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Other ways there, on the desktop map

· 2 min read
Massimo Di Stefano
Massimo Di Stefano
FastGIS author

The phone has long offered the routing engine's other ways from A to B, and a scenic bias that leans a route toward the best roads. Both are on the desktop planner now, with the same names and the same requests.

Alternatives, with their figures​

Plan a plain A → B and the planner asks for up to three other ways there. They are drawn as grey lines beside your route, each with a chip right next to it: its name and unpaved share, then its length, time and how much longer it is than your route. The chips keep clear of the route and of each other, follow the map as you pan and zoom, and light their line when you point at them. The same figures sit in a row under the route summary. Click a line or a chip, or walk the row with the arrow keys, and that way becomes the route. The briefing, the profile and the surface follow it, and the old route waits as an alternative.

Two things to know. An alternative's gates are not checked: the routing around closed gates runs on the main route only, and the briefing says "Not checked" rather than pretending. And the way you chose stays with the plan: reload the page or reopen a project and the planner takes the same road again if it is still offered.

The scenic bias, in four steps​

Under the profile, Scenic bias leans a motorcycle or car route toward the best-rated roads near it: Off, Light, Moderate or Strong, then Bends or Climb. It is the phone's setting with the phone's values, and it stays with your routing choices and your projects. It changes the route only where there is a real choice: near Bergen, Moderate · Climb took a 127 km road instead of the plain 113 km one.

For now a biased route can take up to a minute to come back: the server's search of its road ranking reads far more than it needs to. That fix is queued, and the note under the row will go once it is in.

Surface colours you can tell apart​

While we were at it, the route's surface colouring got colours that stand out on the dark route line: paved stays the route's blue, gravel is amber, dirt orange, and single track red in the elevation profile's bar.