[OSM-talk] Announcing name searches for OSM

[Ulf Lamping]

David Earl wrote:
> I have implemented a prototype for my long-proposed name searching. So it is
> now possible to search for data in the OSM map by name in context.
>   http://www.frankieandshadow.com/osm/
> While you can search for e.g. 'High Street' as you could previously (and get
> back potentially vast numbers of answers), the power of this search is that
> you can qualify it by place: 'High Street, Chesterton' to constrain the
> results.
>
> It also includes variants, so that if someone put 'High St' in the map and
> you search for 'High Street' or vice-versa you'll still get a hit. Ditto
> international names, so 'Londres' is found because it has a
> 'name:fr=Londres' tag (but e.g. Munich is not, because München doesn't yet
> have a 'name:en=Munich'). Various letters such as ü and u are also
> considered equivalent (all the latin1 characters have been equivalenced, but
> there will be many in other languages I don't know about but can easily
> add).
>
> The whole thing works using distances, so these are reported in context for
> the place, as well as showing it on the map. It tells you when the street
> was found close to the place you asked for but another place was closer, and
> also tells you the nearest town and/or city.
>
> More details at
>   http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Name_finder
>
> Enjoy! Feedback welcome.
>   
Man, you really rock!

Best osm news since I've started osm work (about 5 weeks ago) - it 
really made my day!

The search even handles german Umlaute äüö, e.g. searching for Nürnberg :-)

Regards, ULFL