Terrible Search function of Osmand+

[desputinski]

Hi, I've been using Osmand+ for about 7 years and in general, I love the app.
BUT the search function is terrible, and much worse than the already bad search function of openstreetmap.org.

For example: It is not possible to find the names of parks in cities. Only street names. And if they are spelled 100% correctly.
I think both things, not finding misspelled names and not finding names of important places, parks, museums etc. can be called a bug!

One example: Search for "Richard-Wagner-Hain leipzig". 0 matches! Search for it on Openstreetmap.org: Result:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=Richard-Wagner-Hain%20leipzig#map=17/51.33736/12.34824

Best regards
desputin

[tommycrock]

Hmm, not all parks

I agree that some ability to cope with misspellings would be good but I don't know how much processing that takes

[desputinski]

yes. Another example. The "Stadtpark" ist the largest park in Hamburg/Germany. When I search for "Hamburg Stadtpark" I'm getting all kinds of street names with "Stadtpark" in the name ("Stadtparktreppe", "Am Stadtpark" etc. but not the park itself.

[tommycrock]

The search results prioritise roads as in #18125

[vshcherb]

Did you try latest search https://osmand.net/map/search/#14/51.3461/12.3395, it has 2 exact results
. I think the original issue is fixed.

The issue with Hamburg Stadtpark, that it's called "Hamburger Stadtpark". I created an issue #21234

[desputinski]

The search results prioritise roads as in #18125

Hi tommycrock, this is not correct. If I use the "category" seach, Osmand also doesn't find the POI of the park. All roads are listed there too. Sorry to say. The problem remains. It is not the user.

[tommycrock]

Well, we have different results. It might be worth deleting the map and redownloading so it reindexes?
I downloaded the Hamburg map and searched for Hamburg Stadtpark, results order depends on where the map is centred but is not dominated by roads:

Using categories search and selecting the park category I see a list of only parks. If I then start typing stad, I only get two results having centred on the Hamburg area:

[clamyahoo]

Hi,
I have a similar problem with supermarkets. I would like to suggest an improvement in the search function: Especially with shops, I would like to be able to just write the name and the town where they are into the search field. For example, there is a REWE supermarket in Vogesenallee 33, 77694 Kehl (it could be anything, Aldi, Edeka, Lidl and other sorts of great supermarkets). In Nominatim I just have to write REWE Kehl and it shows me their three supermarkets in Kehl. In OsmAnd, I can only search by the name or the brand or maybe by the category shop > supermarket. But then it only shows the distances to the next ones or I have to search on the map. This is quite bad. And at the same time, if I look for street, it works, for example if I search "Hauptstrasse Kehl" it shows me the Hauptstraße in Kehl. Would that be possible, e.g. to combine just the name or the brand of an object and the town?
Kind regards

[vshcherb]

(it could be anything, Aldi, Edeka, Lidl and other sorts of great supermarkets)

We just fixed in 4.8-4.9 release as now it displays brand names on top of street names

[clamyahoo]

Thank you very much, now, it works!

[Sonwon1]

Reverse engineer the search algorithm that Google Maps uses and copy that, it is the best I've seen. Kurviger does a better job too. Just my opinion.

OsmAnd is the best navigation app I have found however some of the tools are a pain to use.

I use to, when plotting a route with OsmAnd use Google Maps to find where and then input the GPS coordinates into OsmAnd because the OsmAnd search was such a pain to use. It was a tedious pain to build a route that way but less so than using OsmAnd search. I have since found a better way that is not a pain.

[sjvudp]

I also have an issue when searching for addresses stored in my contacts: Usually I use a line break instead of a comma to format the address, like I would write it on a letter. Unfortunately the line breaks are treated as a space, and therefore the search results are quite bad.

[clamyahoo]

Hi,
how do you include addresses in Osmand+? I don't find any option for this and in the settings I can't grant the app permission to access my contact data. Android Version 4.8.6 F-Droid.

[sjvudp]

From contacts I long-tap the address, copy it, then start search in OsmAnd and paste the address (I never managed to replace Google maps as default application to display addresses).

[clamyahoo]

Thanks a lot, I didn't think so far, but of course, that's it and it works perfectly! If one day you look for ideas to push this further, you can make it possible to display automatically the addresses of one's contacts on the map so that you can for example find more easily the adresses of customers for the navigation if you have to make a tour and choose the best way. But I don't need this function. I've just seen it on another app and thought that this could be useful for this case.

[clamyahoo]

Another real improvement would be something that I've found out recently about word separation: There is a school in Offenburg called Hansjakob-Schule. The search function works if I write Hansjakob-Schule or Hansjakob Schule. Then it displays it perfectly and if you're in Offenburg, it will show this as the closest one.
But if you write Hansjakobschule without Word separation, it won't find it at all. This is quite a problem because at least in german, when people compose words in proper names / titles of Institutionen, museums, companies etc., sometimes, they separate the words, but sometimes not, gramatically, you don't have to. So it could really help if OSMAnd was able to understand it both ways, although I don't know if this is so easy to manage.
Kind regards,
Clemens