New Feature Ideas

[kylecorry31]

This is a continuation of #59, since that was getting too long.

Please feel free to post new feature ideas in the comments on this issue. I would love to have some other thoughts about what should be included in this app (no guarantee that I will include them, but I will consider each idea). No idea is a bad idea here, worse case I may say that I will not include it in Trail Sense (but who knows, if it is a really good idea, I or someone else may work with you to build it into a separate app). I should also mention, that I am not averse to the idea of having separate companion apps to Trail Sense with specific niches if a good feature does not meet the goal of Trail Sense.

Some set in stone goals of this app:

• Trail Sense must not use the Internet in any way, as I want the entire app usable when there is no Internet connection
• New features must provide some benefits to people using the app while hiking, in a survival situation, etc.
• New features should make use of the sensors on a phone rather than relying on stored information such as guides
• New features must be based on peer-reviewed science

For reference, some things I have considered in the past and removed were:

• "Survival blueprints" (recipes for making items while in survival situations)
  • There are a lot of other resources out there and it is best presented in a book format
• Survival guide
  • There are a lot of other resources out there, including this awesome app
• Animal behavior
  • I can't say there is enough science / supporting evidence behind Solunar theory for me to make accurate predictions of animal behavior in general, though if someone provides strong evidence I will consider it
• Heart rate sensor
  • I don't want Trail Sense to move into the medical sector, there are increased regulations on that in Google Play and not something I'm willing to provide support for.

[vkuehn]

@kylecorry31 the fusion of these two awesome apps would be great

[kylecorry31]

@vkuehn is that in reference to the heart rate tool and Trail Sense?

If so, I don't plan on merging the two (see the reasoning here: #59 (comment)), but I could maybe use this as one of the plugin experiments (shows up in Trail Sense if the second app is installed)

[Z3NOX]

I recently had the idea that an "alarm triggering geofencing mechanism" would great to have in some situations. In the simplest form I could imagine the alarm zone to be a circle defined by via a radius and the the geo coordinate of its center. The alarm could work in two ways, for entering or leaving the geofenced area.

Possible use cases I had in mind:

• You travel during nighttime and want to be woken up if you are near a certain destination but don't know exactly when this will be.
• You are hiking and want to be notified when you enter/leaving a certain area without having to look constantly at your phone.

PS: @kylecorry31, the first sentence of your first post here in this issue is incomplete.
PPS: Just noticed now that there is already #1908 as a feature idea but I think the alarm feature would be great to have together with geofencing

[kylecorry31]

@Z3NOX thanks - I provided some details in #1908 regarding this feature.

I've also fixed the first post here - no idea where the rest of that sentence went :)

[lucahttp]

Hi, would be nice to have a Garmin IMG reader to use as Google maps offline,
there is already a lot of work in each country developing this kind of maps for old GPS devices

[kylecorry31]

@lucahttp thank you, I've updated #604 to include that format.

[diggernet]

Hi Kyle, thanks for Trail Sense, it's a great app!

I was going to suggest export/import of settings. It wasn't that big a deal until I started creating Packing Lists and realized that the data is trapped. But then you beat me to it, adding backup/restore. Thanks! Would still be nice to have a way to share individual lists, but that's rather less critical.

I played with Tides a bit, but found it rather tedious to get set up. It would be handy to be able to enter a station ID and have that station set up or updated from NOAA Tides & Currents. But of course that violates the "No Internet" rule (which I value). Then I saw the tide provider plugin idea in #1540. Beat me again. Only thing to add is that such a plugin could operate in a couple different modes: Use the plugin to preconfigure select stations for later use offline, or use the plugin online to find and display the tide for the nearest station.

But I think you haven't beat me to all of these, for Photo Maps:

• Keep PDF maps in a vector format for better zooming. Or at least (perhaps optionally) rasterize at a higher resolution. Tile map image #1345 would certainly help here.
• You mention that Photo Maps supports Geospatial PDFs, such as those from CalTopo. I have tried using Geospatial PDFs from USGS Map Locator, such as Block Island, but for some reason they are not recognized.
• Ok, here's the fun one: Those USGS PDFs contain layers (Optional Content Groups, in PDF lingo), not all of which are turned on by default. It would be great to be able to easily turn different layers on and off while viewing the map. Among the layers are a shaded relief layer and an orthoimage (offline satellite view!) layer.

[kylecorry31]

@diggernet thank you for the suggestions!

For the packing lists I have this issue which will allow exporting (I renamed it to include the word export in the title): #1149

I agree that the Tides tool isn't ideal without being able to load from the Internet. In addition to #1540 I also have #1102 and #1104 which should help with this.

Here's new issues to track the map features:

• Keep map PDFs vectorized #1988
• USGS Map Locator PDFs not importing as geospatial #1989
• Import map PDF layers #1990

[kylecorry31]

I'm looking for help around improving the messaging on devices without a compass. If anyone wants to help with some ideas, I would really appreciate if you add a comment to this issue: #2010

[JensKorte]

Provide an emergency function
(This is how I think of it, not the technical details of Android) Android has an emergency button and apps can provide a hook to it and get started in an emergency/panic situation.
TS could provide a hook and start the whistle, the screen and the flashlight sending SOS. For saving battery there could be something like "stop after e.g. 15 minutes and give signals again at every full hour or every full and half hour for five minutes".

F-Droid supports such a function in the setting. Maybe you can reuse source from there?!

This also touches #1471

[kylecorry31]

@JensKorte thank you, I've added this issue to track this feature request: #2027

[ojppe]

A good feature would be a sound level meter
Something like the metal detector layout looks perfect for this.
Check out OpenNoise on the Play Store and on Github

[kylecorry31]

@ojppe thank you for the suggestion. Can you suggest some use cases for a sound level meter that fit within Trail Sense's use cases?

I believe someone had suggested that in the past, and at the time I couldn't find any use cases (I can't seem to find the conversation around that - might have been through email or is lost in the old "New Feature Ideas" issue).

[ojppe]

Determine the loudness of things in the environment (thunderstorm, volcano, waterfall, generator, aircraft, train, music, gunfire) to protect hearing

[kylecorry31]

@ojppe while I think that would be a useful app, I don't think that will fit within Trail Sense's use cases

[ojppe]

I don't see why not, Trail Sense has become my digital swiss army knife and a sound and speed meter are the only things missing (I can think of) that use most phones' sensors. But you know best!

[kylecorry31]

@ojppe I apologize, I should have stated my reasons more clearly. I know a lot of the tools in Trail Sense can be used outside of hiking, but I'm trying to limit the scope of what I include in the app to keep it pretty focused. There's general criteria for new features in the first comment of this issue and the use cases wiki, but here's the specifics for a decibel meter:

1. I don't believe hearing protection falls into the supported use cases of Trail Sense: hiking, camping, backpacking, and geocaching. I believe a decibel meter would fit much better into a health, concert, or safety regulation app. The cases where this might come into play while hiking are very rare, and most people who find themselves in this situation will likely not have hearing protection with them.
2. I don't think this tool would get much use in the hiking space, but it would be time consuming to develop and support.
3. The microphone permission is not something I want to add at this point unless there's a feature which will provide a clear benefit in the hiking space for the majority of users.

If there's something that can be predicted / identified using sound that is beneficial while hiking, I could add this in with that (more of an indicator that it is picking up audio), but as of right now I don't know of anything that falls into this case other than #1143

As for the speed meter, the speed is shown on the Navigation tool in Trail Sense (GPS by default), and also available on the Pedometer tool (based on steps).

[ojppe]

Thank you for the clarification

[Wumbo-11]

I have an idea for a "pairing" feature on this app, it may sound unappealing but it's something you might want to consider for later.

I'm thinking of this feature as being able to allow Trail Sense app users (2 or more people) to pair their coordinates or maybe a 'special location code' via gps that can be monitored offline. (You know, maybe it's like a bluetooth pairing between connected cell phones and being able to share each device's camera).

It's just that this uses a gps code base that is specifically used in the use of this application only, maybe it could be by scanning a special barcode or giving a special mark in this application. (hope you can understand what I mean)

Well, your app is very useful so far, I will always wait for future updates.

[kylecorry31]

I have an idea for a "pairing" feature on this app, it may sound unappealing but it's something you might want to consider for later.

I'm thinking of this feature as being able to allow Trail Sense app users (2 or more people) to pair their coordinates or maybe a 'special location code' via gps that can be monitored offline. (You know, maybe it's like a bluetooth pairing between connected cell phones and being able to share each device's camera).

It's just that this uses a gps code base that is specifically used in the use of this application only, maybe it could be by scanning a special barcode or giving a special mark in this application. (hope you can understand what I mean)

Well, your app is very useful so far, I will always wait for future updates.

Thank you for the suggestion. I do have a similar feature planned as part of the Trail Sense Comms plugin - no timeline yet for that though. I hope to do some experimentation on the plugins in 2024, because I think they would be pretty cool and open a lot of possibilities. #1540

[Saijin-Naib]

I would love to see other tools have Android Quick Action tiles alongside Pedometer and TrackBack, like Flashlight, screen flashlight, whistle, etc.

[kylecorry31]

I would love to see other tools have Android Quick Action tiles alongside Pedometer and TrackBack, like Flashlight, screen flashlight, whistle, etc.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will get more added. Here's an issue to track them: #2120

[LeftyDextrous]

Hi Kyle,

It would be nice to have an automatic "night-light" timer, where the app theme changes from the user-selected default, which used during the daytime, to the Night theme after sundown.

This would be useful in situations where you don't want your phone to automatically brighten when you check it during the night, both to preserve your night vision (in an astronomy context) and to avoid spooking animals if you're hunting. Hopefully this should be easy to implement given that Trail Sense automatically determines sundown times anyway.

Thanks for the app,
Lefty

EDIT: I realize now there is a Sunrise/Sundown function. However, I still would like to be able to customize the specific theme to be used during the day and night. Apologies if this FR is redundant.

[kylecorry31]

Hi Kyle,

It would be nice to have an automatic "night-light" timer, where the app theme changes from the user-selected default, which used during the daytime, to the Night theme after sundown.

This would be useful in situations where you don't want your phone to automatically brighten when you check it during the night, both to preserve your night vision (in an astronomy context) and to avoid spooking animals if you're hunting. Hopefully this should be easy to implement given that Trail Sense automatically determines sundown times anyway.

Thanks for the app, Lefty

EDIT: I realize now there is a Sunrise/Sundown function. However, I still would like to be able to customize the specific theme to be used during the day and night. Apologies if this FR is redundant.

Thank you for the suggestion! I created the following issue to track that feature: #2192 (it is not redundant and would be cool is Trail Sense let you choose which theme to use during the day and night)

[kxygk]

This surprisingly doesn't exist in any OSS app but I think it would fit in nicely with the existing featureset:

An alarm that goes off when my location approaches a destination.

Example 1: You sleep on the bus, and it goes off when you're close to your destination.

Example 2: Alarm goes off when you get home/work reminding you to do something

Maybe it would make a bit more sense as part of a map app, but naturally when hiking this would be useful

[kylecorry31]

This surprisingly doesn't exist in any OSS app but I think it would fit in nicely with the existing featureset:

An alarm that goes off when my location approaches a destination.

Example 1: You sleep on the bus, and it goes off when you're close to your destination.

Example 2: Alarm goes off when you get home/work reminding you to do something

Maybe it would make a bit more sense as part of a map app, but naturally when hiking this would be useful

Thank you for the suggestion, that feature is planned as part of #1908 (or #2159)

[LeftyDextrous]

I don't believe this has been requested, so I'll put it out there: can you add a feature that allows the user to hide tools they don't need? It would be helpful to reduce clutter in the tools menu as I have dedicated apps for many of the offered features, for instance the unit converter QR code scanner, and the battery, and the astronomy and navigation tools can be accessed directly rather than through the tools menu. Of course, this is not to say that these features should be hidden by default since they aid in feature discovery, but rather the user should have the option to either hide them entirely or at least banish them to the bottom of the tools screen so they don't clutter the rest of the interface.

[kylecorry31]

I don't believe this has been requested, so I'll put it out there: can you add a feature that allows the user to hide tools they don't need? It would be helpful to reduce clutter in the tools menu as I have dedicated apps for many of the offered features, for instance the unit converter QR code scanner, and the battery, and the astronomy and navigation tools can be accessed directly rather than through the tools menu. Of course, this is not to say that these features should be hidden by default since they aid in feature discovery, but rather the user should have the option to either hide them entirely or at least banish them to the bottom of the tools screen so they don't clutter the rest of the interface.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will consider adding it here: #2255

My thought process on the current tools tab was that the user can pin the tools they use often rather than disable tools they don't use. I figured that there would be about 4-5 frequently used tools, and the rest would either only be used in specific cases (infrequent) or never used (there as a backup in case needed). I'll do more research into allowing tools to be hidden and the implications of that (#2046 is why navigation, astronomy, weather were added to the tools tab).

[MikaelaLovett]

Hi there, as I wrote in my Google Play review, I really like this app, thank you so much for working on it! ✨ I was wondering if adding local photos (and perhaps notes or files) to the packing list would be possible in the future, please? I struggle with memory loss so every packing is quite stressful. I currently use Bring me for the packing purpose as it has photos (they help me remember which item I meant to bring with me/I own), but with this feature I could use only yours app (I love the weight option!) by itself. Bring me doesn't feel as intuitive and even tho it's obviously a great app, I prefer Trail Sense and it's other features.

Thank you once again, I hope you're having a wonderful day ^^

[MikaelaLovett]

@ojppe while I think that would be a useful app, I don't think that will fit within Trail Sense's use cases

I think it might be helpful for people with hearing disabilities, if it could also detect things like the sound of water, thunder, cars etc. Or maybe even recognise what kind of sound it is, I'm not sure if that's possible? ^^ But I completely understand the microphone permission thing and that it maybe isn't necessary for survival. 🤔 And it might be too difficult to create. :// (Also, I use earplugs often due to my sensory sensitivities and often can't hear certain sounds that aren't as loud, but might be important, so this would be another case of use as well?)

[kylecorry31]

@ojppe while I think that would be a useful app, I don't think that will fit within Trail Sense's use cases

I think it might be helpful for people with hearing disabilities, if it could also detect things like the sound of water, thunder, cars etc. Or maybe even recognise what kind of sound it is, I'm not sure if that's possible? ^^ But I completely understand the microphone permission thing and that it maybe isn't necessary for survival. 🤔 And it might be too difficult to create. :// (Also, I use earplugs often due to my sensory sensitivities and often can't hear certain sounds that aren't as loud, but might be important, so this would be another case of use as well?)

Hm, that's very interesting - I will need to give more thought into the sound identification portion (or sound amplification of certain frequencies) - it would be tricky, but is doable. I could see that being useful in a hiking situation (getting closer to cars/waterfall/thunderstorm).

[kylecorry31]

Hi there, as I wrote in my Google Play review, I really like this app, thank you so much for working on it! ✨ I was wondering if adding local photos (and perhaps notes or files) to the packing list would be possible in the future, please? I struggle with memory loss so every packing is quite stressful. I currently use Bring me for the packing purpose as it has photos (they help me remember which item I meant to bring with me/I own), but with this feature I could use only yours app (I love the weight option!) by itself. Bring me doesn't feel as intuitive and even tho it's obviously a great app, I prefer Trail Sense and it's other features.

Thank you once again, I hope you're having a wonderful day ^^

Thank you! I think that's a great idea, I'll plan on adding that in a future release: #2297

[CallamJ]

As I continue to bring in packing lists into Trail Sense for later I have found some more features I would like to see.
Considering last time you ended up splitting my post up into separate posts anyway I will just bunch them all together here.

More annotation

• Giving packing lists descriptions would be very helpful.
• Add an "optional" checkbox to an item's details to specify that it is not necessary to bring. These wouldn't contribute to the packed percentage and would be visibly shown to be optional somewhere in the packing list.

Custom Categories

• Ability to add/remove custom categories. Then items could be added to these categories. "Other" would be a default category if the item's old category is deleted.
• Tapping on an item's category in the packing list should open the dropdown to select a new category. This is mainly to make reassigning categories easier.

[kylecorry31]

As I continue to bring in packing lists into Trail Sense for later I have found some more features I would like to see. Considering last time you ended up splitting my post up into separate posts anyway I will just bunch them all together here.

More annotation

• Giving packing lists descriptions would be very helpful.
• Add an "optional" checkbox to an item's details to specify that it is not necessary to bring. These wouldn't contribute to the packed percentage and would be visibly shown to be optional somewhere in the packing list.

Custom Categories

• Ability to add/remove custom categories. Then items could be added to these categories. "Other" would be a default category if the item's old category is deleted.
• Tapping on an item's category in the packing list should open the dropdown to select a new category. This is mainly to make reassigning categories easier.

Thank you for the suggestions, here are some issues to track these features:

• Add descriptions to packing lists #2409
• Mark a packing list item as optional #2410
• Allow custom inventory item categories (color and icon) #730
• Tap packing list item category to quickly change it #2411