This gpx file I downloaded from POI Friend.com has the waypoints for every Canada and US Tim Horton Restaurant. The problem is, I can't open the file with anything ! I read something about this file being a POI Group, and I think that may have something to do with it. Didn't find any info about POI Groups so I thought someone else might take a poke at it.

As an alternative, the site will create the file in other formats (kml, kmz, loc, csv, asc, ...). Is there another format that Tritons behave well with ? I'd rather stick with the .gpx, but am willing to muck with other known good types if there's a good alternative.

Thanks in advance, Denis.

You can open the gpx file with a text editor, e.g. vi.

The problem seems to be with the French characters. The 28th Tim Hortons on the list is at "635 av. Larivière". I replaced "Larivière" by "Lariviere" (twice for this entry) and truncated the file to just the first 28 Tim Hortons. MapSend Lite reads the modified file fine. If I do not replace the "è" by "e", MapSend Lite gives an error. I suspect you have to replace all the french characters by their rough English equivalent before it will work!

Clement

Well that's a relief, I thought I was on crack or something ! At least I know how to get around the problem. Good thing I'm french too, I have a bit of a head-start on the language thing ! Thanks for the hint, I owe you a coffee, pardon the pun....

I downloaded the file as an asc, or Magellan file and then loaded it on VP.
3347 waypoints with no problems, then transfered a few of them to my Triton 2000 with no troubles.

I do wish there were more Tim Hortons close to my home but I always find them when I'm in Maine or Rhode Island.

Now I can have them all on my Triton, VP and Streets and Trips.

I have been using a Where's Timmy app on my iPhone but this is better.
That POIfriend is pretty good, Thanks for pointing it out!

This POIfriends is pretty good.
Don't bother with GPX files, just load it as an asc file to VP, also it will load to Microsoft Streets & Trips.
I made my own icon for Timmy, here's my new Streets & Trips map, just in time for my drive to Seattle.



And here's what VP looks like;

so many Tims's, so little time..... mmmmmm, cooooofffffeeeeee !

Too bad we can't have the Tim's cup icon like yours on VP and the Triton... or is it possible ? You're probably better at that stuff than I am anyway....

I'm working on it, I can change all the waypoint flags to a coffee cup or almost anything else I want. But it changes all the flags.
And it won't transfer it to Triton.
BTW you can edit the icon on each waypoint on VP one at a time.
Now to play with VP's program and file system, maybe I can put all the Tims in a separate waypoint folder? Hmmmm, this should be interesting.

Here's a quick look at VP with coffeeeeee cups at every Tim Horton's.

Oh well, I can't do anything with the program, I don't know enough about this stuff to do anything but screw things up.
I've already had to re-install VP twice!
I was hoping to figure out how to load different folders of waypoints with their own icons.
What I can do is add my own icons to take the place of VP's icons.
All I did was rename the coffee cup icon from Coffee.png to Flag Orange.png .
Then every waypoint shows as a coffee cup instead of an orange flag.
So I'm gonna play with icons I like more than the standard VP icons.
I can create and add my own icons, then name them whatever VP uses for an icon for 'waypoint', 'geocache', 'coffee', etc.
I don't know yet what will be transfered to Triton or GC.

C:\Program Files\Magellan\VantagePoint\Media
That will get you to where the images are stored on VP, like everyone always says, play with it at your own risk.

Hey, I can see the Tim Horton's about 11 miles away from me. Good coffee and custard filled chocolate iced donuts. My downfall.

I loaded the gpx file in Ozi and they all went in..then saved the waypoints in OZI as a wpt file...then in VP imported waypoints in the Ozi wpt format and all went into VP....without having to change the spelling

Yup, Thanks Saintamc, now you get the address info & phone # with the waypoint, exactly what I wanted.

And the waypoints with the special french characters work, however the letter before and after the special char. are missing. However, it's not a big issue, as most of the names are basically legible as they are with the letters missing.

Thanks for the hints, all.

Now if only I could do a sort-of query, say I want all Ottawa Tim Hortons.... I'll ask the POI Friend website, and see what's possible there.

In VP when you have all your waypoints loaded zoom in to Ottawa on your map then go to view all details for the waypoints...when they all come up click on the distance tab at the top and they all get sorted.....

True. But you can't do say a query, asking for ONLY the ones within a xx-km radius. When you try to copy only the ones you want to the Triton, Sync doesn't sort them like that, they end up alphabetical in the Sync tab. At least with the Distance sort, you can see the ones you want, copy their titles and addresses, then go select them one by one in the Sync function to copy them.

Their website tech advised me that you can't download only part of the file, and you're stuck with 3500 points. However, I've found a bit of a workaround.

On the website, you create a POI Group in My POI's. You also create several home locations that interest you. By using each home location, the points are sorted by distance, then you can copy individual waypoints to your POI group. Once you have the 20 or 30 points that you want, you create the gpx file, wash it thru Ozi, then into VP and the Triton. This gives you the points you want, without loading VP with thousands of points that you don't need.

If the website could break down those points by province, you'd be in better shape, with maybe 1000 for Ontario, for example, would be slightly more workable, but certainly not a cure.