Travel Mapping

User Discussions => How To? => Topic started by: jwood.ok on April 08, 2018, 06:21:47 pm

Title: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on April 08, 2018, 06:21:47 pm
Hi all - brand new here.  I have a decent backlog of stuff I'd like to get entered.  Just got get an idea of how a .list file should look, I'm looking at some of your files on github.  My question is, are you expected to have a mostly completed .list file when I first send an email in, or can I just put one or two basic highways in for my initial upload?

Also, curious what methodology you all use?  Try to get all interstates entered first?  Go a state at a time?  Seems a bit overwhelming, so I want to make sure I do it whichever way will be easiest!
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: dfilpus on April 08, 2018, 06:41:13 pm
Submit whatever you want.  Do what works for you. It can take a while to enter hundreds or even thousands of entries. Realize that you will make mistakes, such as typos or missed segments. Expect extra submits to fix errors. I still find errors in records I added years ago. Learn how to use the Highway Browser, your .log file and your stats page.

What order you enter data depends on how your records are organized. I did my .list file by entering a trip at a time. Since you need to get the data from the highway browser, you can get the waypoints for a segment of a highway and then click on the link to the connecting highway and keep going. If you have data organized by state, then do it a state at a time.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on April 08, 2018, 06:45:29 pm
Submit whatever you want.  Do what works for you. It can take a while to enter hundreds or even thousands of entries. Realize that you will make mistakes, such as typos or missed segments. Expect extra submits to fix errors. I still find errors in records I added years ago. Learn how to use the Highway Browser, your .log file and your stats page.

What order you enter data depends on how your records are organized. I did my .list file by entering a trip at a time. Since you need to get the data from the highway browser, you can get the waypoints for a segment of a highway and then click on the link to the connecting highway and keep going. If you have data organized by state, then do it a state at a time.

Thanks.  I agree a trip at a time would probably be easiest.  In fact, it may be easiest to start with my most recent trip!  Lots of miles to log, so it sounds like the best thing is just get SOMETHING into the system  then do some reading up on the git method if submitting and just check on it as I go along.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: Jim on April 08, 2018, 07:38:35 pm
I'll emphasize that it's fine to submit list file updates as often as you'd like.  We have a good number of users who submit updates at least weekly, and it's no significant burden on me, and certainly no problem to handle for the site update process.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on April 09, 2018, 09:31:23 pm
Thanks Jim!  I'm going working backward from my most recent trip.  Some of my longer trips will surely take many hours to enter, but i'll get there eventually.  It will also be interesting to try to put together the entries for my home state of Oklahoma!
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: navigator on April 10, 2018, 01:00:49 am
Sometimes I bug Jim a few days in a row after I've been on a road trip and add to my list file, and he's always prompt about letting you know it's ready for the next site update. I tried the github way once maybe twice, but I find email easier


My .list file looks like this, but you can do it any way you want -- as long as the [State] [Road Name] [Point A] [Point B] are all correct it'll work. I do mine in alphabetical order just so it's easier to find a particular road on there and make changes when I add more miles on it.

NV NV593 LasVegBlvd ParRd
NV US95 75A NV373
OK US70 OK/AR ChoSt
SD BadLpRd I-90(131) I-90(110)
SD I-90 SD/MN 61
SD I-90 WY/SD 30
SD I-190 SD44 I-90


I also make a copy of the .list file in the folder I keep it in pretty regularly, in case I would make a mistake when entering things in for 2 hours I can go back. I'm now at "navigator - Copy (65).list"  :o


Don't know if anybody else does this, but I also make a .txt file of every road I enter in. It looks like this:

AR US49.txt
AR US49


AR1
Waypoint 12
Coords.: 34.561248°, -90.925856°

MS/AR
Waypoint 0
Coords.: 34.496512°, -90.587425°


AR US49 AR1 MS/AR



That way I can look at the "Date modified" column in a folder and see when I last traveled a certain route. It takes me a little more time but then I know the waypoints I put in are completely correct.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: michih on April 10, 2018, 01:50:56 pm
I do mine in alphabetical order just so it's easier to find a particular road on there and make changes when I add more miles on it.

I think alphabetical order is the only reasonable way because trips are usually overlapping - especially in your home state.

I also make a copy of the .list file in the folder I keep it in pretty regularly, in case I would make a mistake when entering things in for 2 hours I can go back. I'm now at "navigator - Copy (65).list"  :o
Don't know if anybody else does this

It's automatically done for everyone, e.g.: https://github.com/TravelMapping/UserData/commits/master/list_files/navigator.list
And you can see the changes of every submit/commit, e.g.: https://github.com/TravelMapping/UserData/commit/e7c1ea63e11b23e1fd6200b49657f98b23fb3c66#diff-43512f5872cfb8105b74f8a0accff736
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: si404 on April 10, 2018, 07:30:14 pm
I think alphabetical order is the only reasonable way because trips are usually overlapping - especially in your home state.
Other ways of sorting are reasonable - eg my home region is first, then expanding out (in alphabetical order within the sweep) geographically (so the rest of my country, my continent, the US, elsewhere).
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: michih on April 11, 2018, 11:17:58 am
Sure, alphabetical order within each system or region. The order of the regions itself can be random. Just my 2ct.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on April 14, 2018, 09:31:52 pm
Thanks everyone, I've been doing the alphabetical thing by state so far.  I started working at my most recent trips and am working backwards.  My recent trips are really easy to get in just right because my routes are usually also logged on my google timeline (I know, what a cheater!  :D)  Previous nationwide trips will require a lot more time.

Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: dave1693 on April 20, 2018, 06:17:54 pm
When I first started putting my highways in (back in the CHM days), I couldn't go trip by trip because too much of it was all mashed together in my memory. So I broke my North America file into ten geographic areas, for ease of editing. Within each area, the states/provinces/territories included are also ordered semi-geographically; I don't expect that internal ordering to make sense to anyone but me.

I am giving serious consideration to going trip by trip from here on out, though. I'll see how it goes. (I am also working on adding Europe as an eleventh region, trying to work out my two journeys -- both over 30 years ago -- from hazy memory, a few things salvaged from the itineraries, and some 1984 maps where I vaguely kept track of the route traveled on my second trip.)
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on April 21, 2018, 03:36:35 pm
Yeah I definitely have some overlap.  I think I'm also missing a few concurrents.  On my oldest trips, I'm going back and tracking routes down based on pictures I took  ;D .  Looks like I may get all my backlog in about the time that I leave on a summer trip and add a bunch of new stuff!
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: Bickendan on May 01, 2018, 12:34:43 am
My way of doing it is by system then region.

Interstates
Aux. Interstates
US routes
Aux. US routes
State routes
TCH
Provincial routes
Europe routes
European national routes
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: CharlotteAllisonCDTG on May 03, 2018, 10:48:44 am
I totally agree.  I do the following:

Interstates
U.S. Highways
state highways (sorted by state)
foreign highways
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: oscar on May 03, 2018, 11:47:05 am
My ordering is roughly similar to Bickendan's. It's based largely on when route systems were added to CHM (which started with Interstates, then expanded into US routes and other systems) and TM.

-- Interstates (regular then business then future), by state with the states ordered more or less from west to east

-- provincial freeway systems (ON, QC, NS)

-- U.S. routes, ordered similar to Interstates with some variances in the state order depending on how hard it was to reconstruct my travels in those states

-- TCH

-- "select" freeway sets in the U.S., except numbered freeways sometimes got moved to state route sets when they went active or into preview

-- state/provincial routes, in order of when those route sets were rolled out in at least preview

-- national park and some historic highways, by state in more or less random order

-- Mexican and European routes go at the end, no matter when they were rolled out

There's enough inconsistency in my entry order that I often need to do a Wordpad search within my list file to find where in the file I put them, or where to add new entries.

One other thing I do is try to group together entries for a route within a state, in order of where they show up in the Highway Browser. That makes it easier for me to fold entries together when I fill the gaps between them. Some trips focused on such gap-filling shortened my list file while covering more mileage.

Also, I try to remove or avoid adding list file entries that are entirely concurrent with other routes (in early CHM days, we needed such duplicate entries, but now automatic multiplex detection makes them unnecessary). For example, many Texas Interstates are concurrent with U.S. routes, so I just list the U.S. routes without duplicate entries for the Interstates.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: Eth on May 03, 2018, 08:13:43 pm
I seem to be in the minority here in that I prefer a geographical breakdown first. The states are kept in alphabetical order, so Alabama is at the top of my file, then California, Connecticut, and so on down to West Virginia, with routes outside the USA (currently just Iceland) at the very bottom.

Within each state, Interstates come first, then US Highways, then state routes, then unnumbered TM-tracked routes, always in numerical (or alphabetical) order within the category. Auxiliary routes come after all the mainline routes of that category (so, for instance, my file has MD US1AltWas right after MD US522). If I have multiple segments of a route within a state, I try to keep those in west-to-east or south-to-north order, though I may have a few of those out of place.

It works for me; if I need to edit a line, I know exactly where to find it.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: vdeane on May 05, 2018, 05:35:01 pm
I also use a geographic breakdown, with the US first, then Canada, each organized by state/provence.  Within each, I have interstates/autoroutes/400 series highways (including business), US/TCH routes (including auxiliary and historic), any selected/named routes, then state/provincial routes.  At the bottom I have commented out lines for mileage in devel systems (currently just NY Parkways), and speculative system (currently just a piece of AL 149).
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: yakra on May 06, 2018, 02:12:04 am
My ordering is roughly similar to Bickendan's. It's based largely on when route systems were added to CHM (which started with Interstates, then expanded into US routes and other systems) and TM.
Same here.
CHM had interstates first, so I've listed those first. 3dIs follow their parent 2dIs.
Then, Business Interstates.
Then, US Highways, with bannered routes mixed in following their parents.
These groups are sorted alphabetically by state postal abbreviation.

Next come the state systems, sorted again by postal abbreviation for the corresponding state.
These are sorted by system, so ME NH113B is in with a bunch of NH routes, and NH ME153 is in with a bunch of ME routes.

USASF are sorted by state, lumped in with the state routes.

When the provincial routes in the Maritimes were activated, I added everything to the end of my .list as one big road trip, listing all the segments in the order and direction in which they were traveled. (I've only been there once, when I was 8 or 9, and my .list file here is a best guess.)

Since then, three "major" road trips since late 2013 have been added at the .list's end. Otherwise, one small clinch here or mileage extension there gets sorted with the other stuff from its tier & state up in the main body of the list.

Quote
I often need to do a Wordpad search within my list file to find ... where to add new entries.
Ayuh. I search for ME ME, then hit Page Down however many times.

Quote
One other thing I do is try to group together entries for a route within a state, in order of where they show up in the Highway Browser. That makes it easier for me to fold entries together when I fill the gaps between them.
Same here.
I've sorted State route segments by route number/name; disconnected segments of the same route go in 'HB order".
The one exception is Vermont State Highways. A relative latecomer activated only after CHM was superseded by TM, VT got sorted at the end of the state routes section (alphabetically after RI) & before the Canadian Maritimes. Vermont State Highways themselves are sorted into several individual mini-roadtrips in Vermont over the years.
For the list lines themselves, I enter them in the direction traveled: State Route Begin End.
So if I travel ME I-995 1 4 and then ME I-995 6 3 and these would overlap to form a single .list line, I'd probably just list them in the order in the HB, ME I-995 1 6.
There may be some overlapping or redundant lines with the sections where I've listed individual trips, but I'm not too fussed about tidying them up muy pronto.

Quote
Also, I try to remove or avoid adding list file entries that are entirely concurrent with other routes (in early CHM days, we needed such duplicate entries, but now automatic multiplex detection makes them unnecessary). For example, many Texas Interstates are concurrent with U.S. routes, so I just list the U.S. routes without duplicate entries for the Interstates.
I avoid adding these now, and will trim out unnecessary ones when I come across them, but doing so is not a priority. (When NY343 was relocated recently, I just deleted its entry from my .list, as all I had was the NY22 concurrency.)
Thus I have no Future Interstates .listed, as NY17 is sufficient.
No TCH in NB or NS, just listing NB2, NB16, NS104 & NS106 instead. I do have some PE TCHPEI listed. This tells me I added this stuff to my .list before the PEI provincial routes were activated. Holy wow. No other PE roads are listed; I'll have to figure out where I went again, and see if there's anything more I can add...
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: mapcat on May 06, 2018, 08:26:18 am
When I first constructed my list back in 2011, I did all the interstate mileage first, since that was all I really cared about at the time. Then over the next few months, I added the other routes on a state-by-state basis as I reconstructed my travels. Canada got added in there somewhere, but I waited until I retrieved an old travel journal from my parents' house before adding routes in the UK & Ireland.


The list has about 7500 lines now. Keeping it organized and updated is easy in Excel (I'm surprised no one has mentioned Excel yet). It's alphabetical by region (first column) and route (second column, so AK10 and AK11 come before AK2) with special (non-mapped) sets at the end, with their region preceded by YY for routes I clinched that can be re-clinched since a segment moved, and ZZ for routes that I clinched before they were removed from TM/CHM. After a trip, it's easy to scan the list for routes to add mileage to, and all new routes get added to the end in random order. Then I sort it to get the new ones in place and copy-paste into a .txt file, format it for TM, and copy-paste the whole thing it into my .list on Github. It usually only takes a few minutes.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: rebelgtp on June 29, 2018, 02:34:35 pm
Is there an existing character or a means to add a character string that the updates will ignore?

For example, I had been using "// {Insert my sorting method text here}" for separating things like Interstates in a particular state, US Highways in a particular state, or state highways in a particular state...
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: michih on June 29, 2018, 02:41:19 pm
Comments are ignored (no error log output). Comments are lines starting with # character. It is only possible to comment out the whole line.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: rebelgtp on June 29, 2018, 02:52:19 pm
Comments are ignored (no error log output). Comments are lines starting with # character. It is only possible to comment out the whole line.

Hello! That was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: Duke87 on August 21, 2018, 08:44:31 pm
I seem to be in the minority here in that I prefer a geographical breakdown first. The states are kept in alphabetical order, so Alabama is at the top of my file, then California, Connecticut, and so on down to West Virginia, with routes outside the USA (currently just Iceland) at the very bottom.

Within each state, Interstates come first, then US Highways, then state routes, then unnumbered TM-tracked routes, always in numerical (or alphabetical) order within the category. Auxiliary routes come after all the mainline routes of that category (so, for instance, my file has MD US1AltWas right after MD US522). If I have multiple segments of a route within a state, I try to keep those in west-to-east or south-to-north order, though I may have a few of those out of place.

I do basically the same thing, with a couple differences. One is that I put bannered routes in line with their parents (so for Maryland US1AltWas would go between US1 and US11), at least for US and state highways. Interstate business loops get grouped separately after regular interstates and before future interstates.

Another is that I do Canadian provinces in order from west to east rather than alphabetically, simply because this is how Rand McNally always did it so in my head that is the "correct" order to list Canadian provinces in.

Interestingly, we both share Iceland as the one country outside of North America we have been to, and it is last in my list file as well.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: vdeane on August 25, 2018, 03:32:54 pm
Similar, though I include interstate business routes and future interstates in with the regular ones.  By coincidence, Canada does both for me (only been to Ontario and Québec), so I guess I'll have to figure out how I want to do it if/when I get to other provinces.  Haven't been to any countries beyond yet.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on July 15, 2020, 10:55:59 pm
I know this is an old topic, but its my topic dangit, and I had an update and a question.

Since my beginning on the site, I've done my list by geographic region, in my case by state and then a few countries at the bottom of the list.  This served me well for my historic data.  I'm also glad that there is now support for comments which I don't think existing initially.

In any case, the last few weeks, I've wondered about switching to date-based entries going forward.  It would make it easier to piece together trips that way, especially if they are multi-region.  The question I came up with is this: Is there any issue with having multiple entries for the same stretch, or is that just ignored?  Obviously on every trip I'm driving on road I've already been on, but usually trying to pick up something new, but it would be a lot easier to just go ahead and put the whole trip in vs just the new pieces.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: ntallyn on July 15, 2020, 11:21:13 pm
In my experience, overlaps (repeats) don't cause any problems with the site. Might take just a hair longer to process, but that's probably pretty minimal.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: Jim on July 16, 2020, 12:00:37 am
Totally up to you.  If the same segment is marked as traveled by multiple entries in your .list, it will still just be marked once.  It does mean a fraction more processing time during a site update, but the resulting entries in the database for your travels would be identical.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: jwood.ok on July 16, 2020, 10:30:43 pm
Alright, thanks for the replies.  The other reason I was thinking of switching to date-based entries is I think my kids may eventually want their own list.  If I keep my own list based on dates, I'll have a better knowledge most times of if they were with me, and when it comes time for them to make their own list, we can just grab those dates to be a good starter for their own list.
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: yakra on July 19, 2020, 03:00:27 pm
And of course, comments can help, as you already noted. EG,
# Trip with John
# Trip with Jane
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: M3200 on August 05, 2020, 04:20:48 pm
I looked at several of the posted list files and I like the ones that are separated by region and 'type of highway', so I am using that format.  Just started submitting updates this week - it works great.  Jim's process is easy to follow.

The only disappointment I've had is that some mileage doesn't count: there are portions of state highways in California that, while they still have posted route shields, are no longer part of the "official roadway" and are excluded from the mileage computations.  Such is life. 
Title: Re: Methodology for entering
Post by: yakra on August 06, 2020, 01:22:39 pm
Welcome to TravelMapping, M3200!

The only disappointment I've had is that some mileage doesn't count: there are portions of state highways in California that, while they still have posted route shields, are no longer part of the "official roadway" and are excluded from the mileage computations.  Such is life. 
The California State Highways are still a preview system, a work in progress.
I haven't been following that system's topic (https://forum.travelmapping.net/index.php?topic=65) super close, but one of the perennial sticking points seems to be how to handle segments that CalTrans relinquishes to local jurisdictions, cities etc. Oscar discusses some of what he's done where, and his rationale for doing so.