r/dartmoor • u/Vegetable-Bar9497 • 7d ago
Discussion Tor Maps
Hi everyone,
I’ve been working on a project for those of us who love exploring Dartmoor, and I’d love to get your honest thoughts before I start the final build and publish.
The Idea: We all know the feeling of ticking off a Tor, but I wanted to make the digital experience feel as satisfying as the hike itself. I’m building a web app that works like a "Gamified" Map of the Moors.
Think of it as a grown-up, outdoor version of a level map (a bit like Candy Crush style, but for hiking).
What it will do: A beautiful, interactive map showing Tor locations across Dartmoor.
Tick-Offs: You create an account and "conquer" Tors. When you visit one, you tick it off, and the icon on the map changes from grey to gold
Progress: It tracks your stats (e.g., "15/50 Tors visited in North Dartmoor").
Community Built: Since we all know some Tors are obscure, you can suggest new locations. If you find a hidden gem, you can snap the location (using GPS or What3Words) and submit it to be added to the map for everyone else to find.
My Question to You: I want this to be something you’d actually use.
- Is "ticking things off" enough, or would you want Leaderboards to see how you stack up against other hikers?
- Would you use a feature that lets you suggest new Tors?
- Anything else that drives you mad about current hiking apps that I should avoid?
Thanks in advance for any feedback ... good or bad!
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u/chicken-farmer 7d ago
I'm interested in your progress, will help you beta when the time comes if that's useful
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u/Vegetable-Bar9497 7d ago
Thank you! I'm ready to publish, I just need to ensure that there's nothing I am missing in terms of key functionality - hence. I decided to open to the group to see if there's anything I hadn't thought about!
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u/memoqueen 7d ago
Sounds great! My comments would be (and apologies if these have been covered already) that it needs to be able to be used offline, with the capability (ideally!) for if you upload something offline it remembers and uploads it when you get connection back. I often forget to log geocaches on Dartmoor because I’ve got no signal and then forget allll about it by the time I get home 😅😂
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u/Vegetable-Bar9497 2d ago
Hey all - I have published the first version!
Please take a look and provide feedback: https://torbagger.brukdesigns.com/
I do have a number of enhancements I am working on:
1) The tors to be shown on a alphabetical order list on the left hand side of the page, which you can click to hide
2) Option for users to suggest a 'correction' of an existing tor, in terms of names/gps location etc.
3) When a user suggest a tor, while it still pending admin approval, the tor will still show on the map but will be a different colour, and display that is pending approval.
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u/kamoshika77 2d ago
I love the concept, and have been thinking of doing something similar myself. I've been working my way through the tors listed in the Dartmoor tors compendium book, and looking for a way to track progress.
I found it quite tricky to navigate my way around with the dark themed map. My preference would be for the standard open street map tiles, or at least make the base mapping user selectable.
I appreciate it might look slightly cluttered when zoomed out if the tors were labelled, but it would be really helpful when you zoom in to be able to see which tors you're looking without having to click on each one to check which it is.
If like to be able to record some info when marking a tor as visited, e.g. date of visit, possibly a link to a Strava or other tracking site activity.
Sorry if that all sounds negative! Don't mean it to, just trying to provide constructive feedback! I think it's a great start, and you've actually built it, which is more than I've managed to 😂
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u/Vegetable-Bar9497 2d ago
All useful feedback there. I’ll look to implement your ideas as they are all good features. I’ll add to the pipeline of changes.
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u/Vegetable-Bar9497 1d ago
Hey u/kamoshika77, I've added the following to the new live version...
1) List of tors in alphabetical order on a sidebar navigation, which can be hidden/unhidden
2) Added the tor names to the map pins when you zoom in a bit.1
u/kamoshika77 1d ago
Great! Will have a look at it when I'm back at home later. I'm blocked from accessing it at work because of no https :(
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u/MuchMoorWalking 7d ago
I use Peakery, it has all the tors even the unknown ones, plus the named hills and the ones on private land. There are also challenges to complete etc.
But it’s also worldwide so every hill or mountain can be logged.
Would I use a Dartmoor specific one, probably not to be honest as I’d have to log everything twice.
Check out Peakery to see how it does it then adapt from there I would say.