MMHelper app

Did you ever want to have more iPhone commands at your disposal while navigating in Scenic? Like choosing different music, quickly checking the weather at your current location or saving an interesting location while riding?

You can do this with the MMHelper app as an addition to Scenic. You can activate these commands with your Motive Monkey buttons while riding, without leaving your hands from the handlebar!

With MMHelper app on your iPhone while using Scenic you can:

  • Execute up to 12 functions (Apple shortcuts) with your MM buttons!
  • Weathermap is a default function showing possible rain, centered at your current gps location
  • Easily switch back and forth between Scenic and MMHelper with your MM buttons.

The idea behind MMHelper is to provide flexibility with IOS commands that you need. The drawback is that you need some knowledge of Apple shortcuts. We intend to share predefined shortcuts and a step-by-step instruction on how to implement them in the Scenic community in order to make life easier.

Download the MMHelper App now, directly from the appstore:

How to start

In Scenic settings > handlebar: Map your MM left button to ‘Open MMHelper app’.
We have defined and included one standard function: The Weathermap which you can use immediately.

MMHelper commands:

When in Scenic:

  1. Press MM left button once to switch to MMHelper.

When in MMHelper:

  1. Use the four MM buttons to navigate to the function (button) you want to execute.
  2. Long press MM right button to execute the chosen function.
  3. Long press MM left button to leave MMHelper and return to Scenic

When in Weathermap:

  1. Press MM up and MM down buttons to zoom in and out
  2. Long press MM left button to return to Scenic

Please note: In Weathermap, it is not possible to operate the video play slider for safety reasons.

Example: adding a new function (button) in MMHelper

Now let us add a new function: Log gps location.
This function logs your current gps location in a notes file on your iPhone.
Suppose you see a nice spot while on route and want to save its gps parameters.
Pressing this function in MMHelper will do just that.

The gps location in latitude and longtitude as well as the street address if it exists, will be saved and added to the notes file My Location Logs together with a timestamp. You can later find this file at any time in your Notes app: Simply search for ‘My Location logs’ in the Notes search field.

Installation:

  1. On your iPhone, click on this link: Log location 
  2. The Log location-shortcut will be downloaded to your iPhone’s Shortcut
    App (which is a standard app on every iPhone, see icon below)
  3. Now switch to MMHelper and press the Gear Icon at the bottom of the page.
  4. Now type ‘Log location’ in the first, free button field. This will link that
    MMHelper button to the shortcut you just saved.
Shortcut app

Now you are done! You now have 2 buttons on your MMHelper screen: Log Location and the default Weathermap. Please try them out.

Important: The first time that you run a new shortcut, you will be asked for permission. Choose ‘Always’.

Other shortcuts to download

= PlayPause: start/stop music on your iphone. You might find this function easier to access and use in MMHelper than using the softbutton for this function in the Scenic menu.
Click on this link to download the shortcut PlayPause to your iphone.

= Call someone: a button to call someone on the phone. Please mind that you can not end your call with MM buttons. That is a limitation of Apple.
Click on this link to download the shortcut ‘Call someone’ to your iphone.
Before you can use this shortcut, you have to edit it in the Shortcut app -by pressing the three dots in the tile- to change the name of your contact you wish to call.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. When pressing a button, MMHelper switches to the Shortcutapp. Why is that?
    Answer: that is the way Apple has designed Shortcuts on the iPhone. This switching can not be made hidden.
    When the weather map is executed, you do not see this behaviour because this is an internal or built-in command in MMHelper so no Shortcut is executed here.

  2. When adding new buttons in MMHelper, the weather map button will always be the last button.
    Answer: yes, that is right because it is a built-in function and there will be the last button.

  3. It seems MMHelper does not ‘remember’ the last executed button the next time MMHelper is invoked.
    Answer: that is right: focus is always on the first button. In a future version this can be made configurable so that you can choose whether or not focus will be reset to the first button.

  4. I am already using all six MM mappings in Scenic so I can not invoke MMHelper with a MM button.
    Answer:
    1. if you use a MM button for PlayPause in Scenic you can make this button free by making a PlayPause button in MMHelper (see example above on this page). Now you have a MM button to map MMHelper to. It is convenient to use MM left button.
    or
    2. if you can not make a MM button free, you can use one of the two soft buttons in Scenic to switch to MMHelper. In that way you can still extend the number of shortcuts to use.