Discussion: O Map software & apps for Mac/Apple & iPhone

I have two questions but first a little background.

I’m pretty new to Orienteering (a couple of years) and this is my first post to Attackpint—it’s great to have an O community.

I’ve searched but found surprisingly little mapping software and apps for Apple Macintosh computers and iPhone iOS.

For comparison, I can find hiking and running software and apps for Apple Macintosh computers and iPhone iOS, which includes mapping.

My questions.
1 what software is there for O course planning for Apple Macs OS (that runs on natively the Mac OS without also installing Windows)?
2 what software or apps are there for post O racing and training analysis for Apple Macs or iPhones—that allow you to take a photo of the map and import and overlay your track?

I gave up and bought parallels so I could use Quickroute and PurplePen. Hooray for student discounts.

Since you don't want to do that:

1. I haven't tried Open Orienteering Mapper much, but you could probably use it to put purple on maps. It'll open .ocd last I checked, not sure of the version matching required if any.

2. Livelox, 2D/3D rerun (via web). Not sure of anything native like Quickroute. You can also do routegadget in browser, instructions somewhere on AP.

Open Orienteering Mapper is great for drafting orienteering maps; I use it on Mac (natively). However, its course drafting abilities are a bit limited. I think that I designed a simple one course training once, but for anything more than that (and even for that), Purple Pen (Windows) or other course drafting software is better. I use Purple Pen via Windows in VMWare on my Mac. Dual boot Mac/Windows might be worthwhile; I haven't tried it.

Agree with Jim

Thanks
I’ll look into Open Orienteering Mapper for my Mac.

I tried out MyOMaps on my iPhone but I can’t figure out how to do post race route analysis (can’t even figure out how to load a photo of the map into the app). The android screen shots show menu options that don’t appear on my iPhone.

For what it's worth, I offered once to try to port Purple Pen to Mac or phone, but didn't get a reply.

JimBaker, the thought of attempting a port of Purple Pen to Mac occurred to me, too, but I never got past the thought stage. I had noticed that PP is described on its web site as being open source, but just now, when I poked around further, I could find no reference on said site about how to obtain the source. (Keep in mind that I am notorious for overlooking things right under my nose, so maybe it's in there somewhere.)

But a little Google'ing just now turned up a Purple Pen source depository at GitHub. (And turned up apparently obsolete depositories at SourceForge and LaunchPad). So nothing stopping you or me or anyone else at having a crack at a Mac port.

On this very forum a while back, the developer told us that he his little to no interest himself in porting PP to Mac. He did express some interest in a phone port.

As you noted, Open Orienteering Mapper has next to no capability for course setting. I saw somewhere a while back a comment from the developers (can't remember where) that adding these capabilities to OOM is of little to no interest to them precisely because PP fills the niche of open source software for course setting. No mention was made of filling that niche on the Mac side.

Has anyone had any luck running PurplePen under Wine? I don't know enough about how Windows works to know whether it's worth futzing with the Wine config to try to make it play nice, but if it works that would surely be much easier than porting to MacOS.

Does PurplePen use a windows specific GUI library? Otherwise it seems like you should be able to compile a C# application for OS X without much effort. Has anyone tried this?

I tried to compile it using Mono and managed to create a variety of different errors using several different commands but I think it's too far outside my area of knowledge for me to make any progress (or to know whether it's worth bothering).

I know this isn't a "what is the best virtualisation software" thread, but for what it is worth - I did use VirtualBox (free) with the most success for running Windows software such as Purple Pen before I switched back to a Win machine after about 3 years of using a Mac.

In a (very long) fit of anger about the OCAD course setting tool, I wrote one for the Mac. It reached the beta stage around 2013 and then I lost interest in it. It's usable, but you need a background file in OCAD 8-10 format (newer formats aren't supported). If anyone wants to pick up the torch, just let me know.

https://www.aderstedtsoftware.com/downloads/o-cour...

If I get motivation to program again sometime, I'll look at one or both of those, and see what's needed.

For what it's worth, it is possible to run Purple Pen via WINE on Linux.

From what I remember, I was using the development version of WINE (probably around 2.4 at the time). I had to first install the Microsoft version of the .NET framework via winetricks (I used the minimum version required by Purple Pen, I can't remember right now if it was 3.5 or 4.0).

It wasn't perfect, the major bug that I recall was that when using an OOMapper file, the entire map was black (still the right shapes though). The error messages in the terminal were related to how the colors were mapped - it used an unimplemented part of GDI. When using an image file, the map appeared as normal. I didn't test an OCAD file.

I must admit that I didn't do a very thorough test, so it's definitely possible (and probable) that there's more issues.

Edit:
I just tested again, here's what I did on Linux in a clean Wineprefix with a Winearch of win32 (eg WINEPREFIX= WINEARCH=win32 winecfg, leaving all the settings at the default) and a wine version of 2.22
$ winetricks dotnet40
$ winetricks corefonts
$ wine ppen_installer.exe
It appears that the maps are entirely in black when using OCAD files as well. Additionally, the control circles, start and finish controls, etc are in black as well regardless of the map type used in the background.

I tried to compile Purple Pen with mono but it is not trivial as it uses APIs such as System.Printing which have not been ported.

There seems to be some guidance about porting applications here - http://www.mono-project.com/docs/gui/winforms/port...

I didn't try running MoMA yet to see the extent of how much work would be needed. Not having the facility to print would still be better than nothing I think.

You can get a windows machine for between $100 and $200. Would seem to be the easiest option.

True. Using Parallels is also pretty easy but annoying enough that I find myself avoiding O tasks that require Windows. A cheap machine would be a good option but then I'd have yet another electronic thing in my house that I can't use to play Virtual-O. ;-)

I just purchased a small windows laptop to dedicate to orienteering software. I had been using bootcamp on my Mac, but tired of having to restart to switch over.

I thought Parallels was brilliant enough that I borrowed the snipping tool for regular macOS stuff! The Windows-App-as-window-in-MacOS is a favorite, or the swipe between environments is nice.

Apple products are rubbish. They are overpriced and lack of common features, especially on iOS you are not able to get a normal functioning file manager because the FS is locked down.

Moreover, the development cost for iProducts are so high such that no orienteers are willing to invest in apps on it, where they are willing to develop apps on Android as a kind of volunteer work for their own clubs.

Ok.

Something isn't intrinsically rubbish just because you don't like it.

I also thought about contributing to the purple pen in this manner but couldn't find the source anywhere on their website. As I currently use vbox but it's just that one extra set I don't enjoy.

Anyone using a dual boot on their Mac?

Yes. Bought Windows10 and took the bootcamp plunge. Can run a VM off the same partition using VMWare Fusion, I do that for shorter tasks.

I’m thinking Bootcamp is the way to go for me.
I retired an iMac so I’ll looking it to see if I can run Bootcamp and Windows on it for Orienteering. Otherwise I can run Bootcamp and Windows on my in use iMac.
Will need to get a Windows license.
All if this to run Condes to make Orienteering courses.

I’ve read up a bit more on this topic.
In summary
Dual boot, partition the hard drive, such as Boot Camp, by Apple, free, requires Windows and rebooting to switch between Operating Systems. Best if not switching back between Mac and Windows a lot.

Virtual Machines that run Windows from within the Mac OS such as Parallels, VMware, Virtualbox, buy, buy, free, requires Windows, no rebooting required. Best if using both Mac and Windows software all the time.

Run PC software on a Mac without Windows via Wine or codewavers crossover, free or buy, no Windows required. Does not work for all PC software. Best if you use a limited number of PC programs and the program you want works.

For my use, to run Condes and a post Orienteering run analysis program, i.e. two PC programs, Wine or CrossOver might be best/cheapest, otherwise Boot Camp.

Tip: you can get the most of the boot and vm worlds with VMware fusion since you can run the VM from your bootcamp windows partition. Means you can quickly spin up the vm for a small task or boot directly into windows for a marathon OCAD session.

I wish that I had known that before setting up my VMWare. (Too late now to do boot camp without reimaging.). Great tip.