(RFE stands for Request For Enhancement and is what we used to ask our customers to submit when they had ideas about new features they wanted added to our software, back in the days when I worked as technical software sales support.)
I think that the ability to somehow save points that I find "interesting" for one reason or other would be a great enhancement to CT. The shortlist is good but right now it only lets me save points that "you" (Richard & C:o) know about and only lodging places. I'd like the ability to save my own interesting sights, eating places, friends' addresses...The list goes on. Primarily, I'd only expect mine to be visible to me. Being able to share them with others would be nice but could lead down the slippery slope of requiring "you" to validate them and that would mean more administrative work for you, so it's best left as "out of scope" (as we used to say when customers wanted features that we felt didn't fit with the intended use of the product).
It needn't be fancy. A small flag symbol, pair of long/lat coordinates and a name, would be enough for me. Some sort of "category" tag (lodging, food, whatever, possibly just strings that I choose myself) counts as a "nice to have" function and in a pinch I could just prefix the names with something like "Eat_", "Sleep_", "See_" so this has much lower priority. And unlike the lists of campgrounds and hotels "you" maintain (and which must contain thousands and thousands of entries) "my" list would be orders of magnitude smaller so I don't think it would put much load on your servers.
Comments
I would very much like to do this (and have wanted to for a while!).
The biggest challenge is to find a way of doing it without cluttering the user interface too much. I might consider putting it on right-click – that’s a bit “hidden”, but then this would be a fairly advanced-user feature anyway.
I’d be very interested to hear what people might like such a feature to do.
Thanks Richard, that's very encouraging to hear.
I have to confess that I hadn't thought about the details of the interface. Maybe in that "secret +" menu extension on the waypoints in a route, along with "delete before" and "delete after"? It would require that I have a route there first, but that's a very small limitation (and would also provide some validation that the point is actually useable).
My tuppence worth:
I think it very much depends on whether you're looking at including CT selected POIs or allowing users to add their own.
I'd love to add my own but wonder how that works in reality?
Do I add them once and they are visible every time I open the map page or are they "saved" to a particular route? (The former would be my preference if you're asking :-) ).
Ideally, I'd like a variety of symbols to act as a display shortcut a la Osmand. An ability to add notes would be icing on the cake.
For CT selected POIs I'd imagine a variety of categories would be the way to go with the ability to display/hide categories according to need or preference.
As to what Category or POI to display? I could see that as being the never-ending story with constant requests to expand the categories.
Perhaps something to consider is the display on different sized screens (computer, tablet, phone). I'm assuming that this is for the website as opposed to the app, so while a big screen is ideally suited, those of us who use a small screen most of the time would like to remind you of the fact :-)
There is also the question of keeping POIs up to date, but, I'm presuming OpenStreetMap will be the source?
In either case I wonder what impact it would have on downloading routes? For example, a pdf map that showed the route and any POIs close to the route could be very valuable to some people. Ditto, if available to see in the app (as opposed to add POIs to the app map).
However, as you say this is going to add clutter. I well remember importing "all the campsites" into Osmand one time and the map losing any utility above a certain zoom level - Europe became filled with yellow tents :-)
In your shoes, I'd consider trying to design it for the likes of me who is liable to do the same again, possibly get fed up and depart to an inferior, but superficially easier planner. In other words it should be Hobbes/Idiot-proof, neat and intuitive.
I'd imagine, too, that it would add to server pressures and possibly impact speed. While speed is not particularly important to me, it is a pretty unique characteristic of CT.
If you were thinking that way, personally speaking, that's a utility I'd pay for - but I have the idea that's not your style.
Away I go on a bike touring tangent now.....
Ask 5 bike tourists for their ideal route you'll get 8 answers!
There are not many bike tourists who ride a bike bought exactly as it was in the shop - things get changed and customised depending on needs and preferences. And even if they did, there are not many places that sell a bike, panniers and all the other gear for adventure as a package because that's a fool's game trying to please all tastes and needs with one offering.
Similarly, as much as I love CT and have huge respect for what you do and how you do it, I'd urge anyone to be familiar with at least a backup, if not a direct alternative. The fact that CT doesn't do everything that I want it to do is what keeps me on my toes, so to speak.
But it's still the best picker of routes I've come across. Anything that might change that should be approached with caution.
Hobbes, I think that I need to clarify that what I'm asking for is NOT somebody else's "all the cool places in the world" list. I just want to be able to save my own favourites or places I may want to visit. If I enter too many so the map gets cluttered, then that's primarily my problem and not anything I'd expect Richard to solve for me.
I explicitly stated in the request that I don't want to burden Richard or any other volunteers with the Sisyphus task of validating and maintaining some shared list.
This is a great idea. To just be able to put a mark off route to mark a POI would be perfect. Tap it and the info is displayed for that POI. Definitely not public.
Yes! Would love that!
Just in case you're not aware, that type of functionality already exists.... in a way.
By adding a note to a viapoint we can add notes or messages to ourselves.
That viapoint will display in a different colour to "normal" viapoints (mine show up as red) as well as overnight stops.
If using a gps device the note should show up on the screen as a Turn by turn direction, or if using a printed cue sheet it should show up as an instruction.
Of course, if looking at the map on the screen (website, not currently on the Android app) I can tap on the note and see the information.
It's not possible to add a viapoint that is not on your route but I use this all the time to remind me of what is nearby. For example, if passing a town I can depend on the note to remind me of what's there or if not sure where I will stop at the end of the day I can add notes at various points along the way such as "next campsite 10 km" etc.
It's a very useful feature, especially if making routes in advance and being afraid of forgetting some of the detail.
A final comment from me on this: If enough people start using this feature, the request to share the POIs with others will arise. Simplest would probably be to export them as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) text file with columns for latitude, longitude and name; possibly also one for a longer description and (maybe) one for which symbol/icon to use - but now we're definitely talking bells and whistles.
Of course, something XML-based like GPX is more in line with the times nowadays. Or JSON. Frankly, I couldn't care less which way it goes - a design choice best left to the designer(s). Quite possibly whichever they're most comfortable with.
Once it's exported we could share them via mail or on some shared site, so others could import them. And, purely coincidentally, a very active CT user could build up a personal backup library of POI files that they're not currently using but might want to restore at some later time.