Thread: [SailfishOS] Pure Maps
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Posts: 1,335 | Thanked: 3,931 times | Joined on Jul 2010 @ Brittany, France
#9
The new features are looking great, I'm looking forward to try Pure Maps for my next trip. Thanks Rinigus.

There are a few things I am missing since Poor Maps, so I'll just list them here as you seem to be full of energy still. Please note that Poor Maps/WhoGo/Pure Maps is still my preferred native navigation application, so these points are fairly minor annoyances and this is only my opinion:

- I've always found the options confusing in the way they are organized. I think they need to be a bit better spatialized, i.e., make it obvious what is a sub-menu and what is a main page, whether the settings toggle are restricted to a sub-application (like Navigating) or the full application, whether they are permanent or just temporary for the current trip, etc. We have the Sailfish page indicator which is usually great and minimalist, but might be insufficient at times for complex applications like Pure Maps.

I don't have any clear suggestion in mind, I just find it hard to step back and clearly know in advance where to find a particular setting. I know the settings are already shown in the pages corresponding to the sub-menus, but I don't know, there is something I can't explain. Maybe it's just because there are many configuration options (which is good), or because items are big (which is good too for a navigation application), or because all items look the same regardless of whether they are settings, recent searches, POI categories, search options, router selection. I just feel it is hard to quickly figure out where is what, is that option on the same level as that one, and so on.

I am not a daily user, which makes it hard to really know the application by heart, but I feel it could be a bit more straightforward and be useful to all those like me that tend to use the application only when they are already panicking because they are going to be late somewhere.

- It is also difficult sometimes to know what does what and whether I should change that or that. I'm not familiar with the routers, and what you explained here for Stadia for instance, I would never have guessed. I don't even know why or if I should use another one in other situations. Same for maps, a keyword and a preview would help greatly, though default maps are clearly identified so I can go back to the "dev's suggestion" easily if I am not sure. Maybe it would be possible to better expose what features are offered by each specific options, and whether there are obvious cons. Restricting the available options depending on whether the map data in use is supplied by OSM Server or not would help too I suppose. Not sure if doable.

- I would love to be able to control OSM Server from the map application, something like:
Code:
Map data >
   Offline maps >
      Toggle on/off
      Download the maps you want to use offline > 
         List of areas, and the download folder
- Sometimes it would be good to be able to show all POIs next to the current location without any specific preselected category, but instead category icons on the map. Or, at least, having the possibility to preselect several categories. There are so many different keywords for food for instance, you never know if selecting Restaurants will show everything or if what you are looking for would instead be in Food, French Restaurant, Belgian Restaurant, Bagel Shop, Bakery, Breakfast spot, Burger, Café, etc. I know the keywords are inherited from the search service being used (and again here pointers would be helpful to choose one), but they are all cluttered so sometimes selecting several would just be easier, without the fear of missing something. Maybe even allowing the user to save some searches, so that he can do a meta search with all food-related stuff and then just select this meta-type later without bothering with the million keywords from Foursquare again.

Anyway, as I said, it's the best native application in my opinion and I love it. Very excited by the new features you've added too, thanks a lot!

Last edited by Kabouik; 2018-08-24 at 09:36.
 

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