It looks like I’m too late to join the testing fun, but I’d like to +1 the points Marty and Wes make re snapping, and the ability to override it.
I’m commenting blind, so maybe you have this covered already, but some form of gradient or other way to tell direction on the route would be very helpful. My routes often look like a tangle of string with multiple touching points, so being able to tell place along the route would be great.
Example:
I really want to add gradients to the Routes as well as to Activities, but I have to be very careful not to completely ruin the site for some people ( Gradient activity lines ) 
I love that I have this forum to discuss things with everyone. It helps so much to keep me from building the wrong stuff. There’s so much nuance, sometimes, that anything outside of a full conversation can be actively harmful. This snap-to-map idea has taken a ride so far, and is a great example of how multiple competing points of view can all be correct…
- A: It must always snap to the map.
- B: Yes. Always. But sometimes not.
- C: I agree with both of them.
I’m not knocking on anyone or disagreeing - it’s a totally valid conversation, in its own special nuanced way. 
When I was first using citystrides, I used onthegomap web site to plan my routes; I’ve now switched to the EasyRoute app because it has apple watch integration. Both of those tools allow you to toggle “snap to road” - so if, for example, I know there’s an unofficial shortcut from one cul-de-sac to the nearby road, I turn off the “follow roads” snapping, draw a segment, then turn it back on.
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Personally I’m not a fan of gradients. Too 2010-y for my liking Too each their own though.
Throwing out another idea to see what sticks to the wall. Adding directional arrows/icons along the route.
Reference: Run Go - Another platform for route building. Its main appeal is turn by turn navigation audio cues. I’ve used it a couple times but found it bit lacking when I made a mistake and needed to undo or edit in the middle of a route. What I think it does well is add turn icons at intersections where a turn was made. This would help with issue Just_one_more_street mentions above.
Example of a route on Run Go
My crude alternative interpretation of adding directional V arrows on route line.
The purple arrows could be at designated distances (ex: every tenth of mile) and/or when you make a turn to go from one street to another. Initially thought doing at nodes would be easiest but that could be messy when there are curves which have a lot of nodes or long, straight streets that only have a node every half mile.
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What a nice perspective on the divergent opinions of humans.
For me personally, snap-to-road is a must-have feature before I would choose to use your implementation over onthegomap. My preferred would be being able to pop in-and-out of snap-to, because of the occasional need to traverse a non-road shortcut.
Also crucial for me is that I can create the next waypoint to be very far away from the prior one, and it will automatically snap to the shortest road-route between the points (rather than “as the crow flies”). The reason this is so important is that my closest non-capture node is 3 miles away from my home, and it saves me a huge amount of time to just click once at my home, and once near the nodes I want to capture, and onthegomap gives me the shortest route there.
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I love this thread because it shows my pre run planning is WAY different from everyone else. Or so it seems from this thread. Think I’ll start “all the planning is in my head” thread
I did the “Have it all planned in my head. No need for planned route on my phone. I can remember the 47 turns easy-peasy” a couple times. Stopped doing it when I forgot one small block each time and I had to return another day; especially if it was area far from home. Never again! 
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Marty- I’ve been using arrows on my hand drawn route in the same way as you show above - but I also draw my line just to the left of the road, so when I turn around, I’m running back the other way. With so many turns and crosses it’s difficult to know where you are! I have been using easy route to measure - but when it comes to my final map, I have been printing a screen shot of a section of citystrides - as it shows where I’ve been already…
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Thanks for that link to https://onthegomap.com - the route building in that site such a nice experience! Being able to click at the end of a few dead ends to route those streets is way nicer than having to manually draw out the meticulous route.
I like the mile markers, but they don’t completely sort out the trouble of which direction to head in, especially if you have small overlapping routes.
Ah, I just figured out it’s possible toggle between the walking directions and the line tool - that would allow the switch back & forth between snapping & manual drawing.
I like this experience way more & it seems worthwhile to put in the effort to move away from the current draw tool I’m using over to something more like this UX.
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I agree that gradients look a bit meh, but they do have the advantage that km4 looks different from km5, making it easy to tell which way to turn when there is a crossing in the route. Besides the direction arrows you suggest, I’ve also seen animated blobs “walking” the route to indicate direction, but that also gets a bit messy with crossed routes…
@richwarne2003 I also started out just planning in my head, but I realized fairly soon that I’m terrible at estimating the mileage required to cover a particular section
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Thanks for your feedback, everyone! I’ve just released a brand new version of Route Builder - some details are in Updates on March 5, 2021
Let me know what you think: good and bad 
// @8f7162110d9eeaf907ab @the.don.eby @Marty @tev4 @perkyjonesmerch @wes
update: 
there’s some odd design issue going on that’s not displaying the overlay very well … I’m looking into that now
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I just did a quick test route on my iPad and wow, it’s much improved over what was there a couple days ago! I initially had trouble finding the “undo” because I was expecting it to be on the left side of the screen, since that’s where I had initiated the route creation. But once I saw the widget in the upper right I was set.
I really appreciate the “Streets this route will complete nodes for” feature, especially the ability to then show where nodes are on various streets. (Quite helpful for dead end streets.)
One thing I couldn’t figure out: how to edit my route. For example, after I saw the “streets this will complete nodes for” feature I realized I should add an out-and-back block of a certain street in the middle of the route, but couldn’t figure out how.
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I haven’t build editing capability yet 
Great progress!
FYI, on my machine (Chrome on MacOS Big Sur), the Route Builder controls lie on top of the map zoom in/out buttons, which are therefore inaccessible, as shown in the attached image.
And, since I am here mentioning the zoom in/out buttons – I would love it if those were a little bit lower on the interface. When I move my mouse to those controls, I find that I often accidentally move over my profile pic, triggering the menu with Lifemap, Profile, etc. (But maybe that’s just me.)
Yeah, I noticed that. Odd - locally it doesn’t do this for me. I’ve got some minor changes I plan to release soon & I’m hoping that’ll take care of it. 
The trouble with lowering that container is on mobile - it’s already a crowded space. 
Update: my changes broke things differently 
… I’m still trying to figure out why it works locally but not on the server
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I mean… I guess the new version is slightly better than the previous version. 
If you are in to new, sleeker functionality and all.
If you want nitpick things, may want to differentiate the hover / alt text for the route type toggle. If you hadn’t mentioned in release notes that we could switch between road snapping and straight lines, I wouldn’t have looked for it and clicked on that icon. ‘Toggle router to snap to streets’ and ‘Toggle router to straight lines’ or something.
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Well that explains why I couldn’t find it! The version I used a couple days ago let me add “nodes” in the middle of existing lines and drag them around, so that’s what I was looking for again. (Not necessarily the best solution, just what I thought would still be there.)
Yeah, it’s a bummer to lose that mid-route editing ability… I’ll have to think that one through…
I did move the container from the top right of the map to the top left, though. Progress!
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wow, it’s very cool!
No need for me to use Strava anymore. Routes tool works great for my needs! Thank you!
and knowing which streets will be completed is really very practical!
Marjorie
Wow, this is super cool! Excellent work @JamesChevalier!
Question for Garmin owners: Which apps have you tried, to get guidance on your device? I haven’t even looked yet, but I’m super excited about this.
Thanks, Eric
PS. I have the FR235.