For each example in this post, I will be linking to the sea otter pools at the Vancouver aquarium. That location has the coordinates of 49.30063,-123.13149

To link to it, you would use 'geo:49.30063,-123.13149'.

Depending on your web browser, pasting that into the search bar might prompt you to select which map website you want to use to view that location. For me in Firefox, it asked me to pick between Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps. It's even more convenient on mobile, where it asks me which map app I want to open it with. Both CoMaps and Google Maps handled it correctly.

If you are writing a post or comment on Lemmy/Piefed/etc., you can place it in the second part of the markdown link format: [Sea Otter Pools](geo:49.30063,-123.13149). This would output like this: Sea Otter Pools

The linked OpenStreetMap wiki page has a good summary of how well various apps support this scheme. A lot of people here are active in the open source space, so please consider following up with the apps that are currently missing support or have partial support for this: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme


EDIT: I forgot to mention, you can also use apps like this one to convert maps links between each other

https://github.com/jakubvalenta/GeoShare

https://f-droid.org/packages/page.ooooo.geoshare/

https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/page.ooooo.geoshare

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[–] 67 points 2 weeks ago

This is neat

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  • [–] 56 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Sadly it doesn't work sharing a geo link in Signal, and they don't want to implement it. GitHub Issue

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  • [–] 40 points 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    Same with element. They used to support it but dropped it. Really stupid excuse in that github issue. If adding support for sonething so simple adds lots of complexity then your codebase is garbage. This is why we cant have nice things.

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    [–] 39 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    It has abysmal support. All the places you'd need it to work without anything special, like link recognition in messaging apps and email clients, it rarely does. Even apps that could make good use of specific locations for inputs often don't register a handler for the scheme. It's been that way for years, and I don't expect it to get a whole lot better.

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    [–] 31 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    I will be linking to the sea otter pools at the Vancouver aquarium

    checks username

    Party at your place?

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  • [–] 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    This sounds nice. On iphone, nothing happens when I click your link. When I paste it in safari, it searches for it, and the ddg results are coordinates finder websites, not related to the specific location.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago

    Tapping that little NK on my android phone That seems to work.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Link doesn't work in voyager. Does in Firefox though!

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    [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    For me, there is no link. I copied it and pasted it (geo:49.30063, -123.13149) several different things and none of them worked correctly.

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    [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago

    Very cool, this was the result for me, so at least on android it seems to work as advertised. A picture of an app choice dialog after checking on a 'geo' link showing several map/location apps to choose from

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago*

    Depending on your web browser, pasting that into the search bar might prompt you to select which map website you want to use to view that location. For me in Firefox, it asked me to pick between Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps.

    I'm on Firefox and all it did was initiate a web search that found one result: this thread. If it's a hyperlink, all it does is open a blank page.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 child)

    An unnecessary complicated example where I use an image in the first part of the markdown notation:

    [![A computer icon of a map location pinpoint with geographic context.](https://europe.pub/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthumb.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Fe%2Fe2%2FPin_location_context.svg%2F330px-Pin_location_context.svg.png)](geo:49.30063,-123.13149)

    Which renders as:

    A computer icon of a map location pinpoint with geographic context.


    Also, no, I do not live at this location. Not currently.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 weeks ago*

    Also, no, I do not live at this location. Not currently.

    You otter consider it though. Free food. Swim any time you want. That’s the life.

    Also: Unfortunately, in Voyager, the geo link is rendered just as the link description and isn’t clickable. And on iOS, I tried Firefox Focus and Safari and both just took me to a web search for longitude and latitude. I really wish it worked because it’s a great feature.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    I wonder if it would make sense to have a URL scheme for that instead, like geo://49.30063,-123.13149

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    [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago*

    I got the correct area on Fennec -> CoMaps (app) on /e/OS. ☺️ The website alone resulted in a blank page.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

    I zoomed in on bumfuck, Kansas to try this out. Let's see.

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    [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)
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    [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    On my Maps for Android, it only zooms to the Aquarium, there's no pointer for the Sea Otter Pools.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    It seems that google maps is a bit hit or miss, maybe locations that have more details work better?

    Google maps does not have anywhere near the level of detail openstreetmaps does for that location

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Doesn't do anything as far as I can tell? Or is this android specific?

    Also the links don't work in discord.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Heh, on my iPhone it wants to open an NFC reading app for the sea otter geo: link

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    [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    The link just does nothing for me on jerboa

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    [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    Does not seem to open via Thunder. Can confirm that copying and pasting it into CoMaps or Waterfox works great though.

    I have submitted a feature request to Thunder.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    I opened this in CoMaps and now i have a permanent map pointer to it hah

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    [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Can the commercial map apps spit out that format when sharing a location? I met up with a random person last week to buy a used item off of marketplace and they sent me an Apple maps pin of the exact apartment building they were in. I didn’t have apple maps installed.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Does Goo*le maps support it? Because they usually don't give a flying fuck about anything that would make it possible to share data with open-source solutions.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    Can’t get to work on iPhone. Apple fuckery?

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