Posts made by Gary France

I have gone through a few changes of opinion about MRA. When I first saw it, I thought it was good, but for me it was missing a few things, so I couldn't use it. Like so many other people I posted my ideas and suggestions via this forum in the hope they might one day be incorporated into the software. I didn't hold back on my views!

I was then delighted to see my ideas and suggestions had been listened to and incorporated into the changes 'road map'. Even better, they must have been close to the top of the users suggestion list and well, I was very happy to see they were incorporated into one of (the first?) updates following the road map being made public.

Since then, I have started to use MRA for my route planning for my motorcycle tours and I have to say, I'm loving it now. It is easy to use, does exactly what I want and does it in a way that is logical and all makes sense. Bye Bye Basecamp and hello MRA!

It will take me a very long time (I do them one tour at a time) to convert all my Basecamp routes into MRA but that is now my intention. If I could give the MRA developers and staff a hug, I would.

Well done everyone.

Gary
Tour1 Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Tours.

Thanks all, that is very useful and I have certainly learnt something new today. There obviously is a technical solution within MRA to what I want to do, but to be honest, as a relatively new user, I didn't really understand some of what you much more experienced guys are saying. I could probably work it our (and will) but isn't this a bit self-defeating? I mean having a solution that is quite a challenge to understand is okay for the real techies, but I think most users would want a much simpler way of doing this. Something like where you see the folder containing all your days routes, there could be a button you click on that pulls together all the routes and presents it as one map for you automatically. I think that would be much better. I agree that wouldn't be high on any priority list, but it would be nice to have.

@Hans-van-de-Ven-MRA-Master Well yes, you can, but first you need to join together all of the various day routes (which takes time) and are limited in the number of waypoints you can use. Then I don't think you can export it as a jpg, nor can you hide the waypoints if you want to. I would agree you can do it in MRA, but I think it is more work to achieve that in MRA. I did try to do this in MRA, but it didn't quite give me the results I needed. What would be great is if MRA in the future could automatically produce a map by combining together all of the routes in a folder, and be able to show / not show the waypoints. This would save a lot of time.

Here is a tip MRA users might find useful...

Sometimes, you want to share a route that you have planned with other riders, but not as gpx files, but as a simple map so you can show the others where you will be going. You sometimes need this just as as an image of your route, because if you share a gpx file with others, that assumes they know how to import that files and it assumes they have the software to be able to do that. Not everyone does.

I have found a website that allows you to import a gpx file and convert it into a map that you can then share it as an image which you can email to your friends if they cannot open gpx files. This works perfectly alongside MRA.

Many of us plan longer rides one day at a time and the website also allows you to import up to 8 different gpx files to give an overview of the entire route.

I must stress that you can only create an image of your route, which cannot be adjusted.

The website is free to use and it is called GPS Visualizer https://www.gpsvisualizer.com

Over the years, I have found it extremely useful.

Gary, Tour1, Harley-Davidson motorcycle tours.

I like the new waypoint icons. They are very simple to both understand and use, even just a day after being introduced. Gary.

@Nick-Carthew Thanks, I struggled to find how to add a start time to an existing route at first, but it certainly is there, just as you describe it. Gary.

Break out the champagne!

The ability to add start times to a days route, add pause times that reflect the likely timing of the riding day and see what time you will arrive at each waypoint is brilliant. Congratulations MRA, for me this is a real game-changer that allows me to use MRA as a tour leader, organising many multi-day rides over the course of a year.

As you know Timo, I have been wanting / needing this for a long time and I am delighted you have been able to add it so early in the Road-Map. As soon as I do some testing to make sure I know how it works, I will then be at the stage where I can now start to use MRA for all of my tours and to start to convert all of my existing tours to MRA. This is just BRILLIANT. Christmas has come early!

I am delighted.

Best wishes,

Gary.

Hey guys, I have just been able to take a look at the recording of the Facebook Live broadcast you did. I was especially keen to get the update about the upgrade v1.1 on the roadmap. It was good to get an early glimpse of what the timed waypoints will be like, and to really get to see the distinction between via waypoints, shaping waypoints and the easier to see in-between waypoints. It is looking good and I am keen to see the upgrade when it is ready, although I understand you have to make sure it all works perfectly, so I will be patient. Congratulations - this is looking really good. Gary.

Well, after waiting a while, the Road Map has been issued and this shows how MRA will be developed going forward. I have to congratulate MRA for publishing this. I really like the format and the content is clear and provides enough information to show what is coming, without being too detailed - the balance is exactly right.

It is a bold and unusual move for a software business to do this and I have to applaud this open way of communicating with users. Top marks!

Well done to all involved, it was just what is needed.

My take on this is both, but with one caveat. One of the really good things about MRA is its simplicity. If doing both options makes things a little too complicated both in terms of programming for MRA and in terms of usage, then only do the start time. Remember, the reason many of us want to move away from Basecamp is, it is too challenging to use partly because they tried to cram too much in.

@Ruediger-Hoffner I couldn't find any examples either, so I asked. They are very well hidden! Under "Profile" go to "Video", that's where you can get started with MRA Video!

@Drabslab It seems we are on the same page. In reality I know nothing about how MRA works as an organisation, but it seems to me something is not right with it. We are all sometimes guilty of fire-fighting the day-to-day issues that we get deflected from strategic goals and we get swept along with events and so we get carried further away from our strategic goals. In my previous career running a global mulfi-billion dollar business, the leaders of that business would twice a year take ourselves away for a few days to do a reality check to ensure the business was heading in the right direction and our strategic goals were not being deflected by every day operations. We found this a very useful tool to make sure we were steering the business in the right direction.

As users, we can only guess why things seem to take too long for us and why development seems to be taking, well lets call it an unusual path. You are right, our role as users is to ask, demand, request and challenge the developers into becoming better. They might not like what they hear, but it is very important they listen. Like you probably do, I believe users just accepting what is happening does no good in the long-term, so speaking out our opinions is important, but I do realise that comes with some degree of frustration by the developers.

Our strong opinions should not be regarded as criticism, but more as strategic suggestions. We only want to see what is best for MRA and the users - as both will benefit in the long-term.

Let me give you an example of the confusion MRA have caused and why getting back to basics is so important. Lets just look at the ‘Shop’ section of the MRA website. There are 5 products anyone can purchase.

1. MRA Gold Lifetime. “Lifelong access to all current and future features of MyRoute-app Web, including all updates!” The use of the word ‘web’ must be important to mean this is access only to the web version of MyRoute-app. That is confusing because it is called an app, which is the term normally associated with software on a phone. There is no link to explain further, so its not clear what this is. Web or app? Computer or phone use? Both maybe?
2. MRA all in one. From €6.92 per month. Clicking on the link creates huge surprises. At the top it says €8.25 per month. Wait, the previous page said €6.92 per month, so which is it? The pictures show MRA on a computer and a phone, so you should be able to use it on both, but the ‘Features’ section says it is “Specially designed for mobile phones” which presumably means it was designed for a phone, but it also runs on a computer. I think that might be correct because the features also says ‘One platform. All devices.’ A bit confusing. I think this MRA all in one is the same as MRA Gold Lifetime, except the difference is how you pay for it? It is a bit confusing as the two have different names. Are they the same actual product?
3. MRA RoutePlanner Gold. This must be a third product because it has a different name to the two above, but I cannot find what it is, because the link doesn’t work. The pictures show a computer and a phone, so does this do the same as All in one, but somehow is cheaper? Again, very confusing. Is MRA Route Planner Gold a different product to MRA Routeplanner, or is the difference only in the way you pay for it?
4. MRA Navigation. Okay, this is slightly clearer, as this is cheaper and appears to be only for use on a mobile phone. Surely this is the product that should be called an app, because apps are for phones, right? But confusingly, the web version is called an app as well? Huh?
5. MRA Video. Okay this must be clearer. This costs €1.65 per month, but clicking on the link tells me it is more expensive if I pay for it yearly, at €2.04 per month. Huh? Why is it more expensive to pay yearly? The features section tells me “Works perfectly with MRA Route planner and MRA Navigation”. This makes sense as MRA Navigation is the mobile phone version and I am guessing MRA Route Planner is the product I cannot read about in 3 because the link is broken, but it maybe works on a phone and on a computer.

So, you see, all these different products are very confusing! In fact, are they different products that do different things, or is the difference mainly in how it is paid for? Confusingly, it seems it might be a mixture of both!

I too would like this Martin. Having the clock time built into MRA waypoints is a definite need. Just having the planned duration for a ride is not good enough - surely adding a clock time would be very helpful to many, so we can set a departure time and see what time we will arrive for lunch, arrive at our destination etc. This would also mean adding a duration to waypoints to show how long we would (for example) expect to be stopped for lunch, but that too must be straightforward.

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA Thank you for your comprehensive and well-considered response. You make some very valid point such as Relive works only for tracks and MRA video gives a complete overview of the route. However, being flexible is key and as a motorcyclist, I have used Relive even though it was developed for cyclists and it actually works really well for motorcycle riders. It haven't found it to be erratic at all, but instead the Relive moving pointer is mesmerising as it makes you think about the way the route was ridden, especially on steep gradients with lots of hairpin bends. The best thing about Relive is that moving pointer and I don't agree with your comment about motorcycle riders making longer trips as this really doesn't make any difference to how Relive works. I will try to find a way to upload to here a Relive video for a long motorcycle ride and you will see what I mean.

Also, I can already produce something similar (without the photos) as MRA Video by exporting my planned route as a kml file and import it into Google Earth to get the route overview on a terrain map in a way that is very similar to MRA Video. Okay, it doesn't automatically move, but if I am examining the route to see what it will be like, that doesn't really matter.

If only MRA video could have somehow combined the best features of Relive with route planning. Yes, I agree Relive only have one product and have been around for some time, but MRA have the opportunity to do something better than Relive. It would be great if you took that opportunity and created something really exciting that really entertained users in a way that was better than Relive. But, that is for the future, as I suggest there are more important things to tackle first than MRA video.

When I first found MRA, it seemed to be a great business idea and a terrific product. Create a simple and effective route-planning system that could be used on a computer or a phone. Do that in a way that was better than the competition and do it in a way that was easy and effective to use. It looked very promising.

I saw the Great Suggestion List announced in February 2020 and in March 2020, users were able to vote to prioritize how MRA might develop in what was called the road map. Again, all very promising. I was initially very happy with what I saw.

I tried to use MRA, but at the time found too many features were missing, but encouraged by the Great Suggestion List and being able to vote for how things should develop, I signed up for Gold Membership. It seemed this route planning system had many advantages, but wasn't quite ready for me to use. I decided to leave it a few months and see what developed.

Prompted by a marketing email yesterday about MRA video, I dived back into MRA to see how things have developed. I am sad to say, I was very sad to see very little change.

I was keen to see the new MRA video, as this after all, was going to be something pretty good, right? After eventually finding the well-hidden examples, sadly, after months of development, I have to be honest and say it is disappointing - it is little more than a fixed line on a 3D map, where you can add photos if you wish. Even worse, I found lots of questions about why people were having to pay for it when they had believed Gold Membership would have given it to them for free.

Finding a forum post about the Future of MyRoute-app was even more worrying. Lots of information in there about sub-contracting out parts of MRA to 3rd parties, but it then became very confusing, calling their product MyRoute-app, MyRoute-app WEB, MRA Video, MRA navigation, MRA Route Planning. Wow, come on guys, this is crazy-confusing for users! The post went on to discuss drastically reducing the number of bugs and a big backlog of problem need fixing - not very encouraging stuff either!

Then came another confusion - it seems there are now Gold Members and All-in-One members. Huh, what? Why?

Then came the biggest blow. "Shortly after the opening of the second stage of MRA video, we will finally release the roadmap for MyRoute-app." Really? It has been SIX MONTHS since this list was talked about and people voted! What have you been doing with this list?

Finally, I read "Having a great route-planner is important, but so is having a high-conversion shop to buy products from." At present, I am afraid to say MRA has neither. The route-planner is okay, but has too many bugs and not enough features. The way you promote your product, or different parts of your product to differently-named types of members is highly confusing.

I believe you need to go right back to basics and do four things.

1. Sell one product that includes everything and give it one simple name.
2. Fix the bugs quickly. It sounds like you are hoping to do this.
3. Develop the route-planning software to (where possible) to give users what they have asked for and release the suggestion list very soon. The list should be a firm plan, with guide timescales, so that users can see what will be coming in time.
4. Drop MRA video future development until 2 and 3 are finished.

I hate being negative, but guys, you really need to get back to basics. You have managed to turn a great idea into a vague set of confusing promises and what-might-be ideas and also made lots of things confusing to users. Above all, we want a simple, easy to use, better featured route-planning software that works well. Until that happens, nothing else matters.

You talk very well about transparency, but then you are very opaque. At the simplest level, it would be very helpful to your users if you tell us roughly what will happen next with the route-planning. Even in terms of something like 'the next phase of development is likely to include these things'. I can understand why you wouldn't want to be specific, but after six months of waiting, we are growing impatient!

Yes, I know this all might sound very negative and yes, you will no doubt defend your position, but the fact is your users need to see more progress than this. I look forward to the new beginning that the 'Future of MyRoute-app' post promises, but please stick to the basics!

@Guzzist said:

If I'm right, then MRA Video produces only a kind of dynamic 3D views of the track log on a map ( like Google Earth) combined with a kind of slide show of existing Fotos (moments) You Made in track log.

I agree that it seems to only produce a 3D view like in Google Earth. I was expecting something like a moving pointer that built the route taken, such as happens in Relive, which is dynamic and interesting to see, especially as the terrain changes and you get an impression of what the ride must have been like. Relive is also free! It is difficult to even see in MRA Video what was the direction of travel as it is simply a line on a 3D map where you can add some photos. Sadly, I have to say, it is not as good as I had hoped for.

I run a motorcycle tour to the D-Day Landings sites. We are completely full for our 2021 tour, but our website gives a lot of information about where to go / what to see. Have fun!
www.tour1.com/motorcycle-tours/d-day-2021/

Great! Where do we go to see what MRA Video does and what it looks like?

Thanks Timo. I don't think anyone is saying MRA are not doing well because changes aren't lightning fast. What is being said is it would be useful to know what is coming in the future, rather than just a suggestion list. I look forward to seeing the RoadMap.

I give talks online (28 so far in the last 2 months, each to up to 80 participants) to riders and one of the subjects I am often asked is to recommend mapping software. You will be pleased to hear I recommend MRA if people are going to be doing this for the first time. For me though, I need something more, so I will look back here in a year to see what progress has been made. Gary.