Changing default track color in MapSource

[753951]

Maybe I'm missing something very obvious, but is there a way in MapSource to change default track color?

 

Whenever I create new track (or import from GPS) tracks are displayed as black line on white background with black circles for track points. Active track has yellow background. I would like all inactive tracks to have transparent background.

 

I can go and change background in each track's properties but that a whole lot of clicking, especially when you get back from 4 weeks of vacation and dozens, if not hundreds, of tracks.

[+Red90]

Not that I can see.

[GeoBobC]

There is a way to do it, but it's a bit clunky:

 

1. Export all your tracks to a .gpx file. You can do this from Mapsource via File > Save As (select gpx from Save As type).

2. Edit the gpx file with any editor (Notepad works).

3. Note that each track will have a display color enclosed in a text string as follows: <gpxx:DisplayColor>Blue</gpxx:DisplayColor>

4. Use the Edit > Replace feature of your editor to change "Blue" (from this example) to whatever color you want.

5. Save the file.

6. Open the edited file in Mapsource. Your tracks should now display the color you selected in the editor.

[+EraSeek]

Yes. Open up mapsource. Load your track file. Double click on the track file and it will display the track properties box (you know, coordinates, track time, all the data for all the track points and all that good stuff), at the top of the track properties box you will see a dropdown menu for color. It includes transparent and other colors. Select what you wish and this will now be the default color for the tracks that you have not selected. Getting that color to stick for the next time you use mapsource is the trick. I did it I guess by selecting save at the end of the session.

[+Red90]

Yes. Open up mapsource. Load your track file. Double click on the track file and it will display the track properties box (you know, coordinates, track time, all the data for all the track points and all that good stuff), at the top of the track properties box you will see a dropdown menu for color. It includes transparent and other colors. Select what you wish and this will now be the default color for the tracks that you have not selected. Getting that color to stick for the next time you use mapsource is the trick. I did it I guess by selecting save at the end of the session.

 

Really? I just tried that. It did not work for me... Always defaults to "unknown".

[753951]

GeoBobC, thanks. That's what I was doing and got tired of it.

 

EraSeek, not bad. As Red90 suggests, and I tried it too, it doesn't stick over multiple MapSource runs. So I have to remember creating one track with colors that I want and then start importing. I may be able to live with that.

 

I guess it would be too much to ask Garmin to add this to the MapSource preferences.

[GeoBobC]

Red90, PM me and you can email me your track file. I'll see if I can change track colors. It's always worked for me.

[+julianh]

Yes. Open up mapsource. Load your track file. Double click on the track file and it will display the track properties box (you know, coordinates, track time, all the data for all the track points and all that good stuff), at the top of the track properties box you will see a dropdown menu for color. It includes transparent and other colors. Select what you wish and this will now be the default color for the tracks that you have not selected. Getting that color to stick for the next time you use mapsource is the trick. I did it I guess by selecting save at the end of the session.

 

Really? I just tried that. It did not work for me... Always defaults to "unknown".

Weird! It works for me - I just tried it, and the track colours "stick" between separate restarts of MapSource (version 6.13.7).

 

To reiterate:

 

1. Change the colour of the track in Track Properties.

2. Save the data (tracks, routes, waypoints, etc) in a MapSource gdb file.

 

Next time you restart MapSource, load the gdb file you just saved, and the tracks should retain the colours you have assigned.

 

Note that there is no way to change the colours associated with routes, as far as I can tell.

 

Hope this helps!

[+Red90]

Next time you restart MapSource, load the gdb file you just saved, and the tracks should retain the colours you have assigned.

 

Note that there is no way to change the colours associated with routes, as far as I can tell.

 

Of course THAT works....

 

What the OP wants is the DEFAULT colour to stay the same. He know how to manually change a tracks colour..... What he want is that when a NEW track is uploaded or created it automatically gets a specific colour.

[+julianh]

Next time you restart MapSource, load the gdb file you just saved, and the tracks should retain the colours you have assigned.

 

Note that there is no way to change the colours associated with routes, as far as I can tell.

 

Of course THAT works....

 

What the OP wants is the DEFAULT colour to stay the same. He know how to manually change a tracks colour..... What he want is that when a NEW track is uploaded or created it automatically gets a specific colour.

Oops! You're right! That will teach me to dive into a thread half way down without reading carefully from the top!

 

It seems you CAN'T change the default track colour - Sorry!

[+EraSeek]

You are right. It only saves the track that you saved as such. Any unsaved track will be white/inactive and yellow active until you change and save it. I like green myself.

Edited June 3, 2008 by EraSeek

[753951]

Now if MapSource didn't preserve saved track color between sessions that would be serious bug. This way, we can agree that you can't set default track color and preserve that setting between sessions.

 

Thanks everyone for suggestions.

[GeoBobC]

What Garmin could easily do is allow a user to select multiple tracks, right click to change "Track Properties", and then select a color that is applied to all the selected tracks. They offer that functionality for waypoints.

 

Of course, that's too obvious. Tracks are the step-child of Mapsource, IMHO. Take for example the ability to search for a track by inputting the first letter of the track name. It doesn't work. It works for waypoints. Thus if you have a list of 100s of tracks and want to go directly to one (that starts with "S", for example), you must scroll down, down, down until you see it.