S&T Keys for Streets & Trips 2009 Wish List

You can Post your wish list for S&T Keys 2009 and future versions.

Follow the procedure below:

1- Which version of S&T keys 2009 you are using.
2- Explain your needs with few sentences (complicated idea are not generally easy to implement!).
3- Please be patient, S&T Keys 2009 is a free product and i need some time for traveling also


S&T Keys 2009 Software main thread

Have not installed 2009 Keys - I'm using S&T 2008.
I'd like the ability to assign a preferred zoom level to a key combination - else, swap between the current zoom level and the predefined level.

Hello all. I have used S&T 2007 for several years faithfully. I really like most of the functionality, and S&T Keys really makes it better! In fact, I don't think I could use S&T without S&T Keys....I wouldn't know what buttons to push.

Something that has always frustrated me about S&T was its inability to use the real time-of-day from the laptop. For example, if "My current location (GPS)" is the first location in your route, then when you push F3 to recalculate your route, I think S&T should load the current time in the "directions list" and calculate all of the estimated real times for the different turns and future stops. This should be easy to do.

So here is the question for an S&T Keys addition. Can you make a hot-key that when pressed, automatically loads the current time-of-day into the menu item "Route -> More Options -> Start Driving At" and then does the F3 recalculation automatically. The net effect of it would be what I described above. This is just my concept of how it could work.....perhaps there is an easier way.

Isn't there somebody else out there that wants to see real times displayed without having to do all of the math yourself?

If S&T Keys 2009 can do that it would be awesome! (I am currently trying the 60 day trial of 2009)

Hokie said:
This could do the trick for a very short travel (less than one day). But if you are travelling a long time (more than one day) it wouldn't do the job i guess:

1- It would force to be reajust every day

2- It would also requiere that the "end driving at" option be set (possibly at midnight to avoid stopping the travel for a day?)


3- I guess that if you are travelling at night, the "end driving at" option will stop the travel at maximum midnight for that day. Manual key press to reajust the start driving time may be needed after midnight to solve this problem?

Ater testing, it looks that setting starting time at current day hour end stopping time 1 minute less allow to travel a full 24 hr without being bothered by a stopping (and midnight) issue, but it would be diffcult to figure out in which day we are (Day 1, Day 2) if the travelled route is many days...


4- You would need to press the key at least everyday....

5- If you do a stop while travelling for a day, you would have to reajust the start time pressing the hotkey and you would loose the past history also?


Give more details about your proposed scenario

Thanks for the quick response. Here are some answers to some of your comments/questions:

This could do the trick for a very short travel (less than one day). But if you are travelling a long time (more than one day) it wouldn't do the job i guess:

1- It would force to be reajust every day

I would use it several times a day to calculate the ETA for stops during that day and the final destination of that day. During the next day of the trip, you just continue to do the same thing.

2- It would also requiere that the "end driving at" option be set (possibly at midnight to avoid stopping the travel for a day?)

Agree

3- I guess that if you are travelling at night, the "end driving at" option will stop the travel at maximum midnight for that day. Manual key press to reajust the start driving time may be needed after midnight to solve this problem?

Ater testing, it looks that setting starting time at current day hour end stopping time 1 minute less allow to travel a full 24 hr without being bothered by a stopping (and midnight) issue, but it would be diffcult to figure out in which day we are (Day 1, Day 2) if the travelled route is many days...

Agree

4- You would need to press the key at least everyday....

I envision myself pressing the button several times during the day to update the ETAs.

5- If you do a stop while travelling for a day, you would have to reajust the start time pressing the hotkey and you would loose the past history also?

As I travel throughout the day going through planned stops, such as gas stations, I typically delete the stop in the route plan so that the current GPS location is always at the top. You still keep your GPS trail history, just not the previous stops.


Give more details about your proposed scenario [/QUOTE]

The real value with this is the calculation of real times in the directions lists. For example, I may plan a two city trip with a gas station stop in between. If I had the button that we are talking about, then once I hit it, I could look in the directions list and see the estimated time-of-day that I will be at the stops. I could continue to hit this button every now and then to update the times to see if they are changing. Perhaps I want to know what time I will be arriving at my planned gas station stop to see if it is a good time for lunch as well, I could just look at the most recent direction list to do so. In the same example, say I just stopped at the gas station stop and had a longer lunch than planned. Once I start driving again, I delete the gas station stop, hit the new button, and now I have the new ETAs to the future stops.

Hopefully this helps describe my usage more.

Thanks

I just realized that the S&T Keys source is distributed in the package. That is great!

If you think my above idea is crazy and nobody uses S&T in that manner, then I may take an evening to implement this for myself.

Thanks for being open with the source code!

Hokie:

I like your main idea and i think i will add it in the next release. But i am thinking of adding it differently as what you described:

1- Instead of using a hotkey to be pushed manually each time to refresh the ETA, i am thinking of adding a configuration option (so user that don't want this can disable it) in S&T Keys option panel so it is more automatic than manual (you don't have to think about it)

2- When the option is selected, each time the navigation is started using S&T Keys <F2>, <F5>, <Home>, <End> keys and so on (maybe i forgot a couple), it would refresh the ETA time in S&T automatically. The only assumption for this is that if you are doing a stop and stopping the GPS navigation, next time you restart, the ETA would refresh by itself.

This way, it would look more integrated in S&T and if you open up the direction panel, you can always expect that the ETA is up to date most of the time. No hassle of forgetting to press a hotkey to achieve the purpose...

What do you think of the idea?

I think i would use it myself if it was done behind the scene...

I like your idea and agree that it would seem more integrated to S&T. For my use, I believe it will work because I typically use the F3 key to update my routing which essentially stops and then restarts navigation anyway.

I appreciate the consideration and look forward to your next release whenever that occurs.

Hokie:

Thank you for this very good idea. Stay tuned to hear about it soon...

Any other good idea to improve S&T utilization could be suggested, and i would be glad to hear about it

LineChaser said:
Sorry i forgot about your post

The 2009 version of S&T Keys can only be used with S&T 2009. The 2008 version is not developed anymore (and not created by myself).

I am working mostly on the 2009 version now...

The old 2007 version (in my signature), i don't think i would update it anymore, except maybe for some annoying bug fixes if needed.

I don't know if your request can easily be done, but if it could be, it would not be done in any other version than 2009.

For the 2008 old version, you can look at this thread: S&T Keys for 2008?

This might be a really odd idea, but I can see some function for it and at a glance it appears easy to add. How about a "black screen" hot key. Idea is that instead of putting the laptop into suspend or hibernate I just toggle the black screen so that it looks off and much less likely to attract attention while out of the car for quick stops. Some times stops are too short to justify waiting on a standby/wake up, but leaving the screen with something on it while out of the car is not a good idea to me. I've noticed that you already do overlays onto the map area so I'm thinking it will be really easy to add a black screen that "overlays" the entire screen.

Sorry if this function is already covered else where with some other software add-on. I just picked up S&T 2009 April 17th before leaving Saturday morning for a Trip to PA from NC after "co-pilot" bailed on me.

Thanks
Screech.

Oh, I'm running version 2.54.0

Screech said:

Here my suggestions to achieve this purpose:

1- Standby to ram (or suspend to ram) function is a pretty quick operation on my laptop (few seconds).

2- It is possible to configure a screen saver in windows to achieve this purpose (black screen). A shortcut on the desktop can easily be used to trigger the screen saver fct. (so minimizing S&T with S&T Keys F2 function and clicking the desktop shortcut to trigger screen saver can do the trick).

3- Why not just lowering the screen toward the keyboard, this would hide it pretty easily, without turning it off...

4- I don't think this function can be usefull to a lot of people. But if many are voting for it and have a different opinion than mine, i may reconsider later

Thanks for the idea...

1. I've tried that, but it seams a bit cumbersome having to stop the receiver before suspending and then restart it once the system is one again. I'm talking really short, frequent stops. I've read that xport may prevent me from having to stop/start the GPS receiver, just haven't had time to test that yet.

2. Screen saver idea is a no go for me due to the small car and having an optical mouse, closing the door moves the mouse and disables the screen saver.

3. Not an option with my setup. Toshiba Satellite R20 tablet PC in an 86 Civic Si. I turn the screen around back-wards and have the keyboard wedged between the center console and the dash. Looks like the car was designed to hold the system there, minus blocking access to the climate controls and radio. But the car is so small that the screen is behind the wiper controls and steering wheel some, so I can't fold the screen down.

4.Understood, this is a wish list, not a "make it now list".

Last night I did come up with a process that works for the most part. I turned off the wallpaper and set the desktop color to black with the task bar set to auto hide. Now I just press Windows+D to show desktop. Then I can alt+tab back to the app when back.

...or, instead of the Alt+Tab, do the Win+D again. That should bring up the minimized windows to where they were before the first Win+D.