The Designs area is where preparation happens. Three terms need keeping apart — after that the rest is easy.
The three terms
- A design is a ready-to-lay track anchored to a fixed spot on the map. Only a design can be recorded against directly.
- A group bundles several designs in the same area. Open the group on the map and you see all of them at once — useful when planning where to lay several tracks in one location.
- A template is just the shape — legs, turns, curves — with no location at all. Place as design anchors it on the map; only then can you record against it.
The chips above the list filter by group; All clears the filter again.
The template editor
Here you build the shape from straight legs, turns and curves. Tap a segment on the map to change its length or angle; + adds a new one. The ruleset chip under the title sets what the template is validated against: None, Basic, or one of the FCI rulesets FCI IGP-1/2/3 and FCI IFH-1/2/3. The FPr levels deliberately run on the same rules as IGP 1 to 3, so the chip names both together — for example FCI IGP-1 / FPr 1.
An empty template shows a Generate card: pick the parameters and the app builds a valid track you can re-roll as often as you like. The top-right toolbar also holds the cross-track (Verleitung) editor, a preview, and — in the ⋮ menu — the rules reference for the current ruleset.
When validation reports a hard rule breach the Save button turns grey and reads Save non-compliant (long-press). It is not disabled, it only looks that way: a short tap merely explains why it is grey — a deliberate long press saves anyway, with a green progress sweep and a haptic nudge at the end. So the validator informs you but never silently blocks, and the decision stays yours. This applies in the template editor, the segment editor, the design map editor and on the placement screen.
The scale bar at the bottom left of the map is tappable in edit mode and opens a step-length slider. As you drag, the design redraws live so legs and curves scale with it, and the value stays on the design when you save. Outside edit mode the scale bar does not respond — if tapping it does nothing, that is why.
To move an article you have placed, long-press it on the map in edit mode and drag. On release it snaps to the nearest point of the track and re-attaches to whichever leg owns that point — including a different leg from the one it started on, if you drag across. So it never ends up beside the track, and validation runs again after the drop, meaning a "too close to a turn" warning appears just as it does for a tapped article.
FCI sample templates
The FCI Beispiele section holds 53 bundled reference templates following the official IGP and IFH patterns. Tap one to look at it, then Copy and edit to start your own template from it — and Place as design when you want to anchor it on real ground.
Going via a copy is not a detour, it is the only way in: the bundled samples are read-only and never change — only your copy can be edited. It carries a note in its notes field saying which sample it came from, so you can still trace it later.
Sketching instead of constructing
Not every plan needs to be constructed. Three kinds of sketch sit alongside:
- A map sketch is drawn freehand straight onto the satellite map. The line lives on real terrain, so it shows up in the right place on the recording map. Articles go on as tokens laid across the line, and a corner overlay shows the approximate length, step count and token count as you draw.
- A canvas sketch is a schematic on a blank sheet, with no map — for planning away from the field. A chip under the title says which ruleset it is built for.
- A photo sketch is simply a picture used as a reference — the layout you drew on paper, photographed. It cannot be edited afterwards, only renamed and deleted.
From plan to recording
The same tool moves an already placed design to a new spot: Place design elsewhere in the ⋮ menu. It exists for the case where a shape has proved itself and you want to reuse it on a different field — your usual track on the meadow that has just been mown. A group chip reveals a group's designs as an overlay so you can line the new placement up against them. If the template carries cross-tracks, a one-time warning tells you they will not carry over reliably and need re-adding.
When placing a shape you slide it across the map, rotate it by its handle, mirror it, reverse the direction of travel, and adjust the scale and step length. Searching for a town, address, coordinates or a Plus Code gets you to the right spot. Finally you choose between Save as copy and Replace — replacing discards the previous geometry, and the app says so first.
Once a design has both a start and an end point, a record icon appears in its header; every design card in the list also carries Record from design. Either opens the recording screen with that shape preloaded as the path to follow — ideal for laying the same track repeatedly at the same spot. With a sketch, it appears as a dashed reference on the map, or as a small thumbnail in the top right of the recording screen.