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Usability

I recently sent out an e-mail newsletter with a link to a geohack page listing maps for a place under discussion,

I had several comments from people who did not understand how to use the page:

I was rather uncertain what to do at the map page … (its not immediately obvious, I do not think)

the map site opens to a map of the world with a red blob over Africa which I couldn't fathom out.

Over the New Year holiday, I conducted some simple user-testing with IT-novice relatives, and it does seem that the page is overly very complex, for a first-time visitor. For that reason, I have added a "how to use this page" section, and invite you all to help improve it. I have also linked, prominently (but probably not prominently enough), to that section from the top of the page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to criticize studies that ask users if they understand something in the first minute. We should look at the existing disambiguation page model for designing this page. I thought the section was inappropriate in tone. So, I had rewritten it and stuck it below the infobox. I think it should be longer at 2-3 sentences describing the links. Anyway, even if understanding was 100% the page was clearly unnavigatable as noted by the accumulation of duplicate links. Hopefully the return to the disambiguation based design and a massive cutting links will help. — Dispenser 16:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Don’t keep putting it back in! Figure out how to inform users without: A) Duplicating existing links and B) Pushing the fold down. These are usability issues on my end. If you are actually conducting a usability study here are some more variables that you could vary:

  1. Change the appearance or style of the information box (background color, smaller, monospace font, ambox, etc.)
  2. Alphabetize the lists
    I’m sure this would make a huge difference. If you want Google Maps to be distinct you could always increase the font or line-height slightly. Similarly a recommended services section could be placed above.
  3. Add/move/removing elements. Ex: the mini-map, contents, location information.

I honestly think it is a bad interface design if you need to explain it with as much detail as you have. And time the person — Dispenser 04:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't keep removing it! I'm not sure why you think some of the above comments ("if they understand something in the first minute", "If you want Google Maps to be distinct") are relevant; or why you object to duplicating the links for illustrative purposes, or why you've now removed that section three times, twice with non-explanatory edit sumamries "Undid revision 287948782 by Pigsonthewing (talk); correcting bad syntax; tablifying service", "Removed - →Help: ; merged elevation into other info; removed many exploratory links; __noindex__; fixed antipole marker being off)"); or why you claimed to have rewriten and moved it (" I had rewritten it and stuck it below the infobox") when you simply removed it; or what you mean by "the disambiguation based design". I did explicitly "invite you all to help improve it". Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
For some users getting to Google Maps as quickly as possible is the most important feature this template can provide. They want this page to be as streamlined as possible, while others want every service possible to be included. The latter is problematic as presenting a user with a lot of information often overwhelms them. So I had suggest we mimic the guidelines that are already in place for a similar type of page, a disambiguation page.
On my edit summaries: the first two removals coincided with messages left in this section, I'll link them in the future. As for last one; I actually did copy edit to get rid of the patronizing junk and removed the duplicate links. The sentence that was left is now between the infotable/infobox and the Global Systems section. If the duplicate links are for illustration purposes they should not be usable, making them usable only causes people to rely on them. — Dispenser 22:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

page layout

The Geohacks page is rendered unreadable on most common wiewport widths. The layout is much too wide, you must scroll sideways so as to read some lines. There is no need to this user-unfriendly layout. Even if graphics extend outside the screen, you can CSS all text not to do so. Please do that. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 12:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

This has been fixed by removing the widing section and switching away from tables in the new layout. — Dispenser 04:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Feature requests for Geohack

  1. I would like to Maidenhead Locator System grid details (http://www.arrl.org/locate/grid.html) also be made available on the page. It should be easy to implement.
    I tried to add this info using {{Coor Maidenhead}}, but unfortunately the geohack does not transclude that type of template. The code is there in the Maidenhead template; it just needs to be added to the geohack. --  Denelson83  06:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
    Your confusion is understandable. The GeoTemplate template isn't expanded by mediawiki but handled by GeoHack, an external program on the toolserver. Wiki template expansions are not available—as far as I know. The special {lat}{long}{etc} style parameters are the only expansions performed, I think. The complex conditionals in Coor Maindenhead would need special encoding and handling by GeoHack if it's possible at all. —EncMstr (talk) 08:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
  2. Altitude (www.topocoding.com uses Google) =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:40, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

GPX Markup

How about adding a 'download GPX' link to GeoHack? Tedder (talk) 00:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

GPS users would find a GPX output option useful. You can probably reuse the KML output code to some extent or possibly find an existing KML2GPX script. You may also wish to organize the existing GPS user related output together (e.g. geocache links). --J Clear (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I've added GPX - please check. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
That was fast! Perhaps a bit too fast, since it has an open element and it's missing the schema link. For testing I used these coords. Garmin POILoader for Mac spit the GPX out. Found the GPX validator from here and looked at some examples and the schema docs on the same site. At a bare minimum the GPX output is missing the following to close the gpx element:
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0/gpx.xsd">
After I added that, it validated, the POILoader didn't complain, and the GPS plots it in roughly the same spot as Google Maps. For grins I bumped it up to GPX version 1.1, and that works as well. Here's the the minimally fixed GPX:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gpx
 version="1.1"
 creator="Wikipedia"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd">
<wpt lat="40.136111" lon="-75.506667"> <name>Mont_Clare,_Pennsylvania</name>
 <desc><![CDATA[From Wikipedia article http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Mont_Clare,_
Pennsylvania]]></desc>
</wpt>
</gpx>
If you want further suggestions: Add a metadata section. Include the <copyright> tag and point to the GFDL. The <keywords> element could probably get populated with at least the region and type parameters. <time> should be easy. Within the <wpt> element, I think what you have tagged as <desc> should probably be <src>. I don't think the GeoHacks page is designed to go back and extract stuff from the article, but if it did, <desc> should probably be the article lead paragraphs. There is a <link> element for the wikipedia actual link. Here's what all the suggestions would look like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gpx
  version="1.1"
  creator="Wikipedia GeoHack Tool"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <copyright author="Wikipedia Contributors, see article history">
      <year>2009</year>
      <license>http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License</license>
    </copyright>
    <time>2009-01-18T16:17:33Z</time>
    <keywords>"Mont Clare",Pennsylvania,US,city</keywords>
  </metadata>
  <wpt lat="40.136111" lon="-75.506667">
    <name>Mont_Clare,_Pennsylvania</name>
    <desc><![CDATA[Mont Clare is a village in Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. Originally named Quincyville, the village is located on the left bank of the Schuylkill River, opposite Phoenixville, at the site of the former Jacob's ford. Mont Clare, along with neighboring Port Providence, hosts one of only two remaining watered stretches of the Schuylkill Canal. The village name has also been spelled with the homophones Mont Clair and Montclare.
]]></desc>
    <src><![CDATA[From the English Wikipedia article Mont Clare, Pennsylvania]]>
</src>
    <link href="http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Mont_Clare,_Pennsylvania" />
  </wpt>
</gpx>
Although my Garmin nuvi GPS can only display the <desc> info, so perhaps having the source also at the end of <desc> would be a good idea. --J Clear (talk) 17:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I made changes to the template to bring it up to a valid GPX1.1 output (passes SAXCount now), but still in minimal form. If Andy or someone else doesn't get a round tuit, I'll try to come back and add more of my suggestions at some point. --J Clear (talk) 03:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
It's not possible to add text from the source article, but I have added some of the fields you suggest, though there is some redundancy. It may be possible to include a time-stamp, but I don't know how. Can anyone else help? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Wow folks, thanks for your work on this- I'm just now seeing it. I'm doing some testing with Google Earth and MapSource as clients. A couple of things. First, the name line is broken- it is missing an ending bracket- see below for bad and good: 

bad:  <name><![CDATA[Pioneer_Courthouse]]</name>
good: <name><![CDATA[Pioneer_Courthouse]]></name>

Probably just a typo somewhere. I fixed it (see my edit), but it may also be broken in the KML. Second, the metadata:copyright keeps it from importing into MapSource. I'm not sure if there's anything actually wrong, or if that's Garmin's fault. Finally, the presence of the wpt:link field causes Google Earth to crash. If I remove that line, it'll import. I've tried some XML tricks but can't figure out why that is happening. Again, it isn't something I'm comfortable fixing, or even sure if we should (if we don't fix the Garmin issue, at least) FWIW, this is the geo link I was using for testing. tedder (talk) 04:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so I did some more testing and reading of the schema. The license was wrong- it needed to be a URI- here's the fix. Also, the link was wrong. It still crashes Google Earth, and I can't figure out why. But it should be correct now, according to the schema. (here are the changes: change1, change2). Again, it would be really nice for this to import into Google Earth successfully. Any ideas? tedder (talk) 05:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, we need to be a bit more careful making changes. The GPX wasn't validating any more. It looks like a cut and paste error stuck a copy of the name element into the link element. Since sorted. If you work on the GPX portion please use the validator and run it on your output. Also seems to have fixed the Google Earth issues, at least with the MacOSX version I use. It also imports into my nuvi with the POI loader, so hopefully MapSource is happy. --J Clear (talk) 20:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Garmin Communicator Plugin API

How about making use of Garmin Communicator Plugin API? This would enable sending waypoints from virtually any internet cafe.

please TALK about this.

Cursor definition

In Auto Cad, the cursor can be defined, to carry along with the cross hairs, the coordinats of the current location. This is selectable by the user, as many users would find it an unnecessary complication. This capability may be of use here, to capture a lat, long. coordinate on the fly. Then to use it easily, this location might be appended to the clipboard, available to be pasted as needed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.246.208 (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

While it would be useful in many of the mapping resources this template directs you to, this doesn't seem to be a capability useful to function of this template. --J Clear (talk) 13:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Angular input format

I have found the use of Decimal Degrees a help in calculations, most users find Degrees, Minutes, Seconds & decimal seconds, more natural. I would like a more fluid ability to use either. Many hand held calculators have a defined function to convert from one to the other. An input script, would simplify the whole operation, allowing input in DMS or DD. Another consideration is the confusion over how to designate the Deg. Min., or Second symbols. A competent programer with a math background, could make the world a lot simpler. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.246.208 (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

What would be useful is a function like the one for dates, where the display format of lat/lon is a user preference. However that would be a chance to the wiki code, or perhaps the {{Coord}} template. --J Clear (talk) 13:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I see that what I wish is possible with CSS, according to Template:Coord/doc. --J Clear (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy

It would be useful to understand at a mean Earths diameter, the accuracy of a location, specified by 4 or 6 or 8 decimal places. One decimal place would be very acceptable to locate the USA, but 9 or more decimal places might be needed to represent a nail in a concrete marker at the edge of ones property. This understanding, is basically simple …

Sin(.0001 Dec. Deg.) x mean Earths radius = approx accuracy

Sin(.000001 Dec. Deg.) x mean Earths radius = approx accuracy

Sin(.00000001 Dec. Deg.) x mean Earths radius = approx accuracy

Part of an input format, might address the suitability of the input (decimal places) , in order, to derive the accuracy required for a users application. (kind of the difference, between tossing a grenade and brain surgery) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.246.208 (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

See WP:GEO#Precision. —EncMstr (talk) 08:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Width issue (was: Latest Changes Slightly Broken)

The changes of the last 10-12 hours have "installed an undesired feature". The output seems to lock to a fixed width, rather than a percentage of the browser width. For example the world map with red locator dot is totally off window. It did not do this before. I'd rather not just randomly revert until it's gone, and as I don't have the knowledge at present to fix it quickly I'll post this for someone who does. --J Clear (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, now I don't this was a result of the latest changes. It seems to depend on the length of the article name calling it. A really long article name, such as Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet Headquarters (World War II) causes the first section to become rather wide and can push the locator map (as well as the template and discussion links in the upper right) well off the right side. Suggest the locator map start below the Title:, rather than to the right of it. Wrapping "(Edit | All coordinates | Report inaccuracies)" to the next line could also help.
And while I'm not sure what "All coordinates" is supposed to accomplish, it is broken for the article cited above. The generated link is truncated mid article title. Also might want to add a duplicate "Report Inaccuracies" link to the left of the Template link, to try to head off the those comments from this page, as the current one isn't apparently obvious enough. --J Clear (talk) 16:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
The width increase is a result of edits to the markup section that increases the line width. Since GeoHack uses tables this makes the table content area wider, resulting in the broken appearance. I suggest we move all non-link information to an export page and improve the design of the page. — Dispenser 14:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I concur about cutting down the page, substantially. Will open a new section to discuss. --J Clear (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Italy

It's a bit hard to navigate, but maybe there is a way to add the following site:

http://www.pcn.minambiente.it/viewer/viewer.htm

-- User:Docu

There are a few pages linking to the site. According to it:Special:LinkSearch/www.pcn.minambiente.it ones needs define a box with two sets of coordinates. -- User:Docu

GeoTemplate reorganization proposal

Am I the only one that thinks the present template and resulting page is too big and unwieldy? While I can see where all the information is useful in certain cases, I just don't think it is for most of the Wikipedia readers. And we've already seen where it is confusing or perhaps overwhelming to casual users in its present form. Also noted above is where the tables in the Markup section cause formatting grief.

Reorganization

I'd like to propose that everything below the present TOC be removed to a set of sub pages, and where the TOC is would be a set of "Additional geo resources" links to those sub pages. This would keep the "Global systems" and the article specific regional resources at the current one click from the articles. I think that would satisfy the vast majority of Wikipedia users. Alternatively: copy the present version to GeoTemplateKS, truncate GeoTemplate at the TOC, and put a link on the latter to the former. --J Clear (talk) 21:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Being bold, I reformatted the template with markup hacks. This hides the unusable country links, making the many duplicate links more obvious. In the process I also removed a bunch of "nerd data" and plan to remove more. I would argue against a kitchen sink approach as this is a maintenance nightmare as checking for dead links is tedious and many would go unused anyway. If we can the get page down to 5 K and all the normal people can just click their Google link I think we'll be fine. — Dispenser 03:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
It's a nice improvement. Should the "export subpage" be functional yet? I don't see the debug info anywhere. —EncMstr (talk) 05:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I like the reorganisation, but have restored the "help" section; for the reasons I added it in the first place, please see Usability, above. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:39, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
If there is a way to place the TOC below "Globe" and "Zoom", it might be even more compact. -- User:Docu
Done. -- User:Docu
← How can we edit the "export" page? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
It looks like it is at Template:GeoTemplate/export. —EncMstr (talk) 00:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
A point that still needs improvement is navigation in a few cases:
  • a country specific section isn't automatically found: e.g. no region code in the coordinates and geohack can't determine the region from the coordinates, such as 40°43′N 74°00′W / 40.71°N 74°W / 40.71; -74 which should be region:US.
  • the country specific section isn't ideal: the section is incorrectly determined by geohack or the section for a neighboring country would provide better links, such as 45°56.21′N 7°52.0234′E / 45.93683°N 7.8670567°E / 45.93683; 7.8670567 found on Dufourspitze, which should be region:CH.
-- User:Docu
I would quite honestly like to know what percentage of users use anything outside of google maps. — Dispenser 04:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
We could add a bit of Javascript to GeoHack and set up a redirector that logs the requested service, and actually have an answer to that question. Google does it too. On the service order; I started a script a year ago to allow people to sort them however they like with the preferences saved in a cookie, but never got around to finishing it. If someone else wants to continue or do a rewrite and add it to GeoHack, I think it would be a great improvement. --Para (talk) 15:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Promotion

In addition I'd like to suggest two items to pull above "above the fold" (i.e. above the TOC), either with or without the Reorganization above. The Google Earth link would be one. The other, a new one based on the recently added GPX format, that would be something like "Download for GPS", which would initiate a download of the GPX as a file, rather than just displaying it as is done in the present Markup section. I don't think "Download to GPS" would fly as there would be entirely too many ways to do that. --J Clear (talk) 21:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Mapeze - Canada

Can Mapeze be added for Canadian locations? Cherry1000 (talk) 00:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked at it to see if there was any documentation or a way to reverse engineer the parameters it takes. It says it's a demo site and totally wrong, :-) or words effectively like that. It doesn't seem functional—at least I never saw it produce a map. —EncMstr (talk) 07:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
It would be nice if we could link directly to the Canadian atlas instead http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/index.html . -- User:Docu
I have written well working program which - given the input of typed in coordinates or coordinates stored in JPG files (EXIF) - generates also atlas.nrcan.gc.ca URL. The main trick is the conversion from lat/long to Lambert conical. I do it bit tricky :-) using "behind the scenes" Australian Government's website and parsing the returned result. My code is in C++, but if any of you guys are interested to incorporate it into this template, I am willing to share. Lester Kovac (talk) 19:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I asked Magnus to look into your suggestion. Possibly your code can be included into the geohack php listed on [1]. Alternatively, para might want to set up a separate converter on toolserver. We could also attempt to integrate somethink like http://spatialreference.org/ -- User:Docu
Feel free to contact me - http://usera.ImageCave.com/lkovac/email.jpg Lester Kovac (talk) 21:18, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I wrote a little redirect tool using PROJ.4 to do the EPSG:4326 to EPSG:42304 conversion the National Atlas happened to mention in their Javascript. The site seems to have other stuff as well, but I'm not too fond of their user interface so someone else can see if the other stuff is actually useful. If it is, I can extend the tool to work like the one with the Japan links so that everything is configurable from GeoTemplate. --Para (talk) 22:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it's important to have it. Even if others sometimes have the same map, it doesn't necessarily work or is even more complicated to navigate. Their north pole mapping may be worth linking to. -- User:Docu

Coordinates using other than WGS84

To avoid that people add too many of those, I think we should add a reference to WGS84 at the top of the map sources page. Besides, I think it's helpful to link the definitions of type, scale and region as well. -- User:Docu

Could you please explain to me why a readers would need to know the geographical coordinate system that is used everywhere needs to be listed and linked. Also, could you specify on how these other systems mingle and if it would change the behavoir. — Dispenser 04:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If you check the coordinates given with US radio station transmitters you will notice that they are frequently a bit off, due to a missing conversions. Some of the links on GeoTemplate are indirect as one had to adjust for the conversion. In other cases, no conversion is done as it isn't available or as it was deemed negligible (it all depends how accurate we want it to be). It can also be that coordinates given in the article are not WGS84, but as we link to sites that don't use them either, one doesn't notice. Ideally, we would offer a series of additional conversions directly on the template. -- User:Docu

Google Maps integration

How does a page which has a coordinate make it onto Google Maps with the Wikipedia icon link? --James Bond (talk) 06:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

See this explanation from Google. —EncMstr (talk) 22:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Zero padded minutes, seconds

For the link

http://water.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/pointinhuc.pl?latitude={latdegabs}{latminint}{latsecint}{latNS}&longitude={londegabs}{lonminint}{lonsecint}{lonEW}

to work for any coordinates, minutes and seconds would need to be padded with a zero when the second/minute is just one digit. -- User:Docu

Streetmap error for integer longitude/latitude.

The website www.streetmap.co.uk will not display a map when integer values are used for longitude and latitude.

For example, the article http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Kirkcudbrightshire has this coordinate link (near the top-right corner): http://stable.toolserver.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Kirkcudbrightshire&params=55_00_N_4_00_W_region:GB_type:adm2nd_source:GNS-enwiki

The stable.toolserver.org page for 55_00_N_4_00_W has this invalid link to www.streetmap.co.uk: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newsearch.srf?mapp=newmap&searchp=newsearch&name=55,-4&Submit1=search&type=LatLong

It can be corrected by using adding ".0" to the longitude and latitude: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newsearch.srf?mapp=newmap&searchp=newsearch&name=55.0,-4.0&Submit1=search&type=LatLong

The code that generates links to www.streetmap.co.uk needs to be fixed.

Quantile (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Geohack would need to be changed to fix this. It should be rare that one is right on the degree, no? -- User:Docu

The Long/Lat of large areas, such as counties is more likely to be rounded to integer degrees: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/County_of_Scotland http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Historic_counties_of_England http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/List_of_Scottish_council_areas_by_area

Some places that have integer Long/Lat, but are displayed properly by Steetmap.co.uk are: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Cumberland http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Highland_(council_area) http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Perthshire http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ross_and_Cromarty http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Selkirkshire http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Yorkshire

Some places whose integer Long/Lat produces errors when accessing Streetap.co.uk via GeoHack: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Kirkcudbrightshire http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Nottinghamshire http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Orkney_Islands

Many articles on UK counties omit coordinates altogether. It seems that a practical short term solution would be to edit the Long/Lat format in the county articles to avoid the Streetmap error. A cleaner solution would be to reprogram GeoHack to always send correctly formatted data to Steetmap. Quantile (talk) 07:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Their Search Tips page documents the accepted formats [d]y.y,[d]x.x and [d]y:yy:yy,[d]x:xx:xx. 55,-4 could then be given as 55:0:0,-4:0:0 without having to change Wikipedia articles because of a single broken map provider. In the dms format the use of decimals is not mentioned, but it seems to work regardless: 51.500611,-0.124611 can be given as 51.500611:0:0,-0.124611:0:0. Until Streetmap fix the decimal point requirement on their side, we can use the dms notation as a workaround by adding :0:0 to the ooordinates in Streetmap links. --Para (talk) 13:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

GeoURL

I think GeoURL could go under Other information header. It has the URL like: http://geourl.org/near?lat=45.401194&long=-75.733969 with simple lat and long parameters in query. Lester Kovac (talk) 14:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure, don't hesitate to add it. -- User:Docu

Problem: Geohack does not display Great-Britain-specific links for places in the northern portion of the Scottish Island of Iona.

Suggestion: Expand the coordinate range that Geohack recognizes as being part of Great Britain.

Details:

Place 1
Geohack at Place 1, 56.3378_N_6.3926_W
Streetmap.co.uk at Place 1

Place 2
Geohack at Place 2, 56.3368_N_6.3931
Streetmap.co.uk at Place 2

Place 1 and Place 2 are only 117m apart, both situated on the Scottish Island of Iona.
Geohack correctly displays Great-Britain-specific links for Place 2 (and other places to the south of Place 2).
However, Geohack does not display these links for Place 1, or other points to the north.
Quantile (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

You can use the region parameter to help the detection when the coordinates are near a border (political or water). To improve the detection we would have to find a replacement for the Administrative Boundaries - First Level (ESRI) database. For a community editable solution, perhaps the OpenStreetMap people would have something? --Para (talk) 13:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

GeoHack update

I'm updating GeoHack later today. The update consists of XHTML compliant markup, support for the globe: parameter, Modern skin to match the rest of the Toolserver services, and JavaScript at MediaWiki:GeoHack.js is load. However, since the simpler code removes the HTML parser it is not as robust. GeoHack now expects a properly formed XHTML document to be served and id to be the first attribute in a div tag. Classes are different in the Modern skin and style is no longer copied from GEOTEMPLATE-LOCAL to GEOTEMPLATE-XX. Documentation is now at tswiki:GeoHack. — Dispenser 17:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

What happened to GeoHack in Spanish language: <English GeoHack page> vs <Spanish GeoHack page>?. Felipealvarez (talk) 21:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
We have (hopefully) streamlining the Interface and I removed the redundant elements. Other than that I don't see any difference. — Dispenser 22:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Based on User talk:Magnus Manske#problem with GeoHack in Spanish, this was once again caused by a caching related bug somewhere. It's reported at bugzilla:7098. Anyone to help the Wikimedia techs find the cause? --Para (talk) 16:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

This page is not fully protected. New or unregistered users requesting edits to a semi-protected page can use the {{editsemiprotected}} template. -- IRP ☎ 16:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Remove semi-protection, keep move protection. No longer any reason with the update. — Dispenser 03:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

How is it different? -- User:Docu
The editing interface is now always accessible, before blanking would require a user to know where the template was to revert it. And since the interface text is grabbed from the page itself it displays "View source" to users, instead of "Edit this Page". Thus, I do not see any compelling reason to keep this semiprotected. — Dispenser 15:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've just removed the edits made on May 9th - they seem to have been causing an interesting bug whereby links in the "Global systems" section were all screwed up. As far as I can see, they were trying to create URLs which included the "{latdegdec}" elements, etc, verbatim in the string, rather than converting them to the relevant numeric value; reverting to this morning's situation fixed it.

I think this is due to the recent edits doing some odd character conversion, where {latdegdec} got converted to %7Blatdegdec%7D - I'm guessing this confused the system somehow. I don't think any of the other elements were a problem, but I'm certainly not a specialist in template syntax so I may be misdiagnosing it! Anyway, I've left it as it was - I won't try and incorporate the recent changes myself for fear of breaking it again, in case I've got the problem wrong. Shimgray | talk | 22:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad I had export the table into excel to quickly sort it and imported back using WikEd. Somewhere along the line the links were escaped. — Dispenser 03:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

France

Hello. For France (Géoportail), it is not "Satellite" but "Aerial" (or "Orthophoto") (corresponding to the keyword for the geoportail.php command: "Photo"). If relevant, one can add as well "Geology" (keyword: "Geologie") and "Cadastre" (keyword: "Parcelles"). Thanks, Jack ma (talk) 15:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions (these and the one before). I used the links you added to the French version. -- User:Docu

Use of class="HiddenStructure"

This template uses the class "HiddenStructure", this css class has been deprecated (see this) and (probably) will be deleted in the future. why does this template still using it? Locos ~ epraix Beaste~praix 01:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Because the hack used was actually what hiddenStructure was, so it seems only nature to replace with a more accurate description. I've since instated the hack again as there are issues of collision of CSS classes. — Dispenser 14:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Please, add elected.biz to Global and Ukraine sections of Template:GeoTemplate

{{editsemiprotected}}

to Global systems:

|- | Services All Over the World | | Satellite | |-

to Ukraine:

|- | Services All Over the World | Map | | |-

Elected3 (talk) 08:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Not done: That site appears to be just a wrapper for Google maps. The regular editors of the template may have other opinions, but this seems akin to linkspam to me. Celestra (talk) 14:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}}Ok, then only to Ukraine section, please, because Google does not maintains street details in Ukrainian map, and Visicom does not giving the ability to add/comment services. - Elected3 (talk) 08:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I've asked a couple of the active editors to comment. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
While I'm generally in favor of providing a wide range of map links, I'm not entirely convinced by this request. We already have Visicom and there don't appear to be too many - if any services - commented upon through this interface (at least looking at Kiev and comparing with us). A similar request seems to have been turned down on uk:Обговорення_шаблону:GeoTemplate. -- Docu (talk · contribs) - 15:13, 2009 June 19

Report inaccuracies has inaccuracies

The

Title (Edit | Report inaccuracies)

link leads to "bad title". Jidanni (talk) 23:09, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

When using it from an article, it works for me. It creates a new section on an article's talk page and populates Category:Talk pages requiring geodata verification. -- User:Docu 13:03, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
In fact, it doesn't work when one starts out from an image on commons. -- User:Docu at 05:23, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
We probably we use JavaScript to hide it when it is not usable. — Dispenser 12:11, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't want to maintain the page on commons as well, but maybe a "project" parameter would work? The "links on page" in the Wikipedia section don't work either. -- User:Docu at 05:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

UrMap links like

http://www.urmap.com/?qs=120.866039,24.181706

must now be

http://www.urmap.com/v1.jsp?qs=120.866039,24.181706

to still work. It is not clear what their current version's way of linking to lat/long is. Jidanni (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Wait, according to replies to [2], [3], both will now work, so nothing need be changed. Jidanni (talk) 05:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's probably still worth updating it, try editing the page. User:Docu 13:03, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Antipodes

Why did you take the antipodes link back off? I had told all my friends about it. Jidanni (talk) 23:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It's currently limited to the green dot. It was removed under this #Reorganization. I don't mind if you re-add it. User:Docu 13:03, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Purge

I have just done an edit but toolserver has not reacted. I agree that it was terribly wasteful for the toolserver to load the page for every call. But how do we tell the toolserver that we have changed the template? — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 16:21, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

GeoHack loads the page from the server squid cache, basically getting what an anonymous user would get. So it isn't very terribly wasteful (yes it could be improve but require more complex code). — Dispenser 00:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Cloudmade Maps

http://maps.cloudmade.com/

I would like this service to be added. It's a commercial renderer of OpenStreetMap data. Crazysim (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Please add to Oceania Australia ExplorOz.com Places

{{editsemiprotected}}

We have a mapping system that is linked to our places and routes database we use our own Topo layer and have implemented some google base maps - all these can have a topo contour overlay and the place locations are all parsed through our 100K points place database. Our system specialises in remote outback locations and has data that is not available anywhere else on thousands of outback places and routes.

to Australia:

|- | ExplorOz Places | Map | Topo ||-

Itbeyond (talk) 02:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

GlobeXplorer appears semi-broken

It appears that the interface to GlobeXplorer has changed. Clicking through shows the whole world centered on 0,0, rather than the lat-lon and scale requested. At least for me, YMMV. --J Clear (talk) 15:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect results

The location of Chatsworth House is correctly given as 53º 13' 40" N, 1º 36' 36" W. When I click on the link to Geohack and then click on the link to Google Earth with metadata it takes me to the correct location but if I click on the plain Google Earth link then it takes me to incorrect coordinates labeled "The Peak District" and not to those mentioned. GS3 (talk) 17:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Google Maps have recently introduced a mandatory reverse geocoding feature, where they give priority to the closest object in their database instead of the coordinates. The closest object is shown with a bright red marker with the map centered on it, and the requested coordinates are given a green marker that often blends into the background and is often outside view. It might be called the "you must have ment this" feature. As the GeoTemplate currently uses the Google Maps KML generator for Google Earth links, you're suffering from their shiny new feature as well. Sometimes it also happens when pasting coordinates directly to Google Earth, but that's not something that can be fixed here.
There is a fix to the linking problem, though. Compare for example the default view Google Maps shows when given some coordinates, and then another view with the map center defined with the same coordinates. This template already formats Google Maps links this way, and the Google Earth link might be fixed similarly, but unfortunately the "green marker" is completely absent on Google Earth even if the view gets centered on the coordinates. This edit could possibly be reversed to use another KML generator that shows a view with only the coordinates. --Para (talk) 23:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Try putting loc:<lat,long> into the Google Maps query (q=) param. This forces it to a particular location. You can see a good example of this on activegeohaser, e.g. http://activegeohasher.com/geohash/2010-07-11/51/-0 links to http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:51.1774055899548752103,-0.2872901858052357335(Geohash+on+11%2F07%2F2010+in+Newdigate%2C+Dorking%2C+Surrey+RH5%2C+UK)&z=8&iwloc=A -- Joth 2010-07-12
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