App Documentation

Overview

Welcome to this brief introduction to the Peakbook App. These are main things you can do with this App:

• Register tours and ascents / visits
• Navigate and track your own tour
• Get an overview and navigate on the maps
• Fetch a list of Peakbook elements in the immediate surroundings
• Create Peakbook elements (points of interest) for your own and other users' benefit

This is an early version of the App. Some things might not work a 100% and you will most likely miss a few things. If you have any questions or simply are interested in the further development of the App, we encourage you to join and participate in this open Facebook group: Peakbook App informasjon og erfaringsdeling

Active tour

This is where you create and register tours. This can be done swiftly by creating a tour and adding ascents or visits and then saving the tour immediately. The most interesting thing however is to record the tour together with the gps track. This way you record the duration, the distance, and most interestingly perhaps your route on the map.

Create tour

The first thing you do to begin or activate a new tour is pushing the "Create tour" button.
The next step is to give the tour a title. (If you have cold fingers or are in a hurry, just type anything. You can change this later if you want to). This is the only compulsory field in this step, but you can also change the start time and assign a starting point. In addition you can decide if you like to track your tour. (The default attribute can be changed in settings under the main menu).
Finally in order to create the tour, hit the "Create" button.

If you have chosen to record the track, you will see an active dashboard with a clock, and provided the telephone has a decent gps signal, distance, speed and elevation too. If you have chosen to turn tracking off, you will only see the regular options like save, edit or discard the tour.

Edit tour

During the tour you may edit it at any time. To edit the tour, push the pencil icon to the right of the tour title. Once you enter edit mode, you can do the following:

• Add notes / text. Text you add here will be attached to your tour as a note or a trip report if you prefer. If you want to format the text later you can do this on the web version of peakbook.org afterwards.
• Add images. You can add images from your device, for instance pictures you've just shot on the present tour. Once the images are added, you can also add an image text or delete the images by pushing the image thumb.

Adding ascents / visits

There are three ways to add one or more ascents or visits to the tour:

1. Via searching. This requires a sufficient internet connection or that you have preloaded the relevant elements in advance. Press the search icon to the right on the blue top bar and type the name of the element you'd like to register. Once you have located what you want, press the element via the green check icon to the right, or by a dedicated button if you decide to visit the element itself. The registering is confirmed by a black message box.
2. Via surroundings in the main menu. If you have a GPS reception and internet connection (or if you have preloaded the elements in advance), you will get a list with elements nearby based on your position. You choose the same way here by hitting the green check icon.
3. Via the map. View the map and press the icon representing the element you'd like to register. A small box appears with a green check icon to the right. Press this icon to register the ascent/visit. Once again it is confirmed with a black message box.

Once you've registered one or more visits, these will be displayed at the bottom of the active tour screen. If you have a very large font selected you might have to scroll down slightly to see them. To the right of the registered items there's a cross on a orange background. Press this if you'd like to remove the registration.

Save tour

When you are done registering and are ready to save the tour, you press the Save tour button on the active tour screen. Should you want to throw away the tour, simply press the red Discard tour button.
In addition to the options described under Edit tour, you have a few more options when you're preparing to save the tour. These are:

• If you'd like to change the stop time, you can do that
• You can specify final destination
• You can rate the tour with a dice
• You can categorize the tour with a characteristic, for your own sake for later, or for other interested parties

Once you have done everything you want to, you press the Save button. The tour will be saved whether you have a internet connection or not. If you're out of internet reach it will be stored locally on your device and synchronized with Peakbook as soon as you are online again. Either via mobile data or wifi if you've specified in your settings to only permit synchronization.

Stop / resume tracking

This button is mainly informative. When it is blue and displays "Stop tracking", that means that your device is currently recording a track. When it is yellow and displays "Resume tracking", that means that the tracking is paused. Since the tracking technology is based on the gyro of the device to detect movement and through that activate tracking, the tracking will automatically be turned off when the device is resting. And automatically start up again once you move again. If you are moving and it still shows the yellow button, you may attempt to resume tracking by manually starting it again. It is not necessary to do this if the device sits still.

Surroundings

This feature displays the nearest PBEs (Peakbook elements) around your current location. For this to work you need to have sufficient GPS signal to determine your location. In addition you also need internet connection or you'll have to have preloaded PBEs in the area on your device.

With the help of this feature you can see which available Peakbook points of interested that are located nearby, and you can select one or more of those to register your own ascent / visit.

Map

If you have downloaded the map in advance via the suitcase function (see explanation a bit further down) or via ordinary downloading (through panning around provided you have a internet connection), you will see the map centered around your current location. (You need to have sufficient GPS signal for this).

Center map around your position

Press the map needle on the blue bar at the top of the screen to center the map around your current position. If you have a bad GPS signal, you might have to try several times, perhaps even wait a bit and try again later.

Move to the map around other places / peaks

Press the search icon on the blue menu bar at the top, and type the name of the item you are looking for. If you have a sufficient internet connection or if you have preloaded the element in advance, suggestions will appear as you type. When the item you're looking for appears, select this item and on the next screen press the blue button saying map.

Batch downloading of map and elements

This feature requires the premium account GSM-account. Read more about this on the peakbook.org webpage.
If you have a good internet connection, preferably wifi since it quickly amounts to large amounts of data, you can organize your desired map selection on the screen. Once this is in place, you can store the maps in this selection for later offline use by pressing the suitcase icon on the top of the screen.
You are then shown a new screen with a few options.

• Peakbook element. All elements within the selection are downloaded by default. If you prefer to select or deselect certain categories, press the arrow to the right and deselect the categories that you don't want to include. The number of elements that will be downloaded are displayed within brackets.
• Map. Here you decide how many zoom levels you want in addition to the one visible on your map screen. At the moment you can choose between 0 and 3. The default setting is 2. Within the brackets you can see how many map tiles this amounts to. In Spain and Norway the topographical layer will be most relevant. In other countries you will need to download the base layer. Once you are ready to download, you press the Start button. Depending on internet speed it might take up to a few minutes to complete the download. When you are done, the device is ready for offline use with maps in the selected area.

Create PBE (Point of interest)

All peaks, parking locations, viewpoints, attractions, toll roads and other elements the users have contributes, makes for a lot of valuable information. Until now these elements have had to be added manually via the web page. Now, with the app, you can register them on location, provided you have sufficient GPS signal. You don't need an internet connection as the element you create will be stored locally and transferred to Peakbook next time you have internet access.

When you create a new Peakbook element, you first have to choose which category to put it in. For now we have six main categories. These are:

1. Peaks. All mountains and other high points in the terrain.
2. Accommodation and other buildings with service.
3. Routes. This might not be quite so relevant until attaching tracks are implemented.
4. Terrain. If there are special points along a trip that should be marked, exposed parts, dangers, places to pay special attention etc.
5. Geography. Less relevant. These are geographical places. Glacier, lake, region, city etc. There are two reasons to create these: Either for creating lists or if you want to make a wiki article about the place. Basically any geographical place that does not fit any of the other categories.
6. General Peakbook elements. These are next to peaks and accommodation what will most frequently by created. This category contains almost anything: Climbing sites, parking locations summer and winter, toll roads, closed roads, view points, attractions and much more.

Creating the element

When you have chosen the main category, you choose a subcategory if relevant (General peakbook elements have this). Then you name the element. If search name is identical to the name, you may skip this field. Alternative name is also optional.

The GPS provide you with the position. The accuracy is shown to the right in brackets. If this number is larger than approx. 50 meters, you should consider if the accuracy is good enough. You may push the circle arrow to update the position and perhaps achieve a better number.
Elevation will not always appear automatically. If it doesn't or is wrong, it will be an advantage if you've had a look at the map in advance or now the elevation by heart.

Geography is a compulsory field. If there are other elements nearby AND you have internet access, it will fetch this from the nearest element (max. 5 km) away. Unless you know the suggested item is wrong, you can assume it is correct and leave it. Otherwise you need to know where it is. (Country, state, county etc.)

Further down you can add an image. There are two options, either adding an image stored on your device or shoot a new one with the camera straight away.

If you create peaks, the form will also prompt you about prominence and dominance of the peak. If you know the prominence, it is great, if not just add 0 meters and pray an admin on Peakbook fix it later. Dominance is rarely filled out, but if you know it, don't hesitate.

When all this is done, you push the create button, and now you may immediately register ascents / visits of this element. If you are joined by others who use their version of the App, they will not be able to access this new element before the data has been synchronized with the servers. If you have internet access and have allowed synchronization without wifi in your settings, your friends can register their visit too as soon as the synchronization is complete.

Preferences

For now, the following settings are adjustable:

Record track

If this is enabled, you will by default record a track once you begin a new tour. If you generally like to track your tours it might be wise to leave this on as it is otherwise easy to forget turning it on when you start a new tour.

Geoid correction

If your device system does not do this automatically (assume it doesn't), this should be enabled to give you as correct elevation data as possible.

Synchronize only when wifi

If you don't have sufficient data included by your provider, you might want to turn this on. If turned on the tours, with images, tracks as well as PBEs you have created will only be synchronized with Peakbook as soon as you are online via Wifi.

Tracking accuracy

You can adjust how dense you want the App to register positions along the way if you track your tours. A higher tracking accuracy might lead to a higher battery consumption.

Tracking colour

You can alter the colour that are drawn on the map as you walk. This colour does not affect the colour when you later view the tour on peakbook.org. This is just a way of adjusting the view in the app whilst tracking. Sometimes the default red colour blends in with red roads or red routes or other colours of the map. Having another colour can make the track easier to see.

Tours

For now this is only an overview list of the tours you have registered using the App. You will surely miss some functionality here, but this is something we hope to be able to add with time.