Share-A-Map (self-hosted OpenStreetMap app) review

[Dan Krol]

Hi all,

I just published appVersion 25 of my in-progress app Share-A-Map to the experimental market. In case you missed the previous discussion, this is a fully self-hosted OpenStreetMap app, i.e. map data actually saved to the grain. Kind of like "OrganicMaps for the web". You can see what I've done over the last however many releases.

Though I'm not in any hurry to do the actual release, I'm at the point now where I am ready for stricter feedback to get ready for it. I currently only have three "Launch" issues posted:

* Re-release under my normal Sandstorm keychain (if you want help transferring your bookmarks from your test grains, let me know. It's just one db file.)

* Get feedback on performance, both server and client (which is part of what I'd like to ask from you now).

* A UI bug that I'll fix momentarily

So, front to back, let me know what you think I could fix. You can submit issues to github or comment on the performance-related issue above (or just respond here). I'm not trying for much more than an "MVP Sandstorm App" standard, but if there's a simple UI improvement I could make, I'm up for it. I've heard it's a bit clunky; I'd love to hear about concrete pain points.

I won't give you any how-to's in this email. There's a tutorial now which should take you through everything you need to know. If it doesn't, please let me know; it means I need to improve the tutorial.

One note for people who have been testing previous versions: I've added a map area deletion feature. I recommend using the "delete all maps" function in the new menu on the left for any old grains you have around, and re-download the areas you need. I've updated the world map a few times now. Rendering and search will still work for old maps, but the downloader grid thingie won't recognize them, so it'll just be less confusing for you to just wipe and get the latest maps. Plus, I've added walking trails on the latest renders, and I'd like feedback on that. (In the future I'll have an actual "update map data" path, but that's complicated. I figure it's a "good problem to have" if people start clamoring for it)

Thanks!

-Dan

[Dan Krol]

Heads up to anybody who has tested this app:

It's now called "Desert Atlas", and I just published the app under a new app id. So you'll see two apps in the experimental market. The new one has my name as the verified author. In case you have grains under the old app id with bookmarks you actually care about, it's pretty simple to transfer if you're comfortable with the CLI. For each grain with the old app, create a grain with the new app. Copy data/bookmarks.db from the old grain to the new one. If you're not comfortable with the CLI, please feel free to ask me for help. Sorry for the inconvenience, I won't do this for my next app.

I'm also very close to done. Funny enough the number of issues in the Launch milestone on github is more than before, but they're mostly done or trivial. I expect to be ready to release in a week. The only actual change I expect to make at this time is to generate new map data closer to release. I might have other changes depending on hearing back on feedback on a couple of those issues, but chances are I'll put them off post-launch. But, if someone here tries it out and brings up an important thing to fix, I may do that before launch.

[Dan Krol]

(Oh and if you have a really old version of the app I think you can copy bookmarks.json and it'll migrate in newer versions. Lmk if that doesn't work. Just make sure not to have both in the same grain.)

[Dan Krol]

Okay I have a Release Candidate now. Last chance to chime in before it's released.

[Dan Krol]

Oh, and again if you have an old grain, I recommend deleting the regions and downloading them again. I generated a new world map a couple weeks ago. Going forward I'll implement an actual interface for this.