ViewRanger Tips

ViewRanger Tips

This document provides tips on using the Android version of the ViewRanger navigation app (version 8.1.28 [3]). The version number can be found by pressing the ... ellipsis menu, then Help & Feedback > About.

Important If you have recently installed ViewRanger, visit your online account and review your preferences under your account profile, especially your Track preferences > Default privacy settings which might be set to Public thereby exposing potentially sensitive information when tracks are automatically uploaded. I would strongly recommend setting this to Private (Visible to only me) until you are proficient with how the app and website work.

Offline Maps

Creating an Offline Map

These instructions describe one method of accessing the map download option. An alternative is via the ... ellipsis menu My Maps > MY MAPS, scroll down to show the list of ONLINE MAPS and select the map layer to be downloaded.

Click the map icon on the navigation bar
Click the map layers icon (2D image of overlapping squares) to the top-right of the map.
If necessary, set the current online map to the type to be downloaded by clicking Online Maps then selecting the map layer from the list. Repeat the two previous instructions to return to the map options page.
Select Download a Custom Offline Area.
Select Regional to create a map with zoom levels between 10 and 12 inclusive, or choose Detailed to create a map with zoom levels between 13 and 16 inclusive.
The map is displayed with a DOWNLOAD button. A status bar at the top of the map shows how many tiles have been selected and an estimate of the storage space required to save those tiles for all the zoom levels. There is also a drop-down selection box above where you can change between the Regional and Detailed options.
The toolbar at the bottom of the map allows the mode to be toggled between panning the map and selecting tiles by clicking on Pan map or Select tile depending on the current mode. The overlay showing routes and waypoints can be toggled on and off by clicking the Switch ove... button. The selected tiles can be cleared by clicking the Clear button.
Select the tiles covering the desired area by clicking on the relevant tile. Clicking a tile a second time de-selects it. Use the toolbar buttons to zoom in and out and pan the map as needed.
Click the DOWNLOAD button to save the offline map. You will be prompted for a name. You can easily rename the custom map later, so accepting the default name or entering something simple will do. A success message is displayed when the download is complete. Click CLOSE.

Managing and Using Offline Maps

Display the My Maps page by clicking the ellipsis menu followed by My Maps > MY MAPS. Your custom maps are displayed in a list on the ON DEVICE tab as well as on the MY MAPS tab. The latter includes maps that you have created and subsequently removed from the device, but not removed from your account. It provides the option to re-download the selected tiles.
To see more options for managing a custom map, click the map details elsewhere than the Open option.
Choose the Open Map option to use the map offline.

Checking an Offline Map

After selecting to use an offline map, when you display the map where the offline map does not have tiles at the requested zoom level, it appears that ViewRanger will fetch tiles from either the cache or from any other offline map from the same map source. Thus if you download both the regional and detailed tiles from the same map source, you can seamlessly zoom in and out across all the zoom levels of both maps.

Therefore, if you wish to test your offline map to confirm that all required tiles for your journey are actually going to be available, you need to make sure you're offline, e.g. using Airplane mode and also clear ViewRanger's tile cache.

To clear the cache, click the ... ellipsis menu, then Settings > Map > Clear Cache. Enter a value of zero for the number of days to keep to delete all of them. Click OK and confirm when prompted.

Routes

Importing a Route From a GPX File

You may be able to use a file manager to open the GPX file, or choose the Open option with whatever application you are using to obtain the GPX file on your device. Otherwise, you can use ViewRanger to import the GPX file.

Open the ... ellipsis menu, then select Import / Export.
Select Import externally.
The system file browser is displayed.
Browse to the directory containing the file to be imported it. Click on the file and confirm YES to import it. After import the app displays a message confirming import with a CLOSE button. Click the button
To view the route, click the head-and-shoulders icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen, then click the ROUTES tab. All routes on the device are listed.
Click on the route to see it's details. Note that the vertical ellipsis menu provides options such as deleting the route or choosing to jump to the map and show the route. You can also hide and show all routes from this menu.

Following a Route

Display the list of routes on the device by clicking the head-and-shoulders icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen, then click the ROUTES tab. All routes on the device are listed. Alternatively, you can click the plus + button on the map, then select Follow Route
Click on the route to see it's details.
Click 'Start Route' to start following it.
The map is displayed with a padlock icon indicating that the map is locked. To move the map manually, click the padlock icon.
A track log is automatically started and the current trip time is displayed in a blue circular button on the map.
The large arrow in the bottom of the screen points in the direction to follow. The background is yellow if you're slightly off-route and red if you're more off-route.
To view information about the trip and view options such as pausing the track, click on the blue circular trip time button on the map page.
To terminate navigation, click on the big navigation direction arrow at the bottom right of the screen and click Stop navigate.

Trouble-shooting

iOS Workouts not recorded

Go to Settings -> Health -> Data Access & Devices -> ViewRanger.
Select Turn All Categories Off then Turn All Categories On. Future ViewRanger workout sessions should be recorded.

-- Frank Dean - 29 Jul 2020

-- Frank Dean - 12 Dec 2017