Working with the map

myTracks supports different kinds of maps: OpenStreetMap, Apple and the NASA Blue Marble. The maps from OpenStreetMap and NASA are downloaded from the internet and stored onto your local disk. These maps are also available when you are working offline. Apple Maps are also supported. These maps are not stored locally on the harddisk but they always need an active internet connection.

Note: myTracks does not support Google Maps due to licensing issues.

You can move the map with drag & drop and zoom using the mouse wheel or the zoom buttons. You can bookmark locations which you use often. Use the bookmarks menu to add new bookmarks and to organize them.

You can select a region in the map while pressing the shift key and the mouse button. myTracks zooms into this region when you release the mouse button.

The following screencast (no audio) shows how to work with the map and bookmarks:

How to integrate more maps

myTracks already provides various map types. These maps are available in the internet and their terms of use allow to use them free of charge.

If you have access to more map servers, you can provide a configuration file for accessing these servers. Technically this configuration file is an XML property list. The following example shows an example for such a file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>  
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">  
<plist version="1.0">  
  <dict>  
    <key>Name</key>  
    <string>OpenStreetMap - Mapnik</string>  
    <key>CacheFolder</key>  
    <string>MapOpenStreetMap1</string>  
    <key>MaxZoomLevel</key>  
    <integer>18</integer>  
    <key>MapURLs</key>  
    <array>  
      <string>http://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/_Z_/_X_/_Y_.png</string>  
      <string>http://b.tile.openstreetmap.org/_Z_/_X_/_Y_.png</string>  
      <string>http://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/_Z_/_X_/_Y_.png</string>  
    </array>  
  </dict>  
</plist>  

To configure the connection you have to set the following values:

• Name: The name of the map as it should be displayed in myTracks.
• CacheFolder: Name of a folder where the map tiles are stored locally. Please do not use any special characters for this folder.
• MaxZoomLevel: The maximum zoom level available for the map

• MapURLs: Here you have to specify one or more URLs for accessing the map tiles. You can use the following wildcards:

  • _X_: The index of the map tile in horizontal direction
  • _Y_: The index of the map tile in vertical direction
  • _Z_: The zoom level

You can only use map servers that provide maps as images in size 256x256 pixels. You cannot use map servers that provide maps as vector data.

To register such a configuration file you have to store it with the file extension ".maplayer". Then you have to drag&drop the file onto myTracks's dock icon. Finally you have to restart myTracks to make the new maps available.

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