UPIDfind

ThatWay! turns your PDA and GPS into an extremely useful navigation tool. Normally a GPS device just gives you longitude, latitude, heading and all sorts of other information, but for ordinary human beings this does not help much because all these numbers still don't tell us where to go.

With ThatWay! you see a fat arrow that points straight at your target destination . Just above the arrow there is a big display that shows you exactly how far you have to go in this direction to reach your destination. Thus, as you are driving, sailing or walking to your target destination, the arrow direction will continuously be updated in real time to show you exactly which direction to go. It works on principle that the program receives its coordinates and heading information from the GPS and then calculates the distance and direction to the target in real time. If the arrow is pointing straight up (12 o'clock position) then it means you are moving directly towards the target.

Installation

Install the file Thatway_english.prc  for the English version of the program or Thatway_german.prc if you prefer to use the progam in German language.   You also need to install mathlib.prc if this is not already installed on your Palm device.

Overview

ThatWay! also show other information like the latitude and longitude, as well as heading, speed, altitude. But then it also calculates UTM northing and easting in real time and it even simulates an odometer (trip meter) which you can reset to zero from the menu.

The top line of the display shows the status of the GPS. Here is a brief summary of what it means:

  • Stat = A or V (an A means the GPS fix is good, and V means its not)
  • Qual = 0,1,2,3,4,5 (Quality of 0 is not good. The higher the number the better)
  • Sat = 8/12 (This means 8 satelites used for fix, but 12 are being received)

    • Preferences

    In the preferences menu you can choose to display speed in mp/h, km/h, m/s f/s or knots. Or distance can be displayed as miles, kilometers, nautical miles, meters, feet etc. Altitude is meters or feet.

    Waypoints

    Waypoints can be easily added, edited or deleted. Once a waypoint is entered, you merely have to pick a new target waypoint in a popup listbox. And to make things simpler while you are on the road, you can use the scroll-up and scroll-down buttons on the bottom of your PDA to step through the waypoints. And when you choose to add a new waypoint from the menu, the program will automatically add the coordinates of the current GPS position to the fields. You will have to edit these if the waypoint is at a different location from you current position. Everything was done to make it as easy as possible to use even while driving.

    Entering waypoints as degrees minutes seconds

    ThatWay! displays latitude and longitude as decimal degrees (ddd.ddd).  However, when you manually enter a waypoint, you can enter it as decimal degrees (ddd.ddd),  degrees and decimal minutes (ddd mm.mmm or degrees minutes seconds (ddd mm ss.sss).   It is not necessary to tell to program which format you are using.  ThatWay! has a built-in parser that evaluates what you entered and decides what you intended.  As long as you stick to a few simple rules this works very well.  If you are entering degrees minutes seconds, then you must separate the three values with spaces for example "S 34 23 45.67".   You can replace the "N", "S", "E" and "W"  with "+" or "-" where "S" and "W" is negative values and "E" and "N" is positive values.

    The following are examples of VALID input values :

    Similarly the following are input values that are NOT VALID :

    Databases

    You can have more than one waypoint databases. The reason for wanting different databases is to group sets of waypoints together. For example, you way want to have different databases that contains only waypoints in a specific area. You may delete or edit existing waypoint databases, or create entirely new ones. Once you opened a waypoint database, all the waypoint names contained in that database will be loaded into the dropdown list in the centre of the main screen. You will see only waypoints from the current open database in this list and only one database can be open at a time. If you want to use a waypoint that exists in another database, the you will have to open that database first, which will replace all the waypoint names in the dropdown list with those of the new database.

    Sharing waypoint databases

    It is possible to share you waypoint databases with others... The databases are automatically backed up on your PC by Hotsync in the same directory where all your other backup files reside. This will depend on which directory you installed your Palm Desktop software. Typically the files will be in in a directory like "C:/Program Files/palm/Homer_Simpson/Backup/my_waypoints.pdb" where "Homer_Simpson" should be replaced by your own Hotsync Id and "my_waypoints.pdb" is the name of your database. Just send this file to your friend and ask him to install it on his Palm. He would be able to open the database file in his copy of ThatWay!.

    Using the pre-compiled waypoint databases

    ThatWay! comes with a number of precompiled regional waypoint databases of world cities. It is optional if you want to install any of these databases, but if you do want to install any of them then this is how you do it. First unzip the file called precompiled_waypoint_databases.zip. In it you will find a large number of PDB files. Each one represents a number of waypoints for some cities in that region. Select only the databases that is of interest to you and install them on your PDA.

    When you run ThatWay! and select "Load WP database" from the menu, you should see all the waypoint databases that you installed. Click on one that you wish to use, and you will notice that the waypoint names are automatically loaded into dropdown list in the centre of the screen. From this point onwards you use them just like any of the other waypoint databases that you created inside ThatWay!. You may edit, add or delete waypoints from them just like you do with the waypoint databases that you created from scratch in ThatWay. As far as ThatWay is concerned, there is no difference between the waypoint files you created in ThatWay and the precompiled ones that you installed afterwards.

    PLEASE NOTE : There is no guarantee that all the coordinates used in the precompiled waypoint databases are correct. Please do not rely on them in life threatening conditions. And please feel welcome to let the developer know if you notice any incorrect waypoints.

    Creating your own pre-compiled databases with ThatWay_Converter.exe

    ThatWay_Converter.exe is a free PC based program that convert ordinary text file into Palm readable PDB databases for ThatWay!. You can also convert existing ThatWay! waypoint databases from binary to text format.

    Databases that you create in ThatWay! are copied to your PC in the Palm desktop backup directory everytime you Hotsync. Just use browse button in ThatWay! converted to find this PDB file and convert it to test format.

    The text files for ThatWay_Converter.exe must have the following format:

    "Waypoint Name","Latitude","Longitude"

    Example

    San Diego CA,32.82,-116.97
    San Francisco CA,37.62,-122.38
    San Jose CA,37.37,-121.92
    Paris France,48 52 N,2 20 E
    Cape Town South Africa,S 33 45, E 17 9

    You can use symbols N,S,E,W or use negative values for South And West and postive value for North and East

    Support for Garmin iQue 3600 PDA

    From version 1.6 upwards the program is also compatible with the Garmin iQue 3600

    Please Note:

    This program requires a GPS connected to your Palm device. Please test that the program is working with your GPS before you buy. No refunds possible afterwards. The application should run on all versions of PalmOS devices from 3.0 upwards. All future updates is free to existing registered users.

    Contacts

    Email Werner Terreblanche, the developer of ThatWay! werner@wildsoft.org or visit our homepage at www.wildsoft.org