Below is some updated documentation not included with the app. This is meant to help answer some questions from those who haven't beta tested this app before:
Beta Software! as of May 2014 This app is beta; it's being distributed to ask the opinions/suggestions of others as to how it might be designed better, what features would be most useful if included, etc. What the Remind Me Where app does The Remind Me Where app is all about locations and places (a "place" in this instance is a Google term for a business or other entity, or special geographic point of interest). You can also keep a database of your own points of interest, keep a database of reminders which are tagged to specific locations, search for places, get directions from anywhere to anywhere (even using public transit), and you can even connect a GPS receiver if you're mobile to see what places are around you. Don't have a GPS receiver? If you move between wi-fi hotspots, then the app will use your IP address to determine your location automatically, or of course you can just enter your address! Whew! Now that's a lot of things to do with locations and places! All of these things can be done by choosing options from the main Remind Me Where app menu; there are also some hotkeys (which you can see by entering the help dialog and going into its hotkey option). Installation Notes This app requires another app named "GPS" to be installed. If it isn't present the app will offer to download and install it for you. You should allow this to happen. The GPS app can interface with a GPS receiver, but one is not required; The GPS app however is still needed even if you do not have a GPS receiver connected, as it provides support programming routines. Please note that as part of the installation procedure for the GPS app, if you are running Windows Vista or later and you have UAC enabled, then you will be asked if it is ok to run an installation program. Please answer "yes" to this Windows question as the GPS app is installed. Setting Defaults There are two apps where you can set options. First, in the GPS app, you can set its options directly from the app menu. The important one for now is the one which enables it to constantly search for GPS receivers. If you know you are not going to use a GPS receiver, then choose this option if it is checked (to uncheck it). This simply stops it from using some small portion of your CPU to constantly look for a new GPS being attached. In the Remind Me Where app menu, you need to go into the Tools menu, and then into the Options dialog. In here you can enter your default address. Also, using the menu in this dialog, you can indicate if you will be moving around between different Wi-Fi locations and you wish to have your default location estimated from the IP address; if you do not do this, then make sure the option to prefer default location from IP address is not checked, and it will use the address you enter in the edit boxes of this dialog. Searching for Places When you want to know about places, the app will use Google behind the scenes to get information about all the places near-by to a location which meet your search criteria. Searching for a place can be complex (such as allowing you to search for all the restaurants or ATM machines across your city which are currently open), or simple ( showing you all the places immediately near-by to some location). To start a search you can select from one of the app menu options: Search for Google Places (starts from your default address or IP or GPS location if configured to do so) Search for Google Places From an Address (you specify where to start from) Look at Near-by Google Places (again starts from your default address or IP or GPS location if configured to do so) Selecting one of the two search options will open a dialog where you can enter part of a name, a keyword, and more advanced menu options to search with. When you're done, you click on the "Search" button. If you choose the "Look around" option, you won't be searching, you'll just be shown all of the near-by places to your default address (or IP or GPS if configured to do so). Once you've specified your search criteria, you'll be presented with a dialog showing all the places returned by Google (ordered from closest to furthest), along with a note about their address and their distance and direction from your starting point. For any of these places you can open the Google+ web page (Google's equivalent to a Facebook page), or its web site by clicking a button on the dialog. You can also click a button to start a new search beginning at that location (so that if you found a restaurant you're interested in, you could then see if there are any ATM machines near-by to it). Getting Directions You can use this app to get directions (behind the scenes it uses Google to supply the information). When you use the option to get directions from one place to another, the "from" or "to" location may be a street address which you enter, the GPS coordinates from your GPS receiver, a point in your POI database, or even a place which you select from a Google place search (so that you can get to that great restaurant mentioned above). Google is amazingly forgiving about spelling errors, and flexible when entering locations to search around or for; you may enter a complete address, or only a street name along with the city (and state or province), or the intersection of two streets by separating their names with the ampursand (the "and" sign), or even just a city name! Once you have chosen both the "from" and "to" places, you can choose the type of directions (driving, walking, or transit). If you're lucky enough to live in a city with its public transit information on Google, then the "transit" directions produce great instructions (including schedules and times) for use of the public transit system. You can specify either the date and time you wish to start your trip, or the date and time you need to arrive at the destination (so if you're meeting someone for dinner at 7 at that restaurant above, you'll make it in plenty of time). How the Get Directions Dialog Works You are placed in a multi-tab dialog; the three nearly identical tabs are for the 'from', the 'to', and the 'waypoints' addresses. You can move between the tabs using control-tab and control-shift-tab, or using a set of radio buttons across the top of the dialog which change the active tab. each tab allows you to specify a location in one of four ways. You can enter a street address, by searching for places near to a street address and selecting a place from the results, by using your default GPS location, or by selecting a point from your points of interest database. In addition, any time you have a location specified in any of these forms, you can click on the 'near-by' button to search for places near to it, and you can select a place and it will become your specified location. To make adjustments to the options or type of directions you desire, use the menu at the top of the dialog. When you're ready to get the directions, use the 'get directions' button. The app displays directions in a second dialog, with a quickly navigated treeview, where you can expand some steps to get more exact instructions for that step. The 'Get Directions' dialog will remain open in case you want to make changes and try again. The F6 key will take you between these two dialogs, just as if they were panes of a single window. In the treeview, you can select any "step" along the route and perform a Google place search or look-around from that "step's" location (or if it's a transit station, then you can see the Google transit schedule from that station or stop). You can also click a button to see the directions in their own browser window, which may contain links to related information (especially when using the transit directions). The browser window allows you to select and copy the directions and save them into a file. Note that if you have specified transit directions, the app will also include door-to-door walking instructions, to get you from your starting location to the first transit stop, and then from the final stop to your final location (also if you have to switch from a train to a bus for instance, you'll be provided with walking instructions on getting from one station to the other). Advanced Options in Directions Getting directions is likely to be the most used feature of this app; therefore, it's probably worth mentioning some of the advanced options to be found in the dialog: You can choose between 3 types of directions: driving, walking, and public transit. Google warns that walking directions are still in beta. Waypoints are a list of up to 6 locations you can specify which the directions must pass by as they take you from "from" to "to". Think of it as having to pick up each member of a scout troop, one at a time. You start with your "from" location, then you enter each member's location as a waypoint, and finally you enter the meeting location as the "to" location. The directions generated should take you to all of the member locations before taking you to the destination. You sometimes may also wish to use a waypoint to force the generated directions to use a certain route, by specifying a location on the desired street to be included in the directions as a waypoint. You have an option to choose to have the directions stop at each waypoint, or pass by it. Alternatives is an option which causes Google to generate several sets of alternative directions for you to examine. Not all possible alternatives are generated, and there is no way (except by use of waypoints) for you to influence which alternatives are generated. All the generated alternatives are shown in the results dialog as a branch of the treeview. The transit directions provide you not only with the particular line or bus to take, and its departure time, but also how many stops and the length of your trip time before it's time to disembark. In the directions results dialog, when you have a step selected which begins or ends at a transit station, you will have an option to see the Google+ page for the transit station. If the step goes from one station to another, you will also have the "start" and "end" location radio buttons which allow you to specify which station. When you click the Google+ transit page, you will see all the transit schedules which stop at or leave from this station for the day in question. Your POI database You can add your own points of interest to a database; these must include a set of GPS coordinates in order to be entered, but these coordinates can come automatically from: your own GPS receiver from this app using Google to estimate them based on a street address which you enter you choosing a place from a Google place search just type in the latitude and longitude numbers (using the decimal form, which is a single decimal number for each of the latitude and the longitude ) You can also import a GPX file of POI data points into your POI database. Where am I? Most of the app features do require that the app knows at least an estimate of your current location; if you aren't using a GPS receiver, the app now allows you to enter your default address via an "options" dialog, or it can use your IP address to estimate your current location. The "options" dialog allows you to indicate if the IP address should primarily be used, or only the default address. You would want to prefer the IP address if you're using a laptop and moving between various locations with IP service. (The app can even use the Windows 7 or 8 default civic address specified for their pc). What the App May Do Some Day Eventually it's hoped you will be able to enter items into a "reminders" database as well. One of the expected features of this app will be if you have a connected GPS receiver, when you come within the specified range of a point which has a reminder, the app will take the specified action (play a sound, speak a message, etc.). This could be anything from remind you of your bus stop coming up, to a reminder to buy milk at the store. Even if you don't have a GPS receiver, it's planned that when you get directions, if they should pass near a place which would trigger a reminder, the reminder will be noted in your directions. Currently, the option for using metric units is not always honored; hopefully that will be fixed soon. It's hope that someday we'll have the ability to share points of interest between all users of the app; probably through a central server similar in concept to the barcodes shared by the A.T. Guys barcode scanner. Don't just display a list of search results or places (with their distance and direction), find a way to allow the user to experience the spatial relationship between the various points (perhaps using arrows to move around on the screen) Google places (a.k.a. Google+ Local) can have "events" listed for each place. It's hoped this app will allow you to see these events, as well as to add your own (which would only be seen by other users of this app according to Google). An event holds a date/time, a length, and a description along with an optional web link for more information. You should be able to enter new places into the Google database (which will be visible to all users). Closing Remarks Please review the hotkeys available for this app to make sure there are no conflicts with other software you are using, since all of these hotkeys are global. If you prefer, you can undefine the hotkeys in this app, and use the app menu choices to perform actions instead (which is my recommendation). Finally, if you have ideas or problems, please use the app menu choice under "Tools" for sending the author an email, and drop me a note to describe them. I'd like to hear ideas as to how this app might be expanded to do more in the way of location-based services; information you'd like to see or track, etc. I'd also just like to hear if you have ideas as to how the user interface might be made better. Thanks. Chip Orange [email protected]
