Please read this if you want to know a bit more about how to create a group on Sanoodi or just want to join one.

SETTING UP A GROUP.

First thing, you need to be a member of Sanoodi to set one up! If you are not a member, just go to the join button at the top right hand corner of the home page and get with it.

Second thing, you need to be logged in! If these are ticked off, we can begin.
To create a group, you will find the Create a Group menu option under the Share menu:

This will take you to the Create a group form. This is where you you can summarise what your group is all about.

The first item of information that you need is a Group name. This can be the actual name of your group; The Hoboken MTB’ers, The Hounslow Harriers, The Royal Welsh Yacht Club etc. or if the group you want to set up is a virtual one, the name is down to you!

Join Policy is all about how you want to allow people to join or how you want to grow your group, if you are an existing group you might want it to be by “Invitation only”. This option allows all members of the group to invite people to join your group. If you want total control over who can be a member then select “Admin Invites only“. This means that only you, the person who set up the Group, are able to invite people to join. Remember you can invite people from outside Sanoodi! We have limited it to Six e-mail addresses per click, although you can do this a fair few times before the Sanoodi Spam monkey jumps in! We will be adding the ability to select from your Googlemail, Yahoo and Facebook friends soon!
If however, you just want to meet and share your outdoor activities with other members of the Sanoodi community then select “Open to Everyone“. This means that if somebody finds your group on the site, they will be able to join and share their routes with you all.
Next you will need to enter a brief introduction to the club. This “Introduction” will sit at the top of the page. Don’t worry you can go into more detail in the next field which is called “Summary“. This can cover in more detail, what you do, when you meet, where your members are based/from, the levels of expertise that your group caters for and of course any achievements, trophies or even rivals that you might have out there.

Now you can select the “Primary Activity for your Group“, do not worry if your group enjoys more than one activity, you can add more in the list below this. If your Group enjoys Snowboarding and Skiiing, make Snowboarding your primary activity and add Skiing from the list below. This makes it easier for people to find you, your members and your routes and also makes sure that your group only displays routes (and in the future - events) that include your activities.

Website - If your group already has a site then add its URL here in the form http://www.sitename.xxx
If your group has a logo or you just want to put up a graphic then you can upload this too. JPG’s, PNG’s, GIF’s only though. Although, we will resize your graphic for you, if you want it to look its best optimising the image beforehand to fit in the 300 * 200 pixels space will mean that your logo will look better.
You can now enter your group’s contact details i.e. e-mail address and address. Don’t worry if you haven’t got these you don’t need to put anything in here.

Right then, when you have finished click on the Save button and your group will be live on Sanoodi.

INVITING YOUR FRIENDS TO YOUR NEW GROUP
The next step is invitations - spreading the word and telling your friends about your group. The invite button is positioned on the right hand side of your group page. If your group is admin invites only, only you will see the button, otherwise any member of your group will be able to see this button. Selecting it takes you to the Invite screen.

The left hand panel displays your current friends in Sanoodi. check the box and they will receive their invitation via e-mail and from their notifications panel in their profile. If you would like to invite people who are not members of Sanoodi, just type their e-mail address into the right hand panel and they will receive an invitation too. If you want to invite more than six (The Sanoodi Spam Monkey decided on six, as a limit) you can go back to the invite screen and invite six more, and another six, and another six, if you so want it to be.

HOW TO JOIN A GROUP

If you find a group that you would like to join and contribute to, look for the Join button on the right hand side of the menu. If the Group is a Public group it will be there! If there is no Join button on the Group page, this is because it is an invitation only group. If the Group has an e-mail address on its profile page you could always contact them and see if they will invite you.
ADDING YOUR ROUTES TO A GROUP .

If you are a member of a group and you have routes up on the site that you would like to add to the group. Go to the route page and select Send to Group from the right hand menu, below your route.

A pop up will appear displaying the groups that you are a member of. Select the Group that you want to add the route to and click on Send. If Send to Group is not visible it could be because you are not logged in! Or that you are not a member of any groups to send it to.

The new Sanoodi site has a number of extra features that allow you to draw your routes more accurately and provide more information about them. This Post covers how to draw and edit a route on the new site. Sanoodi supports Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 7. If you are not using one of these browsers, you may not be able to save or edit a route.

CREATING A ROUTE

Once that you have logged in to Sanoodi, Click on Share from the top menu bar and select Create a route from the menu.

If you have just logged in you can also select Create a route from the Welcome Your Username Banner.

FINDING THE START OF YOUR ROUTE

The next step: Where does your route start? If for example you want to draw a run that you have just completed in Cairo. Type “Cairo” in the Where does your route start box and select Go.

This will take your map to Cairo in Egypt! Why? Because this is what our system and the services that it uses regard as the most popular Cairo. If however your run was in the US, then typing in Cairo, US will bring up a window displaying all the Cairo’s in the United States. Selecting the correct Cairo i.e. Cairo, NY will display a map centered on Cairo, NY.

If you want to avoid these steps! Simply type in the placename  (separated by a comma) and the country, or State/County/Region i.e. Cairo, NY or Boston, UK or London, Canada would all take you straight to the correct map. If the place that you have typed in is not recognised, try to think of a place that is nearby that is a bit bigger.

STREETNAMES, ZIP CODES and POSTCODES

Entering a street name will like Cairo in our previous example take you to what our system thinks is the most popular. For instance typing Bond Street, will take you directly to Bond Street in New York. If your route is in Australia, entering Bond Street, Australia will bring up all of the known Bond Streets in Australia.

If you know the ZIP Code or Post code for where your route is i.e. if your postal code for Melbourne is 3079, entering VIC, 3079 or 3079, Australia will take your map to that code automatically. Other examples; the UK - CM23 2HP, for the US NY 10012, for Germany 51519, Germany.

The next release of Sanoodi will center your map where your existing routes are by default. The above steps would still be needed though if your route was in a different country.

SELECTING APPROPRIATE ZOOM AND MAPPING BACKGROUNDS FOR YOUR ROUTE

Now that you are looking at the right place on the map, you can use the zoom control on the left hand side of the map to display the correct level of detail for drawing the route.  You can also move or drag the map using the drag tool (the hand) on the toolbar on the top right of your map. The Drag tool is the active (default) tool when you start to create a route.

SELECTING A DIFFERENT MAP OR BASE LAYER

If the map that you are looking at does not have the correct level of detail for your route, you can change the map type and provider (Base Layer) i.e. if Google’s topographical/relief map does not have the level of detail that you need to draw your route accurately, you can now change this map to other Google maps or Yahoo maps (in future releases, we hope to increase the range of mapping providers).

To change your map or Base Layer, select the + sign on the right hand side of the map. This will bring up the maps that are available for this area. In the example we have changed the map for the route that we will draw from Google to Yahoo by selecting the Yahoo option from the list. To close the map pop up click on the - sign at the top right of the pop up.

DRAWING A ROUTE

To Draw a route, select the draw route tool from the toolbar on the top right of the map, place your mouse where your route’s startpoint is and click ONCE for each point! If you make a mistake, click on the undo tool on the toolbar (second from left) each click on the undo button will remove a waypoint from your route. Moving your mouse back to the map and your route will default back to route drawing mode.

Once that you have completed your route click TWICE to confirm. A prompt will appear to confirm that you have finished drawing your route. Click on OK to save your route, or cancel if you want to continue drawing. If your route returns back along the same path (there and back) once that you have drawn your route to its furthest point select the out and back button (the leftmost button) from the toolbar.

ENTERING YOUR ROUTE DETAILS

You can now give your route a name, a description, and confirm the activity and date that you did it, by selecting the fields at the bottom of the map and entering any relevant information. To give your route a rating i.e. was it easy, difficult ? Move your mouse over the rating meter and hold it over the level above the rating that you want to give it i.e if it is a moderate route hold your mouse over the difficult in parts section. Click once to save this. If you have selected the wrong rating double click and then when you are in the correct place click once to save.

If you want to give your route some tags i.e. cycling, NY, US, Kona, slog etc then enter them against the route.
You should now be ready to save your route! Click on the save button at the bottom right of this panel. Some browsers or internet connections might be slow, so please give this at least 10 seconds.

EDITING A ROUTE

Did your GPX upload have a few spikes in it? Does a route that you created on the site have one or two inaccuracies? With the new Sanoodi site you can now edit routes easily and accurately.

To edit one of your routes on the site. Login, select ‘my routes’ from the welcome bar or from the share option on the top menu. Find the route that you want to edit from the my routes pages and open it up.

To switch to edit mode select the edit tool from the toolbar. It is the button with the red line (second from the left). Once that your have selected this button your route will become red and all the waypoints will be visible. You can drag (move) waypoints, add new waypoints and delete them too. To delete a waypoint, hold your mouse over the waypoint and hit your delete key. What’s a waypoint? Waypoints are what we call the dots that mark each new segment of your route. Every time that you click when drawing a route creates a waypoint. If you are using a GPS device a waypoint is recorded automatically every x seconds

Another handy feature when editing a route is that you can now select a different map background for your route. Click on the + button at the left hand side of the map and you will be presented with all of the different map types that are available. When you have found the map and the zoom level that suits the route best this will be saved along with any other changes.

Routes on the new Sanoodi site also have difficulty ratings to select a rating simply click on the bar and if you want to change it, double click on the level that is displayed to deselect and then click once on the appropriate level of difficulty.

GO FULL SCREEN

You can also view your route on a full page. On every route page there is now an option to the right of the page above the map called View Full Screen. Remember to select Exit Full Screen once that you have finished drawing or editing a route in order to Save your changes.