Garmin Montana

Update - Screen protector stuck and bubbling - Removed!

If anyone recalls from last week I posted about my screen protector being stuck and bubbling underneath it.



I ended up heating it face down over my coffee cup warmer. I did this very carefully checking the temp often. The heating element is recessed on the warmer so it was actually perfect for this.



I used one of my MotionPro feeler gauges to gently pry at the corner until it finally gave.



It's in great condition so I'll put another one on.



Some folks don't see the need for a screen protector, but my Nuvi 500 screen started to wear over many years of use so I figured I'd use one on the more expensive Montana.

Was that a genuine Garmin screen protector? I've had them on 2 Montana's without issue- first one for several years.

Yes, and replaced with a Garmin. Many long miles in high temps in direct sunlight is what I suspect was the culprit. I'm just not sure, but it was nice to see that underneath was pristine.

On the Montana can you enter coordinates and go to them?

Yep, the 'Where To' menu offers that option. I tend to do it in Basecamp, create a random Waypoint, then edit it to suit.

Thank you for that info!

I've been helping some friends who foolishly bought Garmin 595LMs, foolish because these devices were clearly never tested outside the lab, and are mostly unreadable in sunlight, which renders its other underwhelming features even more obvious. Tracks, for example, seem to be an after thought, and even if you could see the screen in sunlight, are the same thickness as the other roads, making them even more indistinguishable, not helped by the limited colour range options that excludes that most highly contrasting colour, magenta.

So I've been tinkering with a theme editor for them, and managed to widen track width on the 595s from a standard scale of 1 up to 3. Still red, as I can't yet get magenta to display, but better than the skinny red. This got me thinking as to whether Montana's can be tinkered with in a similar way?

I would love to double/triple the size of my magenta track if possible. Anyone tried this?

Never heard of this unit, but there's a I don't know.

Why did you decide to post this in the Montana thread?

Anyway on a Montana you can Navigate a track either by using Where To\Tracks or Track Manager\Select\View Map\Go To
This draws the track as a wide bright Magenta line. And you can also program the dashboard to show Distance to End and other less useful info (IMHO)

I posted it here as it was ultimately Montana question: vis

"This got me thinking as to whether Montana's can be tinkered with in a similar way?
I would love to double/triple the size of my magenta track if possible. Anyone tried this?"
The preceeding blurb was to provide some context to the question.

Sorry. My short attention span caused me to miss the Montana part in your original post.

Hi, with the Montana you have two options to follow/navigate tracks:

1. Set the track to show on the map, open the map and follow the line
2. Go to 'Where To' and select the track to navigate

With option 2 the track will show as a fatter line on the map.

I never knew that! I just took a look at my Montana, and you're quite right! I had hoped it would be twice as thick again, but it is an improvement.

This really smells like a theme, with Track Manager employing one theme, and 'Where to" employing another. Very interesting.

So this returns me to my earlier question as to whether anyone here has manually edited themes, that in Zumos is done by editing the "xxx.ktmf" files.

Its the same from Track Manager when you select the track to navigate.

I've just had another look and decided the line thickness is the same whether accessed via "Where to" or Track Manager, which is half the size when a 3D route navigation is used.
Perhaps the TYP file will permit track width definition, or the GPF file which is some sort of XML file about which I can find nothing yet.

TYP files - does anyone know if Montanas use them to define colours/line styles etc?
There is a tool available to both extract and edit Garmin TYP files here:-
https://www.pinns.co.uk/osm/typwiz6.html

But..... its going to cost me £16 ($25~$30) , which I don't fancy doing if Montanas don't even use them.
If they do, then I think it could be worth the investment.

I've never done it, but have you looked at this?

https://www.pinns.co.uk/osm/typwiz3.html

...ken...

No, but thanks for the pointer - it will get me started at least. I'll report back later on the outcome.

If it were me I would try trolling around the various Montana file folders looking for .typ files and try opening them. They might contain readable text

If they exist I would do a web search for .typ and see how they work.

But in truth I know nothing about them and have never heard of them.

What I know about TYP files is this. It is often not present as a separate file, therefore not available to read, but rather is incorporated into the gmapsupp.img file, which is your map. It lists a bunch of instructions to tell the GPS that the sea is blue, parks are green, roads are black or yellow, and of a specified width. Garmin later on found that it was too restrictive for some map items, so they created the KTMF file, which does the same thing, but in some other way that gives it more capability.

So if your gmapsupp.img has a TYP file, then there is a tool to extract it, which you can fiddle with to change the appearance of things. I want tracks to be BIG and magenta!
If your map doesn't have a TYP file in it, then another tool will scan the gmapsupp.img for all the things it has in it, like roads, POIs, rivers etc, and will create a TYP file for you, which you can fiddle with and incorporate back into gmapsupp.img.

Now none of this matters if your particular Garmin does not consult TYP files. Great for those that do.

I've copied the gmapsupp.img file off my Montana and I'll have a tinker with TypWiz3 over the weekend and see if the practice matches the theory.

So here are the element definitions contained in my Montana's map, which I extracted using a little tool called "gmp2typ.exe", which, as its name suggests, looks at the gmapsupp.img and pulls out its TYP file:-


All very nice, but which, if any, is my much sought after Track line? I suspect none now, because all these items are probably the static lines that make up the map, whereas my tracks are something displayed on the fly that it is reading from a GPX file.
Well an interesting exercise anyway, and I've learnt a little more about Garmin maps.