Release 2.8.1

TL;DR

This is a significant maintenance release concentrating on making the journey tracking facility more robust and the automatic syncing mechanism more reliable.

Journey Tracking

We have made some changes to the Journey Tracking screens to improve the ease of use and make it more robust.

Previously, the app was prone to losing the tracked journey if there was a poor connection when the track was ended or if the journey was interrupted by some other app use e.g., an incoming call. We have now improved it by ensuring that the track is saved regularly, so any loss is minimal and by making it obvious to you when there has been a problem so that you can decide whether to save the route or not.

In addition, we have given you the option of enabling or disabling journey tracking either for a single lesson or for all lessons (semi-)permanently.

Don't want Journey Tracking?

When you press Let's Go on a lesson you will now be presented with the option to track the journey. If you choose to do so, you will be given the option to enable journey tracking for all lessons. If you choose 'Yes', journey tracking will be used on all lessons and you will not be asked again; if you choose 'No', you will asked again the next time you press Let's Go.

If you choose not to track the journey, you will be given the option to disable journey tracking for all lessons. If you select 'No', it will be disabled for this lesson only; if you select 'Yes' it will be disabled for all lessons.

If you have enabled journey tracking for all lessons, you can disable it by going to the context menu on the planning screen and selecting the option. Conversely, if you have disabled journey tracking for all lessons, you can enable it from the context menu. If you want to reset it to the default so you are asked the question for each lesson, simply log out and log in again.

Note: We strongly recommend that you do NOT track the journey on more than one device at a time. You do not need to. As journey tracking is controlled at the device level you could turn it off for one device, e.g., your tablet and leave it on for another e,g., your phone.

Unsynced Routes

Journey tracking information is now saved locally at regular intervals in case connection fails. At the end of the lesson, when the stop button is pressed, the app will attempt to write the journey tracking information to the central database. If it fails, then it will continue to be stored locally until such time as it can be uploaded.

In this situation, you may get a message in a blue banner at the bottom of the screen telling you that there are one or more unsynced journeys. You can view these journeys and decide if you want to sync them or not. Hence, if your journey has been disrupted and two different routes have been saved locally, you can sync whichever is more appropriate.

Note: If you are offline or have unsynced changes as well you may get both a blue and a yellow or red bar.

Automatic Syncing

The automatic syncing process has been looked at in detail and streamlined to ensure that it is as efficient as it can be. As part of this process, we have also looked at situations where the device loses connection completely with the server and tried to improve it to ensure that it tells you when there is a problem and tries to fix itself.

To further strengthen this and to cope with situations where devices get out of sync, we have changed the process behind the refresh button which is located on the diary at the top of the screen.

If, at any time, you feel that a device is out of sync with the central server or another device that you have, or if you simply want to make sure that you have the latest version of the data, click this button. This will refresh your device with all available data from the central server i.e., a manual sync. Please note: This may take some time depending on your connection and the device type i.e., Android devices take longer.

If the app has lost connection, you may be asked, via a message panel, to log in again, which may or may not ask for your log in credentials. Once this has been done, click the refresh button again to request the latest data.

For more details on how to use multiple devices, please see out How To guide - https://www.mydrivetime.co.uk/blog/how-to-use-multiple-devices/

We still have changes to make in this area, in particular to inform you of your current sync status so watch out for that release in the near future.

... and finally

Did you know that when working on the web app, you can change the duration of a future lesson or unavailability, or move it by dragging and dropping? This will work on standalone lessons or unavailabilities, not recurring ones, but if in doubt you can easily tell. As you hover over the event in the diary, a horizontal bar will appear at the bottom of the item showing that it can be dragged.

If you find any issues with this release or anything else, please contact us at support@mydrivetime.co.uk.