Forum: General Topics
Forums / General Topics / search address - what engine is used?
| Subject: | search address - what engine is used? | |
jose1711 16:34 Location: Phone Model: | hello, i am too lazy to sniff on my router so i think it will be easier just to ask. what is the engine used to find an address in TMJ? it seem to fail many times the correct place and i would like to know why is that. thank you, jose | |
Stephen 20:11 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Jose, TMJ uses the CloudMade Geocoding APIs for the online place search. The search string that you enter in TMJ is passed in its entirety as the 'query' parameter in the CloudMade API request. The CloudMade docs at the above link give some further search tips, for example to specify a street search you can enter, eg street:buckingham gate, etc... Cheers, Stephen | |
jose1711 9:06 Location: Phone Model: | thank you, stephen. the most important information i took from this is that instead of searching for Kapucinska 3, Bratislava i should enter 3 Kapucinska, Bratislava. apparently only ascii-search is supported, with required transcription of a few letters (such as oe for ö). i wonder if you could also add support for google search api as an option. regards, jose | |
Stephen 21:53 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Jose, Unfortunately the Google API Terms and Conditions are too restrictive for it to be used in TMJ... With the CloudMade searching, I also wondered after your first post if there may be some character encoding issues that are causing a problem. When doing a search on the phone it firstly talks to the TMJ website, which then passes the request onto CloudMade, it might be that the website PHP script is corrupting some characters... Could you give a couple of examples of searches that fail when using the accented characters but work with simpler characters so that I can try a few tests... Thanks, Stephen | |
jose1711 8:40 Location: Phone Model: | hi stephen, i don't believe TMJ is to blame as it fails for me even when using browser (and yes, i have utf-8 address-encoding enabled). anyway try to compare: query=1 Wuppertalska,Kosice with 1 Wuppertálska,Kosice or 1 Wuppertálska, Košice (that is the complete name with properly accented characters) here is another example: 3 Dominika Stubnu, Nove Mesto nad Vahom vs 3 Dominika Štubňu, Nové Mesto nad Váhom even cloudmade admits the problem is with them: "We aware of this issue, it's a bug on our side, but for now we do not have resources to fix it." i noticed that nominatim was far more successful when using accented letters in query (ex. http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=Dominika%20%C5%A0tub%C5%88u%207,%20Nov%C3%A9%20Mesto%20nad%20V%C3%A1hom&format=xml). | |
Stephen 21:45 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Jose, Thanks for the examples, I'll try and look into this in the next few days. I might have a look at the MapQuest APIs too, which I think use Nominatim as well, see if its any more reliable...! Cheers, Stephen | |
jose1711 22:44 Location: Phone Model: | mapquest passed my simple searching test so it is getting my vote on that. wrt routing however - seems like it is avoiding highways for some reason. maybe it is better to stick to cloudmade with this. also stephen, i would like to discuss something off-forum. is it okay for you? could you please drop me a message at jose1711 gmail com? thank you, jose | |
jose1711 9:29 Location: Phone Model: | another advantage of mapquest api over cloudmade is that it also searches in alt_name tag. | |
jose1711 11:58 Location: Phone Model: | hi stephen, have you had a chance to look at the option to use mapquest api as an alternative search engine by any chance? thank you, jose | |
Stephen 22:48 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Jose, Sorry, I looked into it a little in January, but got side-tracked so it was left half-finished. I've just tidied it up a bit and made it live - for the moment the preferred search engine is set via the web site MY ACCOUNT/SETTINGS page. I've not done a huge amount of testing, but a brief test with some accented characters seemed okay (and your '1 Wuppertalska, Kosice' example above does now work!) - let me know if you notice any problems... Cheers, Stephen | |
jose1711 8:16 Location: Phone Model: | i've done a few tests and the experience is so much better! thank you for your effort (i upgraded to full version today). jose | |
Stephen 14:05 Location: Phone Model: | Jolly good. (And thanks for the upgrde!!) Cheers, Stephen | |
jose1711 14:40 Location: Phone Model: | i wonder whether there are any plans to extend online search to include searching for objects (POIs). it seems only cloudmade supports it currently though (e. g. http://geocoding.cloudmade.com/8ee2a50541944fb9bcedded5165f09d9/geocoding/v2/find.html?object_type=bus_stop&around=51.51558,-0.141449&results=5&distance=500). ps: you're welcome :-) | |
Stephen 20:19 Location: Phone Model: | I've been playing some more with the MapQuest searching, turns out it will search for POIs to some extent, for example 'pubs', 'restaurants', etc. Make sure you reduce the search radius though otherwise you'll just get a load of random ones. You can try test phrases here (the Basic Sample Search form halfway down the page). Doesn't seem to work for bus stops though :-( | |
jose1711 8:01 Location: Phone Model: | revisiting routing part.. it is not possible in CM to avoid tolls, which could render it unusable for drivers :-( in cotrast mapquest direction service allows for much more control over routing parameters: http://open.mapquestapi.com/directions/ | |
Stephen 19:05 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Jose, Apologies for the delay... I've now added MapQuest to the list of available routing methods (the list will update after the next route download), as MQ:Fastest, Shortest, Cycling, Walking and Fastest (no Tolls). I've also added the MapQuest raster tiles into the online maps list (use 'Reload Current Tiles' to refresh the list)... Hope it helps! Cheers, Stephen | |
jose1711 5:28 Location: Phone Model: | hi stephen, splendid! thank you so much for adding MQ routing option. however i need to report that no toll option does not work - it does not display any route, even for very short distances. could you please take a look? thank you, jose | |
Stephen 8:03 Location: Phone Model: | Doh, so it does, not sure how I missed that!! Anyhow, it should be okay again now...! Cheers, Stephen | |
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