From my pont of view, TrailRunner 2.1 is done. The new release migrates your diary into a modern database format, fixes several bugs and adds compatibility to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Below the most important changes and extensions:

Diary
For better performance and for future extensions I rewrote the diary storage. Diaries are now based on a sport kind like running or biking.
So in future versions diaries can have different parameters for calculations.
TrailRunner 2.1 will already honor speed units like distance per hour or minutes per distance for sport kinds and also will calculate calories with a different formula.
This migration should solve many startup performance problems and will keep your mac responsive even with very large diaries.

Trimming workouts and Tracks
I do not know why I did not add this earlier but you can now trim workouts to be imported and routes within the map. Trimming means that everything from the edge up to and including the selection will be removed.

The screenshot shows a workout to be imported. You can either select something in the graph and then hit the backspace key or you open the track editor and use the Trim Selection command.
Update: You can now even remove data points in the middle of a track. There’s a new tutorial available explaining all operations available (Tutorials > Import and edit Tracks)

Improved Importers
TrailRunner 2.1 can now import Lap information from LoadMyTracks gpx files. Also GPX files are being loaded much faster due to an asynchronous decoding. Same goes for large tcx files you drag onto the TrailRunner application icon or main window.
The workout importer for non GPS workouts (the one that shows a list of routes below) now also displays a target diary selection menu.

Improved Map Speed
Though I highly recommend to remove any duplicate tracks within your map by following the instructions in the Mastering Track Merge tutorial, performance can be pretty bad with many long tracks on your map. In TrailRunner 2.1 I am testing a new display caching approach and have found results to be very good. Scrolling on my machine went up from 24fps to up to 60fps. But in most cases you should get 2x.

Other Improvements
Workout Graph: Added a Preferences option to change the interval resolution for the graph view. (TrailRunner > Preferences > Advanced)
General UI: Added a two finger zoom gesture for modern MacBook trackpads.
Local Route Editor: Added a drag over track to be included rerouting where there was only a drag to way-point rerouting before.
Streets Route Editor: Improved the OSM routing for very long route calculations.
Route Import: Added EveryTrail.com as an import source
Weblog publish: I removed the private and public comment approach as it caused some trouble in the past. When you publish your weblog, all notes will be published.
Export preserves timing: When you export tracks in TrailRunner, the original timing information will be preserved. This makes it posible to read data from your device and then later use an export for geo-tagging.
Route Filtering: The main window search field now filters for routes that contain the given search string in either their name or in the name of any way-point they come across. For example: say a route has a name of biking and goes over a waypoint called ruin, then a search term of ru will find this route. To filter on way-point names only, whith this example just enter wp:ru into the search field. To filter on route-names only, enter rte:ru into the search field.


Before you install TrailRunner 2.1
As TrailRunner uses a new diary store, you should better make a backup of your old.
All data in TrailRunner is being stored within the following folder on your Mac:

< yourhome >/Library/Application Support/TrailRunner/

You old diary was stored in RunLog.xml
When the new version starts up, it will migrate your old diary entries into the new diary. The new file is named ActivityStore.sqlite
A backup of your old diary will be copied to Archive/RunLog;4.xml for if there’s a problem with the migration. You can always move this file back and rename it to RunLog.xml
Please note that even after the migration was done, a much smaller RunLog.xml will stay in place, as it still contains some legacy data. So should you require to migrate back, just delete this file.
Important note: You can not use TrailRunner 2.0 at the same time as TrailRunner 2.1 as after the migration the diary will appear to be be empty on 2.0

Jump on the TrailRunner 2.1 track
TrailRunner 2.1 has its own app-cast so if you download the version below, you will be notified on updates.

> Download TrailRunner 2.1
> Import and Edit Tracks Tutorial
> Mastering Track Merge Tutorial

Please give feedback in case you have any trouble with the migration or other stuff.

Have fun,
- berbie.

Tags: diary, routes, workout, services, import, EveryTrail.com, TCX, backup, GPX

After a long long wait Apple finally approved RaceBunny 1.0 for the app store. RaceBunny will let you send and receive tracks to and from your iPhone.
RaceBunny uses the new iPhone 3.0 build in maps and can record tracks. You can even send route courses to RaceBunny from within TrailRunner and follow the carrot symbol as it moves before your nose. Before you send a route course to RaceBunny, you can set a target speed.

Other than that, RaceBunny does not do much and but is free. Currently RaceBunny is the only application you can use to send GPS courses to your iPhone and follow them. So it might be an interesting use case to study for all other developers with great GPS solutions for the iPhone (hint, hint)

RaceBunny works best with the iPhone 3G and requires TrailRunner 2.1
To exchange data between TrailRunner and RaceBunny a domestic WiFi connection is being required.
RaceBunny uses the Build in iPhone OS 3.0 Maps requiring an internet connection to update the background map.

To use RaceBunny, follow these steps in a recent build of TrailRunner 2.1:
Go to Preferences > Synchronize and set RaceBunny as the iPhone partner application.
In the main document window, press the iPhone icon and select the send tab in the left pane. Start RaceBunny on the iPhone and press the send button in TrailRunner. The selected route should now be available in the list of routes within RaceBunny.
To receive tracks from RaceBunny, switch the iPhone tab in TrailRunner to Import.
Send a selected route in RaceBunny and TrailRunner should display it.

Download RaceBunny for free from the app store:

Tags: iPhone, import, export, NanoMaps, directions

TrailRunner 2.0 is now able to receive GPS recordings from yet another famous iPhone app called 321run written by Cyril Godefroy,

321Run is an iPhone coach for running. Learn to run more efficient, lose weight, increase your speed and get prepared for competitions. The app follows your runs with the GPS of your iPhone and records your run stats and tracks. You can then send these recordings over to TrailRunner.

The cool features of 321run are
- Record your workout
- Listen to how far you've gone and the duration of your training.
- Set yourself goals and reach them during your workout.
- Setup and follow Training plans

Find out more about 321run:
- Features
- Screenshots
- 321run in the AppStore

Tags: iPhone, workout, routes, import

TrailRunner 2.0 is out, please find below what has changed in this new milestone release:

Community route exchange
The Route exchange with GPSies.com, one of the world biggest routing portals, is now grouped in one management panel.
Added a Hiking, Running and Biking filter to the GPSies route import.



Routing service and route editor and elevation download
Added routing service based on the Cloudmade/OpenStreetMap trail network.
The route editor for routes based on the personal track network was rewritten from ground up.
Elevation data for routes is now automatically being loaded from an internet service



Overall usability improvements
A new route management tool was added to the editing controls toolbar.



Download: TrailRunner 2.0

Tags: routing, community, services

TrailRunner 1.9.1 is out.
Please read below, what the new features the new release has to offer. Thanks for everyone sending me bug reports and feedback.

Diary Assignment
In previous versions of TrailRunner it was not possible to assign imported workouts to diaries (if you have added more than one diary in TrailRunner > Preferences > Personal)
Now when you import a workout, you can choose what diary the diary entry for the workout should go into.
(Please also note that in the main diary window you can add an optional column “Diary” to move entries between diaries )



Laps Import and display
TrailRunner now imports lap information from your Garmin fitness device. As a side effect, TrailRunner displays average and maximum values stored in the device and does not calculate these if values are available.



Route Sharing
Another improvement now the handling for sharing routes. Press the routes button in the main windows control bar to display the route sharing download and upload panes. You now can easily switch between both modes. As this is a feature for sharing, please do not forget to upload your own favorites to GPSies.com

Tags: Garmin Edge, workout, ANT+, routes, Garmin ForeRunner 305, Garmin ForeRunner 50, Garmin ForeRunner 405, import

TrailRunner 1.9 is able to receive GPS recordings from yet another famous iPhone app called Trails written by Felix Lamouroux.

Trails is the only GPS iPhone app that allows you to record, import and export tracks onto your iPhone. Trails is an iTunes Staff Favorite!
Record maps while hiking, on bike trips or while jogging directly on your iPhone. Easily import tracks and follow hikes of others!

This is how it works:

Download Trails
If you did not already, buy Trails in the app store and make some route recordings. Please note that the TrailRunner and Trails data exchange requires TrailRunner version 1.9 and Trails version 1.8. A domestic Airport/Wifi network is required to transfer data from the iPhone onto your Mac.

Transfer Routes
Start TrailRunner. Notice the iPhone control button in the toolbar. Press the control button.

An importer pane will open on the left hand side of the main window. Follow the steps described there.

On your iPhone, open Trails and select a recorded track. Press Export and press the TrailRunner button as depicted below.

TrailRunner and Trails will detect each other automagically and the selected track will be transfered to TrailRunner. The course of the track will be depicted immediately in TrailRunner.

After the course was received in TrailRunner you’ll see the regular workout import pane you might already know. Choose any of the import options and probably add a diary entry for this recording.

As of this writing both application versions are not yet available to the public

> Trails Website

Tags: iPhone, routes, import

I got a bit quiet on the support front because I am very busy with TrailRunner 1.9
Within this release I am re-factoring a lot of very old code to have a better migration path to 2.0 and later releases. Currently in the works:



Route and Network Merge -- This now really works. The most complex part of TrailRunner is now much faster and supports full undo for all operations.

Intermediate Tracks -- Already introduced in 1.8 the algorithm is now capable to merge tracks and calculate an intermediate path. This is being done weighted meaning the more often you run a track course and intermediate-merge the recordings, the more accurate the elevation profile will get over time.

Other parts I am working on are still hidden or unused so nothing to talk about at the moment.

In case you would like to become a beta tester, please subscribe to MacDeveloper.net (see post below) I’ll post a first release soon.

Happy Christmas and enjoy the holidays.
- berbie.

Tags: routes, Merge, GPX, import

Due to another bugfix I was working on the workout graph and so added heart-rate zones



It might get rather philosophical on what heart rate ranges the different zones are defined. I decided on the following:

In green the Energy Efficient or Recovery Zone, up to 60% of you maximum heart-rate to develop a basic endurance and aerobic capacity.
In orange the Aerobic Zone, 60% up to 75% of your maximum heart-rate. Will develop your cardiovascular system.
In red the Anaerobic Zone, 85% up to 90% of your maximum heart-rate. Training in this zone will develop your lactic acid system.

Tags: workout

TrailRunner is now part of the MacDeveloper Testing Network.
“MacDeveloper helps companies and individual software developers alike improve the quality of their products by providing a platform to have their applications properly tested from a well informed, and energetic Beta Pool. It’s an opt-in service for testers who love what the Mac community offers and genuinely want to test.”

Because MacDeveloper uses a clean and structured interface to sort, comment and file bugs and feature requests I would suggest that everyone wanting to become a beta tester for TrailRunner subscribes to the Testing Network.

But — as always — you can still contact me directly if you have any questions or general feedback. MacDeveloper is just another good way to communicate with me.
Enjoy the holidays…

> MacDeveloper

Tags: community, support

As developing a decent iPhone application is as much work as developing huge parts of TrailRunner I decided to not write my own iPhone app but to partner with one of the existing ones. This companion application you can buy in the App store is iTrail.
TrailRunner and iTrail require domestic Airport/Wifi network to transfer data from the iPhone onto your Mac.
This is how it works:

Buy iTrail
If you did not already, buy iTrail in the app store and make some route recordings.
> Website

Transfer Routes
Start TrailRunner. You’ll notice a new icon in the toolbar if you are a first time user. Otherwise you can add this icon by control clicking the control bar and adding the new iPhone Icon.



An importer pane will open on the left hand side of the main window. Follow the steps described there.



In the current version of iTrail (shown on the left), TrailRunner and iTrail Desktop are the same. This will change in the future to something like in the right screenshot (taken from a preview build of iTrail 1.7).

It is important to know that TrailRunner can not interpret the proprietary CSV file format of iTrail. The GPX file format is the one you should choose for the transfer.



After the course was received in TrailRunner you’ll see the regular workout import pane you might already know. Choose any of the import options and probably add a diary entry for this recording.

Tags: iPhone, routes, GPX, export, import, cellphone, diary

With the fabulous help of some users, TrailRunner is localized to German, Swedish, Italian, traditional Chinese (Taiwan), French, Dutch and now Japanese.
Thank you very much Oskar, Pierino, Nitoc, Xavier, Steven, Juan, Takashi and all other that have compleated the original translations or improved them by their comments.

If you like to translate TrailRunner to your language or if you would like to supplement an existing translation, please contact me.

Tags: Localizations

One of the nice things with the Garmin Edge is that you can mount the device as a Harddrive on your mac. Then within the folder you see all workouts accomplised.

It’s pretty easy to open these in TrailRunner. Just select a bunch and drag them onto TrailRunner and you’ll see them there.

This week I implemented the other direction. TrailRunner can now write the native file format for the newer Garmin devices, with the .tcx file extension.
There are a few steps to follow and it’s very convenient after that:
> Right-click on the control bar
> Choose Cutomize Toolbar…
> Drag the Export as TCX icon into your toolbar.

Next, when you like to export a route course onto your Edge, just select the route, press the Export button and save the route into the courses folder of the edge.
That’s it.

Tags: Garmin Edge, export, import, workout

Completed the next level for the GPSies.com integration. After the download of routes from the GPSies community was recently introduced you now can share your routes with others in the GPSies community. Quick how to:

Open Route Sharing
You’ll find the new menu command under File > Share Routes.

Login
Get an account at GPSies.com and log in.


Choose Routes to Share
Select the routes you want to share by placing a check mark.
For each chosen route, enter your route description. If you’d like to reference to other websites for detail, TrailRunner will automatically detect hyperlinks.
Choose your descriptions wisely as they will help others follow the same course as you did (even with GPS devices this is still recommended)
Select a suitable activity for your suggestion and press upload.
Within the GPSies.com portal you can still refine your route descriptions at a later point. Have fun…



Download a Preview Build of TrailRunner with this feature

Tags: sharing, routes, community, GPSies, export

Long on the list and now available: The integration with GPSies.com, the outdoor route sharing portal, has been improved.
The route course lookup is accessible through either the File > Find Routes Nearby command or the new toolbar-icon. A new importer pane will open on the left displaying all routes available near the current map location. Browse, check and import what you like and use TrailRunners merge and planning options to individualize what others have already explored for you.

Tags: planning, GPSies, routes, directions, sharing, community, import

TrailRunner 1.8 is out !
Have fun and thanks for your feedback!

> Download


User Interface
Reworked the overall application design to match the current state of the art


Map loading
Although already improved much in 1.7 this now should be it.

Track editor
Selections within the profile chart, route slider, track editor and route description window are now fully synchronized.



Routes vs. Workouts
One of the biggest problems for TrailRunner newbies was, that the differences between a route and a workout / the main document and the diary wasn’t intuitively clear. So I now changed the interface to make both approaches available in the main window.



Download here: http://trailrunnerx.com/download-beta-redirect.html

Tags: MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, Maps, routes, directions, diary

As you might already know, the NanoMaps feature is available not only for the iPod nano but also for any kind of mobile device with a color-screen – especially for cellphones. To set the appropriate image-size the preferences for export allow you to set the width and height for the NanoMaps.

Images sizes for different displays
For all who do not know the resolution of their device I started a collection for common devices like the T610 on the left. You can find the list in the Library. If you did successfully export your directions onto any device that is not listed there, please leave me a note what device you are using and the resolution that fits best on its screen.



Image formats
TrailRunner exports the images as jpegs. Unfortunately not all cellphones can display them (like the K610i). Therefore you first need to convert the images to the png format. Heiko noted this and has sent screenshots of his Automator Action to easily convert the images :

- Select Files from Finder
- Change Image Format to PNG
- Change Finder Object Names


Image Transfer
In general I expect you to transfer the NanoMaps onto your cellphone using the Bluetooth File Exchange Application. Browse your device and drag the images into its pictures directory.

Tags: NanoMaps, directions, cellphone

TrailRunner 1.7 is now out. Please note that TrailRunner 1.7 requires MacOS X 10.5 Leopard to run. If you are still working under 10.4 Tiger, you can use the last 1.6 release. Development for the 1.6 release will be stopped from now on.

What's new in 1.7:

Merge
Rewrote the merge elements algorithm to be more stable, faster and to support more operations to be undoable. It's not complete yet but given the fact that this is extremely complex, I am very happy with what I have learned and was able to dig out as the current core. Also reduced the geographic snap-in grid from 20 meters to 10 meters.

Workout History
I am at rewriting the old overall history diagram. Instead of the once fancy idea of having adaptive time intervals like "Summer 06" I now go the conservative way of weeks. The screenshot below should illustrate what I mean. As you can see the diagram type is identical to the workout analysis graph meaning you have the same analysis features.
New is the deviation background behind the line. As before, TrailRunner displays the statistical median for an interval but now gives you an idea in what value range this median lies within (see the grey background with the dotted outline)

click to zoom

Weblog
The weblog now also publishes a zoomed image along with the thumbnail left to the weblog entry. Click on the thumbnail to see the enlarged version. Find an example in my own weblog.

Nike+ SportBand and nikeplus.com
Originally I had planned to access the new Nike+ SportBand workout data much like I access an iPod. But it turned out to be impossible. But then I learned how easy it was (for me) to access a users complete workout store at nikeplus.com. The consequence? Register at nikeplus. Set goals, run competitions, put yourself into the spotlight and then download your personal data back into TrailRunner—on your Mac. It's your property. Find all this behind the Nike + Apple SportKit toolbar button.

Get the latest changes from the Release Cast
Download the latest TrailRunner 1.7 Release Download
Download the last TrailRunner 1.6 Release Download

Tags: MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, MacOS X 10.4 Tiger, Nikeplus, weblog, Nike+ SportBand, Apple + Nike iPod Sport Kit, Garmin ForeRunner 50, Garmin ForeRunner 405, TCX, Garmin ForeRunner 305, Garmin Edge, workout

Release v216 already brought the first major rewrite of the layout track and layout route mimic. v217 will bring the next level, the adjust route mimic.

Mostly important, the stupid you first have to create a network of tracks and then think of your routes limitation is now gone. All first time users have only their route in mind and don't care a straw about any conceptual limitations in TrailRunner. So I finally removed another annoying limitation: Just press the green New Route button and start creating your route while in reality you create a track and concurrently add it to the piggyback route. The Layout and calculate routes chapter in Help has a video tutorial illustrating this:

Changing the course of a route is an old, yet one of the first features, of TrailRunner — though most users might not be aware of it. It's simple: Drag any way-point that's part of the routes course onto another free way-point and reroute the route over that point. The new behavior is that while you are dragging you get a visual preview of what the result of the reroute will look like. As with the new layout engine, undo should now be fine with this operation too. Have a look:

This one was highly requested — you'll have it. It's one of those features I had on my list for months but more important features and bug fixes had to be done first.
But finally, here you go: move the mouse over the chart and value range overlays will show up.
I personally like interfaces that look nice and innocent but get decent as soon as you dig into them. This one is a good example.

You still might know GPSies from one of my previous posts. GPSies is a site that stores and visualizes running courses or Mountain Bike Tracks users have uploaded to share. TrailRunner now integrates with GPSies in two ways:

Display weblog tracks
Every weblog entry now has a new link that displays the attached route at GPSies. This makes it convenient for your visitors to quickly investigate the route and not just download the GPX or KML files.

Find Tracks Nearby
For the current location in your document, TrailRunner opens a new browser window and displays what GPSies has to offer for this region. To do this, use File > Show nearby tracks
When GPSies has opened, you'll find a search pane on the right that will show you routes nearby. If you have found a route that is of any interest to you, download the route. Drag the downloaded file onto the TrailRunner application icon in your dock and you can merge the new route into your main document.
I have the strong feeling I don't have to tell you how cool this is.

> http://www.gpsies.com

Tags: GPSies, weblog, GPX, community

Good news for Polar RS200 and TrackRecord users. I Improved the import process. Now the workflow is much simpler:

- Press the import button
- Use TrackRecord to read in your workout data
- Quit TrackRecord
- Press the continue button in TrailRunner
- Select workouts to be imported and assign routes.

Assigning a route will then merge the workout recordings with the TrailRunner route, giving you a good overlay of both.
And this also answers one of the most frequently asked questions: TrailRunner requires your Polar recordings to contain distance information. If that is not the case, the workout can't be imported. The reason is that TrailRunner is distance based and not time based. To overlay a distance based route with e.g. heart-rate information, the workout recording must be in the same unit meaning to be distance based too. This is a core concept and a time based approach will never be implemented into TrailRunner.

Have fun with another preview release:

> Download

Tags: Polar RS200, TrackRecord, workout, import

The next major release step will bring a highly requested and an intuitive new feature.

The former is a new route export pane. It will appear on Send To GPS and Save as GPX, will let you select more than one route to be exported and has the following options:
Boundary route: The idea behind this is to get all crossings exported without exporting the whole track network. As a track network is not part of the conceptual background in GPX files, this "pseudo" route will act as a hull around the selected route. Unfortunately my Garmin ForeRunner is not able to display more than one course at a time but it might be useful in other cases.
Compression: If you export more than one route into a GPX file the amount of data might overrun your devices memory limits. Compression might help to reduce the amount. A visual preview of the selected track depicts what the compressed track looks like.

The latter new feature are track animations and a route slider. If you previously selected a checkpoint in the left hand table and used the arrow-down key to browse through the course of your route (what I do to memorize the course before I go out, even though you have electronical cheat sheets like NanoMaps and Send To GPS) TrailRunner will now retrace the course of the track segment up to the next checkpoint. Additionally, the new route slider at the bottom of the map lets you browse through the course of the route much the same way as coverflow in Leopard does with files.


If you are a thrill seeker or would like to be a cheer leader, download a nightly build here:

> Download

Enjoy!
At this point I'd like to thank everybody who gave me feedback and motivation for the TrailRunner project in the past year. The project still satisfies me very much and we'll see many more updates in the future. All the best to everybody for 2008…

Tags: GPX, export

To import workouts from your polar heart-rate monitor into TrailRunner, please follow these steps:

1. In TrailRunner Preferences > Synchronize : Select TrackRecord as your Helper App
2. Press the download Button to get TrackRecord from bluecrowbar.com
3. Close Preferences and open your main TrailRunner document.
   You might in advance create routes that reflect the courses of the workouts being imported. To learn how to create routes, first read the QuickGuide Tutorial
4. Press the Import (from heart rate monitor) Button in the upper tool-bar.
5. TrackRecord will start up. Import your workouts and Export the Sessions to your Desktop. (Please make sure that you use the english date format: mm/dd/yy when you export your files)
6. Now drag each exported workout session onto the main TrailRunner window, the import pane on the left will open.
7. Select a matching route and press the add Button.
   A new diary entry will be added combining the information from the selected route and the imported workout

Tags: Polar RS200, import, diary

The new iPod models (nano and touch) have new screen resolutions. So I updated the Library for the new models. To change the export screen dimensions, go to Preferences > iPod and enter the values for your model there. BTW, one feature downgrade requested and build into TrailRunner 1.5 can also be set here: Disable the rotate NanoMap into direction of heading.

About NanoMaps
NanoMaps describe a route in a very compact and portable way to stay on track – without using an expensive GPS-Unit. NanoMaps depict every waypoint on your route with a snap-shot of the map-area around it. Additionally the map is rotated in a way that the direction you are coming from is always at the lower edge of the screen. The orange arrow then shows you the direction you should turn to. The biggest benefit is, that even if you did not put every possible track into your map you can still see that there are other tracks at a crossing.
Because it is not possible to have subfolders in the nano Photo-Library, green squares with a readable route-code in the overview mode help you to find the route you are looking for.

Tags: iPod Nano, NanoMaps

What's new
TrailRunner 1.5 is a heavy rewrite of all core components dealing with maps and geographical coordinate systems. Hopefully resulting in a much simpler user interface but in any case much better for me to maintain as I squirted out some complex crap code that's not needed anymore.
In previous versions of TrailRunner the most complicated thing was to understand what to do next with an empty document in front of you: The solution was calibration and loading of maps. In TrailRunner 1.5, new documents now automatically show a regional background map of an area nearby your current location. That's not patent pending but clever enough to make you feel home. The task following is to zoom in to the exact location and to start creating your personal trail-network.

World View and Resolution Independence
Additionally the map loading process is now simplified and improved for different zoom levels like in GoogleMaps. Before, TrailRunner loaded only the highest resolution maps available, resulting in heavy memory load for overview zoom levels. The new version just loads the resolution you see and the deeper you zoom in, the more detailed maps are reloaded. As caching was vastly improved, zooming in and out will become undisturbing after a short while.
Also the scroll bars have gone. As a document could now cover almost the whole world, scroll bars didn't make sense anymore. To move the working area around, use the hand tool. While using other tools, use the space bar to temporarily access the hand tool.

The working area is now resolution independed. Tracks, way-points and labels now always stay the same visual size even if you zoom down to the ants. Displayed tracks are now visually compressed representations of the original track meaning the more you zoom in, the more detailed the track will be displayed.

Maps and Locations
A new map source was added. OpenStreetMap is an open source initiative where people like you upload their GPS tracks and cartographers create professional grade maps from these. I was having an eye on the effort for almost two years now and this summer seemed to be full of mapping weekends. So use these maps for free and if you are able to, try to contribute to the project. One important thing with OpenStreetMap is that these maps constantly change and as TrailRunner heavily caches imagery, use File > Consolidate > Empty Cache to reload the current visible maps. Visit the OpenStreetMap project page to learn more.

To manually add maps to TrailRunner, just drag images onto the working area and rotate or scale them to the size they perfectly match the background maps. After the map fits well, just add it to the store by moving it to any of the lower layers in document settings.
Dragging new map tiles into the document will now remember the scale and rotation modifications of the previous tile. This makes it much easier if you drag-copy tiles from web applications into your document and have them rotated and resized like the previously selected tile.

Another new feature is the locations pane. You'll find two lists there. The upper one shows all way-points in your document, sorted by distance to the current location. The list below searches an internet database for locations. If you import a GPX file in locations, only the contained way-points and lap-points will be added to the upper list. Both are meant to give you a fast way to navigate around your trail-network or respectively the world.

Important Compatibility Notes
TrailRunner 1.5 will no longer support documents that where calibrated manually. This is due to the fact that the whole manual calibration was crappy and so I removed it. I know that this will cause a lot of trouble to some of you. But on the other hand it caused even more trouble and unsolvable problems to others. Make the world a better place by using the global coordinate system. It's now more straightforward to use.

Because of fundamental changes: DO NOT OPEN DOCUMENTS SAVED IN 1.5 WITH 1.4! Should you need to, always work with copies!

The central data store now only saves personal maps you've imported manually. Background maps loaded from Internet services WILL BE REMOVED and reloaded in the new format. This might take quite long when you first start up with the new version.
The new background maps are cached under Home/Library/Application Support/TrailRunner/GeoTiles. This cache can become very huge. But if you delete stuff from inside there, TrailRunner won't get harmed.

As TrailRunner will remove data from the central data store, you should better make a Backup of it. It's located in Home/Library/Application Support/TrailRunner/GeoBitmaps2.datastore – just duplicate the file and keep the save copy.

Donation Policy Changes
By the official release of TrailRunner 1.5 the fixed donation was increased to 25 Euro (~ 34 USD). That's mainly because I think that the value of the new Release is worth it. Surely, all previous registrations will stay valid.

Tags: Maps

TrailRunner 1.4 gets into shape. The biggest change is the new workout analysis chart depicted above. Most importand changes are the following. If you like to joint the Alpha Team, read the Beta app-cast and download the latest version:

http://www.trailrunnerx.com/appcast-beta.xml

Highly requested, finally done. Colorize your tracks with any of the predefined colors. TrailRunner can attribute tracks with soft values like iTunes rating stars, a description text and now color codes. If you mark a track in red because it's dangerous, in orange because it's a hight traffic street or in green because it's a beautiful woods trail ... it's your individual expression.

TrailRunner goes into the next evolutionary round. The upcoming version includes MapDiscovery to easily spot the point to start from. Hopefully this will make things much less complicated (as long as map coverage for the area you dwell in is good enough).
And this is how it works: Open an new document, select File > New Location. MapDiscovery will open up. Zoom into the location you want to start from and set the location. Now TrailRunner will ask you to download maps for an approximate area of 10 square kilometers. This will take a while but after that your are "up and running". Map Sources available cover: USA, Canada, Catalonia (Spain), Bavaria/NRW/Hessen (Germany), Oberösterreich, and more to come.
Happy Season.
Download the TrailRunner 1.3 Beta

I must admit that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is more and more getting my best friend. The scientific agency of the United States government offers many web-based services providing geographical data of the United States and partly about the rest of the world.
The newest discovery is the elevation database. Thanks to the pointer from Mike Jacobsen, TrailRunner now can query the online-database for every single point in your TrailRunner document and will receive the corresponding elevation. Best of all: It seems to cover the whole planet.
To download elevation data for you net of tracks you need a calibrated document. The menu command File > Import > Elevation data from Internet-Service will start the download. As it takes long, you might also check out the same locations in the fresh air, while the download is proceeding.

TrailRunner can now import the last workout from your Nike + iPod Sports Kit. For that a new Toolbar-Button is available under View > Customize Toolbar.
The import process is straight forward. You connect your iPod Nano to your Mac. Press the toolbar import button (or File > Import > From Nike + iPod Sport Kit) and a sheet with the last workout data will come up. Optionally select the corresponding route in the list of routes (or create a new one) and press the Add button. Now the diary will come up, containing the new entry. Have fun with this one. If you happen to have problems with the import, please contact me as reading the data off the iPod Nano is done by a hack that might fail.

Tags: import, diary, Apple + Nike iPod Sport Kit, Nike+ SportBand, Nikeplus

TrailRunner 1.1 features an improved diary. In short it's about search, flag and compare.

Chart
In the new toolbar, switch the area above the entries table to display either calendar based data entry fields or a comparison chart.
The chart reflects the current selection in the diary table, displaying at least 10 weeks from the newest selected entry backwards. If you select more entries in the table, the cart will update to the new entries range.
Entries will always display as a grouped value based on the current interval. The base interval is by weeks and can extend to months if you select a big amount of entries.
In the legend on the right you see the overall values for the displayed data. If you need to know the data for one data-point, select it and you'll see the specific values in the lower legend.

Fitness
The fitness is a calculated value based on pace and heart-rate. The main idea is that if you where very fast with a low heart-rate, you're fitter. In the opposite if you where very slow and had a high heart-rate, you're less. This value is just an orientation and does not have the accuracy of the methods used in Polar watches or other bio-medical methods, but it gives a pretty good overall impression.
The scale of the values is in the value range of the polar watches, but that's only a nice coincidence.

Flag
As you are accustomed from Mail.app, entries can now be flagged in the leftmost column. If you start a series of exercises to reach a certain goal, flag the first one. If you had a very nice exercise or competition, flag it.

Search
The search field in the lower right corner will search for diary entries (looks into column route and personal notes) that contain the given search term. The diary table will then only display matching entries.
This provides various ways to tag and filter diary entries, to later compare entries of the same class. Some examples:
To find out how many kilometers you have accomplished with a pair of shoes, tag all entries with a unique tag like xasc06 (your Asics 2006 pair). When you later search for that term the chart legend will display the values you want to know: number of units and sum of kilometers.
To compare your performance in a certain route over time, enter the routes name and the chart will display the performance values.
To make a distinction between running and biking, tag all runs with xrun and all biking exercises with xmtb. Later search for either tag to see a chart with values only of this kind.
If you use a polar watch and regularly measure your OwnIndex, enter the OwnIndex in the personal comment like ownindex:52. Later search for ownindex and see you progress on the measure checkpoints (unfortunately not in the chart but filtered on entries with this information)

Export
Not a new feature but a good place to mention, if you select diary entries, edit > copy will put them as tab separated columns into the clipboard. An easy method to transfer entries into Excel or other analysis tools.

Tags: diary

Even though I should know everything in the application, I do not understand a single word here. In a fascinating fast effort, a very fond user from Taiwan localized TrailRunner to Traditional Chinese and this is how it looks like. Thanks Nitoc. BTW: Currently TrailRunner is available in English, German and Traditional Chinese. If you are interested in localizing TrailRunner to French, Spanish, Portuguese or Japanese, please drop me a line. All you need is a Text-Editor. It's not that complicated and it will make things less complicated for others.
> nitoc@blogspot

TrailRunner can now download map images from the internet. Main-USA, Hawaii and Alaska have a good quality as they are based on topographic maps from the 60´s. Unfortunately the rest of the world is only covered (yet) with low to mid quality Nasa satellite imagery.
The current implementation is a proof of concept so you might want to try it out and tell me if it is of any use to you. It might make sense if you happen to get a GPX file from somewhere or if you imported some data from your GPS Device and want to look at the geographical region the route is in.
But I expect more map-servers popping up in the near future. There are already some nice ones for Germany but they only support local coordinate projections — to much work to implement a support in TrailRunner yet.
If you have any feedback or some pointers where I could find other servers to include, please drop me a line. For the technically interested, the known services directory can be found in the MapServices.plist inside the Application Package.

And this is how it works for mere mortals: Import any GPX into an empty document or take a calibrated one. Under File > Import you'll find a new menu item to download the map data.

Have fun, patience and a fast internet-connection.

Tags: Maps

TrailRunner gets more open and is now a team-player with a partner application called LoadMyTracks from cluetrust. This means you are now able to download your tracks from any GPS device, especially the Garmin ForeRunner series. And this is how it works:
First off, you need a calibrated map. Then, connect your GPS unit to your Mac by using one of the recommended methods. Visits the cluetrust website to get more information on that.
Then, go to File > Import > Data from GPS unit.
Now LoadMyTracks will fire up and will download all tracks from your GPS unit. When done, TrailRunner comes up again, asking you what tracks you'd like to import.
The Import can be done in two ways. Import course as one piece or Import and merge tracks. Import course as one piece just imports the track as it is. The good thing about this option is: it doesn't alter or harm your existing tracks. The bad thing about this is that the new track lays on top of any of your existing tracks in the map and has like no connections to the rest. But if you want to extend your net of tracks, and add new crossings and track courses, then you need to use the Import and merge tracks option. TrailRunner then tries to find as much similarities of the new track to your existing ones and will only add courses that are new to your map. Due to the very complex nature of the merging algorithm and sometimes poorly collected data by the GPS unit, this might not always give you results that 100% satisfies you.
At times, you will get tracks that have a course parallel to an existing track but TrailRunner did not recognize that they ought to be the same. When this happens, select the track you would call the master-track — the track you want to keep — and then select File > Consolidate > Merge onto selected track. All tracks that are parallel to the selected one are then reduced onto the master-track.
Please note that all these operations are very complex and therefore I can't give you undo (yet). So you better keep a save backup.
> LoadMyTracks | TrailRunner

TrailRunner NanoMaps have been redesigned a bit to match more the visual appearance of Apple iPod designs.

From the original post: After struggling very long on how to describe a route in a very compact and portable way without using expensive GPS-Units which – if running trough the woods – wouldn't really do it anyway, I now added this kind of export. So if you are the lucky owner of the all so cool iPod Nano, this feature really is the best way to stay on track. With NanoMaps every waypoint on your route is displayed with a snap-shot of the map-area around it. Additionally the map is rotated in a way that the direction you are coming from is always at the lower edge of the screen. The orange arrow then shows you the direction you should turn to. The biggest benefit now is, that even if you did not put every possible track into your map you can still see that there are other tracks at a crossing. Because it is not possible to have subfolders in the nano Photo-Library, green squares with a readable route-code in the overview mode help you to find the route you are looking for.
So buy a nano, download some Podcasts, export your NanoMap and have fun with your exercise…

What you see above is the TrailRunner Route export as a KML file, opened in Google Earth. Unfortunately Google Earth is very inaccurate for any elevation-data. So sometimes tracks seem to float above the ground. But it's fun anyway. Especially to to follow the track in a birds eye view animation.
> Google Earth Download

TrailRunner has undergone a rewrite of its internal data structure. Before v70 only way-points where able to store elevation information. This changed. Now the first fruit of this effort has come up. An elevation chart for the route description window. The elevation chart is fully interactive, so you can click and drag the selection marker to inspect the course of your route. On the left side you see a small nano-map of the current way-point giving you directions in what direction to turn. It's the same nano-map you can export on your iPod or cellphone. So the new route description window is a good precheck before you leave the house.

The TrailRunner exercise plan is based on a 3 week cycle. The cycle starts with a normal week, followed by a more intensive week and closing with a regeneration week. After this phase the overall intensity is increased by an individual factor like 5% and a new cycle starts.
The intensity itself is the distance in kilometers or miles. Please note, that the TrailRunner exercise plan is a base-plan, so the average heart-rate you should have during the workouts should be in your aerobic metabolism zone. How much you like to increase from cycle to cycle is something you can plan in advance. But an average from 1% to 5% would be appropriate.
What happens here is the following: You set yourself small goals, reach them, breathe a sigh of relief and set the next small goal. Step by step you'll increase the distances you can accomplish and TrailRunners route calculation will help you find the appropriate courses. The following example illustrates this:

• Say in the first week you would start off with a distance of 10 Kilometers.
• Then the following week is a intensive week. This means the distance is increased by 20% to 12 km
• The next week is a recreation weak, with a reduced distance by 20%, so it's 8 km.
• Now the cycle is finished and we head into the next phase. The base value of 10 km is now increased by the factor you planned before, say its 5%.
• So the first week would start off with 10,5 km
• The following week with 12,6 km
• And so on. Over the a longer period of time the distances will increase like shown in the chart.

This said, you need to plan every unit per week. Add as many units to the Exercise Plan tab you would like to accomplish per week. Say you might want to have two units per week, you could call the first unit the "during the week unit" and the second the weekend-unit. The increase level for both units could be different. During week might increase by 1% and weekend by 5%.
The Exercise Calendar Tab then shows the concrete distance for one week. When the plan starts, something you set in the Exercise Plan with a given start date, you can add week by week and TrailRunner will calculate the values for you, following the rules given above.
Note: If you plan to use an adaptive exercise plan, that increases by the real values you have accomplished, then do not add all possible weeks in advance. After you have completed a week you can adjust the values of the given kilometers or miles by the real values you have accomplished. Then as you add a new week, the rules will take the changed values into account. For example if you did not make the base value of 16 kilometers but only 14, TrailRunner will not add 5% to the 16 Kilometers but to the 14.
The Exercise Calendar has two Buttons: Find Route and Apply. Find route takes the value of the selected workout unit and starts a find route for the given value in the main window. Apply will take the distance value of a selected route and replace the value of the selected workout unit by that. So the two buttons are something like the in and out of the exercise plan.
The third tab Event Calendar is very simple: Add event dates to it and track how many weeks are still left until the event will happen.

The TrailRunner Diary has improved, The new version can now be exported as a Weblog. For that you can enter a public comment on a route in the above field, together with a picture and a private note in the bottom field (if you can read any german you will notice this note above being very private). Together with your weblog entries, a route description is also being published as a gpx-file. This enables other users to find routes from other TrailRunners.
Currently the weblog can only be exported to an FTP Server. If you do not like the design of the default weblog, the template is based on RapidWeaver from RealMac, so you can choose any RapidWeaver compatible theme for your personal weblog.

Tags: weblog, diary

To help you keep your personal TrailRunner data safe, I created a ‘QuickPick’ backup scheme for use in Apple’s Backup 3 software. For those new to .mac and Backup, a QuickPick defines a backup plan for a single application. For example, TrailRunner´s QuickPick lets you easily backup your TrailRunner preferences and your personal diary - each of which are stored deep in your users Library folder.

To use the set, copy it to ~/Library/Application Support/Backup/QuickPicks/ and add the QuickPick to your Personal Data & Settings Plan. You find the backup-plan in the Extras folder.

Tags: diary

TrailRunner should be fully localized to english by now. The application already was with build 44 but as of now all documentation and help is also available in your language. So feel free to play around with every feature that you didn't find by accident yet.
Actually I prefer the english online-help over the german and I will adjust that it the near future to keep both versions current in content and style.

Ein paar interessante neue Features im TrailRunner, wer sie testen will, ist herzlich eingeladen:

Trainingstagebuch: Zum Eintragen und Sammeln von Traingsdaten.
Kartenimport: Jetzt mit mehr als 72 dpi und im Programm drehbar.
Import von GPX-Tracklisten: Erschließt Online Routenportale wie http://www.gps-tour.info
Optimierte Streckennetzkonstruktion: Mit Befehl-Klick direkt an andere Abschnitte anknüpfen.
Mini-Tutorial: Für einen schnellen Start (siehe auch die Screenshots)

Freue mich über Feedback.



> Download | Änderungen

Der TrailRunner geht in die nächste Runde. Der Import von Kartenmaterial, das Legen eines persönlichen Streckennetzes, das Planen von Routen und der Export/Import von Routendaten ist soweit fertig.

Der Versionsspung auf die 0.7 bedeutet, dass jetzt das Lauftagebuch kommt. In diesem Build noch als schäbiger Prototyp, aber immerhin schon ein Anfang. Auch wenn das mit der Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mindestvoraussetzung bis jetzt noch nicht wirklich stimmte. Das Tagebuch läuft auf jeden Fall nur mit Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Viel Spaß.

> Download

Endlich! Der TrailRunner wird langsam offen. Der Routenimport für GPX-Dateien (XML) und TrailRunner-Routenarchive ist nun (fast) abgeschlossen und die Daten werden schön in das Streckennetz eingewoben. Einen riesengroßen Fundus an Streckendaten gibt es bei gps-tour.info. Übrigens, ist schon jemand glücklicher Besitzer eines Garmin Forerunner?
Bei der Gelegheit sind nun auch die Werkzeuge zum Legen von Streckenabschnitten besser geworden. Man kann nun einen Streckenabschnitt legen und gleichzeitig einen anderen Streckenabschnitt auftrennen, um daran anzuknüpfen.
Wer übrigens noch GPS-Koordinaten zum Kalibrieren seiner Karten benötigt, kann das Online-Werkzeug GISWiki nutzen. Es basiert auf GoogleMaps und zeigt zu einer Position im Satellitenfoto die GPS-Koordinaten an.

Zwischendurch ein kleines Wartungsupdate nach meinem Urlaub. Kleinere Verbesserungen gibt es beim Drucken der Karte, hier wird wirklich nur der auf dem Bildschirm sichtbare Bereich gedruckt. Beim Zoomen in die Karte hüpft die Anzeige nicht mehr hin und her, sondern versucht immer den "sweet-spot" also den aktuell interessanten Punkt auf der Karte, im Auge zu behalten. Neu ist das (grundsätzliche) Drehen von Kartensegmenten, einen Link zur Online-Hilfe und ein Menüpunkt für Feedback an den Autor, beides zu finden im Menü Hilfe. Viel Spaß…

> Download

Der TrailRunner nimmt langsam Form an. Die neue Version kommt wesentlich aufgeräumter daher. Das „brushed-metal Theme” von iTunes macht die Oberfläche viel kontrastreicher und besser erfassbar. Die beiden schrecklichen Reiter Karten und Routen haben endlich ihren Dienst getan (in der letzten Version verschwand zum Glück schon dieser katastrophale Unschärfe-Schieberegler für die Routenplanung). Man findet die Karteneinstellungen (Kalibrierung) und die persönliche Laufgeschwindigkeit nun unter den Einstellungen. Gleiches gilt für die Routenplanung, die sollte nun so gut wie selbsterklärend sein.
Neue Funktionen gibt es eigentlich keine, sondern nur weitere Optimierungen. Mit Alt-Klick kann man in der Karte die Darstellung der Abschnitts-Etiketten durchrotieren. Über das Menü Darstellung und die dazugehörigen Tastaturkürzel können Streckenabschnitte nun direkt bewertet werden.
Nach meinem Urlaub geht's dann weiter in Richtung Lauftagebuch. Viel Spaß beim Planen.

> Download

Die neue Version kümmert sich um die Darstellung von Attributen zu Streckenabschnitten in der Kartendarstellung.

Streckenabschnitte kommentieren
Manche Streckenabschnitte mag man lieber und möchte diese – wenn es geht – eher laufen als andere. Dazu gibt man einem Streckenabschnitt eine höhere Wertung. Der Routenautomat bevorzugt bei der Suche Streckenabschnitte mit einer höheren Wertung.
Zur besseren Orientierung bei der manuellen Planung kann man über das Menü Darstellung > Abschnitte mit > … festlegen, welche Informationen in der Kartendarstellung für Streckenabschnitte angezeigt werden sollen. Die folgenden drei Darstellungsvarianten stehen zur Verfügung: Name, Wertung und Distanz.

Man verändert Informationen zu Streckenabschnitten, wie auch zu Wegpunkten, über die Info-Palette.

> Download

Die neue Version bietet im Wesentlichen eine Verschlankung und Verbesserung der Routenqualität bei der automatischen Berechnung. Hat man Streckenabschnitte mit einer Wertung versehen, werden diese nun perfekt so eingebaut, das ein guter Kompromiss zwischen schön und passender Länge gefunden wird.
Neu ist auch das automatische Umsortieren von Streckenabschnitten in eine psychologisch wertvolle Reihenfolge: man läuft auf Umwegen weit raus ins Feld und dann möglichst auf dem schnellsten und direktesten Weg wieder zurück.
Für die manuelle Routenmanipulation kann man jetzt in einer Route einen Wegpunkt auf einen unbenutzten ziehen. Die Route wird dann (wie in der Hilfe beschrieben) über diesen Punkt gelegt.

> Download