on an otherwise superb app.

JustSomeNobody 4y ago
I have that complaint as well. But I also think it takes too long to route. I'm sure a lot of people would complain, but I wish they'd try and mimic what Apple and Google do for UI.
- lmm 4y ago
  BRouter makes the routing a zillion times faster. It's an absoulte pain to install and configure, but worth it.
leni536 4y ago
AFAIK it's newer android storage API limitations that they did't work around yet.
fezfight 4y ago
So, in a scenario like this, where the competition is a super mega company with effectively infinite money, I think we should all agree not to make comments like this about FOSS projects. I know that sounda crazy but here me out. One of Microsoft's old tricks is called FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The idea is that people's opinions of things can be nudged using fear, uncertainty and doubt. Enough to sway opinion at scale. In this case, if you truly believed an app is superb, you're doing it a massive disservice by giving it your criticism publicly. I know, I know, how dare I suggest you not provide useful feedback on a public forum. But the thing is, I believe your single comment will prevent a not insignificant amount of adoption! Adoption by the masses often helps these projects undertake QoL improvements like what your comment describes. Contradictorily, I believe honest critism of entrenched apps made by huge corporations is vital to help the smaller guys get a chance to share the wealth for exatly the same reasons.
- memen 4y ago
  Assuming that by 'adoption' you mean, regular use of the product. There is also expectation management, which is an important aspect in marketing. The goal here is to set the expectation of a future user at the actual value the product delivers to the user. This can go wrong in two ways: 1. Underdeliver - user will be disappointed, i.e. negative user experience. 2. Overdeliver - user will be content, but expects you to overdeliver in the future as well, which you will not be able to do indefinitely. My point is: it is key to manage expectations of future users. Pointing out both strengths and weaknesses of the product makes sure expectations match actual value and make for an overall positive user experience when evaluating for adoption.
  - fezfight 4y ago
    Sure, if you have a marketing budget you can do all kinds of stuff. Here, OP is marketing against the app which is already at the disadvantage of not having a marketing budget and being free (which people incorrectly associate with bad). So.. You know, do the devs a favour and don't market against them? It doesn't harm you to just stay out of it if you don't have anything nice to say. Go dunk on the big corps. They can financially handle it.
    - memen 4y ago
      You seem to think that 'marketing' equals 'deception to trick people into buying a product'. This is a very narrow view. Marketing is a much broader field [1]. Of course a part of it is about how to effectively convey an idea to someone. However, deceiving people will only work for short-term businesses, as it is much more work to build your image after a deception or schandal. That is why brands often cease to exist after a schandal, as starting a new brand is much easier. I developed an open source app myself and I'd rather inform future users about its limitations before they use it. This way, they have a positive feeling towards the app, even though it could not deliver value in their case. This has nothing to do with budget (for my open source project, budget is ~0 anyways). You need budget for advertising, reaching out to potential customers, engage with your customers, etc. The budget needed for clearly communicating the value of your product is negligible. You seem to think that downsides or limitations are inherently negative. Knowing a downside in advance is actually a huge advantage. [1]: "Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
colordrops 4y ago
I fully agree, Osmand is so close to being great. It's clear that a ton of work has been put into it, but has a few major flaws that make it nearly useless. It's the first open source project I've considered contributing to, and I might do it soon. * The jank you mention - it was one of the first things I noticed as well. * Search just doesn't work. They have addresses and POI in their database, but for whatever reason, search strings don't match, and addresses don't work at all either. It's completely broken. * Really needs the ability to toggle direction mode, i.e. always pointing north, or pointing in the direction of travel or the device's compass. I also would like to add a couple improvements that are not really flaws with the app: * Ability to record GPS path * Ability to share recordings/trails - would allow me to get rid of AllTrails
- anoa_ 4y ago
  For trip recording, in OsmAnd~'s sidebar check out the "Plugins" menu item and enable Trip Recording.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    Not sure why this comment was dead - there is indeed a trip recording plugin. Would be nice if it were enabled by default.
- aqfamnzc 4y ago
  Another contributing factor with the jank is the "snapping" to discrete zoom levels. One of the primary benefits of rendering vector tiles is continuous zoom! Also, the direction mode toggle you mention does exist, and works quite well. The flipside of Osmand's awesome configurability is that it takes me 5 minutes of digging to figure out how to enable things like this.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Ruthalas 4y ago
  Regarding the issues with search, this tool[0] uses OpenAddresses to facilitate more natural search. This largely rectified the address search in OSMAnd for me, though it does not update automatically and so requires occasional reapplication. Hope that helps! [0] https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation
g_p 4y ago
If you're looking for an alternative OSM app on Android or iOS that performs reasonably well, it might be worth checking out "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old maps.me), which is open source and based on OSM's mapping data.
- fezfight 4y ago
  I agree. Its extremely nice.

JustSomeNobody 4y ago

I have that complaint as well. But I also think it takes too long to route. I'm sure a lot of people would complain, but I wish they'd try and mimic what Apple and Google do for UI.

lmm 4y ago
BRouter makes the routing a zillion times faster. It's an absoulte pain to install and configure, but worth it.

leni536 4y ago

AFAIK it's newer android storage API limitations that they did't work around yet.

fezfight 4y ago

So, in a scenario like this, where the competition is a super mega company with effectively infinite money, I think we should all agree not to make comments like this about FOSS projects. I know that sounda crazy but here me out. One of Microsoft's old tricks is called FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The idea is that people's opinions of things can be nudged using fear, uncertainty and doubt. Enough to sway opinion at scale. In this case, if you truly believed an app is superb, you're doing it a massive disservice by giving it your criticism publicly. I know, I know, how dare I suggest you not provide useful feedback on a public forum. But the thing is, I believe your single comment will prevent a not insignificant amount of adoption! Adoption by the masses often helps these projects undertake QoL improvements like what your comment describes. Contradictorily, I believe honest critism of entrenched apps made by huge corporations is vital to help the smaller guys get a chance to share the wealth for exatly the same reasons.

memen 4y ago
Assuming that by 'adoption' you mean, regular use of the product. There is also expectation management, which is an important aspect in marketing. The goal here is to set the expectation of a future user at the actual value the product delivers to the user. This can go wrong in two ways: 1. Underdeliver - user will be disappointed, i.e. negative user experience. 2. Overdeliver - user will be content, but expects you to overdeliver in the future as well, which you will not be able to do indefinitely. My point is: it is key to manage expectations of future users. Pointing out both strengths and weaknesses of the product makes sure expectations match actual value and make for an overall positive user experience when evaluating for adoption.
- fezfight 4y ago
  Sure, if you have a marketing budget you can do all kinds of stuff. Here, OP is marketing against the app which is already at the disadvantage of not having a marketing budget and being free (which people incorrectly associate with bad). So.. You know, do the devs a favour and don't market against them? It doesn't harm you to just stay out of it if you don't have anything nice to say. Go dunk on the big corps. They can financially handle it.
  - memen 4y ago
    You seem to think that 'marketing' equals 'deception to trick people into buying a product'. This is a very narrow view. Marketing is a much broader field [1]. Of course a part of it is about how to effectively convey an idea to someone. However, deceiving people will only work for short-term businesses, as it is much more work to build your image after a deception or schandal. That is why brands often cease to exist after a schandal, as starting a new brand is much easier. I developed an open source app myself and I'd rather inform future users about its limitations before they use it. This way, they have a positive feeling towards the app, even though it could not deliver value in their case. This has nothing to do with budget (for my open source project, budget is ~0 anyways). You need budget for advertising, reaching out to potential customers, engage with your customers, etc. The budget needed for clearly communicating the value of your product is negligible. You seem to think that downsides or limitations are inherently negative. Knowing a downside in advance is actually a huge advantage. [1]: "Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

colordrops 4y ago

I fully agree, Osmand is so close to being great. It's clear that a ton of work has been put into it, but has a few major flaws that make it nearly useless. It's the first open source project I've considered contributing to, and I might do it soon. * The jank you mention - it was one of the first things I noticed as well. * Search just doesn't work. They have addresses and POI in their database, but for whatever reason, search strings don't match, and addresses don't work at all either. It's completely broken. * Really needs the ability to toggle direction mode, i.e. always pointing north, or pointing in the direction of travel or the device's compass. I also would like to add a couple improvements that are not really flaws with the app: * Ability to record GPS path * Ability to share recordings/trails - would allow me to get rid of AllTrails

anoa_ 4y ago
For trip recording, in OsmAnd~'s sidebar check out the "Plugins" menu item and enable Trip Recording.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Not sure why this comment was dead - there is indeed a trip recording plugin. Would be nice if it were enabled by default.
aqfamnzc 4y ago
Another contributing factor with the jank is the "snapping" to discrete zoom levels. One of the primary benefits of rendering vector tiles is continuous zoom! Also, the direction mode toggle you mention does exist, and works quite well. The flipside of Osmand's awesome configurability is that it takes me 5 minutes of digging to figure out how to enable things like this.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Ruthalas 4y ago
Regarding the issues with search, this tool[0] uses OpenAddresses to facilitate more natural search. This largely rectified the address search in OSMAnd for me, though it does not update automatically and so requires occasional reapplication. Hope that helps! [0] https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation

g_p 4y ago

If you're looking for an alternative OSM app on Android or iOS that performs reasonably well, it might be worth checking out "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old maps.me), which is open source and based on OSM's mapping data.

fezfight 4y ago
I agree. Its extremely nice.