SA2004Tweak.zip (7KB)I've been working on making DeLorme Street Atlas 2004 work better for on-board navigation for over a year now on the bike and in the cage. Recently, with the addition of some new hardware (7" LCD touch-screen, glide-point mouse, Telex noise-canceling mic, X-keys macro keyboard etc), I've been actually USING the stuff for in-vehicle navigation and have developed some improvements to the defaults to enable easy navigation while under way.
DeLorme Street Atlas 2004 has some 'quirks' in its user interface that make it different from both SA2003 and earlier Street Atlas products. The defaults are nice for planning a trip, but are really inadequate for navigation purposes IMHO. Here's a partial list of gripes and some tips and tweaks for us PC geeks.
* SA2004 doesn't display a sorely-needed button on the control panel which was present in SA2003. The screen magnification combo-box was replaced with the center/stop center on GPS button.
* There's no button to turn the split-screen on/off (a very nice feature BTW).
* The bread-crumb trail length has been increased to the ludicrous number of 5400 points (about 90 minutes worth) before it begins to erase your green snake trail. This quickly clutters up your screen and can get annoying.
* The GPS position pointer gets too close to the edges of the map area before redrawing the map making it hard to see what's coming up in the next few minutes.
Fixes, tips & tweaks: *** Note!!! These fixes require modifying the registry on your Win2K, XP, or 98 machine and could result in you permanently damaging your computer's settings or totally crashing it if you screw up bad enough. Be smart and save a backup copy of the registry before making any drastic changes (just in case). This is not a tutorial on how to edit the registry - you can learn that elsewhere. I've included several automatic registry editor files in the zip file below which will allow you to make these mods quickly and try them out for yourself.
========== Show the screen magnification box: edit the following entry key name - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DeLorme\SA2004\DeLormeComponents\DeLorme.SA2004.MapControls.1\ShowPhotoZoom Default value = 0 (decimal) Enable value = 1 (decimal)
========== Show split-screen on/off button: edit the following entry key name - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DeLorme\SA2004\DeLormeComponents\DeLorme.SA2004.MapControls.1\ShowMeasureTools Default value = 0 (decimal) Enable value = 1 (decimal)
========== Adjust bread-crumb trail length: edit the following entry key name - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DeLorme\SA2004\DeLormeComponents\DeLorme.SA2004.GPS.1\AppDefaults\MaxTrailPoints Default value = 5400 (decimal) Change as desired - I used 120 for 2 minutes and 300 for 5 minutes. Enter in decimal
========== Adjust panning threshold away from edges of map key name - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DeLorme\SA2004\DeLormeComponents\DeLorme.SA2004.GPS.1\Prefs\AutoPanTolerance Default value = 10 (decimal) Change as desired - values from 0 to 50 (decimal, in percent of screen). *** Setting to values greater than 40 increases CPU time dramatically as map(s) redraw more frequently. I tried 50% and it slowed my 1ghz PC to a crawl while driving and made buttons hard to push as all the CPU time was being used for drawing the maps. Good values are from 20% to about 35%
Disclaimer: I do not work for DeLorme nor do I claim to be a programmer. These tweaks are experimental and could adversely affect the operation of your computer and its programs. I make no warranty as to the accuracy or safety of these modifications. I certainly didn't write the program "Street Atlas USA 2004" so I can't tell what else may happen due to these changes. Use at your own risk.
SA2004Tweak.zip (7KB)
Click on the diskette symbol above and save the zip file to your computer. Unzip the file and read the included directions for use