MobileHome is an app designed to help travellers finding camp sites, mobile home sites, general parking that is suitable for mobile homes and service stations worldwide.
Inspired by the idea introduced by OpenStreetMap to allow the users to add and maintain the information provided MobileHome relies on the users help and willingness to share their experiences and collected information with others.
The app offers the following features.
The initial database provided is based on data publicly available on the internet and published by archiescampings and womo_sp.org and covers only Europe. There is also some data taken from a travel report by Andrews's Amazing Journey covering Africa.
No warranty for correctness of the data provided here can be given. My own travels however show that the data is for the most part reliable.
The initial database contains
I do hope that in the very near future this will change to the better with your help.
Note: If you edit entries or create new ones please use English or the language for the country the site is located in. That will improve the usability of the data.
The map viewer used in this app utilizes the MapsForge viewer for Android and the map data also provided by MapsForge. The decision to use this viewer was made because it is possible to create maps without the need for internet access. As standard a very simple map is included that shows the coast lines worldwide. However a variety of map data is also provided by MapsForge that covers the entire world in detail based on OpenStreetMap data. The entire data set is about 40GB. You can however configure the map viewer to use only detailed data for areas you are interested in. Depending on the device and the map data you are using the creation of map views may appear slow. However the tests revealed that most maps are created as fast as on-line maps. As a rule maps covering smaller areas are created fast and maps displaying a large area will be created slower.
The map configuration page in the Settings also allows to see if new or updated map files are available and allow you to download these map files directly to your device. This however requires a working internet connection and it is recommended to download map data only if a WIFI connection is available.
The map data uses a lot of storage space on the device. The storage location for the map data files is selected in the following priority. If your device is fitted with a removable storage card this card will be used. As second option the internal not removable storage card is used and as last option the internal storage of the device.
Depending on support by your device some limitations may occur.
Even though all screens are designed to work with rotation the screens with text entry fields may not be shown correctly if the device is used in landscape mode. If that happens please use the device in portrait mode when using these screens. The limitation occurs if the device has no landscape on screen keyboard support.
The geographical search offers in on-line mode very detailed information for a specific GPS coordinate. That includes country, county, postcode, city, street and in some cases even the house number. In off-line mode the information provided is only country and city. And cities only with more than 1000 inhabitants. The restriction applies to finding the address information for a GPS location and finding the GPS location for an address. To make the functionality consistent searching for the location of a specific place is limited to the country and city as input parameters.
During upload and download of data records to and from the web server it is possible that errors may occur. The most likely error is that your connection to the internet is down. If an error happens please check if you are still connected to the internet. One other reason is that you are not registered and authenticated. Upload and download requests are only processed by the web server if you are registered and authenticated. Please see the Registration section for details how to register. The last and most unlikely reason for errors during upload and download is that you are blacklisted. Blacklisting happens if you submit data records with wrong or offensive contents. All uploads are recorded. Wrong contents may not be discovered immediately. However offensive contents like swearwords or obscene language is discovered promptly. Should you suspect you are blacklisted without reason please contact us on appmobilehome@yahoo.com. We will then investigate if your email address was misused.
When you start the app the first thing you see will be the main screen looking similar to the picture below.
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The main screen is divided into 3 different areas
The current position area
Here the current GPS position is displayed with latitude and longitude. Underneath the address information for this latitude and longitude is displayed. The current location will be updated as you move around with your device. That also applies to the address information.
The search parameters area
First the currently selected GPS position that will be used for the site search is displayed with latitude and longitude. Underneath the address information for this latitude and longitude is displayed. Initially the search position is identical to the current position. However the search position will not be updated automatically.
Then there are 5 buttons that can be used to define a specific search position.
Current will simply set the search position to the current position.
Find displays a dialogue where you can enter a city name and a country. Only one of the entries is required.
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If the GEO Coding query returns only one result the latitude and longitude for that result are transferred directly to the search location. If several choices are returned a dialogue is presented where you can select the desired position.
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From Map opens a map view with the current search location in the centre of the screen. Tapping on the screen will select a location and mark it with the red cross-hair. Closing the map display with the Back Key or the Home Button will ignore the selected position. You must use the Set Location button in the map display to update the search location. The Set Location button will then also close the map view.
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Lat Lon opens a dialogue where you can directly enter a specific latitude and longitude.
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Personal Markers opens a dialogue where you can select one of your personal markers. Selecting one of the markers will update the search position immediately to the marker position.
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Then the desired site types can be selected. You can select as many search types as you like but at least one search type must be selected.
Next is the selection of the search radius. The radius can be adjusted by moving the slider across the screen. The minimum search radius is 5km and the maximum search radius is 500km around the search location.
The last search parameter that can be selected are the open and close
dates for the sites. To activate date selection check the Use Dates
box. Then you can select an open and close date where the site is
definitely open with the buttons.
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Selecting the Open All Year box will use dates that find only sites that are open all year.
If no date filter is selected the search result will ignore dates.
The search execution area
This area shows only 2 buttons.
The Run Search button performs a search on the database with the defined search parameters and presents a list.
The Name Search button opens a new view that allows searching for specific site name and in a specific country. From the search parameters only the Search Type is used.
The Main Screen Menu has 7 options.
This action will open the main map view. Please see section Map Views for details.
This action will open an empty Site Details Editor. Only your current GPS location and the site type MobileHome Site is set. The minimum required is the name entry and Latitude and Longitude must not be both 0. But as much information as possible should be entered already at this stage. The country and the city is also recommended in the address section. That can be done easily by using the Update Address from Position button. In off-line geo coding mode and sparsely populated regions this may not produce any results. In this case it is up to you to enter valid information. Creating a new site entry will store the information as a private record in the database.
This action will start the Setting screen. Please refer to the section Settings Screen for details.
This action will query the web server for updated site data records. It will only work for registered and authenticated users. It is recommended that you use this feature regularly. After fetching updates it is possible that entries appear marked as private records and as normal records. In this case you should delete your private entry.
This action opens the Personal Marker editor.
This action displays the manual you are currently reading.
This action displays a screen with some information about the software. Here you can also see when you performed the last site data update.
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The Search Results Screen presents you with a list of sites found in the database that match the search parameters you specified in the Main Screen and will look something like this.
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Tapping on one of the entries will open the Site Details Screen.
A long press on one of the entries will open the Site Details Editor.
If the site has facilities defined as many as possible of these facilities are displayed as icons for each entry in the result list. Tapping on one of these icons will display briefly the Group and Facility descriptions for that icon.
You can change the sort criteria with one of the menu options. The
currently selected sort criteria is displayed above the list. The sort
direction (ascendingor
descending
) is
displayed by an icon right of the sort criteria description. To toggle the
search direction simply select the current sort criteria again.
If no site records could be found for the defined search parameters you will see this screen.
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After tapping on OK the results screen will close automatically.
The Map Overview menu will start the Map Overview screen. Please see Map View Screens section for details on the Map Overview screen.
The Search Results Screen Menu has 4 options.
Using the name search will first display a screen similar to this one.
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Note: The search is limited to the site type selection made on the main screen.
In the text field Name you can enter a full name for the site you are looking for or part of the name. As a wildcard you can insert % characters. The name search is not case sensitive. Additionally you can select a country and limit the results to sites only in the selected country. The results list is functionality identical to the Search Results Screen.
Initially the list will contain all entries in the database for the specified site types. The list will be updated as you type in the Name field or select a country.
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As in the Search Results Screen the entries can be sorted by distance, name and site type.
The Name Search Screen Menu has 3 options.
The Site Details Screen is much larger than the height of your device. You can scroll through all the details. Here is an example of a Site Details Screen.
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The following data is displayed in this view.
Note: The displayed distances are calculated as great circle distances between two points on the earth's surface.
The map view can only be zoomed in and out but not moved to a different center location.
If more facilities are specified for the site than can be displayed you can scroll the facility icons to the left or right. Taping on one of the icons will briefly display a text description of the group and the facility name.
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If pictures are assigned to the site the pictures are displayed as thumb nails. If more pictures are assigned than can be displayed you can scroll through all pictures to the left and right.
Tapping on a picture thumb nail will open a view with a larger representation of the picture. In this view you can also switch to the next or previous picture with the arrow buttons.
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The Site Details Screen has 3 menu options
Pictures can be added via the Add
Picture menu. Depending on the software installed on your device and
the hardware a screen is presented allowing you to take a picture directly
with the built in camera or select a picture already stored on your
device. To reduce storage requirements the pictures will be reduced in
size. Pictures taken directly with the camera will NOT appear in
the Gallery.
A long tap on a picture thumb nail will present a dialogue asking if you want to delete the picture.
With the menu Mail
to a Friend you can share specific site records with personal
friends. A dialogue will pop up where you can select recipients stored in
your contacts. You have to select at least one email address from the list
or enter an email address manually. Then the mail app will be opened with
a new email already addressed to the recipients and a default subject line
and message body. The site data is also already in the mail as file
attachment. If you have pictures stored for the site these pictures will
be included in the attachment. Of course you can change the subject line
and the message body as you desire. Please see the Import
From Mail section for details how to import data received by email.
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With the menu Rate
Site you can share report your opinion about a site with a simple 5
star rating to the server. The rating is calculated as an average from all
users that reported a rating. You must be registered and authenticated to
use this feature. Simply select a rating from the dialogue presented and
select OK. It is only possible to report a rating if you currently are
connected to the internet. If you are currently off-line your rating will
be remembered and reported the next time you have a working connection to
the internet.
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As in all views that contain a map display with this menu Personal Markers you can
display your personal markers on the map display.
The Site Details Editor allows you to edit all the data items for one site record. Also you can add pictures to the record.
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The Site Details Editor is also used to create new records. The screen looks something like this.
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The Latitude and Longitude can be changed using either the text entry fields entering Latitude and Longitude manually or by picking the location from a map view using the Pick From Map button. Please refer to the Map View Screens section for further details on using the map to select a position.
The address can also be entered manually or if GEO Coding Service is available the Update Address From Position button can be used to retrieve as much address detail as possible automatically.
In the Site Details Edit Screen the 5 contact groups (land line phone
numbers, mobile phone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses and web page)
are visible even if in the appropriate group there is no entry. Entries
can be edited, new entries can be added using theAdd button near the group header and entries can be
removed using the
Del
button next to the entry.
The facilities can be edited in a separate view launched with the Edit button next to the facilities display. Please refer to the Site Facilities Editor for details how to edit facilities.
The Site Details Edit Screen Menu has 4 options.
Pictures can be added via the Add
Picture menu. Depending on the software installed on your device and
the hardware a screen is presented allowing you to take a picture directly
with the built in camera or select a picture already stored on your
device. To reduce storage requirements the pictures will be reduced in
size. Pictures taken directly with the camera will NOT appear in
the Gallery.
You must use Save
menu to store the modified data in the database and if you are registered
and authenticated it will report your modifications to the web server.
Closing the editor with the Back Key or the Home Button
will ignore any changes made to the record.
The Delete
menu removes the record from the database. Fetching updates from the web
server may reinsert the deleted record again.
The Does not
exist menu removes the record from the database. This menu is only
available if you are registered and authenticated. This action will also
report the site as not existing to the web server.
Note: If you edit entries or create new ones please use English or the language for the country the site is located in. That will improve the usability of the data.
The Site Facilities Editor allows you to select facilities that are available at the site. The facilities are divided into 11 groups. You select the group from the drop down list at the top of the screen.
The Facilities groups.
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Please refer to the Site Details Screen section for further information about the facilities.
The General group.
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The group General requires 2 selections for each facility. It has
to be defined if the facility is on site,
nearby,
walking distance or
other. This additional selection is hidden if the
facility is unchecked and only visible if it is checked.
Please refer to the Site Details Screen section for further information about the facilities.
Closing the facilities editor with the Back Key or the Home
Button will ignore any changes made. You must use Save to Entry menu to store the modified data to the
record. Using this menu actions will also close the Site Facilities
Editor.
The Facilities Edit Screen Menu has 1 option.
In this screen you can define edit and remove markers that are important to you.
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First you see a list with all your markers. Above that list is a map
display where the position of the marker is shown on a map. Tapping on of
the entries in the list will shown that marker on the map display. A long
tap on an entry will open the marker in the edit view. With the button you can delete an entry after confirming your
action.
The Personal Markers Screen Menu has 1 option.
Here you can edit personal markers or use it to add new markers.
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The minimum entries required are the name and a valid GEO position as Latitude and Longitude. You can select a colored flag and enter additional address information. Like in the Site Details Editor you can enter the location manually or pick the location from the map. The Address can also be retreived via GEO Coding with the Update Address From Position button.
Closing the Personal Marker editor with the Back Key or the Home
Button will ignore any changes made. You must use Save Personal Marker menu to store the modified data
to the database. Using this menu actions will also close the Personal
Marker Editor.
The Personal Marker Edit Screen Menu has 1 option.
There are 3 versions of the map view.
The General Map View is launched from the Main
Screen. It creates a map with the current GPS position marked with a
blue cross
hair. You can zoom in and out either using the zoom buttons
and
at the bottom of the screen or pinching directly on the map view. You can
change the centre of the view by dragging the map in any direction. The
GPS position of the map centre is displayed at the bottom of the screen
between the zoom buttons and updates as you drag the map view around.
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Note: Using many detail map data files will reduce performance. Especially if the zoom level is set to cover large areas.
Note: Depending on the RAM memory available in your device some areas may be drawn incomplete in zoom levels covering large areas.
The Map Overview Screen shows an overview of the sites created by
a search. The current search GPS position is marked with a red cross hair. The same functionality for zoom and pan
apply as in the General Map View. Each site is marked on the map
with an icon representing the type of the site. Taping one of these icons
will show briefly the name of the site. A long tap will open the Site
Details Screen for that site.
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The Search Position screen will show a blue cross hair at your current GPS position and a
red cross hair at the current search GPS position. The same
functionality for zoom and pan apply as in the General Map View.
Tapping the screen will set the current search GPS position to that
location. Closing the Search Position Screen with the Back Key
or the Home Button will ignore the selected search position. You
must use the Set Location button to update the search location.
The Set Location button will then also close the map view.
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The General Map Screen Menu has 1 option.
The Map Overview Screen Menu has 1 option.
The Select Location Screen Menu has 2 options.
As in all views that contain a map display with this menu Personal Markers you can
display your personal markers on the map display.
In the select from map view is an extra menu option To Personal Markers. This
option lets you pick one of your personal markers, centers the map at that
location and sets the search position to the position of the marker.
The Settings Screen shows 7 buttons.
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The Register
button will open a screen where you can do the registration.
The button Register opens a dialogue where you enter a valid email address. This email address is used to confirm your identity if you upload or delete records. If you are already registered a warning message is displayed.
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The button Authenticate opens a dialogue where you enter your authentication code generated by the web server.
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The button Check Registration can be used if you are already registered and authenticated if you removed and reinstalled the app or want to use the app on more than one device. It opens a dialogue where you enter the email address from your previous registration.
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Here a few words to the registration. We want to keep the privacy of our users at a maximum. The only information you must provide is your email address. Under no circumstance any email address provided in the registration process is passed on or misused otherwise. This method was chosen since email addresses are unique and can be verified by simple means. When you register with your email address a unique key is generated and sent to this email address. The registration must then be authenticated using the key provided. Since the key is quite long, randomly created and case sensitive it is recommended that you use the copy and paste functionality to enter the key in the authentication dialogue. The communication with the web server is encrypted.
The General
button will open a screen where you can define some general settings.
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In the section Keep Screen On you can prevent your device from
turning the screen off while the app is active. If the app prevents the
device from "sleeping" you will see in the title bar the icon displayed.
Then you can define the Latitude and Longitude format to be used throughout the app. You can choose between 3 formats.
Further you can define how distances are displayed. You can choose between 3 options.
The Geo Coding
button will open a screen where you can define the settings relevant for
the Geo Coding.
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Here you define how Geo Coding (finding a Latitude and Longitude corresponding to an address) and Reverse Geo Coding (finding an address corresponding to a Latitude and Longitude) is performed. You can choose if you want to use Only Online Geo Coding. In this mode Geo Coding is only available if the device has currently a working internet connection. The mode Only off-line does not require a working internet connection. However the app needs at startup some time to initialize and the required memory (RAM) is also much higher. Online and off-line will first try to use the online Geo Coding method and if that fails use the off-line Geo Coding. In this mode Geo Coding will almost always generate valid results but the longer startup time and high memory usage also applies.
Very often places are known with different spelling or even different names in different languages and also with different writing (for example Arabic). When you select Use Alternate Names in Search the search is extended to include also matches within the list of these alternate names. Depending on the performance of your device using this option can increase the time required to complete a search dramatically. It is recommended to use this option only on powerful devices.
The Search
Parameters button will open a screen where you can define the
default search parameters to be used each time you start the app. You can
select the default search types, the default search radius and if you want
to use the search with dates.
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The Site Coverage
button activates a screen where you can define for which countries you
would like to obtain site data updates.
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If you select individual countries only site data updates for these countries are fetched from the server. It is possible to select all countries to get updates for the entire world but the same result is achieved by selecting no countries.
The menu options in this screen change according to selected countries dynamically. For each continent there is a menu option to select all entries in that group and one to deselect all entries in that group. If no country in the group is selected only the select all menu will be shown, if some countries are selected select all and deselect all will be shown and if all countries are selected only deselect all will be shown.
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The Map Coverage
button opens the Map Coverage Screen.
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On this screen you can choose if you want to be alerted if new map files are available from the server. The server is queried if more than a month has passed. You can also specify if a notification should only be done if map file updates for files you are currently using are available.
You can choose the map theme you prefer, if you would like to see the grid with Latitudes and Longitudes shown and if your personal markers should be shown by default. You can always activate the personal markers from the menu in a view with map display.
Via the button from
this page you get to the map file selection page.
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In the first example you see that several map data files are available but not present on your device. For the map file andorra.map a new version is available.
In the second and third example you see that sometimes there are several files available that cover the same area. As example for France there are several files available that cover smaller areas but also one large file that covers France entirely.
In the 4th example you see the map file for Spain is up to date and in use.
The screen displays the map data files in a tree as they are stored on
your device and available on the map data server. Folders
are presented in grey
and have and
buttons if the folder contains any map files. Map files
that are up to date
are presented in green,
map files that have a newer version
on the server available are presented in cyan,
map files that are available on
the server but not on the device are presented in yellow
and map files that are obsolete
(found on the device but not on the map data file server) in red.
New files or updates can be selected for download in this screen by
selecting the
button. The download will start immediately or will be queued if another
download is already active. You can also select if a map file is to be
used during map rendering or not with the
button. The button changes then to
. To remove a map file from the device select the
button. The selected files will be removed immediately
after a verification question.
Using the Graphical
Map Coverage will show a representation of the areas covered by
individual map files.
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The areas marked in green represent files on your device and in use. Areas marked in yellow represent files located on your device but not currently in use. Areas marked in grey present files that are not on your device but available from the server.
There are 3 menu options that can be used to show only files that are used, locally available or available on the server. Or any combination of the three options.
The menu Filter
is used to define a name filter to show individual files or a group of
files. The filter selects map files where the file name contains the
filter expression.
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The menu Highlight
an individual file can be highlighted. Selecting this menu will present a
list of all files that match the currently defined filter. Selecting one
of the files will show that area in red. Selecting cancel in the section
dialogue will clear the highlight.
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The Restore
Original Database button will show a confirmation screen that you
really want to restore the originally with the app delivered database and
if you answer this with OK overwrite the current database file
with the one delivered with the app. This can be necessary if the database
gets corrupted.
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Note: This action will undo any changes you made to the database. Pictures you added to the records will not be deleted however can appear with the wrong record.
The Standard Texts
button will present the screen where the standard subject line and
standard message text is defined for usage to contact sites via email.
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The Settings Screen has no menu options
If you receive Site Data Details by email you will find in the email an attachment. Depending on the mail app you are using the handling may be different. This feature was tested using the Google Mail app and the Yahoo Mail app. If your app asks if you want to save the attachment as file or view it please select view. Some mail apps know which app to use to view a file but some will present you with a screen to select the app to view the file with. In this case you will see a screen similar to this one.
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If that screen appears please select the entry MobileHome File Import and press the Just Once button.
If the app selection appears or not you will then see a screen similar to this one.
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Again depending on the mail app used the first entry will be the File Name. Some mail apps send the contents of the attachment directly. In this case the File Name section will not be visible.
An extraction of the site data contents will be directly displayed in the Import Data section. That is the Site Type, the Name and the Position. If a record with the same id already exists in the database the same details for the existing site will be displayed in the Local Data section. The distance section shows the distance between the 2 data sets. You can then select to overwrite the existing record or insert the data as a new private record in the database. A data record received by email may contain pictures. These pictures also will be extracted and stored on your device.
Note: If you are familiar with the file system on your device you can also save the attachment as file on your device. The choice of file name is then left to you. Using a file manager you can perform the same import action from the file manager by tapping on the file.
The Import from email Screen has no menu options
The camp sites in the initial database uses data provided by archiescampings.
The mobile home sites in the initial database uses data provided by womo_sp.org.
The camp and mobile home sites covering Africa in the initial database uses data provided by Andrews's Amazing Journey.
The off-line map viewer is provided by MapsForge.
The off-line map data is also provided by MapsForge based on OpenStreetMap and hosted at Hochschule Esslingen.
Last not least I wish to thank all the Android and Java developers posting help, tips and code examples on the internet. Too many to name them here did assist in the development of this app.
Any assistance helping in improving the software and the data contents is very much appreciated. Please do not hesitate to send your suggestions for improvements and most important any bugs you may discover to appmobilehome@yahoo.com.
Any reasonable request for improvement will be considered and as soon as possible implemented.
Also any assistance in translating the software and this manual to different languages would help. If you are willing to translate the software and manual to a new language please don't hesitate send a short mail to appmobilehome@yahoo.com.
Thank you in advance for your support.