The latest version of Comaps, available from f-droid, now supports displaying user reviews, bringing it a big step closer to being a viable alternative to Google Maps.
Reviews are sourced from mangrove.reviews, and are open data licensed under creative commons. As Comaps is the first major app to support displaying the reviews they are still a bit lacking in numbers. Feel free to help change that!
It’s not possible to review places from Comaps directly: a link to add reviews will be added in the next version. For now, the best way to review places is to find them on MapComplete (where restaurants and cafés/pubs are listed separately).
This is the first step towards review integration in comaps, and they are still working on features such as incorporating reviews into search results. So it’ll keep getting better, but for now seeing scores and reading reviews works great. As a bonus all reviews are available offline.
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Wow that’s amazing !
Now just add live traffic, live reporting (cops, object in road ahead, etc), and maybe live ETA location sharing. I want off Google Maps, but those are all super important to me and mine.
Live traffic works because google collects movement data of everyone in the background while using google services such as maps. This is certainly possible in an anonymous way as well without profiting off of the people’s data, but until a service reaches critical mass this is not feasible.
Don’t forget ALPR markers and an option to route around them :3
The biggest thing I’m missing is an easy way to navigate to common places. Like home, for example. There’s no quick button for it, no widget or shortcut I can add to my home screen, and having to search my favorites for “home” is a little unintuitive.
Yeeeeessssss! Great news! Thanks for sharing!
It drives me mad that google was built on users sharing their experiences and data all for google to keep it for themselves. Very excited to see how the open mapping community develops in the coming years! Will definitely help!
Yeah man I used to feel good about being a “Local Guide” and reviewing businesses in my community/uploading photos to Google maps. Now it feels like I did free labor for one of the biggest companies in the world lol.
Wow. I will start using mangrove to review stuff now.
What’s the best way to do so?
I just went to https://mangrove.reviews/, searched for a place and left a review. Super easy.
The last time I tried using Mangrove directly it didn’t really work for me, but it seems they have solved whatever problem I had. So this works as well! :)
but there is not a map view, right?
For now your best bet is to find places on MapComplete and review from there.
You can review restaurants here, and cafés/pubs in this link. There is an app available from f-droid, which works largely the same as the website.
Make sure to zoom in quite close on the map - in my experience there’s a dead zone at a medium zoom level where it doesn’t find anything. Once you get to the relevant street you’ll start seeing establishments.
Starting with the next version of Comaps it’ll link you straight to the page where you can leave a review, which will be a quality of life improvement. For now this works alright in my experience. :)
ok, I installed it and it’s pretty straightforward. The only quirks are the ones you mentioned: need a close zoom level to work properly, and the middle zooms levels are not working so well
I just wrote a review on a local bank and it’s not visible on comaps for me yet. Maybe it takes a while until it becomes visible through Mangrove’s API?
It’s available in Mangrove’s API immediately, but since Comaps works offline it’s only visible there after the next map update. I think they generally update map data once a month.
It’s not the best solution for getting the most up to date reviews at all times, but on the other hand it’s super useful when on holiday without mobile data. :)
Oh I see. Thx for explaining :3
I was looking for a way to see reviews on a map. Found this: https://altilunium.github.io/MangroveViewer/
It will never ever be viable until the search isn’t garbage. It’s a non starter in its current state.
I really agree. Finding a place on Comaps for me usually involves searching for the place on Google maps, finding the general area, then looking that area up on Comaps and zooming in until I can visually find the location on the map. I still do it because I want to use Comaps, but it would be so nice to have better search.
The search is pretty bad. There needs to at least be a button to search in the while country/state/province that isn’t downloaded.
Is your glass always half empty?
Sorry for pointing out the real actual blocker to any viability at all.