Planning Routes & Tracks

Opening the Planner

Several doors, depending on where you are:

• Quick Actions → Planner — from the map, a new empty plan.
• ADD GPX → Create with Planner — in the Loaded GPX Files panel. Also a new plan.
• Edit — on a loaded file’s details (it reads Edit in Planner everywhere else). The file becomes the plan: every route, track and waypoint it holds is listed and editable, and saving writes back into it (or into a new file, see Saving).
• HUB → GPX Manager → a file’s details → Edit in Planner — on your own files only, not on community files or files shared with you. The HUB closes and the planner opens on the file. A file that is not loaded yet is loaded first, as Load on Map would, and the planner opens once it is ready.
• Riding group → Files → Active GPX → Edit in Planner — for the group’s owner, admins and moderators, while the group is your active group and its GPX is on your map. The planner works on a copy of the group’s GPX, and the group’s line leaves your map while you edit. Edit in Planner on the group file’s details in Loaded GPX Files opens the same way.

A plan always opens on the SECTIONS list. A new plan is empty and says Tap + New to add your first section; a loaded file shows its sections. While the planner is open the map is your workspace: the indicator cards and the Riding Group and Trip Sharing buttons step aside, and the bottom bar belongs to the planner.

The Planner Screen

• Landscape — the map takes about 60 % of the screen, the planner panel the rest, with the three tabs down the panel’s edge: SECTIONS, WAYPOINT and FILE. Badges on the tabs count what the plan holds.
• Portrait — the planner shares the screen with the map half and half, and the tabs sit as a bar under the panel. The floating toggle over the header and the drag handle on the seam work as in every other map view, and rotating the device mid-plan keeps everything where it was.
• Title bar — the plan’s file name, ‹ (back) and + NEW on the lists.
• Bottom bar — CANCEL and SAVE on the lists. Inside a section editor it becomes the editor’s: the point mode, what you are editing, a tool button (DRAW on tracks), UNDO, REDO and DONE. Short how-tos appear in its middle for a few seconds when you open an editor, pick a point mode, show an anchor’s points or turn on Draw, then the section’s totals come back.
• HIDE — at the end of the tabs. The planner panel folds away to a thin strip on the right (at the bottom in portrait) and the map takes the room, with the bottom bar still the planner’s — handy for drawing a long line. Tap the blue tab on the strip to bring the panel back exactly as you left it.

Sections: Routes & Tracks

A GPX file is a list of sections, each a route or a track, plus waypoints. + NEW asks which kind, with a tile for each:

• Route (turn-by-turn) — a list of stops. DMD routes between them with the riding profile you choose, and the result gives turn-by-turn and reroutes you back onto it.
• Track (exact line) — a line built from anchors: joined along roads and trails, snapped to the nearest road, or exactly as you tap. It is the shape of the ride, drawn identically by every tool.

Each row shows the section’s name, its kind, length and stop or point count, a colour swatch, and a ⋯ button. Tap the row to edit the section; ⋯ opens its menu:

• Edit details — the section’s name and description.
• Set colour — one of twelve line colours, or the default.
• Hide on map / Show on map — keeps the section in the file but off the map. Hidden rows are dimmed.
• Invert direction — reverses the stops or the line.
• Convert to track / Convert to route — a route’s routed line becomes a track with anchors at its stops; a track’s anchors (up to 40) become a route’s stops.
• Reduce points and Merge with next — tracks only, see Editing a Track.
• Remove section — after confirmation.

Name and description are written into the GPX and travel with the file — the HUB web planner shows both.

Cutting a Section

CUT on the bottom bar (in the sections list, or in an editor, which finishes its section first) turns the cut tool on. Now tap a section’s line on the map: it is cut in two right there, and the second part appears below it as Name (2).

• A track keeps all its own points and anchors; the cut becomes the end of the first part and the start of the second.
• A route is cut on its road line: the stops before the cut stay with the first part, the rest go to the second, and the cut point is the last stop of one and the first of the other. The line, the turn instructions and the time are shared out, so neither part needs routing again.
• A tap too close to either end of a line cuts nothing, and a tap away from every line just says so.
• UNDO and REDO on the bar take cuts back and forward; DONE (or Back) turns the tool off.

Editing a Route

A route is its stops. The editor lists them in order, with the routed line and its stop pins on the map.

Working the Stops

• Tap a stop — its pin, or its row in the list — to select it. Its pin and row light up and buttons appear on the map beside it: MOVE (the next tap on the map places it), ⋯ (name the stop and read its coordinates) and DELETE. A tap on the open map puts it down again.
• Drag a stop’s pin to move it. It lands on the nearest road when you let go, and the route recalculates once.
• Reorder — drag a stop’s row by its grip handle. The route recalculates once, when you let go.
• Route Style — the riding profiles the rest of DMD uses, including the Offroad and Adventure rider options. Change it at any point and the line redraws. A new route starts with the style you picked last.
• Undo / Redo — every edit is reversible, a move, a reorder or a deletion included. A drag and its snap to the road are one step.
• DONE — back to the list. A section that is already in the file also offers Remove section here.

Editing a Track

A track is an exact line. You shape it with anchors — handles on the line — and a point mode that decides how the line runs between them.

An Anchor’s Points

Tap an anchor’s row to show the points it carries (the row’s arrow turns down) and tap it again to hide them; HIDE POINTS in the bottom bar does the same. One anchor’s points show at a time, up to 80 (reduce points or add an anchor closer for a longer stretch). Points are not anchors: they are small white dots on the map and Point 1, Point 2… rows under their anchor, and the anchors keep their numbers.

• Tap a point to select it — MOVE and DELETE appear beside it. Tap its row to select it and bring it on screen.
• Drag a point to move it; it lands exactly where you drop it.
• Tap the line between two points to add a point there. Zoom in where the points sit close together.
• Showing and hiding points is not an edit; what you change while they show is, and Undo brings the points back to redo it.

Draw

DRAW in the bottom bar turns the map into paper: draw with one finger, and lifting the finger places one anchor — all the points you drew belong to it, so a long stroke is one anchor, not a wall of pins. A light line follows your finger. In Snap and Connect the stroke is then routed along the roads it follows (online, or offline with the routing data for the area) and the anchors land on the road; where no road is found it stays as drawn. In Free it stays exactly as drawn. The map does not pan while DRAW is on — tap DRAWING to get panning back, or use HIDE first to draw across the whole map.

Reduce Points

Thins a dense track (a recording, a drawn line) to the points that carry its shape. Also on the section’s ⋯ menu, next to Merge with next, which joins the section to the one after it.

Waypoints

The WAYPOINT tab lists the file’s waypoints — the named pins with an icon and a note that a GPX carries alongside its lines. + NEW or a long-press on the map adds one where you press.

• The form takes a name, a description and an icon (35 symbols in 7 groups — fuel, food, lodging, viewpoints, hazards…), and shows the coordinates. The pin moves live while you edit.
• Tap a waypoint’s row or its pin for Edit, Move (the next long-press relocates it), Hide / Show on the map, Save to My Locations (a copy in your HUB locations, kept when the file goes) and Delete.
• Route stops are not waypoints: they are the route’s own points and stay with the route.

The File Tab & Saving

The FILE tab shows the plan’s name and what it holds, and carries the file actions. SAVE in the bottom bar does the same from anywhere.

• The name at the top of the tab is yours to change — tap it, type the name, SAVE. A new plan is saved under it instead of the generated Planned_… name; a loaded file takes it when you save, whether or not it is synced, and your own HUB copy is renamed with it the next time that file syncs. If your library already has a file by that name the planner says so: Use it anyway keeps both files — nothing is ever replaced — and Change the name takes you back to the field with what you typed.
• A new plan is saved as its sections are — there is no format question, each section already has its shape — and lands in your library like any other GPX, offered to your HUB GPX Manager for sync. Everything on Loaded Files & Details applies to it afterwards.
• A loaded file asks Save changes (writes the sections back into it) or Save as new file (leaves the original alone). When it is your own HUB file, Save changes is followed by the same Save changes to HUB? as any edit of a HUB file: Save updates your HUB copy so your other devices get the change, Always does so from now on without asking, and Not now keeps the change on this device only — see Edits to Your HUB Files.
• A riding group’s active GPX (owner, admins and moderators) asks Update group GPX — everyone in the group gets your changes as their map loads the new version — or Save as new file. Updating needs a connection: without one the planner stays open so you can save a new file instead, and if the HUB refuses the update you are offered the same. The group’s GPX is replaced as a whole, so map drawings the HUB website had merged into it are not part of the update; the drawings themselves stay on the group’s map.
• Some files can only be saved as a new file, and the planner says why: a recording, the file you are navigating, a riding group’s active file you do not manage, a signature track, or a HUB file you do not own.
• CANCEL (or ‹) asks Discard plan? whenever something would be lost.

Route or Track?

They are not interchangeable, which is why both exist and why Convert is on every section’s menu:

• Route keeps the stops, the riding profile and the turn instructions — so DMD can give you turn-by-turn, reroute you back onto it, and the HUB planner can reopen and edit it. The line is only reproducible by a router: open it somewhere that recalculates with a different engine and you may get a different line.
• Track is the shape of the ride. It cannot give turn-by-turn, but every tool draws it exactly as planned — what you want for a line on trails, where someone else’s router would happily “correct” it onto tarmac. DMD follows a track with Track Navigation.