EGMaps – Test Your Data

Congratulations on getting this far.  You’re nearly done.

Testing your data consists of three main parts: verify initial data load, verify correct amount of data, verify data on the map.

Verify Initial Data Load

The first type of data error will actually prevent EGMaps from loading the data at all.  This type of error is usually caused by a typo or bad file name.  These errors will cause EGMaps to give you an error and crash at load time.  To find the problem, try to see how much data loads before it crashes.

If it crashes pretty much immediately after launching EGMaps, you probably have an error in your Point of Interest data.  In our experience, this is usually caused by missing or extra quotes, attempting to use special characters, including slash, backslash, or single quotes, in names, or not including an elevation (remember, if you don’t know an elevation, just make an educated guess, or enter 0).

You can often quickly identify these structural problems by just looking at the data in your data files and making sure it looks like the data in the examples.  Refer to the instructions for data formatting for more info.

Once you’ve got your data files loading, it’s time to make sure you actually got all of it.

Verify Correct Amount of Data

•  Only see “GPS Status… up”  No data loaded:  This is probably due to your config file either not being loaded correctly, or not existing where EGMaps expects to find it.  Check to be sure the names and paths given in strings.xml matches the actual names and locations
• No line shown for “New points of interest: In your config file, be sure that you have a line hasPOIs=Y 
• No data lines shown for trails or favorites: In your config file, be sure that you have a line hasTrails=Y
• One or more data lines shows zero new items: This may be ok, as long as the total number is correct.  Once EGMaps successfully loads a data file, it won’t try to load it again unless you delete the app data or the app itself. If it has zero total, also, then your data file is likely missing.  Check to make sure the name and path given in your config file matches that actual names and paths.
• It’s reading some data, but the numbers of POI’s, trail segments, favorites, etc, is wrong: If you have multiple files, did it miss an entire file?  If so, check the names and paths.  Is it missing only some of the data?  Your data file may have errors (look especially for missing/extra quotes, missing commas, etc).

If you’ve corrected your data, you may want to erase all the data and force a full reload.  To do this, exit from EGMaps, then go to the main menu on your Android, pick Manage Apps, and scroll down to EGMaps.  Tap EGMaps (not your own app), then tap the Clear data button.  Note, this will erase all the data on your Android saved by EGMaps, so the next time you run any app which uses it, you’ll have reload that data.  Now you can test again.

Verify Data On Map

Good news!  The hard work is all done.  This part should be easy.

1. Verify your points of interest
   1. A common mistake is to miss a negative sign, or add one where it doesn’t belong.  This is easy to find.  Zoom way, way, WAY out.  Now look around the planet and see if you see any stray icons that aren’t even close to where they belong.  Remember, northern latitudes and eastern longitudes are positive.  Southern latitudes and western longitudes are negative.
   2. Once they’re all in the right place, do they all have the right icon?  If not, make sure you remembered to put the correct file, with a file name made up of all lower-case letters, into your app’s drawable folder.
   3. Tap on each and every icon.  Make sure the name comes up correctly.
   4. Long-press on each and every icon to make sure it goes where you want it to.  Yes, this may take a while, but if you don’t do it, rest assured, your users will find problems later.
2. Verify your trails
   1. Check all of your trails and make sure they’re all there, all the right color, and all going the right places.
   2. One by one, go through each and every one of your favorite trails to make sure all the right trail segments are selected, but no extra segments.

If you found problems with your data, clear all the data from EGMaps and try again.  Keep clearing and testing until all your data is perfect.

Once you’re happy with your data, it’s finally time to publish your app.