Notices

Sorry for being not clear in instructions.

Please check it not in Pure Maps, but on https://www.openstreetmap.org . If you don't find an address, try to go there on a map by scrolling / zooming and check whether the corresponding building has its number entered.

In general, Pure Maps is using backends that do support address-based geocoding. I don't know which backend you were using, but the currently used geocoders ones are all based on OSM. OSM coverage varies by country, in some places it's better and in some places not so good. For example, in Estonia, most of the times I get address hits using OSM Scout Server.

In case of OSM Scout Server, there are surely cases which don't work even if data is on map. Would love to develop it further, but other projects are on the way and with the global lock-down, somehow, amount of free time has reduced significantly.

I still maintain that the best search tool would be a series of input fields:

Country: ___________________
City: ______________________
Street: ____________________
House No.: _________________

Optionally, the next fields would be hidden until the previous level has been entered. So, for example, if one enters a postcode in the City field, the Street does not need to show up at all. And in some cases, neither does House No.

Unfortunately, data is not stored that way. It will depend on the search engine, but there is a lot of fuzziness in the hierarchy of data. See this lovely table as an example: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/...ific_countries .

Cannot comment on other geocoders, but in OSM Scout Server, I just store hierarchy without associated name of the level.

As for other geocoders, not sure they have API even to request data like that.

Sorry, rinigus, maybe I did not express myself clearly. The point of entering the data that way is that it reduces the possibility for a human error. Furthermore, the application can then format the query in whatever suitable form it likes.

Thanks for the link, BTW. It confirms that there is a hierarchy, albeit not as simple as I had imagined, which only strengthens the need for some abstraction. A layer that removes that complexity from the user. I understand that it would not be straightforward. You would need a per-country hierarchy table and a dynamic number of entry fields, plus a clever algorithm. Which is why it is my wish, but not necessarily a request

... in the UK (only).

I'm not sure about "only". Canada's postcodes are similar, AFAIK (maybe Canadians can correct me).
But sure, it would have to be dynamic, per country. As discussed above.

When using OSM Scout Server, you can achieve it manually by entering hierarchy split by comma (syntax described at the bottom of https://rinigus.github.io/osmscout-server/en/). Its far from what is proposed, but can be used. For other geocoders, I don't know if they support something similar.

Realistically, I don't expect it to be moving in this direction any time soon (nor in my understanding of the term, nor in soon^{TM}). I will have to work on geocoder, but there are "few" issues in front of it. Currently, working on Mapbox GL backend update. Managed to get latest version working but there is some performance issue which has to be tracked down.

Over some period of time (interrupted by other projects), new release is out: 1.27.0

As always, translations have been updated and I am planning to make point releases to update the rest. Thank you all translators involved in the project!

This release brings support to compass. While not all devices with SFOS have compass, there have been few changes with this. Right now, there are two merge requests under review which should improve the support for hybris and non-hybris devices. Let's see how it will go and whether my patches can help to improve the hardware support.

On Pure Maps side, compass can be used to show orientation of your phone. To enable functionality, you have to opt-in in the preferences (section Compass). Compass will be used (read: device will be active) if

* position and your speed has been determined. aka, GPS "fix" is there
* you are either exploring map or navigating on bike or foot.
* your speed is below 10km/h

If these conditions are met, there will be orientation arrow on your location pointing towards the direction of your device. You can also let the map to reorient depending on your direction - so it will rotate according to compass by switching on autorotate.

Note that it works if the phone screen is facing towards the sky, up to just below perpendicular with the ground. If you turn the phone upside down, it may get confused in landscape mode. Same rules should apply down under.

Compass orientation is adjusted to magnetic declination, of interest for those where its not small. The used model should be valid till 2025 (https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/geomag.shtml).

Pure Maps can now prevent device from sleeping while allowing you to switch off the screen. Again, you have to enable it in Preferences/Devices. This allows you to (finally!) use Pure Maps for navigation while keeping the phone in your pocket. It will keep GPS positioning up to date and can give instructions by voice. That was requested a while ago and is finally done.

Pure Maps has switched to Nemo.KeepAlive 1.2, no more warnings should be issued.

Preferences (we have a lot of them, unfortunately) are rearranged in more logical order. Let's hope its better now.

Other changes concern Kirigami: switching the main menu to the right for easier interaction by mouse, dark themes support, and improvement of forms.

UBPorts, unfortunately, seem to lack compass support and support for preventing device going to sleep (or its rather orthogonal with the platform expectations), so the changes there are more about packaging done by UBPorts package mantainer. Interestingly, though, number of downloads of the last version in UBPorts was 6800+, compared to 3000 downloads from Sailfish users. How well it reflects number of users on the platforms, cannot say. But, I was surprised to see these numbers.

Enjoy the release and let me know if something is broken.

Wow, Rinigus you're great! Thank you very much - especially for this one:

Yeah, thanx a lot!

Well, Pure Maps gave me a good chuckle on the road:



While not really relevant in car only capable of 160km/h (Yes, I tested that there are well) I guess it still is a bug

[edit] the bug of course is that the speed limit there is not 255km/h, but 1079251985km/h. 3 more bytes needed to encode the speed limit!

Sorry, I'll see myself out now.