EV Charger Maps

[electricarbuyer]

I tried to download it but since I'm on the iOS update one before the current one it would not download.
I know you're thinking I should just update, but I have reasons for not doing so, but just wanted to let you know.
Is it some stipulation by the Apple Marketplace that you be able to be used only with the latest iOS? Curious only.

The new update has been submitted to the app store and should work on earlier versions of iOS now. The map view has been updated to fix some performance glitches.

The app uses the same code on all platforms which makes it a little slower than equivalent apps built for a specific platform, if any developers are interested in helping our app is open source and they can submit improvements back to us. It uses HTML5, jQuery Mobile etc with a phonegap wrapper. Alternatively everyone is welcome to use our api to develop their own apps without having to curate their own database.

Regarding upload of images and videos immediately still debating they best approach, its technically simple to upload stuff but the cost implication of hosting all that content can't be overlooked as we operate with zero funding. That's an issue once you have hundreds of thousands of charging locations.

Chris
Openchargemap.org

[AndrewBissell]

Can you host images and video externally using Flickr, YouTube, etc? Adding helpful tags to make the entries also discoverable there?

A few UI suggestions:

- After clicking through the map to view the data associated with a pin, please make the return to the map display the same location and zoom as when you clicked through (rather than the location and zoom of the search result) - otherwise it's hard to run through a number of locations in an area
- can editors log in via the app? Or do we have to use the web app?
- I find it confusing that the advanced search parameters live not on the search tab but the settings.

Thanks

Andrew

[Kevin Sharpe]

I would really like to see a twitter front end to a charging app... something that automatically composes status reports based on your location, updates the database, and allows you to tweet photo's, etc... we need to make these updates as simple and easy as a tweet

[tomsax]

While simple and easy is incredibly important, a charging station map becomes far more helpful if it contains the data that helps a driver choose between sites. My site survey collects data on parking policy signage, ICEing, station failures, etc., in a systematic why that can be summarized and presented concisely. Simple controls that lets site visitors report information about site design, "this station has no restriction on parking", "this station was ICEd", "this station is wheelchair accessible", etc., add significant value to a map database/app.

You guys are welcome to the survey data I've collected. Just ask and I'll set you up with web APIs to extract the data.

[electricarbuyer]

Kevin, for twitter, the simple approach there would just be for us to show twitter feeds on each details page, listing tweets with a hash tag matching the location id, like #OCM-5870 for instance. That would work for recent tweets but guess they would be transient and would easily open to abuse, that doesn't bother me though as we wouldn't be importing these things, just showing the latest. We could easily have a twitter/facebook share link on each location for folks to use to kick off their comment.

Tom, regarding your offer of data, we'd appreciate that and if you can message me the details I'll have a look at what we can use. We do have support at the backend for *any* metadata we define to be attached to a location, but it's currently unused.

Andrew, the latest app update (waiting on apple review) fixes the map refresh issues. Editors cannot currently login to the downloaded app, only the web based app - this is because authenticate is done via OAuth redirection to a URL, not quite as easy to do outwith the browser - I'm looking at ways to do that. Just bookmark the web app to your device home screen for now. Your correct that the search filters should be on the search page, there should also be a search on the map page - just a chunk of refactoring required to make that happen (and some UI decisions to make). Regarding hosting images/videos on external service, we can do that its just a matter of evaluating different approaches then integrating them. The easiest approach will be for users to submit an optional URL with their comment, which we then parse - this is open to potential abuse and we have to decide if we need to guard against that somehow (or not).

Regards,
Chris

[electricarbuyer]

Should we start a new thread for discussion specifically about Open Charge Map or just keep using this thread?

[Kevin Sharpe]

new LEAF Link App using the OpenChargeMap database;

App Store - LEAF Link