Suggestions for Improving Points of Interest Searching

[JelloUp]

Hi, thanks for all the great work with the recent updates. I've been trying the POI function and just have a few suggestions that could improve the usability.

1. Show place names in the system language if available: Right now, the places only show it's native name. I suggest that it displays the name in the same language as whatever the user has set as their default language, if available.

2. Prevent permanently closed locations from showing up: Some places that show up are out of business / permanently closed. Recommend excluding these as they are probably irrelevant for finding places to visit.

3. Enrich with description and photos: Currently, clicking on a point of interest only shows the name (and website if available). It would be helpful if it also shows a description and possibly some pictures to give a better idea what the place is like. This may require changes to the "Add Place/Activity" window to show this information. At least, it should fill out the same information as if you searched that place. Alternatively, the description and pictures could pop-up when hovering over the POI icon, alongside the name.

4. Autofill place category: The place category should be automatically filled based on the category of POIs being searched for.

[mauriceboe]

Thanks for writing these up with screenshots, that made all four easy to check. Here is where each one stands.

1. Names in the system language: done, ships with 4.0.0.

POI names now follow your interface language. The pin looks for name:<your language> first, then int_name, then falls back to the native name if neither exists. The language is part of the cache key, so two people on the same server with different languages do not end up seeing each other's names.

2. Permanently closed places: done, ships with 4.0.0.

Google actually tells us this in a field called businessStatus, we just never asked for it. We do now, and anything marked as closed for good is dropped before the results reach you. On the OpenStreetMap side there are a few ways mappers state it, so disused, abandoned and opening_hours=closed are filtered too.

One deliberate exception: temporarily closed places stay. A restaurant shut for a refit or closed for the winter is still worth putting in a plan for next spring.

3. Description and photos: done, ships with 4.0.0.

Clicking a POI opens the add place dialog, and it now has a details column on the left showing photos and a description for that place. You can pick one of the photos as the place image and take the description over into the form with one click. So it fills in the same information as if you had searched for the place by name, which is what you asked for at minimum.

4. Autofill place category: not planned.

This one we are going to say no to, and it is worth explaining why. Categories in TREK are not a fixed list. Every user creates their own, with their own names, colours and icons. So there is nothing stable to map a POI type onto: your "Museums" might be someone else's "Kultur", and plenty of people organise by day or by traveller instead of by type. Any guess we made would be wrong for most setups, and a wrong preselection is more annoying than an empty field.

Everything above is on the development branch and will be in the 4.0.0 release.