Search by name

Search by name, the first card of Add spots on the Spots page (in the dialog, or on the page of a guide without spots), opens a screen of its own in Spots, headed Search by name like every other way in: you type a place, pick it, then the next, and each one joins a list with its name and pin. One button adds the whole list as spots. Photos, texts and properties come later, in each spot's form. It is the quick way to collect the places of a guide before you write it.

The screen has the search and the list on the left and the map on the right, as tall as the window; on a narrow screen the map sits under the list. All spots at its top goes back to the spot list, except while the spots are being added.

The Place field

Type into Place and pick from the suggestions under it with the arrow keys and Enter, or with a click. The field stays ready for the next place, so a list grows as type, Enter, type, Enter. Escape closes the suggestions.

The map holds still while you type and move through the suggestions; what and where each place is shows in its row, like Lake · Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France. Once you pick one, the map flies there and centers it, zoomed in to its valley (closer when you had zoomed in further).

Where the places come from

The names come from OpenStreetMap, the open world map its users keep up to date. It knows lakes, peaks, passes, waterfalls, huts, viewpoints and named meadows that a business directory does not, and towns, hotels and restaurants as well. Places from OpenStreetMap, at the foot of the suggestions, links to its copyright page.

Accents and case do not matter, umlauts can be written out (aescher finds Äscher), and one word of a name is enough: cheserys finds Lacs des Chéserys. Names that hold every word you typed come first, then names with a word that starts with it, then names that hold it inside a longer word. Roads, paths and bare addresses come after the other places, as they are rarely the spot. Places that merely look alike, as if you had made a typo, come last, and only while no name holds what you typed. A place is also found by its local name: Luzern finds Lucerne, Trolltunga finds Troll tongue. Among equals the better known place comes first, and a name that only starts with what you typed shows once before the next name: fulberg lists Fulberget once, then Fulbergegg.

OpenStreetMap often maps one place several times: a group of lakes and each lake in it, the meadow and the chalet beside them, each piece of a road. Places of one name within 1.5 km of each other, give or take a word for what they are (Lac, Lacs, Chalet, Hut, Bivouac, Parking, Station), are one suggestion, the better known one: cheserys lists Lacs des Chéserys once, not each lake, the meadow and the chalet. To pick one of the others, type more of its name (chalet cheserys finds Châlet des Chéserys) or click the map where it is.

A search leans toward the place you added last, or else toward the middle of the guide's spots, or, in a guide without pins, more loosely toward its countries, so the nearby one of two namesakes tends to come first; the other still shows.

A suggestion can carry a note on the right:

Places no search knows

When a spot has no name on any map, click the map where it is. The suggestions then offer the pin at that point, named with what you typed before the click, or Your pin when the field was empty, with its coordinates. Under it come up to 4 named places within 1 km of it, with their distance, in case one of them is the spot. Typing again takes the pin away; click the map again for a new one.

The custom spot row adds a spot by its name alone, for a place no search finds or one you want in the list before you know where it is. It has no pin yet: the list says "No pin yet, set it in Spots" under it, and you set its pin later in its spot form.

When the search does not answer, a line under the field says so; coordinates, map links, the map and custom spots still work.

The map

The map is dark, drawn like the map buyers see in the guide in its dark look: the outlines of the guide's countries with their regions, or the world for a worldwide guide, and a blue dot for each place. It opens on the guide's countries (on its map region when one is set), or, for a worldwide guide, on the places in the list. On a wide screen the zoom buttons sit top left.

The map moves to a place when you pick it or click its row in the list: it flies there and centers it. Clicking a dot on the map selects it where it is.

The Map boxes bottom right switch the look:

The choice stays in this browser for every guide.

The list

The count above the list says how many places it holds. No places yet stands where the list will be.

Each row shows:

• the name, in a field you can change (screen readers call it Spot name). A pin from the map or from coordinates without a name reads Dropped pin until you name it;
• under it, what and where the place is, the coordinates of a pin you dropped, or what happens to the row: "No pin yet, set it in Spots" in amber for a spot without a pin, Already in the guide when the guide has it, or In the guide, gets its pin when the guide has a spot of that name still without a pin (and its Google Maps link, when the spot has none);
• the X, which takes the row off the list.

Click a row to fly the map to its pin; click a pin to find its row. Clear list empties the list; Undo beside the count brings it back until you pick a new place.

A place counts as already in the guide when a spot of the same name is within 1.5 km of it or has no pin yet, when a spot within 1.5 km shares a distinctive word of its name (Oeschinen Lake and Oeschinensee), or when any spot is within 75 m. Case and accents do not matter. A spot of the same name farther away is another place: both stay in the guide.

The list stays in this browser, one list per guide, until you add it: leaving the screen or reloading the page keeps it. It holds up to 500 places; past that a line asks you to add these first.

Adding the spots

The button under the list says what it does, like Add 12 spots, Add 12 and update 1, Update 1 spot, or Nothing to add when every row is already in the guide. While it runs, a counter shows how far it is.

• Each new place becomes a spot with its name and pin, and its Google Maps link: the link you pasted, else one made from the pin, which shows in the spot's form under Location. Nothing else is set.
• A spot of the same name without a pin gets the pin from the list, and a Google Maps link (the one you pasted, else one made from the pin) when the spot has none. Nothing else about it changes.
• When the guide has properties marked required, a line above the button says that new spots come without them; the spot list marks such spots Not ready until you set them.
• In a live guide, buyers see the new spots once you publish them. A spot needs a photo before the guide's changes can be published (while photos are shown), so add photos to the new spots in Spots first, or archive the ones you do not keep.

When it is done, you land on the Spots list with the spots it added, under the Just added chip and a line that says how many went in, like 12 spots added. Pick All for the whole guide again. There, No photos and Not ready find the ones to finish.

If some places failed, you stay on this screen instead: a box above the list says how many spots went in and names each place that failed, with the reason. Show these spots in that box opens the list on the spots that went in. Rows that failed, or could not be added (like a name listed twice), stay in the list; the rest leave it.