[OSM-dev] Name finder for the main OSM page?

[David Earl]

On 03/08/2007 11:54, Ulf Lamping wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> The name finder at http://www.frankieandshadow.com/osm/ is doing a *much 
> better* job to find stuff than what we currently have a the 
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/index.html
> 
> For example: When I enter Schuckertplatz at OSM I simply get nothing 
> useful, but the name finder just points me to the place I was looking for.
> 
> I would think having a good engine to find things is an *essential* part 
> of an online map and make the OSM map much more useful - so IMHO this is 
> really important.
> 
> Is there any chance to replace the current "finding engine"?
> 
> Regards, ULFL

(For anyone not familiar with this, it is currently at
   http://www.frankieandshadow.com/osm/
)

I'd love to do this. Perhaps I should liaise with Tom directly.

There are several ways we could integrate this; we could more tightly 
integrate over time.
1. The box on the osm homepage could simply have action='...' to the 
name finder page. That means you;d get transferred to my site for the 
results.

2. The box on the osm homepage could call the XML interface to the name 
finder, extract the results (which includes the descriptive strings you 
get back now on the name finder page) and go to the lat/lon provided.

3. I could move the name finder to the OSM site. It's written in PHP at 
present and requires its own MySQL database (or at least, its own tables 
in some database); I was considering rewriting in in rails as an 
exercise (and then releasing the code to svn, for which I'd need an 
commit rights), and it might be more appropriate to do this after I;ve 
done a rails port.

Also, just to say: I am also experimenting on it doing (UK) postcodes as 
well. It could also be made to go off and do the same as at present for 
postcodes in general, allowing us to have a single box.

David