this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
2032 points (99.6% liked)

Open Source

30379 readers
804 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 118 points 1 day ago (11 children)

the biggest problem I have with switching is that Google Maps is a business directory. open street maps is empty where i live. it works okay for navigation, but not so much for finding a coffee.

[–] snrkl@lemmy.sdf.org 44 points 1 day ago (2 children)

there are ways to make it easier; it's been gamified:

https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete

Available on FDROID.

When my partner stops to play pokemon go, I complete some Open Street Map info quests...

[–] controlphreak@lemmy.ml 8 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Street Complete is a great app for quests regarding existing features, but also consider the feature might not exist at all yet in OSM.

Map Complete is great for adding new features. It also asks a bunch of optional simple questions about the feature which gets converted into the relevant OSM tags. It's browser based but you can just add a shortcut to your home screen to have it quickly accessible.

[–] InsertUser@en.osm.town 2 points 7 hours ago

@controlphreak @snrkl
Now that StreetComplete has overlay layers for places and things you can add most of the thing you'd want to add in person.

[–] ctag@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 17 hours ago

I didn't know about map complete, thanks!

[–] Contentedness@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 day ago

I've just installed this now, thanks for the tip!

So many quests right on my street!

[–] bikooo2@r.nf 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As many have already told you, you can contribute to OSM, I have put in it almost all the establishments in my area (Not at Big area but...). Although soon I have to update them

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

im on board with the idea in general, but im not going to do this. it would be an endless effort to the benefit of almost nobody. places go up and down so fast here that google maps is often out of date too. it's filled with stale information and im flagging missing places constantly. every digital community in this country is a garbage pile.

the ride share apps here do use open street maps though, and im making corrections to building addresses when i find something isn't right. it's great.

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Umm...it benefits loads of people.

On OSM you don't have to just flag something. You can edit it directly, so it leads to more accurate information.

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But you can also just flag it if editing is not your cup of tea. Here's a convenient, non-techy tool to add notes for others to use when editing: https://www.onosm.org/

[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] rolling_resistance@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It says “page not found”, maybe because I'm not in EU.

[–] EveningPancakes@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm in the US, also says page not found for me.

[–] olicvb@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yea looks like they were linking to this: Street Complete

[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Very strange. It doesn't work. I shared directly from the f-droid client droid-ify

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/index.html

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh weird. That's shared from droid-ify which is an f-droid client.

Here's the proper link https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/index.html

[–] teolan@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can contribute them!

There's a pretty barebones editor in Organic Maps, but you can also check out Street Complete and Every door (more advanced and less user friendly, though insanely efficient)

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use Vespucci, it's advanced but still pretty easy if you just want to do basic editing. https://vespucci.io/

P.s. how do you link to an app on fdroid?

[–] IHateReddit@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 7 hours ago

Thanks. I wish the link could be created from the f-droid automatically. I'm too lazy to try to paste the parts together

[–] erenkoylu@lemmy.ml 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

You can add the POIs and fill the gaps!

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

And then in the web app, you need to do this complicated hold-LMB-then-select-from-list to select something, making just browsing really difficult.

Or is there a better way of doing that? I lack a good way to just browse Openstreetmap.

[–] bitwolf@lemmy.one 4 points 1 day ago

I felt the same however Organic Maps did have many businesses. And with Street Complete I can correct any errors when I visit.

It may simply be my area, but I so recommend organic maps over Osmand for business and POI lookups

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Same issue here. I really like their maps in general, but my local area in OSM is about a decade out of date

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Yeah, it's interesting to look through the edit history over the years. With StreetComplete I recently fixed ~8 stores that were many years out of date, during an hour walk.

It's fun to find a real hole-in-the-wall that even google maps doesn't have.

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That kind of contribution seems like a lower level of effort than making changes to source code.

[–] teolan@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

And there are apps that make it very very easy and fun. Check out street complete.

I keep businesses in my area up-to-date, doesn't take much time at all.

[–] gimmemahlulz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah trying to find anything on any of the competing apps is basically impossible. I mean ffs OSMand literally couldn't do address lookup!

[–] themachine@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I just recently learned this.

For OsmAnd, go to search, then the categories tab, and then hit "Online Search".

Voila, address lookup.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I have found Organic Map's search to be far better than OSMand. OSMand has far more features though.

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

i think openstreetmaps only works in big countries honestly

[–] joostjakob@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What does the size of the country have to do with it? Which good big and bad small countries are you talking about?

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Most people don't use openstreetmaps on these small countries like with low/medium population it feels like apple maps on there

[–] InsertUser@en.osm.town 0 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

@Mwa @joostjakob

Apple Maps uses OpenStreetMap data on n some countries.

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 1 points 12 hours ago

ohh makes sense

[–] MadBob@feddit.nl 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can you give an example? Because I've just looked at Luxembourg, Nepal, and Aruba, and they're all littered with named buildings and landmarks. Pyongyang even has a fair bit filled in.

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

didnt rlly try it but might try tbh but idk since i see people here where i live use google maps

edit: tried it and it really is quite outdated my house does not show up and idk if waze is even privacy respecting

[–] CAVOK@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Waze is google these days. They bought it some time ago.

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 1 points 20 hours ago
[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

All it takes is you to fix this. Its even easier in a small country

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 0 points 1 day ago