Thread: Garmin GPS full search - Find place in MapSource - how to create

There is just one way to have search enabled in Mapsource, use an original Mapsource installation.

from a post on Gpspassion by GmapTool author:
Address search in Mapsource is organised differently then in gmapsupp.img. GMapTool doesn't convert index files for address search and you loose that funcionality.

Converting with Gmaptool a gmapsupp.img to Mapsource version it wont support address search.

Index file in Mapsource usually is named *_mdr.img. You can add it to gmapsupp.img, but it won't work in GPSr. Index file in Mapsource is bigger then index used in GPSr, this explains why you get bigger gmapsupp.img. Since GMapTool doesn't convert index files, it can create gmapsupp.img much faster then Mapsource.

I was investigating "how to create an index file to enable searching in Mapsource" and came to this thread.

Although your statements are true. It looks like there is a way to build / create an index file for Mapsource. The Open Street Map project use the mkgmap tool to make Garmin map for Mapsource from their OSM Project. Until very recently, mkgmap could not build the index for the gmappsup.img used on the device, only Mapsource did it. That was the reason they build mapset for Mapsource. This tool has an option to build an index file for Mapsource.

Making maps from OpenStreetMap for Garmin devices
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And specifically for
"index
# create an index file to enable searching in Mapsource"

Look for this text within a command line example:
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However, since January 28th 2012, mkgmap can build an address index for GPS devices.
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I have not yet use this tool. And I don't know if it will find the necessary informations within a splitted gmappsup.img to build the index file for Mapsource. I will give it a try.

It is worth noting that they discovered a "bug" in the address index for GPS devices mkgmap build : When merging different family ID, routing will not work on the device. This is currently a bug as well with at least my Garmin device and / or Mapsource. When I use 2 maps e.g. gmapprom.img & gmappsup.img [one of them or both of them build with more than one FID] the routing does not work on my device. They are currently working on this.