Thank you for downloading and using City
Advisor.
This user’s manual shows you how to use City
Advisor on your Windows Mobile Smartphone.
You can also download the PDF version of this User's Manuel by clicking the
following link:
User's Manual of
City Advisor.pdf
Contents
1 System Requirements. 3
2 Installation City Advisor. 3
2.1 Installation with a Cab package. 3
2.2 Installation with a Zip package. 3
2.3 Uninstall City Advisor. 4
3 Getting started. 4
3.1 First launch of City Advisor. 4
3.2 Start Searching. 5
3.3 Search Result. 6
3.4 Get Program Information. 6
3.4.1 City Advisor information. 6
3.4.2 Map Information. 7
3.4.3 Exit application. 7
3.5 Change map. 7
3.6 Quick Station. 7
4 Advanced Search. 8
4.1 Set departure time. 8
4.2 Avoid a line. 8
5 Settings. 9
5.1 Choose default map. 9
5.2 Choose home station. 9
5.3 Choose favorite stations. 10
5.4 Result Optimization. 10
6 Troubleshooting. 11
6.1 Technical problems. 11
6.1.1 Why City Advisor cannot be launched on my phone. 11
6.1.2 Why City Advisor said map file not found when I choose a map. 11
City Advisor is a two layer programs which
its kernel is build with local code and its UI is made with managed code. To
use City Advisor you should have the following hardware or software
configuration:
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A Tactile Screen – You must have a tactile
screen to benefit City Advisor’s touch friendly user interface. So The
following operating systems are supported:
o
Windows Mobile Pocket PC Edition 2003
o
Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Edition
o
Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional
o
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
o
Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
o
Windows Mobile 6.5.x Professional
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Your Smartphone has an ArmV4 architecture
processor. Most of recently Smartphone are compatible.
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.Net Compact Framework 2.0 - .Net CF 2.0 is
preinstalled with Windows Mobile 6.0. so if your Smartphone is installed WM5.0
or before, please install .Net CF first
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2Mb free storage space – either in memory or
storage card.
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5Mb of more free memory[1].
You can always download the latest version of
City Advisor on http://www.cityadvisor.net. Before install, please make sure that
you have got the latest version to benefit newly updated features.
2 packages are
available on the site: the Zip package and the Cab package.
Cab package is standard installation package
on Windows Mobile. To install City Advisor with the following instruction
1.
Copy cityadvisor.x.x.x.x.cab to your phone.
2.
Open File Explorer and navigate to the place you
copied the cab file
3.
Launch cityadvisor.x.x.x.x.cab from your phone
and following the instruction
4.
Installation complete, Installation program
created automatically a shortcut on the Start Menu
If you’ve downloaded a zip package, please
follow the instructions to install:
1.
Use any software to extract the contents in the
zip package
2.
Copy the files on your phone. Example: \Program
Files\CityAdvisor
3.
If you want, you can create a shortcut on Start
menu
o
On your phone, open File Explorer
o
Browse to \Program Files\CityAdvisor
o
Hold on cityadvisor.exe, and select Copy
o
Browse to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs
o
Select Menu\Edit\Paste Shortcut
If you’ve installed City Advisor with cab
version, Go to Start -> Settings -> System -> Remove Programs and
choose “x_sliver CityAdvisor” to uninstall
If you’ve installed City Advisor with zip
version, you can directly delete the City Advisor folder.
Anyway, City Advisor is green software; it
will never touch your Windows Registry or leave files on your system folder.
While City Advisor is well installed, you can
launch it on Start Menu. At the first launch, City Advisor will load the integrated
map “Paris – Ile de France”. You can download and install any other maps as you
want and set one of them as your default map.
Note: the address of downloading maps is: http://www.cityadvisor.net/c_maps
When the loading is done, you could see the
interface which is similar as shown below. While the graphic interface is
described as follows:
1.
The Start station: You
could push on the start station area to enter your departure, or choose your
home station from Quick Stations button
2.
The End station: you
could push on the end station to enter your destination, or choose one of
Favorite stations or Tourist sites from Quick Station button
3.
Map label: it
shows the current map you’ve loaded. Or “Loading…” means the map is being
loaded.
4.
Search Button, when start station and end station are selected, you can push the
Search Button to start calculation, or push the Advanced Search button to do an
advanced search. (For more information about search result, please refer the “Advanced
Search” section).
5.
Toolbar: the 4
icons are showed at the bottom of the screen, they are: Information, Map,
QuickStation and Settings
a)
Information:
shows all about the City Advisor, the Maps. You can also check update, minimize
or exit this application.
b)
Map:
allows you to load a different map installed on your Smartphone.
c)
Quick Station:
you can set home station, tourist sites, and my favorites as one of your
destinations or make a reverse trip
d)
Options: here
you can set default map, favorite stations and search preference here.
While the map is loading, you can start
searching. With the touch friendly interface, you can do everything with your
finger. Now push the
departure box marked “A”, you will see a Station Selection window like the
following image:
Type the station on your virtual keyboard or
on your physical keyboard, a list of matched stations will be showed. If
where are more than one screen stations listed, you can drag the list with your
finger or just type more letters to reduce the station list. When the station
you want is on the screen, just push on it to make a selection.
Note 1: The station is
matched by its name and keyword, while the keyword is defined by the creator of
this map.
Note 2: City Advisor also accepts hardware keyboard, you can press arrow
keys to move selection and press enter to confirm.
Choose the destination with the same method.
And press Search button to get the result. The calculation will take 1 or 2
second on a normal map. If a map has hundreds of lines and the distances are
too far, the calculation will take 5 seconds or more.
Every map of City Advisor contains time table, the table may be service period and
frequency, may be a full time table. The search takes the actual time and
calculate the fastest/ or less connecting path for you. Please note that every
search is based on the actual time, so the result may various depending on the
time you push the search button. This manner assures you that the result is
always operational. City Advisor never proposes you to take a bus when it is
out of service.
Anyway, you can choose anytime as the
departure time, to do this, please read Advance Search Section.
The search result will be presented as
follow:
1.
Departure Station.
2.
List of lines and connecting stations.
3.
Time need for each part of the trip and for
total trip.
When you do not need this information
anymore, push the OK button, or just push anywhere on the screen to close it,
and do the next search.
Note 1: the handicap indicator means the station is friendly to access for
mobility reduced persons.
Note 2: the “Walk to station” indicator means the interchange is on
different stations. Generally we have to walk from one station to another to
take the following bus/train.
3.4
Get Program Information
You can view the City Advisor version
information by pushing the information button “I” then push the about button.
This window shows you the current version of
City Advisor and you can decide whether which version of map could be
downloaded or update the program.
Map information shows you the necessary information
about the current map.
Its author of whom you could contact for improves the map, the description,
version and build date of this map to help you when updating.
For Windows Mobile 6.5.x users, there is no
more OK button on the
top of the screen, so you can press the exit button on this screen to exit or
minimize the application.
City Advisor is offering with “Paris –
Ile-de-France” include, this map is initially the default map to be load.
To change the map, you can tap on the “Map” icon on the bottom of the main
screen. The map selection screen will appear and you can choose any map
installed.
Note 1: the map list is cached and you have to refresh it manually. The refresh
takes time if many maps installed or big map installed. Once the refresh is
done, map list will be cached and it will be showed faster next time you select
maps.
Note 2: Map list are also finger friendly, drag
and scroll the screen to find you interest maps.
Quick station helps you to choose most
frequently used stations faster. Click on the “Quick Station” button to
activate the “Quick Station” window, and you can choose the following type of
stations:
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Set Home station as departure.
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Set Home station as destination.
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Set one of favorite stations as destination.
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Set one of tourist sites as destination.
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Reverse the departure and destination.
You can set Home and favorite stations in
Settings, but Tourist Sites are created by map editor which cannot be modified.
Advanced search gives a way to personalize
the itineraries. For example, if we want to specify a departure time, or have to
evade a line which its service it temporary interrupted for some reason, then
you can use advanced search to schedule your way. All advanced search options
can be accessed via advanced search button.
You should make sure that the departure and
destination are selected. To specify a departure time, push on the Advanced
Search button (which is next to the search now button) then we will see the
advanced search window.
To set the time, push on the up-down button
of hour and minutes to increase or decrease. Hold on these buttons can increase
and decrease repeatedly. When
the time is set, push the “Search” menu on the bottom of the screen, we will
get the result
Sometimes we meet some difficulty on some
lines, when there are incidents happened like the train do not works, the
electrical was cut, … we must avoid this line in our path to continue our
travel.
To avoid a line in your path, activate the
Advanced Search, and push on the avoid line bar. A list of all lines will be
shown as follow:
Select “View” menu to change the view of
these lines, push on a line logo to select.
The line to be avoided will be shown on the
advanced search window. Push on “Search” to find path without this line. If you want to cancel this selection,
just push on the avoided line and choose cancel on the “line selection”
window.
Compare the result to the one in “Search
Result” section; we can see “RER A” is well avoided.
Default map is the map to be loaded on startup.
In practice, you could set the map of your home city as default.
To select a default map, tap on the
“Settings” icon, then choose a map on the list then choose “Select”. The next
time you start CityAdvisor, this map will be automatically loaded.
Home station is the most frequent station you
passed. It can be set as departure or destination. You can choose one and only
one home station for each map.
For example, you live in Paris and you live
near Effiel Tower, then you can set “Trocadéo” (a station near Effiel Tower) as
your home station for the map “France : Paris – Ile de France”. Now you are
travelling in Milan to watch fashion shows for a week, you could choose a
station near your hotel as your Home Station for the map “Italy : Milano”.
To choose a home station, you could navigate
to “Settings” and push on the “Home Station” item.
Please note that the home station is attached
to the map, to know the home station of which map you are setting, just have a
look at the “Customize Quick Stations for” option. Change this value to set
home stations for different maps.
By default, you are setting the quick station
for you default map.
Favorite stations are frequently accessed
station to you. They can be set as you destination. Same to home stations, the
favorite stations are also attached to the maps.
To set favorite stations, navigate you the
“Settings” and tap on “My favorite stations” item. The favorite stations are
shown as follow:
1.
List of favorite stations
2.
Add a new station to favorite
3.
Remove a station from favorite stations
4.
Clear all favorite stations for this map
5.
OK button, make the changes effect and close the
window
Result optimization gives you a preference
when calculating a path. Three possible values of this option are Less Time,
Balanced, and Less Connecting.
Interchanges are not always comfortable, some
interchanges may very long to walk and take too much time. You could adjust the
indicator of interchange and let City Advisor choose a better way.
Note 1: All interchange times are calculated and planned even you have chosen Less Time. This
ensures that you will not miss the train because it
takes time from one platform to another.
Note 2: These options are not absolute but relative. For example, if we select “Less Connecting” as our preference, and there are two ways on our path: one takes 20
minutes but have an interchange, another one takes 35 minutes without
interchange. CityAdvisor will propose you to take the first solution because in
the real world the value of 15 minutes is greater than 1 interchange.
City Advisor is a two layer application while
its kernel is complied as local code and the UI is based on .NET Compact
Framework. To make sure if City Advisor could run on your phone, please check
if your phone is an Armv4 compatible architecture, then please check if .NET
Compact Framework 2.0 or plus has been installed.
Normally if you have Windows Mobile 6.0, the
.NET CF 2.0 is preinstalled.
This often happens while the folder of CityAdvisor
has displaced. The Map list cached the maps with absolute path so the map file
path is changed. To fix this problem, open map selection screen, and choose
Menu->Refresh