Here's a question on searching the nav...
 

Does anyone if you can hack the software so that when you're driving down the hiway and want to search for someting like a hotel or a gas station.

Can you hack the softwar so that it will either:
1: look ahead of your current location or;
2: list what you looking for starting with the closest locations ahead of you?

Here's why I ask...

On a road trip this past summer with my brand new 07 X3 I would look at the computer and it would say for instance that I had 150 miles of fuel remaining.... So I search the nave for gas stations within say, 100 miles in an effort to plan my next stop.

What happend is that I would get station with 100 miles of my current location but it would list them starting with stations behind me.... not good for obvious reasons...

After a bit of this I just switched back to my Garmin Nuvi which is 100X easier to search and give you thing IN FRONT of you...

Anyway if anyone know if the software on the MKIV can be hacked to fix this I'd give it a shot....

If you use the voice recognition to search for fuel or hotels a list is displayed with arrows showing the approximate direction of the target. This helps a little.

It does this if you don't use VR as well, it just isn't very useful...

d-

The standard Euro Mk4 response is to show the POIs starting with the closest locations - ie: sorted by distance. It is a function of the SF_***.HTM file in the POI data.
This is an HTML file, open with a text or HTML editor and observe the difference between a standard Euro ST file and the USA version.

Look at this line:

<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="SORT" VALUE="CRITERIA+DISTANCE">

You can see that you can specify the sort criteria.

In Europe the SF file requests sorting of POIs starting from the closest locations. Maybe the sorting order is different in the USA. How are your SF files defining the sorting?

Jochen

Kiwi - I'm sure we have the same text here in USA, the issue is that "closest" is often behind you. Ideally you would want it to sort by closest to route, not closest to position. Giving up on ideal, I'd settle for Closest in the Direction I'm Traveling.

d-

As direction of travel changes with every street corner, this would be hard to calculate.

To change this sort of calculation, you need to change the algorithms in the source code of the computer. I suggest you ask VDO :-)

I didn't say I thought it was possible, but I figured if anyone would know it would be you :)

d-

Exactly, plus I don't have VR.
Can that be turned on?

That's exactly what the problem is, and exactly what I'd like to "fix" if possible.

I have both a Garmin C series (a C340 I think) and a Nuvi.
Both do exactly that, both look forward along your route.

I don't even mind so much that the MKIV shows things a given radius around you, IF it would list them starting with what's in front of you that would work for me.