41. How Etappe does the math#
In several places Etappe does the arithmetic for you: a walking time, a status-light color, a time window for the deworming treatment. This chapter lays open how those numbers come about — with the formula, an example, and a note on where the result shows up.
41.1 Walking time by DAV/DIN 33466#
The walking time of an outdoor activity comes from three lines:
vertical = ascent / 300 + descent / 500 (meters of elevation per hour)
horizontal = distance / 4 (km per hour)
walking time = larger value + smaller value / 2Example: 10 km, 500 m of ascent, 500 m of descent. Vertical, that is 500/300 + 500/500 = 2.67 h, horizontal 10/4 = 2.50 h. The larger value is 2.67 h, half the smaller one 1.25 h — making 3.92 h, shown in the app as 3:55.
Below that is With breaks (× 1.25): walking time × 1.25 as the likely total duration including rests and photo stops, here 4:54.
Etappe takes distance and ascent from your own fields first, otherwise from the GPX values. It knows the descent only from a GPX file. If it is missing, it is set equal to the ascent — then the note “Descent unknown — assumed equal to the ascent.” appears below the calculation. Without a distance and without an ascent there is no walking time.
The formula applies only to types on foot (hike, long-distance hike, city walk, mountain hike, via ferrata); for bike tour, mountain bike tour and long-distance cycle route the line stays empty (Outdoor activities). You see the result in the form while typing, in the detail under Distance & walking time, as the Walking time total above the list, and as the event length in the Calendar and day view — there the duration with breaks counts.
41.2 Budget status light and currency conversion#
A trip’s expense total is the sum of accommodation costs, journey costs including tolls, activity costs, and the euro amounts of your budget items. From that follows:
Remaining = Available budget − Expenses
Remaining % = Remaining / Available budget × 100| Remaining in percent | Status light |
|---|---|
| above 50 % | green |
| above 20 % | yellow |
| 0 to 20 % | orange |
| below 0 % | red |
Example: limit €3,000, expenses €2,500 → €500 remaining → 16.7 % → orange. Without a limit there is no status light.
The Budget tile in the trip detail uses the same status light with the same thresholds — so tile, Budget screen, and Overview always show the same color.
Foreign currencies are converted by the EUR factor — the value of one unit in euros:
Euro amount = amount × EUR factor (rounded to 2 decimal places)7.77 GBP at a factor of 1.16789 gives 9.0745… → €9.07. Items in euros need no factor and always count in full; an item in another currency without a factor on record has no euro amount and is missing from the total — the Budget screen then points this out with a note. The same calculation sits behind the cost of a research item (Research) and — since the base currency — behind accommodation, journey, activity, and trip budget: they too carry a rate frozen when saved, “1 unit = X EUR”; if it is missing, the amount is euros. Details on the handling in Budget.
Base currency. If your base is not the euro, that changes nothing about the calculation, only about the display. The total is built in euros, and only the result goes into the base, once:
Amount in base = total in EUR ÷ base rate (base rate: 1 base = X EUR)The base rate comes unrounded from the ECB table, otherwise from the exchange rate of a country with that currency. Rounding is to two decimal places, half up — only at display time, not in the calculation. Example: base CHF with 1 CHF = 0.93 EUR, expenses €2,500.00 → 2,500 ÷ 0.93 = 2,688.172… → CHF 2,688.17. The status light keeps calculating in euros and so doesn’t depend on the day’s rate: €500 of €3,000 is 16.7 %, whether the display shows francs or kroner. Individual amounts are not recalculated — CHF 64.50 stays CHF 64.50; only where an amount’s currency differs from the base does “≈ …” follow, formed from its frozen euro value and the current base rate. If there is no base rate, Etappe shows all totals in euros and says so.
41.3 Nights and trip days#
The nights of an accommodation are the calendar days between the check-in day and the check-out day; the times of day play no role. Check-in on Jul 12 at 4:00 PM and check-out on Jul 15 at 10:00 AM are 3 nights.
Trip duration counts both boundary days: days between start and end plus 1. Jul 12 to Jul 19 is 8 days.
The trip day of a date is the number of days since the trip start plus 1. Before the start there is no trip day. Normally the count ends with the last trip day; in the Journal it keeps running, so that an entry after the planned end gets a number too.
This produces the familiar displays: “Day X of Y” in the Overview appears only while today’s date falls within the trip period. “Night n of total” in Today counts the calendar days since check-in plus 1, at most up to the total.
41.4 Rabies validity and the deworming treatment window#
For the rabies status, Etappe looks through the animal’s vaccinations for all whose type contains “Rabies” or “Tollwut”. Green only comes if one of them was given before the trip start and stays valid until the trip end. Otherwise the vaccination with the longest validity is rated:
| Situation | Status light |
|---|---|
| no rabies vaccination on record | red |
| expired before the trip start | red |
| expires during the trip | red |
| given only after the trip start | orange |
| validity unknown or incomplete | orange |
Without an end date, the trip start also counts as the end. The status appears in the Overview, in the Entry checklist and — for countries with a rabies requirement — in the Alerts.
The deworming treatment window comes from the two country fields Earliest and Latest (in hours; if not specified, 120 and 24 apply):
earliest = border crossing − Earliest hours
latest = border crossing − Latest hoursThe basis is the border crossing set in the checklist, otherwise the trip start. Example: United Kingdom with 120/24 and a border crossing on Aug 20 at 6:00 PM: the deworming treatment is allowed from Aug 15, 6:00 PM to Aug 19, 6:00 PM.
Once you have checked off the deworming treatment and entered its time, Etappe turns the calculation around and shows the permitted border crossing: treatment + 24 h to treatment + 120 h. A treatment on Aug 18 at 9:00 AM means entry between Aug 19, 9:00 AM and Aug 23, 9:00 AM. If the planned crossing lies outside that, a critical alert appears.
41.5 Distance, ascent and descent from GPX data#
From a GPX file Etappe reads the track points, otherwise the route points, otherwise the waypoints. It then runs through the sequence of points:
- Distance: the sum of the great-circle distances between each two consecutive points (Earth radius 6,371 km), rounded to two decimal places.
- Ascent: the sum of all positive elevation differences between two points.
- Descent: the sum of all negative elevation differences, as a positive number.
Elevations count only if both points have a value — a file without elevation values yields 0 m. For the map and the chart, the data is thinned evenly: at most 200 track points, at most 48 values in the elevation profile, start and end are kept. Etappe discards implausible coordinates and elevations while reading.
What is calculated each time is the straight line between two measuring points: a closely spaced track comes very close to the real path length, a coarsely sampled one underestimates it. The route recording adds up its kilometers by the same principle (Recording a journey). There, the average speed is distance divided by the time between the first and last measuring point, and the estimated consumption is distance × consumption per 100 km ÷ 100.