Motorider map theme 5

[MotoUKRider]

(from discussions which began here)

Theme Update
Attached is the latest Theme ZIP for you all to try. As this is a Mapsforge "Rendertheme", it does not fully function when using OpenGL/VTM in Cruiser v4.

Here is how to apply the theme to Cruiser App:

Method 1:
Go to Settings-Application-Advanced and turn on Extended menu. This will give you some new tiles in the "Map" screen. Select "External map theme" and browse for the ZIP.

Method 2 (best):
Place the ZIP in Android\data\gr.talent.cruiser\files\themes or \Android\media\gr.talent.cruiser\themes depending on the selected "Storage folder" in app settings (you may need to create this path) and you'll see the themes in the normal theme picker/switcher. This allows you to to just overwrite the ZIP, reload the theme (to clear the cache) and enjoy the changes each time you load Cruiser - plus you can use the picker to compare old-vs-new very quickly.

On Desktop, just unzip the XMLs into a folder and open them from the menu.

Bugs/Observations/Requests: I am mainly looking for "behaviour" issues (rather than "I don't like yellow") - so if you know of an area where interesting object/road elements are, these are very useful to know about. When telling me of an issue, a lat/lon location (or OpenStreetMap query URL) is very helpful when telling me about odd things in areas you are familiar with. Also, the map source (eg: Freiz, Mapsforge, OpenAndro) and any other steps to replicate what you're seeing.

As of 4th Jan '25, this is how the default/light theme (rev 42) looks (with hillshading enabled):

Closer zoom:

Revision 42, 4th Jan: "Dark" theme hillshading (light grey) plus minor edits to residential roads
motorider-themes.zip

[DolomitesTom]

much better. Can the parking places be handled analogue to the gas stations? I don't see them even if I have switched on their layer.

[MotoUKRider]

@DolomitesTom Not exactly (ie: zoom 10) - it appears that due to <osm-tag key="amenity" value="parking" zoom-appear="14"/> hard-coded into the Tag Mapping of the maps, I cannot bring the icon in any earlier unless @devemux86 has a workaround that doesn't involve a map update?

[devemux86]

Maps are the same in both engines, so the themes adjust the visibility of the POI.

VTM themes declare amenity=parking at zoom 16 all this time.

[devemux86]

Motorider revision 4 is included in Cruiser 5.0.0-b3.

To use newer revisions with method 2, place the zip in "themes" folder and reload the theme.

(@MotoUKRider I updated your instructions)

[devemux86]

@bios4

It works, but it depends on the selected storage folder in app settings, "data" or "media".
I updated the description for both cases.

[bios4]

I updated the description for both cases.

UPDATE (tested right now again): it does NOT work in the media-folder (regardless if with or without the "files" subfolder) ON MY DEVICE...

[devemux86]

The "files" subfolder is a forced folder by Android and only exists in "data" storage (not "media").

I selected "media" as storage folder in app settings and it does not have "files" and "themes" works fine.

[bios4]

Maybe because my storage folder setting in Settings > Application > Advanced points to "data...\files"!??

[devemux86]

Maybe because my storage folder setting in Settings > Application > Advanced points to "data......\files"!??

@bios4 Obviously, the instructions mention that the path depends on the selected storage folder in app settings. 🙂

[devemux86]

In our e-mails, we have spoken about jar: vs file: - Are you aware that by using file: (and probably including the pattern files in the ZIP) the theme works under OpenGL better? forest|wood appears at 9 and then vanishes at 12 because the pattern cannot be found. I tried re-ordering the lines but it seems to be jar-vs-file doing it.

Is there a workaround for any die-hard v4 users who may enjoy the theme but don't want to a) make an edit or b) make us work with 2 more files?!

Originally posted here by @MotoUKRider.

[devemux86]

This theme is for Cruiser 5.

Engine 4 does not support "jar" and this theme can not work perfectly there anyway.
Motorider has its own theme there.

Similarly OpenAndroMaps and Freizeitkarte only work perfectly in Cruiser 5.

@MotoUKRider
Please do not change the "source" in the rules, so text comparison is easy to make.

[umpfmpf]

Now the names of rivers are displayed on the river, but when it becomes curvy the whole thing looks slightly confusing.

[umpfmpf]

[devemux86]

What is "near them"? The path labels follow the path geometry and are placed on the paths.

On too curvy paths, there might be to curvy labels, especially if you increase the font too much.

[MotoUKRider]

@umpfmpf The use of "pathtext" is preferable to "caption" because not only does the label remain within the bounds of the river/road, it doesn't paint it in a funny place.

Here's a good example of "caption" vs "pathtext":

The same happens with roads - you end up with a motorway label 300yrds into a field with the sheep!

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

This could "probably" be improved in Mapsforge code, after all it's open source, everyone can improve things!

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Indeed, but I wanted to give an example to users of why solving 1 problem often creates 2 more 😆

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider I would like to check it, but when I find free time from other development.

[MotoUKRider]

Theme revision 6 now updated in original post - "Parking" layer, when enabled, appears at zoom=14 with priority=85.

[MotoUKRider]

What is the opinion of the multi-coloured road reference labels?

This is the current style:

Or would you prefer basic black text?

[WolfgangZ42]

I'd vote for the basic black text.

[DolomitesTom]

If the text of the multicolored labels is not broader than the street width, then both are ok, otherwise the black.

[MotoUKRider]

Thanks @WolfgangZ42 and @DolomitesTom There is no provision for "filled fox" in this styling, so all I can do is set text colour with a "border" colour+thickness. A proper filled-box would be easier to read at any colour and could be made smaller, but we play the cards we are dealt!

Let's soak-test the latest release (with rev.7 theme built-in) and I'll report back later today after my ride 🏍️

[WolfgangZ42]

@MotoUKRider ... all I can do is set text colour with a "border" colour+thickness.

Can't you just use black as the text color and leave out the border color or set the thickness to zero? Or take border color in black too?
It's really not important - only a matter of taste!

[devemux86]

@WolfgangZ42

Labels without stroke border color are not readable in all backgrounds.

[devemux86]

May I also ask if the dark theme needs more colors in the various road types?

Now only highways (?) seem to have colors, the other road types are difficult to recognize from the environment.

[Ciutnik]

Banks, ATM, post offices, rent bikes, bus / train stops, etc. only in your screenshot.

Indeed, in the daytime theme they appear at a different zoom level.
Maybe my use of OAM maps also matters?

[MotoUKRider]

@Ciutnik That's nice work! I think "Dark" needs a splash of paint on the roads like in your example, I'll work on ideas later today.

During early beta tests, I sent a screenshot of "orphan" POIs to @devemux86 and we're aware that several are outside of the "Layers" option. Like train-stations, banks, churches etc. I think a sensible selection of "Groups" are required to handle these so that each type can be toggled on/off. Last year, I posted an old screenshot of the CoPilot ones as an example.

Finding a happy-fit between rural riders who like to see when they're approaching a landmark against city-riders who may not want "clutter" on the map, but perhaps just "Fuel" and "Parking".

[Ciutnik]

Let's also remember that the Cruiser is not only to serve motorists, but also cyclists or hikers (and maybe kayakers in the future?). Each group needs different sets of POIs. A difficult matter 🙂

[devemux86]

Indeed, in the daytime theme they appear at a different zoom level.
Maybe my use of OAM maps also matters?

Motorider light and dark versions should have the same zoom levels.
If you notice a difference, please let us know.

[devemux86]

Several of the visible POIs could be moved in a new "Services" category,
as they are mostly about services inside populated areas.

(if we don't want to add too many new layers)

[r11d11]

I have issues with zoom level 12 and Cruiser 5.0.0-b5 an Motorider Theme rev7

One example
To give you a feel for what the area south from Kaisernlautern in Germany looks like on my favourite Michelin map (I know the Michelin Map can never be included in Cruiser)

In Cruiser 5 Mapsforge zoomlevel 11 with Motorider and Car looks quit good
I only wish the Motorider theme had marked the street B48 with 48
And on my 6.3 zoll phone the streets are very very thin.
I am 60 years old. My eyes arent so good...
The font fpr the smal towns e.g. Iggelbach is o m phone also very very thin (on the screenshot on my PC it looks ok but not on my phone)

Then I zoomed to level 12
Why do I see every little hiking trail with the Motorider map theme? Do i have the wrong settings?
And the displayed trees makes it even worse. The green colour for forest would be sufficient
So on my small phone I can hardly recognise the streets in zoom level 12 :-(

And Kaiserlautern disappears (Kaiserlautern is there where you see the 10 petrol stations
In zoomlevel 13 Kaiserslautern is back again. And when I turn off the petrol station in zoom level 12 Kaiserslautern will be displayed???

[devemux86]

filling the area with a pattern - while it is impressive - somewhat reduces the clarity of the map

No problem with that, the patterns came from the default map we used as base.
Map clarity is more important. 🙂

Info: we never used patterns in 4 because OpenGL has problems with patterns.
(really with them too!)

---

adding a menu of contour lines, which I really like (requires OpenAndroMaps or Frezeitkarte maps).

This is nice, I'm afraid if we do it, users will start asking where are the contour lines with Mapsforge maps.

[Ciutnik]

Info: we never used patterns in 4 because OpenGL has problems with patterns.

I left the pattern for the swamp and.... military zone - I couldn't resist those tiny tanks 😁 But probably I will give up on them.

I'm afraid if we do it, users will start asking where are the contour lines with Mapsforge maps.

Perhaps the enabling menu should have the content : "Contour lines (only for OpenAndroMaps or Freizeitkarte)", or shorter "Contour lines (not for Mapsforge")?

[devemux86]

@Ciutnik

Do OpenAndroMaps and Freizeitkarte use the same tags for the contour lines?

[Ciutnik]

Indeed, on Freizeitkarte it looks completely different. I.e., the lines are drawn, but there are fewer of them and without value labels. With the rest, in general, the Motorider theme completely does not fit the Freizeitkarte map - I checked on PC, on Android it does not, but it probably does not fit here either.

[devemux86]

Checking the Elevate and Freizeitkarte themes, it seems that they use the same tags for the contour lines.
But they have different rules for their rendering.

As for the other tags, OpenAndroMaps seems more compatible, as Freizeitkarte may have some different tags.

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 9 now on the link at the top - By lowering the "Fuel" priority, the City/Town/Village labels now display over any icons.

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 10 now on the link at the top with a fix for land/sea rendering when using a "Freizeitkarte" map.

[r11d11]

@MotoUKRider
Installed Rev10 and I like it. Hiking trails at zoom level12 and 13 are gone 🙂 And I see Kaiserslautern with Petrol Station at zoom level 12. Thanks for the fast adjustments

[Ciutnik]

Sorry to bother you with my own theme redesigns, but there's a cool thing about the Elevate/Elements theme that I'd like to incorporate into my Motorider, and I don't know how. I'm talking about highlighting cobblestone roads, since I prefer to be aware of them along the route. It looks like this (OAM map/Elements):

I tried inserting different values of stroke-dasharray below the lines:

<rule e="way" k="highway" v="tertiary|residential|living_street">
<rule e="way" k="surface" v="paving_stones">

but nothing works for me 🤔

[Ciutnik]

@devemux86

Have you checked this area in OpenStreetMap to see its exact tags?

Yes, of course. For example this road (incidentally blocked by me, because although tertiary it is only for enduro!). In the surface tag it clearly has the value paving_stones and the street from the image above has the value concrete:plates. But only rendering them as smooth_paved gave the effect. Why such a strange tag? The surface tag Wiki doesn't even mention it.

[devemux86]

@Ciutnik Then how did you find this tag?

What maps do you use, Mapsforge?
In Mapsforge tag-mapping the surface tag does not have fixed values, so it collects what the highway contains.

[Ciutnik]

Then how did you find this tag?

This is what I spent hours on, reviewing the 8000 lines of the Elevate/Elements theme :-)

What maps do you use, Mapsforge?

Hmm, this only affects OpenAndroMaps! Is it possible that they introduced their own tags, such as the mentioned for example smooth_paved? Maybe they knew that such a trick is the only way to distinguish paving_stones or concrete? That would explain why with the Elevate/Elements theme this trick works.

[devemux86]

this only affects OpenAndroMaps!

OpenAndroMaps may merge some tags to render them in one rule.
See their tag-mapping, the smooth_paved contains various surfaces.

They publish their included tags and possible transformations:

• OpenAndroMaps tag-mapping

• OpenAndroMaps tag-transform

[Ciutnik]

OpenAndroMaps may merge some tags to render them in one rule.

OK, and everything (almost) became clear. I must admit that I was very intrigued as to why my theme doesn't want to render some tag values properly and others render, although I don't know why. Thanks a lot for checking this out and sorry for taking up your valuable time. I learned something new on a subject as wide as the sea.

[Ciutnik]

@devemux86 already pointed out the difference between pathtext and caption. But can both types exist side by side? This is Motorider v10 🙂

EDIT: OK, I already know: one is a "river" and the other is a "stream/canal". No problem.

[devemux86]

(I do not have this offline map currently available to make tests)

@MotoUKRider
Why the "Wisłok" caption appears away from the river.
(I fixed this in b4)

@Ciutnik
Does the river also exists near / under the yellow street?

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 I couldn't replicate that (so either older beta or text % increase), but what I have looked at is reverting canal/river captions to "pathtext" as they look better inside the water, but not always - sometimes they wind around the curvy shape of the river, other times they are perfectly fine in straighter water.

If they remain as "captions", then although a different colour, there may be more chance of them getting in the way of other labels.

[devemux86]

I couldn't replicate that

@Ciutnik probably needs to reload the map theme to reset the old cache.

---

@MotoUKRider

Note that some rivers may exist as polygons in OpenStreetMap database and in offline maps / themes.

[Ciutnik]

However, I definitely prefer pathtext. It can sometimes cause funny hangs like the screenshot shown earlier, but I think in the vast majority of cases (river) it is better.

Does the river also exists near / under the yellow street?

The name of the river covers the road (it's not just this river and this road). Maybe it was always like that and I didn't notice?

Although I try to continuously implement changes released by @MotoUKRider, it may happen that I miss something. This is unfortunately a disadvantage of making changes on your own. My own theme is already different from the original in 360 lines... 🙄 Yes, I am aware that I "lose the manufacturer's warranty" 😉

By the way (maybe for use in the original theme?): I have adopted a rule that all natural objects: forests, mountains, lakes, islands, rivers, parks, mountain peaks, etc., are written in Serif bold_italic. Waters in blue, forests in green.

[Ciutnik]

@devemux86 @MotoUKRider

Why the "Wisłok" caption appears away from the river.
(I fixed this in b4)

Holy crap, excuse me, I just noticed that I haven't updated the app on the tablet I'm testing themes on!!! I just didn't do it on this one 🤦‍♂️ Sorry, but I blame it on Covid, which fortunately I am recovering from now.

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 11 now on the top post - this includes some work on labels for canals/rivers and more importantly, roads. I've attempted to make use of a "repeat" setting for labels that follow the road (pathtext), what you see on Desktop is quite different from the App - and also area dependent so what looks good in one place may look funny elsewhere.

At 100% font size, things are OK most of the time!

[umpfmpf]

@MotoUKRider
Is there an option to leave out the hiking trails and footpaths as well as the suggested trees in forest areas in order to make the map clearer and perhaps a little faster?

[umpfmpf]

My Zoom for Font is 240%, for the Lines is 120%, for Symbols is 150%.
The Position is 50,09 and 9,21

[MotoUKRider]

@umpfmpf Thanks for the info - I found it but am a little confused by your settings.
Simply put: You can't enlarge everything by umpteen % and then complain that there are too many things there. I think if you mis-match the % levels then it's likely that bizarre lines/objects will occur.

At zoom 13/14/15 - this is what I see with default options (but no hill-shading):

[umpfmpf]

[umpfmpf]

It looks not so much different

[umpfmpf]

So it looks with the style from Leeb64. Very clean.

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 36 with some minor fixes, and I also found a "sports" area that still had a line-stroke outline.

What looks "too light" in Desktop is almost "just right" in App so I need to do a lot of checking when it comes to contrast of background fill vs road objects.

I also need to move my Cruiser from "data" to "media" as Cx File Explorer no longer lets me copy/paste into the "themes" sub-folder 😢 This, since the last Android security update, has made theme testing a real PITA.

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider From the first quick tests, very nice result! 👍

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

I also found a "sports" area that still had a line-stroke outline

You can do the same improvement:

as the rule now has only the comment,
it is better to comment the whole rule, so less calculations are done by the parser.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Yes, in my defence it was before 9am and during my first coffee - forgetting that I case just encase the whole rule!

[MotoUKRider]

Trying some theme ideas out, and I think that if we ensure that any building or its area is a brown (ie: brick) colour, that will leave grey for roads (ie: concrete). The road "names" have been softened with a lower colour so that residential navigation does not cause too much glare at high zooms. The "names" of Pri/Sec/Ter roads also have this style, but not their "ref".

I pinched the softer text idea from GoogleMaps, their night fonts aren't entirely "white"!

[bios4]

The road casings have always been pure white, but I can grey them down a bit.

Could you provide an example screenshot how it WOULD look like with the road casings fully "invisible" @MotoUKRider?
I really like the "clean" look without them in your Indigo theme and am courious how it would look like with the Dark color scheme...

[MotoUKRider]

@bios4 See above: The residential roads don't have them.

[bios4]

Yes, therefore I was courious how the theme would look like with them also removed from the higher ranked road types... 😉

Can you let me know which code is responsible to remove the outlines?
Then I'll try it on my own to see what it looks like...

[MotoUKRider]

@bios4 Search the XML for "highway casings" - it's fairly well commented, then you can see the road types and you'll also see how I've commented-out the residential ones.

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 37 available on the top post - Along with a few minor colour/size tweaks, I have made an adjustment to residential roads between zoom 12-15 so that another level of detail is added (13-14) just to prevent too much splodges of grey in built-up areas/cities - it thins the lines out a bit, not as noticeable on Desktop but makes a big difference on the App.

As "Dark" is not using casings on a residential road, this new section has been added but commented-out to keep the 2 files aligned.

If are you very handy with your crayons, it's possible to make all sorts of pretty things given enough time - Here is what most people that use Garmin's BaseCamp see with a default map and this is what I see after a learning all the mkgmap parameters, merging terrain data and watching endless sessions of map compiling.

[Ciutnik]

@MotoUKRider
Great job! Garmin could learn from you, but since they haven't done that they've lost me (and probably many others) as a loyal user long ago 🤷
Apart from watches, which are great by the way, is there anything else that interests them?

[MotoUKRider]

@Ciutnik Thanks, it's somewhat satisfying that I can bring new life to an application that seems to have been forgotten - there is lots of grumpy hate for BaseCamp on FB touring groups and I think much of that stems from the CGA quality maps they have. I found the click+elastic routing quite easy to learn and the jumping between stored routes without a reload+calculation makes it easy to look at multi-route tours.

I have never used a Garmin sat-nav so I export to a GPX, and Cruiser loads them perfectly. I am more than happy to work with a flat file and blame myself if Computer and Phone are not sync'd 🔄 properly. There are some odd bugs/quirks with Garmin styling which I haven't found a way to tame, but the TYP Editor lets me be creative with icons and the important thing is that you can see what type of roads are where.

Having grown up in the MS-DOS era, that came in handy as I created a batch-file to handle mkgmap/splitter with a series of menus/options to extract, split and build a map. I even have a polyfile creator to draw custom maps. Elsewhere on the forum here I've posted a picture of a GPX exporter which creates a few Favorite Groups for Cruiser from a single GPX - highlighting that my early OCD naming of Waypoints would bare fruit a few years down the road!

Editing XML themes here is mostly about picking colours from the palette and pressing F5 lots of times. It's really trial 'n' error to make colour changes so unless you start adding new rules for zoom levels, it's not something you'd call "coding" - just ensure you have a good supply of ☕ 🍺 🍷 and prepare to practice your Alt-Tab, CTRL-C, CTRL-V multi-tasking!

[MotoUKRider]

Some minor updates to the theme ZIP this evening (no revision change).

In "Light" theme: I thought that service roads needed a tweak as some (UK observations) appear as short dead-end extensions to residential roads and the casings looked odd as the residential rendering didn't match. Residential areas a shade darker to give better contrast to white road cores. This also helps highlight the area at zoom-12 when the fill-colour kicks in as the main background went a shade darker a few revisions back.

I also moved my Cruiser install folder from "data" to "media" so I once again have read/write access in Cx File Explorer. This makes WiFi transfer of new theme ZIP really easy (plugging in the USB cable to the PC was getting tedious). A note for @devemux86 that when you change the storage path and Cruiser asks if you want to delete the data, it may be helpful if there's a copy option or some kind of message like: "you may lose your routing data and all of your favourite cake stops if you press OK".

What also got me (and I had to refer to your walkthrough at the top of page for this!) was the \files not being present in the "media" sub-folder - and I wondered why none of my maps/themes would show... Small issue, but I worked it out and moved the contents up 1 level although somebody could easily get into a pickle with this process.

🎄 Incidentally, one can never have too many ideas for routes so I would suggest this book if family are asking what they can get the biker in their life for Xmas 🎅

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

Change storage location (a very advanced option) can keep app internal data, like favorites and profiles.
External downloaded data like offline maps, hillshading, routing data need to download them.

About the folder paths, they are set automatically by Android, apps cannot change them, only use them.
So data and media use different paths.
Also, media has been deprecated by Android, we don't know how long it will work.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 The way Google is going, it may just be easier to buy a phone, send it to them and let them operate it how they want to operate it. All I want is to be able to read/write the data (especially my own) on a device that is mine. I do not have an SD Card slot, but a top-level folder option would be nice.

I appreciate a level of protection in the first instance, but if somebody deletes a file/folder after saying "Allow" to the first prompt, and then "Yes, I know this may all end in tears" at the second prompt then it's on them and they should be allowed to do it.

So, move everything back to "data" and use the "Extended menu" option to load an external theme being the way forward, then?

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider

So, move everything back to "data" and use the "Extended menu" option to load an external theme being the way forward, then?

For now the media folder works, but we don't know what they will do in the future.
Opening external files through the Android file browser is their recommendation.

[Ciutnik]

Also, media has been deprecated by Android, we don't know how long it will work.

This is another bad and annoying message from Google. I keep my data there for most programs that allow it. I just like to see what's there and sometimes sync it.

[Sublimis]

mapsforge/mapsforge#1590 (comment)

One observation. We'll just copy here, for better visibility:

Does this have to be a shade of light gray and not pure white? We just got rid of the awful gray layer of "neutral hills" and we were like "Oh no, not again!" 😅 Check out the before/after screenshot below:

[Sublimis]

Must disagree on the "white is too intense for eyes" reason to use shades of gray. There are better ways to handle this, e.g. lowering the screen brightness or using a dark theme. If that's not too much work, there could even be a third theme (common these days), e.g. "light", "dark", "night". Contrast shouldn't be sacrificed in a light theme just for the sake of eye sensitivity, just think of using a map in bright sunlight in summer.

[MotoUKRider]

The question of how you apply colours to features/objects may be never-ending!

For example, we use grey to denote buildings in "Light", but brown in "Dark" theme. Do we use grey for concrete (ie: roads) and brown for brick/buildings in both themes (perhaps different shades)? The residential area fill is a shade of grey, which denotes a populated area at a medium zoom level. I have experimented with removing "rules" as you zoom in, but it seems like an odd behaviour to experience. I know some City/Town labels vanish, but there's a logic behind that: Making room for POIs and Road Names.

Other considerations are the regional variations for road types like motorway/blue (or is it a river?), trunk/green (not a forest) and the best route-line colour. Change one thing, and there's something else, usually at zoom 15, in Corsica, that doesn't look right!

[bios4]

Unless we also change the color of the buildings

What @Ciutnik did, as you can see on his screenshot. 😉

The question of how you apply colours to features/objects may be never-ending!

Sure. And because no standard theme can ever satisfy everyone, I asked for the implementation of Ciutnik.
So I could possibly apply all changes I want to a personal theme.

[bios4]

By the way: thanks a lot @MotoUKRider for the endless effort you put into that outstanding map theme until now!

[Ciutnik]

@bios4

Any chance @Ciutnik that you share your map theme

Of course, please use as you wish. Light and dark set 🙂
File dates indicate that it was modified in early October and until then it was "fairly consistent" with the original Motorider.

At the very end there are my own additions in the form of patterns on cobblestone roads, which I am not a fan of 😉

Motorider_moje.zip

[bios4]

Thanks for providing your theme @Ciutnik.

I'm currently changing things back & forth to make a - for me! - perfect mixture of "Motorider"/"Biker"/"Ciutnik"... 😉

[Sublimis]

A few more remarks. (Not sure if this is the right place, but it seems right)

Mapsforge just got improved hill shading with adaptive algorithm and the color feature. You can see some screnshots and more details here: mapsforge/mapsforge#1592.

What this means for theming:

• There is now the color="#aarrggbb" attribute in the <hillshading> render theme element. The default color is #FF000000; the color can also be set via code. Check out the examples at the bottom.
• With the adaptive hill shading algorithm (now considered the default) the zoom levels at which hill shading is visible cannot be enforced via render theme, only via code. Therefore the zoom-min and zoom-max attributes are just suggestions for the adaptive algorithm (currently ignored).
• If you were using a desktop app when theming (with hill shading enabled), you may see slightly different colors starting today. There is no more luminance filter on desktop (AWT) apps, that was previously enabled by default. It was used in the past to reduce the effect of the "neutral hills" gray overlay, which is not present any more. Check out the example below:

Left is without the luminance filter (real colors); on the right is with the luminance filter (skewed colors, not used any more)

Example of hill shading in color

[devemux86]

@Sublimis Thanks for your excellent work on hill shading in Mapsforge! 👍

Adaptive hill shading (with default color) is available in:

• Cruiser 5.2.0 (Beta) #690

[MotoUKRider]

Next update will see thinner cycleway casings* and possibly the last of the bridge highlight tweaks.

• They remain active (but not blue) in "Dark", but are they necessary and, if removed, maybe brighten the fill colour so they stand out more?

Are there any daft/silly/odd lines+looks that I have missed? I'm not talking about "I don't like pink forests or blue trees" but some strange look like a minor path/road being too big or something. I'm aware that some transparent fills remain which require careful looking around exotic places as we don't get too many glaciers or volcanoes in England 🤡

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 39 now updated with some improvements.

bridge lines have been tidied-up to match their road features.

cycleway now appears at zoom-15 (was 17) as its bridge came in at 15. End result is residential roads and cycleway now fully render at the same zoom, and look better for it. They also stand out more "Dark" mode (trying to find a decent blue/light combo without looking like a river or Tron ™️ line!)

[bios4]

Thanks again for your work on the theme! 👍

I'm currently changing things back & forth to make a - for me! - perfect mixture of "Motorider"/"Biker"/"Ciutnik"... 😉

By doing so I found that e.g. some underpasses/tunnels are plottet above railroad tracks.

So is there a possibility to assign a "z-index" to roads (or underpasses, respectively) within the theme?
Or is this information purely handled in OSM?

Thanks in advance for any information about this topic...

And Merry Christmas to all of you!!! 🎄 🎅

[devemux86]

So is there a possibility to assign a "z-index" to roads (or underpasses, respectively) within the theme?

All rendering instructions are drawn on the map in the order of their definition (see documentation):

• Tunnels
• Roads
• Bridges

[bios4]

Hmm...

If the order (earlier parts are displayed first?) in the XML controls the display, I don't understand why railroad tracks (; from line 1318 in the theme) are displayed UNDER road tunnels (; from line 454 in the theme).

Examples:

Would I have to add priority if I wanted to change that?

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 The place @bios4 is referring to is here.

What I think is happening is that the railway lines are not defined as a bridge, so the layers are mixed-up and Cruiser renders it according to its own rules. Using an area that I know, the rail-over-road is defined with a bridge=viaduct and renders correctly.

The joys of community-based editing!

[devemux86]

For such tests it is best to check multiple locations, especially if you know the areas.
If other locations render correctly, then it's probably a problem with the tags of this location.

[Sublimis]

@MotoUKRider Any chance of making the hill shadings visible in the dark theme (via theme alone)? A simple solution would be to make the background not #000000 of course, but now maybe the hill shading color feature could be used as well...

[devemux86]

@Sublimis This would be nice, something like the above images.

@MotoUKRider Please wait for the next Cruiser update to work on this, as it requires a fix in Mapsforge.

[MotoUKRider]

Revision 40 now on the top post.

I have added a minor rendering (2-stage draw) fix to construction which makes the roads appear better when you have a new build of homes near/off residential (3-stage draw) roads.

"Dark" theme has lighter residential area fill and roads plus 1-shade lighter "green" areas.

It's worth mentioning (probably for the nth time) that the Dark theme is merely a safe-driving/riding theme rather than a "I need to see every single map feature in its own colour" theme - that's what the "Light" theme is for. I have experimented with much lighter features in the Dark theme and it gets distracting to the point of potentially dangerous, and nobody liked the "indigo" theme that absolutely did not look like another App beginning with "G" 🤡

[devemux86]

I posted a link above that has some screenshots of OsmAnd dark theme:
https://osmand.net/docs/user/map/vector-maps/

@MotoUKRider Have you checked them?

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Yes, and plenty of image searches, but this is mostly trial'n'error in terms of work rather than writing something that you know will work, but just take time.

Some more tweaks in the latest ZIP:

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider It seems you updated the theme in revision 41, but didn't announce it?

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 There was something I wanted to work on (residential road rendering at zoom-14 Light vs Dark) but I don't think it's a major issue. Casings/Cores are same stroke, but colours make it seem like the Dark has thicker/more-visible lines as we removed them in minor roads for "Dark" meaning that the core takes up the casing stroke, so possibly up to 1.5pt thicker.

(I assume that colour is the only difference you want between themes? I am trying to avoid a stroke mis-match)

Also, unclassified are a bit thicker, mainly as I noticed that if you're in a rural area, it may be useful to see them but if they are within residential areas then they stand out a bit. A 50% chance of annoying someone 😏

When updating the opening screenshots, I had this one which triggered my uncertainty:

Now it's been mentioned there'll be a seminar about it 🎨

[devemux86]

I assume that colour is the only difference you want between themes?

@MotoUKRider Please do it like this.

The themes must have exactly the same structure and only different colors, so that we can easily compare them.
You can comment the rules you don't want to use.

---

About the road casings / cores, the cores are above the casings, so they have always full width.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Right.
So, as a workaround, a residential road casing could have the same residential area-fill which would give the impression of a thinner line. I would have to work on the principle that all residential roads were in residential areas 😒

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider Any chance of making the hill shadings visible in the dark theme (via theme alone)? A simple solution would be to make the background not #000000 of course, but now maybe the hill shading color feature could be used as well...

@MotoUKRider You can use Cruiser 5.2.0-b3 to work on this.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 @Sublimis there is a new revision (42) at the top of this page with a grey hill-shading effect in the "Dark" theme. This piñata would probably benefit from a config option within Cruiser app 🤡

Spoiler Alert - it doesn't work in Desktop (for me, at least).

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider Thanks for the report.

This is a problem in Mapsforge library, I created and issue:

• Change hill shading color does not work on desktop mapsforge/mapsforge#1609

cc @Sublimis

[Leeb64]

I was recently in a city at night - with night mode.
You can't actually see anything while driving except the planned route. You can't see any junctions etc. -> Flying blind!
I then converted my day mode (based on Motorider) into a night mode.
DAYmode:
mototwix301224.zip
NIGHTmode:
mototwix281224DARK.zip
Not ideal yet...but you can easily see all the streets(important!).
Turquoise is a suitable routing color for NIGHTmode.

[MotoUKRider]

@Leeb64 I've used "Dark" several times in the car (I don't use voice prompts) and haven't had any issue with a Samsung S20. I use a blue route line. It works for you, which is good - so nice work on having a go 👏 There are only 16.7m colours to work with 🎨 🤣

Looking at your "Dark" theme, line 382 where you define the heath colour - you may want to change it from a similar blue to the sea! Look around the north of the UK at zoom-10, just below the Scotland border, most of the land becomes waterlogged 🤽 I would prefer buildings to take less priority than the roads - perhaps the casings on smaller roads could return and then their colour would not be such as issue, the outline would be easy to see.

I have deliberately avoidance harsh colours in "Dark" like red, pink, orange etc - the latest revision has been improved but I think I will re-investigate the casings on minor roads to assist town navigation.

I think the "big" apps have the theme right: A mostly dark grey/indigo style with outlines to show where roads are plus a subtle shade for buildings - switching out to a colour/feature-rich map during "planning".

[Leeb64]

This is just an experiment to see if the streets are easier to see.I didn't care about the details...
The visibility of roads is important, especially at night. You have other things to do than stare at the smartphone screen and try to see something... All the landscape stuff is not so important.. - I usually do planning in day mode...

[MotoUKRider]

@Leeb64 You'll find it's much easier to get a theme right when you're the only one viewing it 😆

[Leeb64]

Exakt!

[devemux86]

@MotoUKRider Desktop Cruiser 5.2.0-b3.1 is available with the fix for hillshading color.

[MotoUKRider]

@devemux86 Nice fix - screenshot of Apps updated in top post.