Web Link Planner - search addresses

Products LINKPlanner
1

It would be very helpful if the web Link Planner had the option to search for an address.

2

Hi Jesse,

This isn’t something that we are planning to add to LINKPlanner at the moment.

To get accurate address geocoding you are often restricted to a specific map provider, which comes with other restrictions on use. It also can get expensive when processing lots of address look-ups.

If we do add the feature then we will probably need to charge for it at some level of use. Maybe “x” requests could be free, but any more than that then the charges would need to be passed along.

For now there are a number of other tools (such as Google Earth) that allow you to find an address and then you can import the coordinates or markers into LINKPlanner as sites. Usually the sites will need to be repositioned since the address geocode may not give you the exact location that you need.

Thanks,

Andy

3

It’s quite time-consuming having to open up Google Earth to first search an address, grab the coordinates and then copy and paste into Link Planner… hence this request.

X free would be better than none at all.

Or could we input our own Google API credentials in?

4

Since we don’t use the Google map it would have to be Bing credentials. If we decided to change the map provider then you would need credentials from that map provider. This is the biggest restriction with a lot of the major services, their terms of use restrict you to showing the results on their map.

There are services that do allow more freedom with the results, but they tend to be less accurate.

If we do add the capability then it will only come in a future release of the online version since we may be forced to remove the online map from the desktop version at some point. It hangs together on obsolete technology, which is one of the reasons that it causes issues for many users. It’s also why we can’t enable it in the Mac version of LINKPlanner.

5

Have found the mac version completely unusable, so support adding this feature to the online version.

6

Hi Jesse,

I’ll raise a ticket for this, but we’ve already got a full year planned so I can’t say when it will get addressed.

If more people request the feature then we will try to prioritise it ahead of something else.

Thanks,

Andy

7

a self hosted repo of openstreetmaps wouldnt be bad to operate this off of for cambium. its not perfect but it would allow those calls to be done on their servers rather than a third party

8

Hi Robert,

That is one option which we will probably consider, but we will need to compare the accuracy in different parts of the world before making a decision. If the results that we provide don’t give an accurate location then everyone will just go back to using Google Earth or another third-party address look-up service.

Thanks,

Andy