GpsPrune has been around since 2006, in one form or another, and features have been added at each version. For the current version (version 23.2), see the download page. You can also browse the whole history of the source at github.com/activityworkshop/GpsPrune.
This table shows all the versions of GpsPrune released to date. For full details on the change history, see the readme.txt file included in each jar. For screenshots from all these releases, see the current screenshots and old screenshots.
| Version | Nickname | Published | Features | Classes | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The first one | 28 September 2006 | Load and save of text files, delete and compress, export KML | 54 | 8300 | |
| The 3-d one | 29 March 2007 | Interactive 3d view, POV export, waypoint list | 82 | 14000 | |
| The one with photos | 2 August 2007 | Load GPX, KML, JPG, save Exif, KMZ | 102 | 17000 | |
| The correlating one | 29 January 2008 | Automatic photo correlation, export GPX Also version 4.1, 22 February 2008, with an exiftool fix | 115 | 20000 | |
| The segmented one | 11 May 2008 | Track segment handling, browser launching | 121 | 21000 | |
| The one with maps | 6 October 2008 | Integrated openstreetmaps, cut/move function, load using GPSBabel | 137 | 24000 | |
| The charting one | 12 February 2009 | Charts, configurable maps, load KMZ, GPX.ZIP, more compression | 158 | 27000 | |
| The configurable one | 17 September 2009 | Load NMEA, from gpsies.com, scale bar, save config | 179 | 31000 | |
| The colourful one | 13 February 2010 | Configurable colours, paste coordinates, load xml.gz, copy xml source | 191 | 33000 | |
| The Space Shuttle one | 4 May 2010 | Lookup altitudes with SRTM, tile caching, custom layered maps | 213 | 35000 | |
| The uploading one | 6 August 2010 | Upload to gpsies.com, selective gpx load, svg export Also version 11.1, 30 August 2010, with a UTF8 fix, and 11.2, 26 September 2010, with an ISO8859_15 fix | 226 | 37000 | |
| The audio and wiki one | 3 December 2010 | Load, correlate, play audio files, wikipedia functions, download OSM, draw tracks Also version 12.1, 31 December 2010 with a zoom fix | 268 | 41000 | |
| The GpsPrune one | 15 August 2011 | Load images from KMZ, tile cache management, import file through GPSBabel, recent files Also version 13.1, 17 October 2011, with map sources fixes, 13.2, 28 November 2011, with Russian texts, 13.3, 21 February 2012, with resilience fixes and Italian, and 13.4, 8 May 2012, with minor fixes | 277 | 44000 | |
| The dragging one | 1 October 2012 | Dragging points, nautical miles, deleting points inside a rectangle Also version 14.1, 22 January 2013 with translations | 292 | 46000 | |
| The estimating one | 24 March 2013 | Estimating times, map imagery in pov output, image export, GPSBabel filters Also version 15.1, 3 July 2013, with various fixes, and 15.2, 7 November 2013, with more minor fixes | 320 | 52000 | |
| The weather-forecasting one | 3 February 2014 | Weather forecasts, 3d terrain, track splitting, srtm downloading Also version 16.1, 3 March 2014, with terrain fixes, 16.2, 1 April 2014, with utf-8 fixes and removal of cloudmade maps, and 16.3, 12 July 2014, with 3d terrain improvements | 347 | 56000 | |
| The even more colourful one | 12 September 2014 | Point colourers, delete by date, waypoint sorting Also version 17.1, 28 October 2014, with minor fixes, and 17.2, 15 February 2015, also with minor fixes and translations | 379 | 60000 | |
| The automatically playing one | 20 July 2015 | Autoplay function, online services, marking ski lifts Also version 18.1, 29 September 2015, with a bug fix, photo popup updating and wikimedia; 18.2, 14 December 2015, with ampersand fix; 18.3, 12 February 2016, with another ampersand fix and remembering of window position; 18.4, 24 April 2016, with GPSBabel format updates and removal of opencaching.com; 18.5, 25 July 2016, with bug fixes and translations; 18.6, 18 December 2016, with an SRTM bugfix | 390 | 62000 | |
| The one with icons and arrows | 12 May 2018 | Waypoint icons, timezones, OSM points Also version 19.1, 25 August 2018, with performance improvements and GraphHopper routing; 19.2, 14 December 2018 with various fixes | 422 | 66000 | |
| The one with extra geocaching | 29 March 2020 | Halfway markers, point projection, pluscodes, coordinate lists Also version 20.1, 27 December 2020 & Version 20.2, 31 January 2021, with some minor bugfixes and improvements; Version 20.3, 5 April 2021 with an SRTM update; Version 20.4, 10 May 2021 with geojson and 3d | 407 | 65000 | |
| The lockdown one | 1 November 2021 | High-res SRTM, json, projecting circles, truncation Also version 21.1, 6 February 2022, with Catalan and parameterized URLs; Version 21.2, 4 April 2022 with high-resolution improvements; Version 21.3 14 May 2022 with bugfixes | 420 | 67000 | |
| The one with coloured waypoints | 31 August 2022 | Coloured waypoint icons according to point type, 3d scaling Also version 22.1, 3 September 2022 with updates to online services; Version 22.2, 2 October 2022 with bugfixes | 434 | 67000 | |
| The Prune-coloured one | 11 June 2023 | New icon set, remove duplicate waypoints, lots of restructuring Also version 23.1, 23 July 2023 with bugfixes, and version 23.2, 25 September 2023 with more bugfixes | 452 | 65000 | |
| The sleuthy one | 26 April 2024 | New search function, double-sized icons Also version 24.1, 2 June 2024 with bugfix and small improvements; 24.2 from 22 June 2024 with bugfixes and Norwegian; 24.3 from 18 August 2024 with bugfixes; 24.4 from 1 September 2024 with more bugfixes; 24.5 from 12 October 2024 with even more bugfixes 489 | 69000 | |
It's not always easy to work out how many people use GpsPrune. Users don't need to pay money, or register, they can download it from anywhere and run it anywhere, so I don't know whether people are using it or not. Especially because GpsPrune specifically does not track its users, or phone home, or use any such tricks. So how can we see how popular GpsPrune really is?
Well, we can't tell any absolute numbers, but some GpsPrune users use Debian Linux, and some of those users also use a Debian tool called popcon which reports (anonymously) back to the Debian project which packages are being used. It's only a small subset of users, and obviously the absolute numbers don't mean anything, but what we can do is compare GpsPrune's numbers over time, and compare GpsPrune's numbers against other, similar packages.
The graph on the right shows the relative popularity of GpsPrune (green) compared to Viking (in red) over time (until November 2024). Viking is much older than GpsPrune but shares many features. The focus is different though, Viking is much more oriented towards a traditional (and powerful) GIS tool, whereas GpsPrune aims to be easier to use for regular GPS users who just want tracks and maps.
The horizontal scale of the map goes from GpsPrune's entry to Debian in 2010, and shows how Viking has always had more users. GpsPrune enjoyed a rapid rise in users for the first few years, before flattening off to reach quite a similar state to that of Viking. Still the number of installs of Viking is consistently higher, but now the number of users is very similar.
There are other comparisons one can make, for example (on Debian) GpsPrune has had many more users than gpscorrelate or gpxviewer just to name two. On the other hand, there are well over three GPSBabel users per Viking user, but less than half of one gpsbabel-gui user. As well as many command line users of GPSBabel, I hope people are using GpsPrune as a gui for GPSBabel's functions, especially since the new filters became available in version 15.
In 2024 the popcon graph looks a little dispiriting, with the number of installs down over 20% on 2020 figures, and the number of active users down by a similar percentage. I don't know whether that means there really are so many fewer GpsPrune users on Debian now, or whether they've just stopped using Debian or stopped reporting to popcon. Currently the number of GpsPrune users on Debian is mirroring the number of Viking users on Debian almost exactly.
The following table shows the file formats understood by GpsPrune, and whether reading and/or writing is supported. The numbers in the table indicate the version number of GpsPrune at which the support was introduced.
| File Format | Reading support | Writing support | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Delimited text file | 1 | 1 |
| Xml (Kml) | Google Earth Xml format | 3 | 1 |
| Xml (Kml) | KML with Google Extensions | 13 | 14 |
| Xml (Gpx) | Standard Xml format | 3 | 4 |
| Pov | For 3d rendering by Povray | - | 2 |
| Jpeg (Exif) | Exif tags of photographs | 3 | 3 |
| Kmz | Compressed Kml | 7 | 3 |
| Nmea | Nmea messages | 8 | - |
| Zip | Zipped gpx or kml | 7 | - |
| Gz | Gzipped gpx or kml | 9 | - |
| GeoJSON | A specific kind of Json | 20.4 | - |
| Via GPSBabel to/from GPS | 6 | 7 | |
| To/from gpsies.com | 8-19 | 11-19 | |
| Charts via gnuplot to SVG | - | 7 | |
| 3d plot to SVG | - | 11-18 | |
There are several additional features planned which have not yet been implemented. The current status of development is shown in the development page, and some statistics about the development history in dev stats.
Of course any suggestions or contributions, especially multi-lingual translation expertise, would be very gratefully received! Please see the development page for details on how to help with this, for example using the Translatinator.